career
Speaking is one of the fundamental skills in our lives. Almost everyone learns to speak very early on without much effort. However, do you know that not everyone can speak publicly?
Public speaking is the act of speaking in front of an audience. It is different from day-to-day conversation since its aim is usually to persuade rather than entertain. When compared to typical conversation and dialogue, public speaking involves the speaker taking on a more prominent role.
When a professor lectures students, they are engaging in public speaking. The same is true when politicians are campaigning. However, people like you and me also have a lot to gain from learning this type of speaking. You may apply the tactics to appear more persuasive and confident when presenting a product to your employer or when you have to explain anything.
Almost all forms of communication can benefit from this. To deliver your message successfully, you have to know where the mailbox is, if there are any obstacles, and how to access it. Similarly, to deliver your message to an audience, you have to know what they already know and what they already believe.
If they naturally disagree, what are their grounds? You could try to disprove those grounds. If they naturally agree, what are their interests? If you address aspects that they are interested in, they will be more inclined to believe your statements.
Because this is the most vague and hard-to-implement piece of advice, we would like to be a bit more specific. No one is confident all the time, but you can act as if you are. This will establish your credibility and make your claims more believable.
Pretending to be confident has the additional benefit of making you feel more confident over time. There is a famous public speaking technique in which you act like you just won a world championship. Your chin is tilted up; your chest held up high; and your arms are wide open. After some time, those practicing this technique actually feel their confidence rising.
Speaking in front of an audience can be both terrifying and exciting. Many of us tend to blurt out our entire speech from start to finish without pausing to catch our breath. Not only do we, as speakers, not get a break, but the audience is also dragged along on this long ride. The odds of them being able to comprehend what you're saying, much less agreeing with it, are slim.
To fix this, pausing while speaking in public is essential. Some public speaking experts even say that silence is as vital as words. These pauses allow listeners to comprehend what they just heard, so that they will have a basis for understanding our next utterance. It also builds tension, so that watchers anticipate our next word and remember it more clearly.
It would be amazing if anyone liked listening to a professor who talks like a bee. He would talk in a monotone, and after a while, the whole class would lose interest. Obviously, this is not an ideal situation since you their attention to convince them.
Therefore, you need to use your pitch and volume wisely. To emphasize a point, heighten your pitch, increase your volume, and possibly pause before and after making a point. If you use these elements to your advantage, your speech will sound more meaningful.
This technique doesn’t mean that you can’t create a script. It just means that once you know what you are going to talk about, avoid staring at the piece of paper, and look at your audience instead. Glance down momentarily to check about what you are about to say next. Then, establish eye contact with your audience again. Not only does looking at a piece of paper make you look like you lack confidence, it also weakens your claims.
Lastly, practice makes perfect. Not many people are successful at giving talks to large audiences on their first attempt, so try to give yourself a lot of practice. We hope you find these tactics useful and apply them to real-life situations.
