Scared of Public Speaking … Use these Masterclass Tips for 10x Impact

Recently I took a course on public speaking masterclass and will share some of the findings along with tips/tricks which readers can use and replicate the same to boost your own public speaking skills. By the end of the article you’re going to be a well versed with what it takes to be a really good speaker and presenter.

Photo by Kane Reinholdtsen on Unsplash

Without further adieu, lets get started:

1. Design your speech :

• The first main pillar for your presentation is the way you design your speech and for this it’s really very important that you understand your audience. You should make notes of high level details of your audience and this can include their demographics, age, jobs etc. The more details you have more effective speech could be designed. As a pro tip, you can ask the organizer about the details like email or phone number of the people who are likely to be your audience. The main benefit of this is that you have first hand information about the things people are expecting to hear from you. You can ask what are the main concerns/issues they would like you to address and use this feedback as a guiding way to design you speech. Knowing your audience well is very crucial and help a lot to design the perfect speech you want to deliver which people also want to hear.
• Know you Objective: Its important that you should be very clear in your mind what’s your objective of the speech. Knowing the audience is fine but you need to have clear goal of your presentation. Are you going to instruct or inform or persuade to take action. This clarity is really crucial.
• Start of the speech : This is the most important of time in your speech where the initial 15–20 seconds of your speech you have almost full attention of your audience. So what you say is really crucial else you lose your audience and its very difficult to get back their attention again. So no point in telling your name and other non-relevant details, you should jump straight into the core message you are planning to give.
• Key Opening Statement: This needs to rehearsed and important that when you’re delivering your opening statement you look straight into the eyes of your audience. So this statement needs to delivered with brevity and value. Like an actor it needs to be delivered with passion to make high impact and get full attention of the golden 15–20 initial seconds of your speech.
• Core message: This message is the theme that runs through your speech. People don’t remember very much of the lecture or movie or book but line or two which is the core theme, so again very important to deliver this core message with clarity.
• Closing in Style: This seems not important but this is the second most important thing in your speech. This is the thing that you want people to take away from your presentation. This is how you implant something. Your speech should come to a natural conclusion. It should lead towards a close and best it summarizes exactly what you’ve delivered in your speech with passion. You need to come to the center of the stage and move to the front. Finish it in 25 words or less and your audience will go away happy with the right message.

2. The second pillar is about the PREPRATION:

• Keeping people interested: Here are things that you can do in order to get people’s attention. You can conduct a poll. You can say put your hand up if you have had this circumstance happen to you. Put your hand up if you have ever. You can ask people to think about something. You can ask them to write something down. But remember don’t ever ask people to share something with their neighbor. First it’s difficult to get their attention back when they are talking to a person next to them and also there might be a chance that the person sitting next is more interesting. So avoid using with method.
• Using Notes : Great speakers seem to be able do a half an hour or an hour even without notes. So if you think that you might need notes from time to time. There is a technique that you can use even if you have notes to show you what it is. You look down at your notes, absorbed what is there and then delivering what’s written down in my notes back to the camera and then take another pause. It’s called the bowman Technique. Technique is simply to look down. Absorb the phrase with speaking and then deliver it with command.
• Rehearsal : This is something that obviously you need to do before a speech. But here’s the thing. Rehearse out loud. A lot of people when they’re rehearsing a speech will run through it in their heads.
  They’ll look at it they’ll read through it they’ll go through it in their heads again. That’s of no use. You’ve got to be able to deliver it out loud. Now you can rehearse in various ways. You can rehearse in front of a mirror.
  You can rehearse in front of a camera. You can rehearse in front of your friends if they’ll allow you to do that. The important thing is that when you’re rehearsing you need to have some form of feedback.
• Day before Speech : There are certain things that you need to do the day before you speak to make sure that you’re going to succeed. Obviously you check and recheck everything. Make sure you know the venue. Make sure you know the time. Make sure you know the organizer and have the organizers contact details. And it’s important that you take those with you.
  There have been people who have got everything organized and they’ve set off for the venue and they suddenly realize that the organizers phone number and there’s a train delay. Don’t find yourself in that situation.
  So make sure you also allow for delays. These things can happen.
  And always aim to arrive couple of hours before your speech time.
  So whatever you need to do you need to pack a bag with a special microphone or your notes or your slides or anything. Do all that the night before. Don’t leave it till the morning when you’re setting off because you’ll lose something or you’ll forget your memory stick or you’re not sure where. Make sure that the organizers have your details. It’s not good enough for you to have a contact. Then they need to be able to get to you. The event might be cancelled or postponed or rearranged or moved to another venue. It’s all about that communication. So the day before is your opportunity to have that checklist in place. Make sure you’ve gone through everything that you need to take with you.
• Handling questions: Firstly you need to acknowledge the question. Next you need to pause and listen and don’t try and anticipate what they’re asking. It’s very tempting to try and form an answer before the person has finished asking their question. Please try and avoid that. You need to listen carefully.

