Self-promotion will become worthless if a speaker has failed to perform as expected. Your speaking career may be at risk and you will get a reputation as a speaker who cannot follow up on your presentations. The market will remember your bombed speech and you will definitely have bad reviews. Eventually, your niche may boycott you, leaving you in the dust.
If you are an aspiring speaker and you do not want this to happen, you should practice and train yourself to become great at it through practice and development of essential speaker skills. Follow these details on how to train to get good at public speaking.
- Learn how to draft and outline speeches
Great speeches start from great writing. Speakers must know how to outline their speeches in order to have a good flow on the actual presentation. Presentations should have a good 'game plan' to start with. Make sure that your outline preparation will not involve too many points that audience cannot keep up but it should be too short as well.
Three to five key points is ideal and they should be supported by interesting, insightful, and sometime humorous anecdotes and stories.
- Visual presentation
Public speakers should also feed the audience visually and when I say visually, it includes all the aspects the eye could see, a speaker's gestures, facial expressions, clothes, manner of walking, and also graphical presentations (if used.)
In general, speakers should dress themselves respectably and comfortably. However, keep in mind that your appearance must also have a subtle message that could help your presentation. You can wear street clothes if you intend to appear laid-back; you may wear fitting clothes to show off your lean physique if your topic is about weight loss and fitness.
You also need to practice your gestures and expressions. Practice in front of a mirror or better yet, video record your rehearsal and watch it after. Train to improve on things you donít like. Sometimes, stages are wide enough for speakers to walk back and forth. The walk should be practiced as well. Aim for a confident and determined walk.
- Voice modulation and inflection
Speakers should learn how to use inflection, volume, and pauses in their presentations. It is a very powerful tool and a great way to provide emphasis and drama to any speech. Inexperienced speakers have a propensity to speak fast and tends to get faster as they go along, making their speeches difficult to follow. Pauses should be employed in certain areas of the speech.
Inflection and volume are used to provide stress on statements and points. Speeches, especially motivational ones, should address the emotions as well. Add a bit of drama if the stories and anecdotes call for it. To improve on this, you will need to record yourself speaking and watch it in order to see what your strengths and weaknesses are.
