Public Speaking

1. Public Speaking Contents • Giving a Speech? -- My Top 10 Suggestionsby Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE • Objectives of your Speech • 11 points to remember when making a speech • Standing Before an Audience • Public Speaking: Get 'em On Stage

2. Giving a Speech My Top Ten Suggestions By Patricia Fripp, CSP, /CPAE

3. Top Ten Suggestions • 1. Write your own introduction and make it pertinent, emphasizing your credentials. • 2. Make sure you absolutely know who is going to be in the audience, why they are there and why they invited you to speak. • 3. Go to the facility early to make sure you're comfortable in the surroundings. Check the microphone, lighting, audio/visual equipment.

4. 4. The first 30 seconds have the most impact. Don't waste these precious seconds with "Ladies and Gentlemen" or a weather report. Launch right in with a startling statement, quote or story. End with a bang, not a whimper. • 5.Do not start a speech with humorunless you are absolutely brilliant at it. If you tell a bad joke, you're going to lose any credibility you have. Moreover, if your only humorous material is at the beginning, the audience is going to be disappointed when you become serious.

5. 6. If you're giving a 1/2 hour speech, don't expect to tell the audience everything you know. Pick two or three important points. • 7. If your presentation involves statistics and analytical data, put them in a handout that the audience can refer to. Don't bore them by reciting a plethora of numbers. • 8. Don't read your speech. Look the audience in the eye. Write down key points or statements. Deliver the rest extemporaneously.

6. 9. Think in outline form: • What are the five questions you're most frequently asked? Set up your talk, point by point, speaking to the audience as if they were guests at a party. • Or use the Alcoholics Anonymous outline: This is where I was...This is where I am now...This is how I got here.

7. 10. Practice with a tape recorder or in front of friends and family. After every point, ask yourself, "Who cares?" If no one does, edit it out.

8. Objectives of Your Speech • Set a clear and specific goal for your presentation. • Analyze your audience to determine their needs and wants. • Generate key ideas to shape the content of your presentation. • Write a presentation that is tailored to your audience. • Reinforce your presentation with supporting material. • Create powerful visual aids to add impact to your presentation. • Organize the logistics of your presentation.

9. Practice delivering an impressive presentation. • Use proper language to make your message more credible. • Enhance your vocal skills to engage your audience. • Use gestures, facial expressions, and movement to enhance your delivery. • Prepare yourself to handle even the toughest question-and-answer session. • Handle challenging comments and difficult situations. • Evaluate the success of your presentation.

10. Set a clear and specific goal for your presentation. • Analyze your audience to determine their needs and wants. • Generate key ideas to shape the content of your presentation. • Write a presentation that is tailored to your audience. • Reinforce your presentation with supporting material. • Create powerful visual aids to add impact to your presentation. • Organize the logistics of your presentation. • on.

11. Practice delivering an impressive presentation. • Use proper language to make your message more credible. • Enhance your vocal skills to engage your audience. • Use gestures, facial expressions, and movement to enhance your delivery. • Prepare yourself to handle even the toughest question-and-answer session. • Handle challenging comments and difficult situations. • Evaluate the success of your presentati

12. 11 Points to Remember When Making a Speech

13. KNOW • Know the needs of your audience and match your contents to their needs. Know your material thoroughly. Put what you have to say in a logical sequence. Ensure your speech will be captivating to your audience as well as worth their time and attention. Practice and rehearse your speech at home or where you can be at ease and comfortable, in front of a mirror, your family, friends or colleagues. Use a tape-recorder and listen to yourself. Videotape your presentation and analyze it. Know what your strong and weak points are. Emphasize your strong points during your presentation.

14. When you are presenting in front of an audience, you are performing as an actor is on stage. How you are being perceived is very important. Dress appropriately for the occasion. Be solemn if your topic is serious. Present the desired image to your audience. Look pleasant, enthusiastic, confident, proud, but not arrogant. Remain calm. Appear relaxed, even if you feel nervous. Speak slowly, enunciate clearly, and show appropriate emotion and feeling relating to your topic. Establish rapport with your audience. Speak to the person farthest away from you to ensure your voice is loud enough to project to the back of the room. Vary the tone of your voice and dramatize if necessary. If a microphone is available, adjust and adapt your voice accordingly.

15. Body Language • Body language is important. Standing, walking or moving about with appropriate hand gesture or facial expression is preferred to sitting down or standing still with head down and reading from a prepared speech. Use audio-visual aids or props for enhancement if appropriate and necessary. Master the use of presentation software such as PowerPoint well before your presentation. Do not over-dazzle your audience with excessive use of animation, sound clips, or gaudy colors which are inappropriate for your topic. Do not torture your audience by putting a lengthy document in tiny print on an overhead and reading it out to them.

