A big factor in public speaking success

Sleep may be the key to your success as a public speaker

Improve your memory, get more sleep is an article by Dr Joseph Mercola. Click that red link to be taken, magically, to his website. As always, his articles have many more links to lots of great material. On his site, you’ll read about how sleep is more important for public speaking success than….well, just about everything else.

Except of course – sorry to mention it – your timely preparation.

You’re unlikely to be able to sleep peacefully and well the day before your big event, if you’ve left most of the preparation until the last minute. Look, I know, I do know how busy you are. I know that you’re not all that keen on the conference you’ve been delegated to attend, and that there are countless other reasons for not getting on with the sort of preparation I outline in my Public Speaking Success e-Program.

That said, it’s up to you. But I hope that after you’ve read Dr Mercola’s article, you’ll be a little bit more inspired to allocate more than the night before to your preparation. I do feel a bit hypocritical saying that: I’m the one who did many of my University assignments the night before they were due, and I’ve been known to cram for public presentations too. However, as my public speaking engagements increased in volume and as more of my professional reputation rested on how well I delivered the presentations, I had to change my ways. If I can do it, any leopard can – in the name of public speaking success.

Multicultural names

Chairing a meeting or introducing speakers

Papagiannopoulos or even Patsiketheodorous is a cinch of a name to say compared with some names from Eastern Europe or Asia - if you speak Greek. We live in such a diverse society and although we can't all be as good as those newsreaders, we do need to put in the extra preparation needed to show respect - by not mis-pronouncing a person't name.

To put that more positively, it's absolutely vital that you pronounce a person's name correctly. To help you do that, if you're introducing speakers with polysyllabic names or names without vowels, make sure that you:

• Ask the person how to pronounce their name. Check with them on the spot that your hearing of that prononciation was correct. Practise saying that name until you feel comfortable that on Graduation evening, or whatever the event, you'll breeze through.
• I find it easier to telephone the person, do that checking and record my pronunciation for later re-inforcement.

Remember that names like Roberts or even Smithson can be tongue twisters for people whose first language is not English.

If you're a keynote speaker, an executive who regularly hosts staff meetings, a Dean at a College or University you must be prepared to put in the extra time to achieve public speaking success.

Eye contact is important

Public speaking success rests on a number of easy-to-learn basic rules. I don't really like to call them rules, so maybe principles is more appropriate.

Eye contact with your audience is an absolute must
Public speaking is different from having a conversation with your best friend in two main ways. First, there are more people listening. Secondly, when you're making a public presentation, not many people are speaking back to you. Except if it's an interactive type of lecture or a seminar in which you want the audience to speak.

I only mention the conversation with your best friend because the way you talk to her/him is the model you need to use when you're speaking to a room filled with strangers. Think about it. You look at your friend's face, you smile, you look into her eyes - without staring. You basically communicate with your eyes, that you are paying full attention to him. Right?

Eye contact tells your audience that you're interested in them
Some public speaking courses and some speech coaches make this part of public speaking success out to be akin to rocket science. It's not. It's very simple and straightforward.

Simply find three people in the first five rows of your audience, or three people in the circle if you're addressing a workshop of people sitting in a single rowed circle. Look at each person for about three seconds. Look into their eyes, as if they're the only person there. Then see if you can make eye contact with people ten rows back. That's not always possible, but when it is it gives you greater scope to individualise your message.

Please vary those people in the course of your talk. Start out with three, move then to another three people, either in the first row or the first few rows. Move your eyes back to the first three and so on. To give your poor eyes a rest, you can always look a the top of the head of person at the back of the hall.

As in all communication skills, it's a two-way benefit. The members of the audience with whom you make eye contact feel special and that you're talking to them. You benefit because you begin to realise that you are communicating with your audience in a truly authentic way.

Smile and the world smiles with you..

Public speaking success depends on using the full range of your communication skills to convey your message. As we'll discuss later in this blog, your 'message' will vary greatly. In one instance, it might be a complex set of data and your analysis of those data which you have to present (poor you!) to your clients or colleagues.

In another instance, it might be a heartfelt Toast to your best friend who's just turned 40, 50 or better still, 90. If you're really fortunate, you may have a daughter or six, and you'll be asked to deliver the most important Toast at her/their wedding. A little tangent here, if you'd like to have a great guide to everything you need to include in that speech, please visit one of my websites - Public Speaking Success e-Program. Once there, you can download for no cost at all, my blueprint for the father-of-the-Bride speech.

A genuine smile wins the day and helps win the audience
It doesn't matter one iota what your message is, where you're speaking, to how many people, if you puncutate your speech with a genuine smile your audience will respond much more positively.

I won't bore you with the psychological reasons, or alleged reasons, for that. I know intuitively that you already know how important a smile is to you in all your communications.

Remember yesterday when you were walking through the city streets and person after person rushed by in their own busy little world. Then, one person smiled at you. And moved on. It was great wasn't it? Of course, there can be times when strangers smiling at you can be a bit disconcerting but again, I am talking here about sincerity, about real smiles, about reaching out in a friendly way to others.

Even if you never have the opportunity to talk one-to-one with members of your audience, a genuine smile as part of what you're saying to them, automatically relaxes them and makes them feel more 'at-one' with you.

I found a wonderful website recently called Speechmastery (www.speechmastery.com). It's about public speaking and speechmaking generally. On that site was a very interesting article about learning how to master the art of smiling. It's here just for you http://speechmastery.com/smile.html Read, enjoy and learn about public speaking success.