7 Ultimate Tips for Public Speaking

culled from:codeofliving.com

1. Know your Material (Plan, Plan and Plan)

The more knowledgeable you are about what you’re speaking on, the better your presentation will become. It’s just logic. Like every other thing in this world if you can practice and prepare for your presentation enough you will become good at it. Repetition is the father of learning.
So try to know more about the topic and be prepared to tackle any sort of question. Another thing you should always keep in mind is that public speaking is very intuitive and that unexpected things are bound to happen. You can’t let them throw you off. So practice to the point you are ready for anything.
Say the microphone stops working or somebody accuses you of making things up…what will you say or do?
These are some things to keep in mind during your planning process.

2. Read and Assess Your Audience

To be a good public speaker you must be able to adapt to different situations. You have to be able to speak and behave differently for different situations. For example if you are speaking at a wedding your tone and style “has” to be a lot different than say  if you were speaking at a corporate meeting.
That’s why you have to learn how to pick up these social triggers. You must recognize your audience and mold your presentation accordingly. You need to learn to read between the lines.
Here are a few starting points to look for:

• What is the majority age bracket of your audience
• Does your audience mainly consist of males or females or is there an equal amount
• Are the mainly couples or single people in your audience
• What type of jobs do the people in your audience have

3. Familiarize Yourself with the Room

Always arrive early to the venue where you are presenting and make yourself comfortable with your surroundings. This can greatly calm your nerves and can make positive impact on your presentation
How big is the room? How loud will you have to be? How much people will there be?
Test the mike and other equipment to make sure everything is good to go. This will make you more comfortable and it will give you confidence. Also like the previous point, as people come in try to guess their personalities. If they come in and are laughing and talking you must present a certain way then if they come in solemn and quiet.

4. Feel Good about Yourself (Self Confidence)

The fear of public speaking is essentially two separate fears; One that you will make a fool of yourself and two that someone will make fun of how you look, dress etc.
So to overcome the first fear, practice your presentation to point where it comes out like water. Anticipate what you’re going to say next and try memorizing your lines.
As for becoming more comfortable in your skin on the day of the presentation:

• Wear your best clothes
• Your best shoes
• Your best perfume
• Get a fresh haircut and/or shave.

It might seem superficial to some but this can help. And any amount of extra confidence is important to speaking better.

5. Relax and Change Your Perspective

The best thing you can do for yourself to become better at public speaking is simply change your perspective on it.
Try reminding yourself that public speaking is just a conversation with multiple people rather than one. It isn’t really rocket science. Because take the place of an audience member for a second, you want the speaker to succeed and be interesting and entertaining
The more natural you behave the better your presentation will be. Just imagine talking to a group of your friends.

6. Concentrate

When you are about to present try to focus on only what you are going to say. Don’t think about messing up or what you look like. Just focus on your mouth and the words coming out.

Too many people spend too much time trying to perfect something before they actually do it. Instead of waiting for perfection, run with what you go, and fix it along the way… ― Paul Arden

This focus will not just help your presentation become better but you will feel more relaxed and confident as you will masterfully speak your well-versed speech to the audience.

7. Present with Certainty

The best presentations are those where the speaker is confident in what they are saying and they take command of the room and atmosphere. So go up strong and follow through on your message with body language.