They are just about getting done with the previous one. It’s you next. You look around for an escape route… too late. Your name is called out and you are jostled onto the stage and a microphone is thrust into your hands and now, you stand there helplessly staring at all the anticipative faces ready to latch on to your every word. Sound familiar? Welcome to the ‘Shit Scared of Public Speaking’ club. But no matter how exclusive your membership to this club is, the fact is that you will never be able to escape your turn to speak in front of a crowd if you intend to take your career anywhere. But this need not be a bad thing. Listed below are a few tips using which you may turn your nightmare into a pretty rewarding experience.
Take it easy
First of all, relax. Public speaking need not be a nerve wrecking prospect. Actually it’s almost the same as having a normal conversation with a friend, except there are more than just one. What’s more? They all want to see you do well. So just tell yourself that everyone in the audience is rooting for you, and you will be surprised how the positive thought calms your nerves. After all, public speaking need not be a life or death experience. Unless, of course, you’re speaking to a mob of angry shareholders.
Be the smartest in the room
Another way to soothe your nerves is to prepare like nobody’s business. Knowing that no one in the room knows the topic of discussion as well as you do goes a long way to build your confidence. So study the topic inside out and know it so well that you won’t even have to memorise the whole speech. You just remember the information bits and spontaneously expand on each one. Also jot down all the questions that you feel might arise in the listener’s mind and prepare the answers for them.
Get acquainted with the room
You must have noticed how sports persons reach the venue of competition a few days before the event to acclimatise themselves to the surroundings. For a speaker, it’s not much different. Visit the room where you have to speak beforehand and make yourself comfortable with its structure. Check the size of the room to gauge the force with which you will have to speak so that your voice can be clearly heard by even the most distant listeners. Also sit on various seats in the room. This will give you a better idea about how to interact with the whole crowd instead of only the ones on the front rows.
Prepare it right
The main aim of a speech is simply to get your point across. So, frame your sentences in such a way that you reduce what you say to a bare minimum and hit the bull’s eye with little effort. Else you’ll be risking loosing the audience’s attention even before you reach the crux of your topic. Simplify what you need to say and keep it compact. Economise.
Another way of holding your audience’s attention is by drawing them in through examples they can relate to. For instance, even if you’re talking about something as vague as ‘time travel’, bring up examples from Hollywood movies which deal with the issue. It’s a matter of showing instead of just narrating.
Begin with a bang
We have discussed the ways in which you can hold your audience’s attention. But you need to grab their attention first before trying to hold on to it and you’ve got about 30 to 90 seconds to do that. So it’s imperative that you start right.
Different speakers have different strategies. Some start with a joke. But that doesn’t mean you take the microphone and go, “Two men walk into a bar…”. Face it, not everyone’s Jay Leno. A tried and tested method is to start with a relevant question. This way you will be engaging the audience from the word go. Starting in this manner will also help you gauge the audience’s knowledge on the topic and then you can basically take it from there.
While you’re at it
Alright, you’ve got yourself speaking and you’ve managed to grab the audience’s attention (hopefully). Where do you go from here? Well, once you get the wheels rolling, it’s just a matter of remembering a few pointers and will ease you through the rest of your discussion.
It is important that you make a special effort at acknowledging the audience’s presence. After all, it’s purely for them that you are speaking in the first place. If you can, refer to one or two people in the audience by name. That will immediately make the audience a little more comfortable with your presence and they will take that much effort to relate to what you’re saying. Funny how perception works.
When in front of the audience, you’re not just speaking. It’s more like you’re performing. So, use your whole body to express what you have to and no, I’m not insisting that you break into a ballet. Use your hands subtly to express your ideas. Now that’s the difference between public speaking and simply reading a speech.
Once you have worked so hard to get the listeners interested in your topic, you don’t want to throw away the effort. So, no matter how tempting it may seem, try not to digress from the topic.
And finally, practice. You may have noticed how the experienced speakers seamlessly modulate and change the tone of their voices, raise the intensity to emphasise on some points and even pause… for effect. This is achievable only through practice and there are no two ways about it. You will have to spend time working on your delivery and it won’t take too long for the results to show. So you need not dread the event of you speaking in front of the crowd. Instead see it as an opportunity to express yourself and catapult your career.
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