How To Become A Successful Public Speaker

Easy Ways To Remember Your Material
One of the most common reasons people fear public speaking is that they blank out and forget
their entire speech. You can practice and practice and practice and when the moment comes
that you need to remember your presentation, everything goes blank! There are ways that you
can fool proof your message so that the parts you actually have to memorize are minimal if at
all.
This means that you incorporate the use of triggers in your presentation. These triggers can be
things like power point slides, props, and story telling that you'll scatter throughout your speech.
What the triggers do is prompt you to talk about the next point your trying to make. The triggers
can also serve as a trigger to help you remember what to say next.
There are four primary ways to remember your presentation.
1. The first one is memorizing. This can work for presentations less than an hour, but if you're
teaching a six hour seminar course, you're going to have to find some other way other than
memorizing. This is actually one of the worst ways to remember your presentation because
there are no safe guards that protect you once you forget.
2. The next way to remember your presentation is to read a full written version. People
write out their speeches, but reading from the full written text can cause you to sound stiff and
unnatural.
Most commonly occurring in business settings (i.e. - at board meetings or company meetings),
reading your speech may be necessary. If you have to read your speech, there are things you
can do to help you sound natural. Keep in mind the business tone may be necessary, but there
may also be parts in your presentation that require the monotony to be broken!
3. The third way to remember your presentation is to use notes - a condensed outline form
of your presentation. Have your notes on a single page sheet or on note cards. Highlight key
points to make in a way that you can easily understand the emphasis that the points need.
Having notes does not mean that you do not need to work with your presentation!
How To Become A Successful Public Speaker

4. The last way to remember your presentation is to use visual aids (props) as your
notes. Let your visuals and images prompt you to speak. Tell your audience a story about the
image you're showing. You can also let your visuals and images do the talking for you. You
can post your outline on the screen and say that it's because it will help your audience stay on
track with you!
Work with creating mental images of the points you are trying to make. This will help you sound
more natural and more "impromptu" with your audience. When you sound natural, you sound
genuine.
Utilize one or more of these ways to remember your presentation. Use various ways to "trigger"
your memory to say what needs to be said. Use overheads to lead you through your speech as
you place keywords on the screen.
How To Become A Successful Public Speaker

Get Rid Of Distracting Body Movements
Your body movement during your presentation has the ability to strengthen the impact of your
message or it can seriously be a distraction. One of your goals as a speaker is to look so
natural with your movements and with what you say that no one even notices that you are using
intonation and inflection or body movement as a means of emphasizing the points of your
speech.
What kinds of mannerisms are distracting?
- Swaying to and fro in front of the audience
- Hanging on to the podium
- Finger tapping
- Licking your lips or biting your lips
- Fidgeting with clothes, pockets or jewelry
- Frowning
- Fussing with hair
- Bobbing your head
- Flailing arms at inappropriate times
The movements you make in your speech should be planned or at least controlled by you. Any
movement that is not planned could potentially be distracting. Many of the above mentioned
mannerisms stem from being nervous about being on stage. Additionally, they could also come
just because you don't know you are doing them. Either way, you'll need to minimize and
eliminate as many of these movements as possible.
1. Make a video tape of yourself. Do you even know that you are making these movements?
Probably not. A video will help you identify which distracting movements you'll need to work on
eliminating.
2. Review your video tape for places where you make distracting mannerisms. Make a list
of the mannerisms you have and thoughtfully practice your speech without those mannerisms.
Rerecord yourself and keep reviewing your tapes until you a satisfied that all the mannerisms
are gone.
How To Become A Successful Public Speaker