3. The third pillar is about the Presentation aids:

• Prepare to Speak: The worst time during a speech is actually just before the speech. People get very nervous and get those butterflies in their tummy. That's okay, but what you do need to do is to have a certain level of excitement nervous excitement going on so that you deliver. However that can be quite debilitating for some people when they’re thinking about the speech before they give it. They just build that up into such a sort of nervous frightening thing that they can’t actually deliver. Now we don’t want to go there. So we need to control those nerves, firstly you should think about when you prepare your speech when you’re getting ready to deliver. Run through those lines a few times. Go somewhere quiet and deliver your opening lines out loud. If you have to go to the toilet and lock yourself in a cubicle and deliver your first two lines do it.
• Controlling your nerves : Tips that different people use to control their nerves. One of them will be right for you. First is deep breathing exercises where one fills their stomach and chest and then expand and blow the air out. A big exchange of air 4–5 times will help to oxygenate your blood slow your heart rate down. This will make you feel calm. Some people use aroma therapy. Lavender is very good for a lot of people. Few people use visualization. It’s a technique of imagining yourself succeeding or imagining yourself as a great speaker just before you go on to the stage. Many others listen to music. Some people use vocal exercises where they deliver a number of singing exercises or say a poem. Run through any of these techniques for five or ten minutes and you will find that when you arrive at the side of the stage ready to go on and deliver your first line you will be good to go.
• Slides: There is good debate whether we should make use of slides in your speech. But before this one should ask a very important question ..Why you need slides ?. The only correct reason to use them is if it makes your presentation better or use of video or audio that makes your presentation more powerful and more effective in terms of communication. If that is not the case then please don’t use it. In case you are using then there is technique one can use. First show the slide and stop talking for a moment. Then click to get the slide off from the screen. Some people want to leave a slide up because they won’t refer to it several times. That’s okay but the focus still has to be you. You’re the most important thing. As s tip use the ‘B’ key on your keyboard and the screen will go black and press again to make reappear so this makes toggling very easy and seamless.
• How much information : There are a number of rules and ideas about how much information you should put on a slide. One of them says you should only have five bullets and five words per bullet. Don’t practice this but rather one message per slide so as to deliver that message as effectively as possible. It could be just an image or it could be a couple of words but whatever it is keep it as simple as you possibly can in order to deliver it clearly and without confusion or ambiguity.
• Graphics: Use large graphics wherever possible and try and avoid bar chart and definitely avoid anything you ever have to explain.

4. The final theme is Present Like a Professional :

• Learn to use your microphone properly and if using hand-held mic balance it below your chin to get the right sound.
• Learn how to move around the stage called platform mechanics.
• Balance use of gestures.
• Your shoes are at eye level so speakers should wear the best shoes they can afford but make sure they’re comfortable and have wore them few times and make sure to check out before you go on stage.

Recap:

1. Know your Audience
2. CORE MESSAGE.
3. Key Opening Statement.
4. Use of key “B” in presentation mode.
5. Keep your audience engaged/interested.
6. Keeping to the Point.
7. Rehearse aloud.
8. One slide → One Key message.
9. Platform mechanics and Gestures.
10. Closing in Style.

Believe IN Yourself

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