Seven Keys of A Powerful Public Speaker

“All great speakers were bad speakers at first.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Speaking in front of a small or large audience could be extremely challenging for most individuals. Understandably, it can be overwhelming and frightening to stand in front of everyone and speak your mind, even if you have already rehearsed what you will say.

Public speakers, new or experienced, usually tend to commit three common mistakes:

• Letting fear overtake – A person becomes too overcome by anxiety and dread, which leads to a weak public speaking performance.

• Bombarding your audience with excessive information – The speaker focuses on and strongly feels the need to lecture the audience and ends up telling their listeners everything they know about the subject. Often, this leaves a little impact on the audience, as they feel flooded with new information.

• Displaying poor communication skills – An individual may not fully use verbal, non-verbal, or written communication methods to his or her advantage. They avoid eye contact, lack proper voice projection, and find it tough to adopt good posture.

In order to tackle public speaking challenges it is strongly recommended to focus on these seven key areas thus transforming yourself into a powerful speaker:

1. Establish rapport with the audience

2. Learn simple practical techniques to reduce nervousness and fear

3. Realise your strengths as a presenter/speaker

4. Appeal to different types of people thus have an engaging start, middle and end

5. Use dynamic visual aids to capture attention and create impact

6. Develop techniques to project a solid professional presence

7. Prepare, practice, and deliver successfully

When delivering a message to any audience, you need to establish a rapport with them for you to connect on a level that will allow you to influence, inform and inspire their way of thinking and see your point.

This is not an easy task but can be through tweaking your knowledge and experience necessary to be a successful public speaker. You will need to appeal to their sense that will allow them to involve, interact and engage with you with respect and trust.

Start on your path to becoming a highly competent and influential speaker with the wise words “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” said by the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu.