Tips for Public Speaking

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Maintain eye contact at all times.

Odds are that the first speech you ever gave involved a lot of downward glances at your notes. In fact, your entire speech may have been directed at the linoleum tile right in front of the podium.

This is completely normal. You can’t expect to be a professional speaker on your first try! Instead of feeling bad, you should pat yourself on the back. At least you had the courage to remain standing the entire time. Well, hopefully you only felt like passing out the first time.

Now that you have learned to prepare properly, you should start practicing the art of eye contact. This doesn’t mean flirting with the pretty gal or gorgeous guy in the corner. It also doesn’t mean fixing your gaze on one person in the front row and leaving it there throughout your entire presentation!

Effective eye contact involves much more than that. Keeping your head up and looking at the audience members will help them to maintain interest in what you are saying. This is an important tips for public speaking. People are more eager to listen to you when you involve them. They will feel more relaxed and connected to you. It’s like you are telling each person in the room “I’m giving this speech to you specifically”. Maintaining good eye contact will also inspire confidence in your audience.

You have to memorize enough of your presentation to look away from your notes. The audience will see that you are well prepared and know your subject matter enough to discuss it easily. (Maybe one might even ask you for some tips for public speaking. Who knows?) Nothing will lose an audience’s attention faster than reading a speech or presentation word for word. This makes you look like you aren’t confident or didn’t bother to prepare properly.

Focus on one person in the room. Maintain eye contact with them for 4 to 5 seconds before moving on to someone else. This is a good time to point out that you should pick the friendliest faces in the audience. Skip the man who is glaring at you from the back row. Don’t bother with the woman who is rummaging through her purse to find lipstick. Pick a smiling face and try the eye contact technique. Trust me - this will get much easier with practice. You will be surprised what a difference it will make!

Get the audience involved. Make them a part of your speech or presentation.

Now that you have become an eye contact pro, you can practice getting your audience directly involved. Ask an audience member a question or have someone assist you with your presentation. Pros use this methods as one of their tips for public speaking.

Pick someone who actually looks you in the eye and appears confident. You want audience members to participate, not have a heart attack! You can also go another route. Try asking people in the audience to turn to their neighbor and introduce themselves. Better yet, have everyone recite a few of the key points in your speech. This will not only emphasize what you are saying, it will also help to break the ice.

Guess what?

An audience who participates with you will feel much more involved and ready to listen to what you have to say. If nothing else, they will be too scared to even think of falling asleep during your speech!

Perform “vocal variety”. Change the pitch, rate and volume of your voice.

One of the greatest tips for public speaking is the inflection of vocal variety.

Vocal variety is a term used to describe the “Changes in a speaker's rate, pitch, and volume that give the voice variety and expressiveness”.

Your voice is one of your most valuable tools as a speaker. You can learn how to use it to greatly enhance your public speaking.

Use your voice to emphasize certain words or parts of your speech. Try RAISING YOUR VOICE to make a strong point. Changing the rate of your voice at different intervals will also help to maintain interest. Slowing down after a sentence will emphasize what you just said. The audience will have time to think about your last words before you continue on with the rest of your speech.

Professional speakers use these voice tips for public speaking all the time. Unfortunately, not everyone is aware of these techniques. Just think back to one of your college professors. The one who always wore a bowtie and talked in that awful c-o-n-s-t-a-n-t m-o-n-o-t-o-n-e v-o-i-c-e. I bet you always found yourself drifting off in that class no matter how much sleep you had the night before.

Of course you did! Nobody wants to listen to someone drone on and on with no expression or change in their voice.

If you are still not sure what I mean by vocal variety, study your local newscasters. They are masters of this technique. You have probably never noticed how many different voice techniques they use. Now think back to your professor with the constant, monotone voice. Which person would you rather listen to? I think the answer is clear.

So remember to maintain good eye contact with the audience. Sweep the room and focus on different audience members. Next, get the audience directly involved in your presentation by having them answer questions or assist you.

Last but not least, learn to change the pitch, rate and volume of your voice. This will allow you to emphasize important points and engage the audience.

Hopefully these tips for public speaking are useful to you. Before you know it, you will be speaking like a true pro!

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