Tips Guides

When you are giving a presentation or speech, your body language and how you hold yourself in front of a crowd speaks to them as much as your words do. And part of not begin nervous in front of people when you are doing public speaking is not “acting” nervous.

If you have complete control over your body, your face and your hands, you can perform relaxation in front of people and you will actually accept the idea that you are relaxed and begin to feel more at ease as you do your speech.

One problem that you often see in public speakers who is the use of the eyes. It’s extremely easy as a public speaker to want to look at your outline or your written out speech throughout your presentation so you never get lost or have that terrifying feeling of not knowing what you are going to say next.

That is why many people who do not become skilled at talking in front of crowds write out their speeches word for word and just read it to the group.

The problem with that approach is you have been asked to give a speech, not a reading. And many adults take offense at being read to. An audience wants to hear “from” you, not just hear you read.

If that was the only value of a public presentation, you could just hand out your speech as a white paper and let them read it and not have to get in front of people at all. But that is not as effective as public speaking, particularly if the purpose of your speech is to convince or to sell.

So the question comes up of where to actually look as you give your speech. Many speakers look at a spot at the back of the room because looking at the faces makes them nervous. This is better than staring down at your papers the whole time.

For one thing, projection is a big part of getting your message out there. And even if you are using a microphone, if you speak “out” into the crowd rather than down, your voice will be clearer and you will naturally use your diaphragm to do well at enunciating each word.

The other value of looking at the back wall is that it will help you project your voice, particularly if you are not using amplification. The old actor’s motto of “performing to the last row” applies here because it means you consider everyone in that hall to be your audience, not just the people on the first row. So there is some value to that approach.

However, one of the most valuable ways you can really connect with your audience and get your message across is to make eye contact with the audience. Eye contact is commonly used by sales people to create a bond with the customer and that bond helps close the sale.

But even if your presentation is not necessarily a sales situation, eye contact will get your message across. And that is what you got up there to do in the first place.

Eye contact makes the audience look at you. It keeps them attentive. To use eye contact to its maximum value, move your eyes from audience member to audience remember and speak to that individual directly. That eye contact will actually be felt by everyone around that individual and it rivets the listener to you.

Don’t linger on one person because you don’t want to stare but by becoming skilled at using eye contact as you speak to a crowd, you are taking control of the presentation to make it do what you want it to do. And having control is a big key to success in public speaking.

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When a speaker loses an audience, too often it is a mystery to him. But for the audience, it is not a mystery. The simple fact is that many speeches we listen to spend a lot of time in some theory or idea.

And we as humans have trouble focusing on an abstract idea for very long before losing interest.This is one of many reasons one of the central rules of public speaking is to use lots of stories and illustrations to make sure you hold the audience’s attention.

Some speakers look down on the need of audiences to connect to the speaker via concrete illustrations. But this is a basic form of human communication.

In fact, some of the most brilliant speakers in the world have acknowledged that if a speaker cannot express his ideas in concrete illustrations, then that speaker does not have a grasp on those idea yet.

The use of stories and humor should get started as soon as the talk begins. One of the problems that public speaking encounters has to do with the speed of processing. Science has shown us that the human mind can think at least 10 times faster than it can hear.

That means that for 90% of the time you are talking to a group, their minds have time on their hands. If you give them a concrete story to work with, the details of that story give that excess brain power something to do.

By opening with a light hearted illustration, you capture the minds of your audience quickly. The best kind of opening story is a humorous one particularly if it is an anecdote from your past. This method not only is a wonderful way to get your talk off with a enjoyable story, it connects them to you and opens up the speaker to the audience which causes bonding.

When selecting the perfect opening humorous story, use two criteria to select just the right illustration.

First select a story that links to the problem to be solved by the presentation. If the problem is an abstract tone such as spiritual hunger or political theory, that can be tricky.

But try to get close with the illustration, at least close enough that you can have a transition ready to take the audience from the story to the concept you wish to discuss first.

