The term public speaking covers many activities. It is an essential part of the jobs of teachers, lecturers, politicians, sales representatives and religious figures. The ultimate goal of all these people is to help others to see the world from the different side and to inspire changes. They often tell their own life experience to an audience to motivate them to make professional and personal changes in their lives and within themselves. Public speakers share their opinions about how to change the ways to work. New methods are more effective for the people who always do the thing with one way. That is the aim of public speaking.
There are three main purposes of public speaking:
- To inform
- To persuade
- To inspire
An informative speech gives the audience an information about the topic. This must be an interesting and useful information. Speakers have to avoid expressing their opinions. They have to let the audience make up their own minds. This is the most important purpose for informative speech.
A persuasive speech – helps the audience willingly accept speaker’s proposal through logic, evidence and emotion. A persuasive speech offers a solution to a controversial problem, presenting sufficient logic. Here speakers have to present their most convincing arguments.
An inspirational speech – helps speakers to inspire others by talking about how they have personally triumphed over hardships. Here, the emphasis is on the use of the most inspirational quotes, stories, or anecdotes. Speakers share their stories to let others know that no matter what tragedies may happen in life it is possible to get beyond them successfully.
Nowadays, professionals often provide seminars for the people, who are working in companies. They are hired by different companies to speak about marketing, management, sports or sales, but there are cases when speakers specialize in a certain topic and make their own seminars. In addition, there are many cases, when they write and sell motivational books or videos and appear on television.
You do not need any license, training or special courses to become a speaker. Everyone who has a will, skills and qualification can perform in front of an audience. Nowadays, you have an opportunity to attract your audience with the help of social media.
People think that we are experts of our job, that makes us more confident, but no matter how professional or confident we are after 15 minutes an audience loses interest towards our speech – speakers say. That is why it is so important to keep an attention of your audience and body language and the tone of your voice help you in it.
Here are 8 ways, which will help you improve your public speaking skills:
- Be confident and know your audience – It will help you define every person’s needs and wants in your audience, access their subconscious and make your speech memorable and persuasive.
Body language
Body language is communication without words and it is very important part of public speaking. It includes:
- Facial expressions
- Posture
- Gestures
- The face is able to express countless emotions without saying a word. The movements of your eyes, mouth, and facial muscles can build an invisible connection with your audience. Eye focus is the most important element in this process. With the help of eye contact you will be directly connected to your audience. When you make eye contact, you areconnecting to your audience. That makes them feel special. Like that, you can see if they are interested or not. Then you can change and modify your presentation, if it is needed.
- Postureis an important part ofany presentation. It helps you to look more confident. You have to try not to hide behind a lectern. In addition, it is better to move while speaking. You are the leader, so you have to make an audience feel comfortable. For example: If you have a presentation screen, do not forget to stand on the left side, it is the right side of the audience. Consider, that people read from left to right.
- Gesture – hand and arm movements– are important parts of our visual picture when you speak in public. They are reinforcements of the words and ideas you are trying to convey and a non-verbal representation of how you feel. If you use gestures correctly, it will help you appear confident and relaxed.
- Be energetic and enthusiastic – Turned out, that an audience responds best to presenters who are alive and energetic. Strong, positive body language is one of the most important tool to be more confident, to express emotions and not to lose connection with your audience.
Voice
Tone of voice is a combination of spoken language and body language. Speakers know how to exercise their voice, where to use pauses and emphasis. Pauses made in proper time help an audience to hear and understand the speaker. The tone of your voice is also very important depending on the scope of an audience. You have to speak loudly and your words must be pronounced very clearly, so that listeners will not strain to hear you.
- Use humor – Ingenious and funny comments will help you make personal relationship with each member of the audience.
- Improvisation – Try to use improvisation with the help of slides and other additional things. Tell the public more convincing details and stories. Do not read your text, that will make your speech boring and unconvincing and you will lose connection with the audience.
Use of above-mentioned aspects will help you not only for public speaking, but also for personal communications. Their consideration and use in practice will help you become a successful, interesting and consumable speaker. It will give you a chance to help people see the world and their situation from a new perspective. You can inspire them to change their working ways and be more confident, motivated and successful.