Public Speaking Tips For A Better Presentation

Life Coach, Beth Tabak talks about facing the fear of public speaking head on based on her own experiences:

Face Your Fear of Public Speaking- Pave the Way from Paralyzed to Powerful
January 12th, 2007 Category: Self Help

Are you allowing your fear of public speaking to hold you back from what you really want? Don’t allow fear to control you. Learn from my experience of facing fear head on.

In 2002 I made the decision to overcome my fear of public speaking. As an adventurous person, I was sick and tired of this one fear holding me back. I could go caving…crawling into dark trenches, parasail in the Bahamas, sail around and explore uninhabited islands, or ski at great speed down a mountain. But the thought of standing in front of a group and having to speak with all attention on me was petrifying. If you would have told me a few years ago that I would be speaking in public in the near future, I would have told you there was no way and that you have lost your mind.

However, the day came when I could see that fear was holding me back from what I really wanted in my life and it was time to take it on. I realized that fear is really in the future. You see fear is about what might happen, and usually doesn?t. I realized that fear was controlling me, and I was ready to take back control. If you are ready to take on your fear of public speaking dig
down, grab some courage, and read the following tips.

1- Make the decision to face your fear head on with courage and grace. Taking on your fear by itself is beautiful, admirable, and will make you feel good about you.

2- Set a time period to focus on this challenge. This is not a one time try it and see if you like it. It is a process. I chose one year. Is my fear gone? Not completely, and I made so much progress that I am excited about where this will lead. Setting the time period will focus you on the process and not one particular event. During the process you will gain experience, knowledge, and confidence.

3- Get support. Join a group such as Toastmasters (www.toastmasters.com) or develop your own support group of friends, associates, and family to back you. Set it up the way it makes you feel comfortable. Some may want a group of friends at an event to support them. I preferred just having one. You may want to practice on someone. These people will support you to help you gain confidence.

4- Go into it with no expectations. Simply having the guts to try is an honor in itself. When there are no expectations you are setting the stage for success. You have nothing to worry about. You do not have to be brilliant. For the first year my goal for each talk was to have one person walk away with something that would add value to their life. This year it will be two…even though the feedback shows I have reached many more than that. No expectations reduces your stress level.

5- Keep it simple. Choose a topic that you are very comfortable with. Keeping the amount of time in mind choose only one to three key points that you believe will add value to your audience. The audience will consist of people who have different learning styles…visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. It is helpful to keep all three in mind while preparing. A handout or vivid story may benefit the visual learner while an interactive exercise may intrigue the kinesthetic learner. Using stories and interactive exercises gets the audience involved and keeps it easy on you. They are not looking for or expecting perfection. They simply want something of value to take home with them…a good feeling, a helpful tip, the inspiration to do something new, or just to be able to say they had a great evening out.

6- Prepare, prepare, prepare. When I really looked into my fear I found that in the past I had never taken the time to be well prepared. I do not mean memorize. Prepare to a point where you feel ready.

7- Choose a montra such as ?I will grow from this experience and love myself no matter what.? Just a reminder that no event can be so big as to destroy you. If you mess up…big deal! What if a toddler after his first fall said ?that?s it…I?m never going to walk.? What do we tell frustrated kids when they are learning to read and say ?I?ll never be able to read!?? We tell them ?Yes you will…keep practicing…you?ll get it.? They do. We can learn a lot from watching kids face their fears one after another and succeed.

8- Maintain a positive attitude and stifle your inner critic. When you notice your inner critic taking over shift your attitude to something positive. Visualize yourself succeeding. Confidently tell yourself you can do it…even if you have doubt. Focus on how awesome you will feel when it is over and you have faced your fear. If you are a spiritual person prayer works wonders. Do whatever it takes to encourage and coach yourself to success.

9- Meet the audience. They really want to support you. Plan to get to the event a little bit early (not too early) in order to get a feel for where you will be and the events leading up to your talk. I like to go around and meet the audience. You quickly realize that they are not big ogres… just real people.

10- Breathe. Whenever the butterflies are getting the best of you remember to breathe. Take slow deep breathes in through the nose from the diaphragm and out through your mouth. Relax into it.

11- Use your nervous energy. When you are introduced use your nervous energy to get you started. Walk up with excitement, stand tall, and speak out with confidence.