Secondly, connect your opening story and every illustration in your talk to your theme. In this way every step of the way, the illustrations reach out to the audience, rescue them from drifting and gently bring them back to the talk and what you want them to be thinking about at this part of your presentation.

You can tell if your audience is drifting. Any public speaker has looked out and seen the audience begin to lose interest in what is being said. The eyes begin to look away from the speaker. Often they will take interest in something in their lap or on their person.

You might see them writing but its probably not notes from your talk. Or their heads bob or you just see them go to sleep entirely. So when you see that happen, your presentation has spent too much time on theoretical ideas and you need to go back and think through a different mix of ideas and illustrations.

A good illustration at least will keep the audience involved in the discussion. But a great illustration will actually become part of the presentation so you can tell the story and then proceed to use elements of the story as part of your next points in your conceptual talk.

When that works well, you will stop losing the audience because the concrete story serves to anchor the rest of the presentation perfectly.

So learn the art of telling a good story. Any long time story teller will teach us that the heart of a good story is detail. But in a public speaking setting, a story should be brief but easy to understand. If it has humor, that’s the best story of them all but above all, it should have personality.

And it should help to compel the audience to connect to the talk and understand the ideas you want them to grasp. And if that happens and you have a stronger talk as a result, you will be glad you followed the advice of experts in public speaking to illustrate, illustrate, illustrate.

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When an author is trying to come up with a topic for his next story or novel, the old pros in the writing came will always give him the same advice.

“Write about what you know.” That is because if you speak from your own area of expertise, you will speak with authority and passion. And authority and passion not only make for a great story or novel, they make for a really good public speaking event as well.

When you are putting together what you will use for your talk to that group you want to amaze, you want both of those elements, authority and passion.

But on top of that, you have to give them something to make it perfect. You have to tell them something they don’t know.

To achieve a balance of what is familiar with what is new and fascinating will be the stuff of your research and preparation for public speaking.

Sometimes telling them something they don’t know might be just bringing a new joke that they have not heard. Or you might bring a fascinating story or anecdote that will lead directly into your talk.

That can grab their attention and let them know that this is going to be an interesting take on the subject. Finding jokes that nobody has ever heard before can be a challenge. But that is ok because canned “jokes” are not best for your speech anyway.

It is much better to find a funny or very amusing situation that relates to the topic from your past. By telling the story of that situation with plenty of self referencing humor and commentary, you can have your audience very amused as you move into the body of your speech but at the same time very interested in you and so in your topic.

Sometimes finding material that is new to your audience is obvious and easy to identify. It might be that you were invited to give the speech because you have some expertise in a subject that your audience wants to know about.

If you are giving a speech about how to make your own PC from scratch and you know a lot about that, you are in good shape right off the bat. Your listeners are sure to learn plenty from your presentation and have lots of questions for you after your talk. You told them something they didn’t know.

However, if your topic is a little more in the area of common knowledge, you might have to do some research to find things to share that will get those eyebrows to raise.

One rich repository of little known facts lie in what we call trivia and urban myth. You might be giving a talk about the internet. Now most of us know quite a bit about the internet.

But with a little research, you can uncover a lot of trivia about how the internet came to be, how the internet actually works at a structural level or whether or not Al Gore really did invent it (he didn’t).

But the internet is also a great topic to go out and pull in literally dozens of urban myths that will make for a very enjoyable presentation. From how viruses work to whether or not that African prince really will send you 5 million dollars or not can give you lots of things to share that your listeners probably did not know (incidentally - he won’t).

So approach your research both to fill your speech with good solid content but also to include information that may be amusing or anecdotal to give your listeners something to talk about over coffee later on. If you make your speech that memorable, they will think of you as a great speaker and probably ask you back again.

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There is a bit of a misperception about the phrase “public speaking”. The misperception that the technique of becoming good at public speaking is all in how you speak. The truth is that your voice is only part of what you need to be successful in giving a presentation to a group of people.

To be an effective public “speaker”, you should use every resource you have including your body language, your arms and your legs to capture the attention of the crowd and hold it.

