Monday, January 7, 2008

16 Public Speaking Delivery Tips: Moving from Bad Public Speaking To Good

Few people realize the importance of public speaking. They are always trying to avoid public speaking opportunities.

Instead of trying to avoid, we should try and improve our speech skills, learn how to get rid of public speaking fears and anxiety, learn some useful public speaking delivery tips and mark out a strategy, etc.

Those who try to avoid speaking in public, are letting go of very useful and excellent opportunities to improve themselves, their careers or business, get their ideas across to many people and earn handsomely. Famous public speakers can earn in thousands

The main aim of public speaking would be to get your message across to the audience and make them 'interested in what you want to say.'


One of the best ways to make the audience interested is to focus each of your speech to address some of the problem which the audience is facing.

If you are trying to solve a problem for your audience, then anything you say would be of interest to them, wouldn't it? Bad public speaking is where you focus entirely on yourself and not keep the audience's needs in mind.

Here are 16 simple public speaking delivery tips which should enhance your effectiveness while on stage:

1. Tone of voice: How you say something can be more important than what you say. Vary the tone of your voice and avoid monotony otherwise your audience might doze off.


2. Eliminate Umm'ss and Aaah's: While speaking, sometimes you may get stuck and take time to think of what or how to say. At such times, many people may make sounds like Ummmh or Aaah etc.

This kind of thing may make you look stupid. Avoid doing it as it is a bad public speaking practice.

Instead of that remain silent for a few moments while trying to come up with something to say. Silent pauses are better than making such sounds.


3. Pace: Nervousness and public speaking go hand in hand. If you are nervous, you may tend to speak fast.

It is important to speak slowly and clearly. If your words are not clear, then its very difficult to make any sort of good impression on the audience.


4. Volume: The volume of your voice is also very important. It should not be too high so that it looks as if you are shouting, nor should it be so low that the people have difficulty in hearing
you.

5. Get to the point quickly: While giving speech, it is better if you get to the point you want to make quickly and not beat around the bush for long.

You don't need to tell the audience everything you know about a subject, but only of what they need to know. Try to pick out only the most relevant and best information to give to your audience.

Studies have shown that the people remember very few facts that were conveyed during the speech anyway. So stay with the most important information.


6. Pay attention to your arms: Its important that you do not fidget with your arms. Also remember not to put your hands in pocket, nor place them behind the back.

It is preferable to leave the hands comfortably by your sides. They should also move freely so as to allow free and natural-looking gestures.


7. Posture: Keep a relaxed and upright posture while giving speech. Leaning either forward or backward should be avoided. Keep your legs shoulder width apart in order to get good balance.

8. Correcting your mistakes gracefully: If you make a mistake and it is obvious, do not apologize. Just make the necessary correction and carry on with your speech.

9. Preparation: Prepare well for your speech as that can prevent panic. Preparation consists of knowing the audience and knowing the subject.

Know the needs of your audience and match your content accordingly. Also know the subject thoroughly so that you can approach the stage with self-confidence.

10. Calmness: Appear calm and relaxed even if you feel nervous inside. Speak slowly and clearly, put necessary emotions in your voice.

11. Technique to make yourself be heard by everyone in the room: Speak to the person farthest away from you so that you voice can be heard clearly by everybody. See how nicely this technique works.

12. Conviction: Speak with conviction as if you really believe in whatever you are saying (as you should, otherwise why are you saying it). The conviction should reflect in your voice, tone and gestures.

13. Pauses: Pause at times during your speech to allow yourself and the audience time to reflect and think. Do not just rush through the presentation leaving everyone out of breath.

14. Attention grabbing: Attention spans of audience can be short. So every few minutes you should try and catch their attention by doing things like fluctuating your voice, telling an anecdote, moving around the room, asking them a question etc.

Think of ways you can catch the faltering attention of the audience again.

15. Slowing down at important junctures: Slow down for important points in order to emphasize them. Important points should be given special emphasis. Slowing down your pace can provide that.

16. Have fun. It all boils down to how much fun you had on the stage, how much relaxed you felt while giving the speech, and how much did the audience it. Try to control your nerves if you want to make a huge impact with public speaking.

If you are relaxed and enjoying every moment of your speech, it will most likely be enjoyable for the audience as well.

Conclusion:
The above tips should prove useful to you in giving a good presentation or speech on the stage.
All these tips should help you develop your own strategy. These are high impact public speaking strategies which most top public speakers adopt (either consciously or by habit).

If you are interested in improving this skill, you should read more public speaking books, practice and get on the stage whenever you get a chance to do so. To learn more about how you can become a very good public speaker, I recommend the following resources to you:

1. FAQ on public speaking - This guide can help you with answering some of the most burning questions about public speaking. The topics covered range from how to make your speech interesting, what does it mean to be yourself, how to convert fear into positive energy, how to prepare a speech, differentiate yourself from other speakers by discovering your 'purple cow' and many other topics.

2. Speaking With Confidence - This guide shows you how to prepare a powerful speech using a 9 step plan, how to organize your speech, how to sound natural and enthusiastic, build rapport with the audience, answer hostile questions, manage speech anxiety and lot more.

3. You can also refer to an additional resource on public speaking benefits and how you can earn lot of money through it here - Speaking for Millions


More Articles on This Blog:

1. 10 Speech Delivery Tips
2. Are you anxious of an upcoming speech?
3. 22 Tips to handle stress

3 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Great article. Very useful.

Public Speaking said...

Some usefult tips of public speaking. Thanks for the information.