Would You Rather Die Than Speak in Public?
Here are 10 Tips to Get Better at Public Speaking!
If you hate public speaking, then you are not alone. In his show, Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld reported from a study that speaking in front of a crowd is the #1 fear of a person; death comes in second. He continued: “that means to the average person if you have to be at a funeral, you would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.”
Let’s get this straight: No one comes out of the womb being a fantastic public speaker. Well, this maybe isn’t the case for someone like a Bill Clinton. But for the rest of us regular folk, it takes a lot of work – practice, practice and then more practice – to be comfortable standing up in front of a room of complete strangers and successfully deliver a message.
For those of you old enough to remember the Brady Bunch’s Jan Brady, I wouldn’t necessarily suggest her Dad’s advice about seeing the audience members in their underwear.
However, I do agree with his sentiment that audience members are just people and you just need to talk to them as such.
Setting aside what I learned about public speaking from TV sitcoms of yesteryear, here are some tips that continue to work for me:
Know your audience.
If possible, avoid doing a boilerplate presentation. Customize your material so that the message “lands” with this particular market.
Know your topic to ensure credibility is conveyed.
Research the information and provide a balance of statistics, first-hand, best practices/lessons learned from your own experience.
Lock your first 2-4 minutes down solid.
Once the initial discomfort of being up there eases, then the rest will flow out. That will ensure that you have confidence in the delivery of the rest of the content.
Let your personality shine and have fun!
Don’t try to mimic some other great presenter that you’ve seen; it will fall flat and you won’t be perceived as authentic.
Be passionate about your presentation.
If the content bores you, then how in the world will you get your audience excited?
Engage your audience.
Ask questions; develop worksheets to get their responses.
Prepare for Q&A.
Are there any “zingers” that you can anticipate and have for an answer in your back pocket?
Deploy the LAER process:
Listen
Acknowledge
Explore, then and only then,
Respond
NOTE: More on the LAER process will be covered in a future blog post.
After you respond…
to an individual’s question always check in with the person to ensure that you effectively covered the topic.
Give the audience a take away; something that they can do to better their skills.
BTW — If anyone tells you that it’s no big deal to publicly speak and that you should just “get over it”, then they are fooling and/or misleading you. Even the most tenured of professionals (myself at the top of that list) gets a case of the nerves as the minutes countdown to presentation time.
One of the most profound comments about this subject came from a previous supervisor of mine who is one of the best speakers that I know: “If you don’t get nervous, then it means you don’t care.”
My advice…
Harness those nerves and use them to show excitement and enthusiasm about your topic.
Your audience will love it!
For more tips about developing an attention-grabbing presentation and overcoming your public speaking jitters, please contact me at dlandry@authentizity.com, and remember to give yourself credit for working to improve your skills.
