Speaker, Leader, Champion summary

We all have to speak in front of audiences sometimes, whether it’s at a school presentation or a business meeting. It’s normal to feel nervous in these situations, and we can all work on improving our public speaking skills.

You’ll improve your capabilities in producing and delivering a speech as you practice public speaking. A strong speech isn’t just about a good topic and accurate facts. You'll also learn how to maintain eye contact, keep an authoritative but approachable kind of posture, project your voice well, and use humour appropriately. You'll learn how to correctly structure a speech, which will make it easier and more interesting for the audience to follow.

The first question you’ll probably ask yourself before you have to craft a speech is: What in the world am I going to talk about? Well, the secret to creating good speech content is to find a topic that will interest your audience, but that's also interesting to you personally.

First, ask yourself who your audience will be. They're the ones you're hoping your speech will affect. For example, when you give a speech to your family at Christmas, you’ll probably talk about love or the value of a close family, not your company’s new business strategy. This way, your audience is more likely to feel appreciated and inspired.

Sometimes a speech can have generally good content, but still seem to waver and lose the audience's attention. Why? Because speakers often put in too much unnecessary information, instead of focusing on the core of what they really want to say.

Focus is the key to a great speech. A seven minute speech, for example, really shouldn't have more than one main message. If it does, you won't have time to completely flesh out your points, and convince your audience of what you're saying. To stay focused, make sure you don't put in unnecessary information, such as irrelevant remarks or side-stories – this will make the audience's attention waver. The ultimate goal of your speech is to affect your audience, so distracting them from the message you want to send with superfluous information is counterproductive.

Have you ever been in an audience for a speech that really stuck with you? Did you feel a powerful bond with the speaker? That strong connection between the speaker and audience is what you’ll want to strive for in your speeches. You can build and maintain this connection by using both verbal and nonverbal skills.

The first thing you’ll want to consider on your way to building that connection is how you'd like to come off to the audience. Do you want to be a well-informed educator? Do you want to move the audience emotionally?

Training your public speaking skills is just like training for a sport: you need to practice continually and work with a coach who can guide you.

Working with a coach who speaks at the level you're trying to reach (or even at a higher level) will definitely help you progress. Speaking coaches are usually experienced and successful public speakers themselves, so you can work on trying to get your speaking skills up to their standard. On top of that, they've also learned the best techniques for passing their own skills onto others.