16. Speak with Conviction • Speak with conviction as if you really believe in what you are saying. Persuade your audience effectively. The material you present orally should have the same ingredients as that which are required for a written research paper, i.e. a logical progression from INTRODUCTION (Thesis statement) to BODY (strong supporting arguments, accurate and up-to-date information) to CONCLUSION (re-state thesis, summary, and logical conclusion).

17. Do not read from notes • Do not read from notes for any extended length of time although it is quite acceptable to glance at your notes infrequently. Speak loudly and clearly. Sound confident. Do not mumble. If you made an error, correct it, and continue. No need to make excuses or apologize profusely.

18. Maintain Sincere Eye Contact • Maintain sincere eye contact with your audience. Use the 3-second method, e.g. look straight into the eyes of a person in the audience for 3 seconds at a time. Have direct eye contact with a number of people in the audience, and every now and then glance at the whole audience while speaking. Use your eye contact to make everyone in your audience feel involved.

19. Speak, Listen,Respond Adjust and Adapt • Speak to your audience, listen to their questions, respond to their reactions, adjust and adapt. If what you have prepared is obviously not getting across to your audience, change your strategy mid-stream if you are well prepared to do so. Remember that communication is the key to a successful presentation. If you are short of time, know what can be safely left out. If you have extra time, know what could be effectively added. Always be prepared for the unexpected.

20. Pause • Pause. Allow yourself and your audience a little time to reflect and think. Don't race through your presentation and leave your audience, as well as yourself, feeling out of breath.

21. Add Humor • Add humor whenever appropriate and possible. Keep audience interested throughout your entire presentation. Remember that an interesting speech makes time fly, but a boring speech is always too long to endure even if the presentation time is the same.

22. Audio-Visual Aids • When using audio-visual aids to enhance your presentation, be sure all necessary equipment is set up and in good working order prior to the presentation. If possible, have an emergency backup system readily available.  Check out the location ahead of time to ensure seating arrangements for audience, whiteboard, blackboard, lighting, location of projection screen, sound system, etc. are suitable for your presentation.

23. Handouts • Have handouts ready and give them out at the appropriate time. Tell audience ahead of time that you will be giving out an outline of your presentation so that they will not waste time taking unnecessary notes during your presentation.

24. Stop • Know when to STOP talking. Use a timer or the microwave oven clock to time your presentation when preparing it at home. Just as you don't use unnecessary words in your written paper, you don't bore your audience with repetitious or unnecessary words in your oral presentation. To end your presentation, summarize your main points in the same way as you normally do in the CONCLUSION of a written paper. Remember, however, that there is a difference between spoken words appropriate for the ear and formally written words intended for reading. Terminate your presentation with an interesting remark or an appropriate punch line. Leave your listeners with a positive impression and a sense of completion. Do not belabor your closing remarks. Thank your audience and sit down.

25. Standing Before an Audience • 1. How can I relax while giving a speech? • · One great tip is to take very deep breathes just prior to taking your place at the podium. This relaxes your body, helping your blood pressure to lower and your mind to clear. • · Another trick is to pretend that you are all alone in front of a mirror. • · Nothing can beat being prepared for your speech. The more comfortable you are with your speech, the better that you will do. • 2. What is the best way to prepare for my speech? • · Try practicing the speech in front of friends and family first, before the "actual" speech. • · Make sure that your note cards are very easy to read. (The large note cards are the best choice. You can even get colored cards now in any office supply store.) • · Use colored markers to highlight the main points of your speech. • · Be familiar with the room or auditorium in which you will be presenting your speech. • · Quickly get to the next main point if you lose your place as smoothly as you can.

26. 3. What is the best way to practice for a speech? • · I mentioned it above. A mirror can be very useful. Say your speech into the mirror, noticing what each hand and face is doing at all times. • · Practice the words in your head over and over again. • · Pretend that you are there, in front of the audience. • · I also mentioned practicing before other people. This is good, but if you are alone, the mirror or even your dog can be a great idea. 4. Should I take a class on public speaking? • · If you are in a field where public speaking is required, you might want to consider taking a class in effective speaking at your local college. Many times there are night courses that can really help a speaker to relax at the podium. • · These classes are usually small, allowing all of the students to develop a relationship. This helps to relax everyone, which makes for a very nice atmosphere to share, communicate, and learn.

27. 5. What can I do if I lose my place and get all flustered? • · The best advice is to be prepared, but even the most prepared person sometimes loses his or her place. • · If this happens, glance down at your cards. Look for the bright color of the next topic, and move on. • · Take a deep breath and smile. Your audience is probably completely unaware of the problem. • · Ad-libbing can be both helpful and also very dangerous when giving a speech. If your speech is timed, this may become a problem. Ad-libbing can help to get your out of a sticky situation, though.