12- Be yourself. Don?t try to mimic someone else. Be human. For those of you who remember Johnny Carson?s monologues, he was the best at using a bad joke to his advantage. Many of the comedians today follow his lead. Oprah?s tremendous success has been in part to her ability to relate to the audience by showing her humanness and putting her own challenges and struggles out there. How many people would feel comfortable having a multi-millionaire as influential as Oprah come to their home? Yet I get the impression that most of Oprah?s audience would feel right at home having Oprah over for tea.

13- Focus on the task at hand and not the reaction of the audience. Follow your plan. Do it your way and not as a reaction to others. As you gain experience you can become more flexible. In the beginning, stick to your plan and learn from the experience. Keep in mind that the one person that you think dislikes you the most may be the one listening most intensely and gaining the most from your talk.

14- Distribute comment cards and collect them right away. Ask for honest feedback on the comment cards and accept them with an open mind. This is a great way to have people sign up for your newsletter or to receive more information from you. When you make it a safe place for them to share their information you will receive more cards. You can have a drawing for a free gift to encourage more to participate. In any event, the comment cards are a wonderful tool for you and the positive comments increase your confidence.

15- Celebrate! Celebrate that you faced your fear with grace and courage. Honor yourself for that.

If you have read this far than you are ready to face your fear, otherwise I am lucky and totally grateful to have held your attention this long. Get out of paralysis by taking the first step. As you gain experience you will improve and gain confidence. You can do it! Pave your way one step at a time and you will gain the power to take back control of your life and to achieve all that you want to be.

Please send your comments and tell me what you want to read. l would love to hear from you! Copyright 2003, Beth A. Tabak, All rights reserved.

About the Author

Beth Tabak is a Professional Life Coach and owner of Starting Now. She coaches business professionals and those who want to make big changes to upgrade their business while upgrading their life. Prioritize, systemize, stay focused, and take action. Working with a coach adds support and accountability for greater success. E-mail to set up a free ?Try It Out? session and have your questions answered. To learn more visit www.cvreferral.com/2/101475.html or e-mail startingnow@houston.rr.com.

This is certainly sound advice for those who are ready to take these steps and if followed they'll certainly help you become more adept at public speaking. Those who are phobic may need more than advice to get to this point though.

Public Speaking For Marketing

There are some great points here -

How To Promote Your Business By Speaking in Public

Posted in Uncategorized by admin on the January 12th, 2007

As an entrepreneur, public speaking has to be one of the most effective ways of marketing yourself. There are countless opportunities out there for you to get yourself in front of your target market. There is no better way to have a captive audience full of prospects. It is the fastest way of establishing yourself as an expert.

You don’t have to be a professional speaker to speak in public. Just doing a reasonable job is better than not doing anything at all.

Prospects are much more likely to engage your services if they’ve seen you speak. Let’s look at the following example. Say you were looking for an accountant. Would you be more inclined to trust someone you had found in the Yellow Pages, or someone you had heard speak knowledgeably at the local Chamber of Commerce?

Look into opportunities in your local area where you can offer to speak for free. Professional associations, networking groups, Chambers of Commerce, educational bodies and Rotary Clubs are all potential public speaking venues. They often look out for speakers for their events, meetings and workshops.

Also research the audience that is going to be at your talk. For example, what industries are they likely to represent? Are they from large or small companies? What would interest them? What angle should your presentation take?
When it comes to finalizing your speech topic, be sure to make it sound enticing and interesting. People often decide whether to attend a talk based on just the title so put some serious thought into this.

Practice is key to coming across in a professional manner and reducing nerves. Write your speech out in full, but never read it verbatim. Have an outline prepared and available for you to refer to.

Check with the event organizer how long you have for your talk. Include timing in your practice runs. There is nothing worse than having a speaker run over time.
Get the most mileage out of your presentation by having some promotional material at the back of the room, for example some business cards, flyers or brochures that people can take with them if they wish.

You can be even more proactive and set up a newsletter before starting to give speeches. At the end of your presentation you can encourage your audience to sign up for your newsletter in exchange for a promotional gift or free e-book. That way you have also added valuable contacts to your database.

Many entrepreneurs swear by public speaking as a way of building and maintaining a steady stream of clients for their businesses.

Getting in front of people is the most effective way of building rapport - and as people tend to do business with people they like, it's gotta make sense! From a marketing perspective it is a low cost (or many times no cost) marketing opportunity.

Just make sure if you are a entrepreneur, when you do speak to groups you MUST get contact info for attendees and then use them.