CHAMPION STRATEGIES – PUBLIC SPEAKING WORKSHOP – MARCH 31, 2021
Tips to Succeed at Your Next Event
When you think of impressive public speakers, one thing sticks out: Their passion for their topic.
That excitement is infectious and inspiring. It’s also the best way to attract and maintain audience attention.
Whether you want to expand your public speaking resume, or just get better at presenting in front of clients, these tips can help you meet your goals.
But remember, the most important thing you can do is to get fired up about your topic. Find an angle that excites you, and the rest will come.
Tips to Improve Your Public Speaking Skills
1) Define Your End Goal
The first thing to do when preparing a speech is to define your end goal. What do you want the audience to do after they leave the room? What information should they walk away with?
Once you’ve defined what you want your audience to take away, build your talking points around supporting that goal. This lends itself to a more focused and actionable speech that provides real value to your audience.
For example, let’s say a big conference has invited you to speak about how small businesses can grow their sales organizations. Start by nailing down your objective. If it’s getting the audience to hire you as a sales consultant, build your speaking topic around five things preventing small sales organizations from scaling.
2) Be a Giver, Not a Taker
Renowned speaker Simon Sinek says, “We are highly social animals. Even at a distance onstage, we can tell if you’re a giver or a taker, and people are more likely to trust a giver — a speaker that gives them value, that teaches them something new, that inspires them — than a taker.”
Once you’ve defined your end goal, build a presentation that offers real value to your audience, regardless of whether they pursue your product or service.
If you immediately and doggedly pitch your consulting service throughout your presentation, you’ll probably lose your audience’s trust, and the remainder of your presentation will lose its credibility.
Offer tips and strategies that will be fresh, useful, and insightful for your audience. And make any business pitches subtle and at the end of your presentation.
3) Make Slides an Aid, Not a Crutch
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association recommends using keywords, instead of sentences or paragraphs on your slides. This helps your audience focus on your message. The ASHA also suggest bulleting body copy, using punctuation sparingly, and never using more than eight words per line or eight lines per slide.
Another rule of thumb is to make your font size double the average age of your audience. This means the font for most of your presentations will be between 60 and 80 points.
When it comes to the age-old question “Prezi or PowerPoint?”, a recent Harvard study suggests there is a right answer. Research shows that Prezi’s “focus on meaningful movement” makes it a more effective presentation medium than PowerPoint. So next time you want to impress your audience, give Prezi a try.