28. 6. I seem to shake all over before a speech. What can I do to help this? • · Try not to drink a lot of caffeine prior to any public speaking engagement. Opt for juice or water instead of pop or coffee. • · Keep your mind off your speech. This will calm your nerves. 7. If I get easily flustered, which is best: should I be the first person to speak or the last? • · Many successful public speakers would rather be first, but of course this is for everyone. • · If you get nervous THINKING about the speech more than performing it, then you should go first. • · If you easily lose your place or become overly nervous, you should maybe go toward the middle. • · If you are very comfortable with your speech, then you can do it last. Remember, if you do it last you will be the final, lasting image that your audience sees. Make it a good one.

29. 8. I am too nervous to have good eye contact. What can I do to help? • · Find a person near the middle of the crowd which you know or have a friendly relationship. Look at this person, but be sure to also look around to the other ends of the room. • · When you look in other places, though, you can maybe look just above them. This may help. Later, you will be more comfortable with this, and learn to look into their eyes.

30. 9. My gestures look forced, should I leave my hands at my side. This makes me even more nervous. How can I have relaxed gestures? • · Speak to the crowd in a conversational tone. This can take practice, but helps immensely with your gestures. • · Try to NOT think about your hands. • · If you play with buttons or put your hands in your pockets, try to NOT wear clothes with pockets or buttons. Putting your hands in your pockets is a big distraction to your listeners that you should avoid at all costs! • · If none of these works, try keeping your hands at your side, and pinching your index finger and thumb together tightly. This should help to remind you not to pick at your clothes.

31. 10. What do I do if I drop my cards? • · Pick them up. Ok, sorry. We do have a sense of humor sometimes. • · After you pick them up, go to the appropriate card. • · If you number your cards in the top left corner and circle the number, this is very easy to do. • · If you do not remember the number you were on, then go to the COLORED topic you were at. • · This is one of the reasons that using colors and numbers help. • · Another trick is to use your mind to make a map of your speech. • a. What I mean by this is that you simply have a maze drawn out in your head of all the main topics. • b. Do this by visualizing your story like a movie or story. You can even see yourself doing the speech in the mirror, and then replay it in your mind several times. This helps!

32. Public Speaking: Get 'em On Stage • Good public speaking should use attention gaining devices. Here is one that works every time: virtually every public speaking presentation I do, I find some excuse to get someone on stage with me. When an audience member is on stage, the rest of the audience is glued to the action for the following reasons:  • 1. They want to see what is going to happen to one of their own.  • 2. They are priming themselves to be up there.  • 3. They are worrying to death that they may be asked to be up there. 

33. Reasons 1 and 2 are good and reason 3 is not so good. For 1 and 2 the mindset of the observing audience member is that, "I want to watch to see what my colleague or other audience member will do when they are on stage. No matter how exciting you are at public speaking, you cannot compete with the excitement generated by someone who is on stage who is not "supposed" to be on stage.  • The other mindset is, "I BETTER watch what is going on in case I am asked to go up there." This mindset is good too, because it forces the audience member to actually think about the point you are trying to make. 

34. For number 3, you want to keep shy or sensitive audience members from withdrawing from your program altogether because of the fear that they may be asked to stand up in front of everyone. Public speaking is discomforting for them. This chance of withdrawal is easily eliminated by the following statement: • In a moment I'm going to ask for some / a volunteer to come on stage with me. Don't worry. No one will have to come up if they don't want to. • If you have a high percentage of shy audience members, you will almost feel the breeze as they breath a sigh of relief at being able to avoid public speaking

35. Now we will take a look at what things you can do with them once you get them on stage. According to a study done at the University of Wichita, public recognition is one of the top motivators of people. If you claim to be "motivational" at public speaking, it might be a good idea for you to use your highly public profile while you are public speaking to give out public recognition. I find out the good things that particular audience members have done during my extensive research before the public speaking program.

36. Here are some ways to use the information you learn:  • Recognize a single audience member for a particular achievement, or for a period of high performance.  • Recognize a group of audience members for a particular achievement, or period of high performance.  • While they are on-stage make a custom visual highlighting their achievement, or performance (If you use an overhead you can give it to the audience member or team after you show it. Do not forget to include your company name at the bottom of the visual. Many times these will be hung on the wall in the organization which will give you free publicity). 

37. Another reason to get an audience member or group on stage is for some sort of demonstration. Do one where your demonstrating personal space across cultures. The person helping gets a good laugh from the audience during the interaction. • Try to have pre planned ad-libs ready to go for many of the comments or questions you anticipate from the people on stage. You can also have someone on stage to assist you in writing on the flip chart, changing overheads, or to blow a horn when someone in the audience asks a good question. Use your imagination.  • Whenever, someone is up there to assist you in your public speaking, make sure you give them some kind of prize. One of your products is usually good because it gives you a chance to mention it without using a hard sell. And just about always lead the audience in a round of applause for the participants as they return to their seats. Your audience will love your public speaking.

38. Now What! • Once you have succeeded in getting on stage and finally making that speech…believe it or not, the more speeches you do, the more comfortable you will be in front of an audience. • And if you want…think of them as naked…hmmmm…well maybe not! • Miigwech, Ekosi, Wopida, Marsee, Merci, Thank You.