Perfect public speaking can be a daunting task, but once you get over that initial fear, it can be a great skill to harness. Even if you are not frequently giving Ted Talks or major speeches, understanding the fundamentals of public speaking will help you in many other aspects of your personal and professional life. If you are still unsure on how to perfect these skills, then here are some of the best tips on how to be the best public speaker you can be.
Plan
Be sure to plan out what you are going to talk about, in what order and how you will present it. Thinking about these fundamentals will allow you to figure out how best to present your speech. When public speaking, you want to get all your points across but in a way that is engaging, quick and relevant.
Some people can go off the cuff, but for the majority of us, it is best to pre-plan what you are going to say and practice it before.
Prepare And Practice
Most stress comes from thinking that you will freeze once you get up on stage and have nothing to say. So, if you put in the work behind the scenes but practising in front of friends or family, or even in the mirror, you can be sure that you are confident in what you have to say, even if you get nervous beforehand.
You what they say: Fail to prepare, prepare to fail!
Be Yourself
Think about lectures, speeches, long-form interviews, etc, that you have watched. The ones that will have stuck out to you will be the ones where people spoke like real people, with emotions and unique points of view.
People don’t want to listen to a boring speech that could have been spoken by anyone, so make sure your personality shines through.
Don’t Read
Try your best to be off book for your public speaking engagements. If you really need some help, you could write some prompts on small flashcards and have them with you. But, if you are simply reading from a ream of paper or reading from your slides, that everyone could read for themselves, then your speech will get tiresome.
You want the audience to be focussing on you and your message, which is best achieved with eye contact and an open stance.
Strong Opening and Closer
You want to get people engaged and on board as quickly as possible. A few good ways to do this is by opening with a funny story, shocking statistic or a short quote that people can mull over. Once they are on board, you are over the first big hurdle.
Towards the end of your speech, people may be flagging or have drifted off thinking about something else. So, you need to close out your speech with something memorable that will get people talking afterwards and allow you to stick in their minds.