There is nothing more boring than a speaker who stands in one place and never moves his arms and speaks softly just putting out the information of the talk. So to avoid this curse, learn not only to communicate with your entire being when you are in front of an audience.

Learn to express yourself with facial expressions, with gestures of your arms and with movement. Because that extra effort is what can make a fair presentation good or a good presentation a great one.

A good public presentation can be compared to eating a meal in a restaurant. A good chef knows that there is more to fine dining than just food because you also must have good service and ambiance so the presentation of the food makes the meal delightful to eat.

The same is true of a public speaking situation. It isn’t enough just to stand up there and speak out the information. You are not just speaking because you are only really successful when you are communicating.

And to communicate, your audience has to grasp what you are saying and be prepared to make it real in their own lives.

Movement is probably the most underused public speaking method but it is also one of the most effective. To put it bluntly, when you speak to a group, don’t just stand there. Get out of the podium and move around a bit. Walk from one side of your speaking area to the other.

Use your hands to help you describe an illustration or to gesture with emphasis toward the crowd when your text fits that kind of expression. This movement is good for you because it’s a way of walking off your nervousness.

It’s good for the audience because it keeps them interested. And it’s very good for your presentation because it is a powerful way to get your point across and to assure you are being understood.

The relationship between public speaking and public performance is unmistakable. When you watch a speaker, the key word is “watch”. Taking in the presentation of a speaker is an event that brings in all of the senses.

And the more your audience actually “experiences you” rather than just hears what you say, the better they will like your presentation and the more likely they will be to agree with what you have to say or take action in the direction you had hoped they would.

Of course, it can be a nervous moment the first time you decide to step away from the podium and use your body as part of your presentation.

If you walk and move in front of people, there is always the chance an accident can happen. You could swing your arms in emphasis and knock something over. You could trip over a microphone cord and be in danger of falling down.

Or your wardrobe could malfunction because of the increased stress and that would be a horrible thing to deal with when everyone is looking at you. You can do take some extra measures to be sure your wardrobe is secure beforehand and to evaluate the speaking setting so you are aware of potential causes of accidents.

But the possibility of a mishap is just a risk that you should be prepared to take because the movement you use is so powerfully effective that the rewards are too great to pass up.

The other risk is that by stepping away from the podium, you step away from your outline. To enable yourself to wean away from having to have that outline in front of you all the time, select one or two sections where you will depart the outline and share a personal story.

Then your movement will be confident and effective. And when you can integrate confident movement into your presentation, your public speaking skills will go from good to great instantaneously.

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There is a style of public speaking that absolutely terrifies a lot of people. But when you see a public speaker speak extemporaneously, it is one of the most relaxed and easy to digest forms of public presentation it is.

Now, to drop the fifty cent word, to speak extemporaneously means to speak without notes. In other words, pure extemporaneous speaking is done entirely without preparation and is done completely “from the hip” so to speak.

There are variations, however, on pure extemporaneous speaking. But if you can adapt to a more extemporaneous style, your presentation will benefit tremendously. Because people speaking directly from their minds to their audiences do not need notes, a podium or any helps at all, the level of eye contact and audience interaction is improved tremendously.

Freed from being tied to a podium and an outline, you can wander free around the stage and even into the audience and speak to them almost face to face. That kind of physical motion will grab an audience’s attention and keep them fascinated with what you are doing for as long as the talk goes on.

But don’t be deceived by thinking that a extemporaneous speech is rambling and has no structure whatsoever. One reason that many very seasoned public speakers go to it is they are capable of capturing and holding the outline of their talk in their minds and speaking from that outline without the aid of notes.

This kind of ability does not just come naturally. To be able to be relaxed enough in front of a crowd to not only speak spontaneously but also to do so while following an outline carried in the mind takes experience and the self confidence that comes with practice.

Giving an extemporaneous talk is equivalent to improv in the theater world. But that doesn’t mean that a speaker who appears to be speaking without preparation is speaking without preparation. Often it means that what you are seeing is the result of extensive preparation.

Many times extemporaneous speaking means that speaker carefully wrote and prepared that talk to have the appearance of spontaneity. Then he or she became so familiar with that outline that it could be delivered completely without prompting.

