Ten tips to help improve your public speaking

• Tags:
• Public Speaking,
• Voice,
• Speech

Jack Wallen

Published: 10 Jul 2009 09:00 BST

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... help you get a good night's sleep. And that doesn't mean medicate yourself for your 40 winks; if you do, you'll wake up feeling worse than if you had not slept.

6. Dress to impress
Choose an outfit to wear that makes you look good — to yourself and others. If you feel like you look good, your confidence will soar. So don't just settle on your usual attire. Get the help of someone you trust to find the right look that makes you know you look good. The confidence you gain by this will greatly improve your speaking.

7. Articulate
Have you ever listened to someone speak who was difficult to understand? What did you do? Chances are, after a while you tuned them out, perhaps finding them uninteresting and assuming they are not very knowledgeable about their subject.

You can be the most brilliant person alive but, if your audience can't understand you, you will lose them. There are exceptions to this but, for the most part, articulate speakers are thought of much more highly than those who are not.

8. Be heard
This goes hand in hand with number 7: if you can't be heard, then you won't be heard. If you have a softer voice, you know you're going to have trouble — and nerves mean most people tend to speak more softly when speaking in front of a crowd.

So, when you rehearse your speech, do it in front of someone, but have them stand at the back of the room. Make sure they let you know if you can't be heard.

9. Warm up
Your voice is like any other muscle in your body: if you use it cold, it won't work well. If you roll out of bed, get dressed, drink your coffee, then go straight to give your speech, there will be issues. Instead, make sure your vocal muscles are ready for work.

When you give speeches, you speak for longer periods at a time than normal, so if you don't prepare yourself, you can end up with a sore throat. Two of the best ways to warm up your voice are by humming (single low- to mid-range tones are best, as well as simple melodies or scales) and by doing tongue twisters.

If you need a good tongue twister to get yourself ready, try 'The big black bug bled blue-black blood'. Repeat for a while and you will be ready to knock 'em over.

10. Don't fill the void
How many times have you heard a speaker or interviewed someone for a job and tuned out because they filled the space between thoughts with sounds? You know what I’m… errr… talking… ummm… about.

This sounds very unprofessional, so instead of filling your voids with grunts, groans and signs of weakness, fill them with thought-filled, connected silence. Believe it or not, those pauses don't last as long as you think. And when your audience (be it a single person or a crowd) sees you are still connected to them, even between thoughts, you will keep their attention. In other words, do not drift off with unintelligible sounds or words between your thoughts. Hold your listeners' attention with silence as you continue to press forward.

What works for you?
These 10 simple tips will take your public speaking leaps and bounds beyond where it is now. Do you have a trick that helps you before you speak or interview for a job? If so, share it with us.

Credit: 10 easy ways to improve your public speaking from TechRepublic.com

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