Basic Ingredients for Effective Public Speaking

In many occasions, you have been asked to deliver a speech, prepared or impromptu. You have been asked to give a two minutes talk about an issue, to talk to boards in meetings, preside over meetings, defend a project, pitch an idea or give informal speeches at rare events. 

Then, it becomes a problem, you are scared and it seems to you that the audience are lions trying to eat you up. 

You feel like the ground should swallow you, you begin to shiver, your voice trembles and everything looks like an illusion. I guess if you have felt like this before, or you are still feeling this way, you are in the right place and I will be taking you through the things you need to know to become an effective speaker. 

I have had over 10 years of experience speaking in public and I have been helping people overcome the fear of public speaking.

Here are some of the facts I share with people

1. You are not unique in your fear of speaking to public. I want you to know that all great public speakers fear before they speak. 

2. A certain amount of stage freight is useful

3. Stage freight persist through few sentence of talk

4. The chief cause of your fear of public speaking is simply that you are unaccustomed to speak in public. So the best way is to get a chance to speak in public as soon as possible. 

I could recall speaking in my early years, I have problem with tenses, pronunciation and all. But I kept developing myself. Watch videos and listen to other speakers talk. Some of the great speakers are Steve Jobs, Chimamanda Adichie,Barrack Obama, Les Brown and many others. Look out for their videos on YouTube and listen to their speech. 

One thing I learned about this guys is their uniqueness. We all have our own uniqueness. Then, if you keep looking at tenses and all when you are speaking. If you keep looking to be perfect. You may never be a good public speaker.

You have to be true to yourself and work everyday towards perfecting your act.

Another thing is to own your space and speak your truth. Public speaking is an art and its a conversation between two people. So, just converse and enjoy it. I could recall while I was defending my project at the university. I had the best presentation. Everyone were reading from their notes or paper. I read off hand. As I knew, it was a conversation. My project lies around sports injuries and Career prospect. So I shared a story of a female basketball player, who happened to be my neighbour and that was how I stood out. She was a prospective national basketball player but couldn't continue due to a knee injury. 

The story was a game for me. The hall became silent and I took control.

Always remember that you have the mic. So learn to speak your truth. You should always understand that what you have and what you know is what is currently needed. So talk! Keep talking.

Another instance, was where I was asked to pitch about my organization in just one minutes and the game for me was using statistics and sharing my experience relating to that project.

My speech

" 9 out of 10 find it difficult to discover their purpose in our community. I see secondary school students drop out from school and live less meaningful lives. How great would it be? That this students rather than dropping out can connect the classroom with the practical world? How great would it be that this students could create products using disruptive technology right from the classroom. It would be great to see the children of you and I develop relevant skills in the classroom and create initiatives. This is what we are doing at Kayfactor Leadership and Career Academy. Helping secondary school student to connect the classroom with the practical world by equipping them with life skills. I am Hammed Kayode Alabi. Thank you!"

Then I had the best pitch and I could see applause. I was delighted.

One lesson here "Keep it short and Simple"

I was unique. Others started with introduction. I introduced myself last. Well, that involves taking risk and also mastering your act.

To end this, I will like to share some tips that works for me. 

1. Prepare before hand and prepare in a proper way. Often I speak to myself talking about different issues or specific topic I will be presenting.

2. Never try to memorize a talk word for word

3. Arrange your ideas before hand. You may write your thoughts on a paper. This may come in form of bullets or nuggets. 

4. Rehearse your talk with your friends. I could recall speaking to a friend before making my University Project defend. 

5. Smile before making your presentation, it gives you an easy ride and makes the audience convenient. 

6. Know your audience. When you are speaking to a different groups, you may have to use different examples. You may also have to control your voice. There are times you go high and times you go low. When you talk to a special group. You can use a strong voice and charge them all through. E.g Secondary School Students. Are you also talking to adults or children? The Are you talking to people in your community or outside your community? Are you talking to people from diverse background and international community? The way you talk to this different set of people differs. Again, know your audience. 

7. Speak to the pain point of the people. What they can feel and experience. 

8. Predetermined your mind to success ( Lose yourself in your subject)

9. Keep yourself off negative stimuli that may upset you. 

10. Act confident. 

Know that public speaking involves a lot of practice. You may have to speak and speak before you arrive at your own method and uniqueness of speaking. You may have to record yourself and look out for corrections. You may also request for feedback from colleagues. Then always remain confident. Speak your truth and sometime add your story to the speech. Also understand the subject matter. Know when to stop and sometime all you need is to keep it short and simple. Ultimately, do not feel bad for your talk or speech. There is always room for improvement. 

Thank you for reading

Please drop your comment if you find this helpful

N.B: I had be willing to help you overcome your fear of public speaking but it comes with a fee. To register a session with me. Hit the contact me button to book a session with me.