This is more than just memorization. Memorization implies that the talk must be given word for word as it was written and in exact order. A memorized speech would come unraveled if the speaker lost his or her place because of an interruption.

But an extemporaneous speaker can be interrupted, take questions and even scramble that presentation because that level of familiarity with the talk is so complete that he or she literally lives and breathe what is being presented.

So, is it worth the extra work to learn to speak by “shooting from the hip”? It absolutely is. For one this, to be able to speak extemporaneously is the pinnacle of public speaking skills. When you see such a speaker on television or in a public setting, it may seem that he or she is making it up on the spot.

What you are really witnessing is the Oscar level of skill and ability on display in a public speaking. Anyone who strives for the best can set extemporaneous speaking as a goal.

But more importantly, being able to speak to a group in this manner is such a higher quality of presentation that you as a speaker will not only have more fun, you will see a higher level of response from your audience.

If you are teaching, they will learn better. If you are trying to sell, greater sales. If you are speaking to amuse, more laughs. So for no other reason than to see such improved outcome from the work you put in to public speaking, learn to speak extemporaneously. The rewards are tremendous.

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Any guide to success in an endeavor will tell you that there is no magic formula to success. But in a lot of fields of endeavor, there seem to be “insider secrets”. And taking on the challenge of becoming a truly great public speaker is a noble ambition.

But if you could learn the insider secret that makes the difference between good public speakers and great ones, that would help you make that transition.

Actually there is one great secret to what makes speakers that really shine in front of a group so great. But it isn’t magic or something that you can take as a pill and an hour later, presto, you are ready to stand up and dazzle the crowd.

It is a very simple process that is something you already know a lot about. It is just simple, old fashioned hard work and preparation.

The further in advance you can start getting ready for a presentation, the better your public speaking will be. You know that feeling of terror that you experience when you address a crowd. Well you may not be able to pinpoint why that feeling comes upon you because who can think when terrified?

But many times it comes up because you aren’t completely prepared and you don’t know what to do or how it will go because the material is not as well developed as it should be.

If you put the work in on your presentation, it will make all the difference in the world when you stand up to give your presentation. First of all, make sure the content meets your standards. You should make that speech compelling and fascinating to you.

And if that presentation is full of great material that it not only fascinates you but you will be eager to get up there and share what you know with this crowd.

And that eagerness to speak is a very refreshing feeling when it replaces that terror you felt when you did not work hard in advance to make sure the material was well developed in advance.

Your audience will notice that big change in your attitude too. Enthusiasm is contagious and if you get up in front of them bubbling with anticipation because what you have to share is just that cool, they will be eager to hear it.

It’s like when someone says to you, “Hey, want to know a secret?” You are dying to hear that secret. That is the attitude you will see in your audience when you get up there not only well prepared but excited to tell them what is in that outline.

The more you have that outline and the details of your presentation in your mind, the more confident you will be in front of a crowd.

If you have that presentation virtually memorized, when you begin to speak, you will look at your audience more and only have to glance at your outline to stay on track with where you want to be next.

That is a terrific skill to develop and huge benefit when speaking to the crowd because you have that material down pat in your mind and you always have a destination throughout your talk.

It will take some work to get to that level of confidence in your material. Rehearsals of your presentation help a lot. Prepare a dynamic opener that puts the problem statement into the minds of the crowd and then proceed to solve that problem.

Also know the navigation plan of your presentation and plan the transitions from point to point. That will help you not get stuck in one part of the talk and not have awkward transitions which will make you and then your crowd nervous.

Finally plan how you will conclude. There is a conclusion you want your audience to reach. Make sure you know the critical points and what parts of your talk are “optional” or there for illustration or to fill time.

In that way, you know where to cut if time runs short and you will still get to your point and close strong. If your talk has good content, enthusiasm, good points to lead up to solving the problem and closes strong, not only will you feel great about it, your audience will applaud the job you did. And won’t that be a nice way to end a public speaking exercise for you?

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