Public speaking, regardless of your audience, can be a daunting task. You have a large group of people’s undivided attention, and you can have a direct impact on their lives (and potentially your future). Entrepreneur.com and Jason Headsetdotcom offer 10 tips to “not to screw it up” when speaking for a business audience:
1. Tell great stories. If you read nothing else in this article, focus on this tip. Think about stories you can tell that are interesting but also have a lesson learned in them. We all have stories we can tell, but will those stories resonate with an audience? Will the audience be able to relate to them? If you use a visual presentation it should be an accompaniment to your stories.
2. Do NOT read your presentation from your laptop, or worse, notecards. While speaking in front of an audience can be nerve-racking, you agreed to do it! So give the audience and the event the respect they deserve. Practice your presentation and know what you’re talking about it. The worst thing you can do is sound like a robot on stage.
3. Use video to increase your comfort on stage. Record yourself giving a speech and watch it back to see how you did. The more you do this, the better you’ll get at it. Invite a few friends or colleagues to watch you “rehearse” live. Have them give you constructive feedback that you can work on.
4. Don’t be the “stats and quotes” person. We’ve all seen it – someone gets on stage to talk about something interesting, and instead of giving their perspective, their presentation is littered with statistics from other websites and quotes from other people. You can surely back up some of your talk with stats and quotes if needed, but you should first and foremost share new information and offer your own insights. Without knowing it, people will find great quotes from your talk that you didn’t even think were great.
5. Use Guy Kawasaki’s “10 20 30 Rule of PowerPoint.” Even the greatest speaker can have people distracted by their phones or laptops. Use big bold images and text in your presentation. Guy Kawasaki’s rule is 10 slides, 20 minutes, 30 point font. Text on a slide should be big and void of long sentences (short bullet points are great).
6. Bring the energy! Move around on stage, have confidence when you speak and engage with the audience makes a huge impact. If you have energy, the audience will give it back.
7. You don’t have to tell jokes. Many aspiring speakers make the mistake of trying to be someone they are not when they’re on stage. Most of the time this is by trying to be a comedian. You don’t need to tell jokes to make an audience laugh. If you aren’t used to telling jokes in front of an audience, your speaking presentation shouldn’t be the place to start.
8. The audience is afraid of Q&A. If you want to leave room in your presentation for Q&A, be prepared to have the audience not raise a single hand. Think about it, when was the last time you raised your hand in a crowded audience?
If you are going to have Q&A time at the end of a talk, give the audience a heads-up at the beginning of the talk and say something like “Hey guys, I’ll have 10-15 minutes at the end to do Q&A, please write down a question or two while I’m talking so I look popular at the end when everyone raises their hands.” By doing this simple thing, it primes people to be ready to ask questions at the end.
9. Don’t like Q&As? Take questions after your talk, off stage. This is an easy way to not have to interact with the entire audience’s questions, and you can talk to people one-on-one off stage. PeoPublic speaking, regardless of your audience, can be a daunting task. You have a large group of people’s undivided attention, and you can have a direct impact on their lives (and potentially your future). Entrepreneur.com offers 10 tips to “not to screw it up” when speaking for a business audience:
10. Be yourself. The more you try to act like someone you’re not on stage, the more people will see right through you. The more you act like yourself, the more confident you’ll seem, and the more the audience will be able to relate to you.
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