Tweet

Do I need to learn tips for Public Speaking?

Written by: Andrew Rondeau

Article Overview: It seems to come as a surprise to many that giving an effective presentation or speech is one of the key ingredients for a successful career – so you may want to learn some tips for public speaking.

Do I need to learn tips for Public Speaking?

It seems to come as a surprise to many that giving an effective presentation or speech is one of the key ingredients for a successful career - so you may want to learn some tips for public speaking. But for many, Public Speaking is also one of the most terrifying tasks they will have to undertake in their career.

Are you one of those people for whom public speaking is a necessary evil?

Or even someone who will make any excuse simply to get out of it?

If so, you're not alone.

Millions of people the world over are willing to give it a go just so long as it is to team members or people they call friends. As often as not, the presentation will go well, but it doesn't seem to get any easier. For many people, simply standing out from the crowd and speaking in public makes them uncomfortable, embarrassed or insecure.

But the good news is that this fear can be overcome. It's not that difficult either, and becoming a competent public speaker will lead to many new opportunities, both at work and in one's private life too.

Now, just think about that for a minute. A key skill that anyone, serious about making it big at work or in business, needs to possess is the art of being able to give a presentation.

Can that really be true?

Public Speaking skills are not a one-size-fits-all technique.

Of course, the giving of formal presentations is only part of the picture. Presentations come in many other ‘flavours' as well.

Simply holding meetings, or pitching to customers or potential clients - even motivating a team - requires these essential skills. Many business people spend a great deal of their working day attending one meeting or another and their ability to present their ideas is a crucial element of their success - or lack of it!

Being able to present well and to hold an audience is also a crucial factor in the way other people see you as a leader. Someone who cannot engage their audiences is unlikely to inspire those who have to follow them, however good their ideas are. If you are in line for a company promotion and there is someone else trying for the same position, whom do you think the selection committee will choose?

Someone who has good ideas but finds it difficult to communicate, or someone who is comfortable inspiring others to agree with what he has to say?

So what do you want to achieve?

The starting point for any good public speaking task has to be why you are doing it in the first place. Maybe someone at work has called upon you to speak about a work-related topic: how well our department is doing on a company-wide project for instance.

Or you may be giving a sales pitch to prospective company, or giving a training presentation, or addressing a conference, or 101 other reason for getting up on your hind legs and exposing ourselves to public scrutiny as you attempt to find le bon mot and have the audience eating out of our hands.

Most presentations are designed to sell an idea. And as any marketer will tell us, the art of good selling is to tie in our product or service with the interests of our buyers.

So, the corollary of this is that the art of a good presentation is to tie in our messages with the interests of our audience.

Are they there to be informed or kept up to date on a fast moving marketplace?

Perhaps they are there to be trained?

Or to have some facet of our business explained to them?

Some presentations are about building relationships, or inspiring and motivating a workforce. Perhaps we want to challenge their assumptions, or to provoke their curiosity in a particular area? We might be trying to sell them something, or getting them to buy in to our way of thinking.

At the end of the day, the main reason to present to anyone is to change something. It might be we want to change the way they think about something; or their behaviour in regard to a specific issue.

Whatever the reason for our performance, the basic approach we need to take is pretty much the same.

The way we present ourselves, the way we control our voice, the way we structure content and the way we put our points across to the audience are the tips for public speaking that can be learned and put to good effect.

Related Articles
  “How to Overcome Public Speaking Fears – Ten Strategic Tips From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach”
  Marketing Strategies: 7 Tips to Make Public Speaking Easier
  Want to reach people? Start talking!
  Why Do We Fear Public Speaking?
  Tips On Speaking In Public

Article Tags: audience, audiences, crowd, effective presentation, element, excuse, fear, flavours, formal presentations, motivating a team, new opportunities, private life, public speaker, public speaking skills, speaking in public, surprise, team members



Related Forum Posts
Public Speaking and Presentations - Hi all, I am a local business women who does not travel...but would love to be a resource for anyone needing help or suggestions on speaking/presentations and just plain old communications on the platform and off...I've recently had some training by two former World Champs of Public Speaking...It was the best weekend of my career life. Annette
Library to Meet - Has anyone ever tried the Public Library? they have meeting rooms there too and Toronto has over 30 locations with Free Wireless Internet.
My reading log - Hi OmnivoreInk, Before starting my business, I read the following books as research: -"The Art of the Start" by Guy Kawasaki -"The AdSense Code" by Joel Comm -"Don't Think Pink" and "Mind Your X's and Y's" by Lisa Johnson And since then I've continued my "research" by reading (in this order): -"Technical Tennis" by Rod Cross -"For One More Day" by Mitch Albom -"The Twits" by Roald Dahl -"Little Black Book of Connections" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne -"The Profitable Retailer" by Doug Fleener -"Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell -"Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" by C.S. Lewis -"Little Green Book of Getting Your Way" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling And I'm currently reading and am in the process of finishing the following: -"There's No Such Thing as Public Speaking" by Jeanette and Roy Henderson -"The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell -"The Book of Tells" by Peter Collett -"Little Red Book of Sales Answers" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience" by Jonathan M. Tisch -"The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity" by Julia Cameron -"The Inner Game of Tennis" by Timothy Gallwey
Re: Does it help to join business groups? - I think it does help, yes, because you get extra tips and learn important things that you wouldn't know otherwise. Most people don't understand business like those of us who do it, so it's nice to have those discussions with people who deal with it on a day-to-day basis.
Re: How John Chow Makes $40,000/mo from blogging - My point of view is this... If he is making more money than me then I can probably learn something from him. If he has more traffic than me I can probably learn something. If he can build a strong community of tens of thousands of loyal followers then I can probably learn something from him. If he's managed to do something I've yet to do or haven't had success with then I can probably learn something from him. etc. I agree he's not the best source of info on marketing, and he pushes aff. stuff heavily, but just the fact he does this tells you there's something to learn from him. I try and be a more open minded and open ears sort of guy.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Four Reasons Why Entrepreneurs Should Blog

Multilevel Marketing: 4 Tips To MLM Success

Getting The Media Attention You Deserve

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.