How many times have you gone to hear a speaker only to be disappointed? What was it that made you disappointed? I’m willing to bet that at least part of the problem was that they were a boring speaker – you didn’t need to have great listening skills to discover that they didn’t grab and hold your attention.
Since you never want your audience to think about you in the same way, you’ve got to take steps to make sure that this never happens to you. It turn out that the solution to this speaking problem doesn’t involve any presentation tips and is actually quite simple – get some enthusiasm!
Let Your Body Talk
Your body will be having its own conversation with your audience during your speech, make sure that you know what it’s saying! In order to make sure that your body communicates your enthusiasm to your audience, there are several things that you have to do.
The first is to realize that your audience is going to spend most of their time looking at just one part of your body – your face. This means that you need to take steps in order to make sure that your face is as expressive as it can be. Move your eyebrows and nod or shake your head as your speech requires.
Don’t forget the rest of your body. This means make sure that you maintain good eye contact with your audience. Be sure to stand up straight and tall. Make sure that your body stance is such that you are open to your audience – use your body to show them just how excited you are about what you’ll be talking about.
Word Power
Speakers know about the importance of public speaking but all too often we get caught up in the world of PowerPoint and we forget what our most powerful speaking tool really is: our voice. Your voice is how you can allow your audience to share the experience of your speech with you.
The words that you use will determine how vivid your speech is to your audience. Taking the time to use descriptive words will help to build a mental picture for your audience. If you use action verbs and colorful nouns then the mental pictures will turn into a mental movie and your audience will be hanging on your every word.
Come Down To Where Your Audience Is
The one thing that can keep us separated from our audience is if we are operating at different energy levels. If you are always operating at a high energy level throughout your speech, then you’re going to spook your audience.
Instead, what you need to do is to plan out your energy levels. Yes, you can be operating at a high energy level sometimes and in fact if you want your audience to remember a specific point, it’s good to deliver it with a lot of energy. However, balance this with other parts of your speech where you are operating at a lower energy level in order to balance out the image of you that your audience receives.
What All Of This Means For You
The reason that all of us go to the effort of getting up in front of an audience and go to the effort of delivering a speech is because we want to make an impact on them. We know the benefits of public speaking and we’ll lose them if we come across as being boring because then this is not going to happen.
In order to make sure that we are able to connect with our audience, we need to inject some enthusiasm into our next presentation. This level of energy is infectious. If we can show our audience that we believe in what we are talking about, then what will happen is that we’ll be able to draw them into our speech and get them excited.
Enthusiasm is not something that can be faked. As a speaker you are going to have to take a careful look at what you’ll be talking about and find what part of it captures your attention the most. You can then use this part to generate the level of enthusiasm that you’ll be able to use during your speech in order to make sure that you truly make an impact on your audience!
– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™
Question For You: Do you think that it is possible for a speaker to come across as being too enthusiastic?
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Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!
What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time
How many times have you gone to hear a speaker only to be disappointed? What was it that made you disappointed? I’m willing to bet that at least part of the problem was that they were a boring speaker – you didn’t need to have great listening skills to discover that they didn’t grab and hold your attention. Since you never want your audience to think about you in the same way, you’ve got to take steps to make sure that this never happens to you. It turn out that the solution to this speaking problem doesn’t involve any presentation tips and is actually quite simple – get some enthusiasm!