Effective Public Speaking Techniques

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We’re gonna talk about five effective public speaking techniques, and helping me this week is my YouTube friend, Dr. Bruce Lambert. So let’s get into it. (upbeat music) If this is your first time on this channel we are all about helping you with your professional development and communication skills, and that’s why I asked Bruce Lambert to share his five secrets for doing a great presentation.

He is a college professor like me and has a great YouTube channel called How Communication Works. I’m honored to have him on this channel. But before we get into his tips, Bruce, can you tell us a little bit about your channel? – Hi, Alex.

Thanks so much for having me. My channel’s called How Communication Works. It’s a channel for people who wanna improve their communication skills so that they can improve their relationships, succeed at work, be more confident, and lead a more fulfilling life.

– Excellent. I’ll be sure to link to Bruce’s channel below so you can take a look. So Bruce, tell us your five tips on how we can become more effective presenters, and be sure to give us that bonus tip at the end that I was asking about when we were talking about this over email.

– What I wanted to share with your audience today, Alex, were five tips that I think are absolutely essential for being successful at public speaking. These five tips taken together will make anyone a more engaging, entertaining, and effective public speaker.

The first of my tips is to use movement. Get out from behind the podium and move around. If you think of some of the most effective public speakers you’ve ever seen, unless they’re having to stay behind a podium for television cameras like sometimes politicians have to, really effective public speakers tend to move around.

That’s because the movement provides dynamic energy to the audience, and it also gets you out from behind the podium where you might be tempted to look at your notes and read from your notes, and kind of hide from the audience.

So get out from behind the podium and walk around. Now you don’t want to pace back and forth like you’re really, really nervous, but you wanna kind of move with natural energy back and forth across the stage or in front of the audience or even walk up and down the aisles if you’re in a classroom kind of a setting, and let people know that you’re comfortable and engaged, and want to kind of have a conversation with them.

And this movement should include not only you walking around and getting out from behind the podium, but also movement in your upper body, movement in your head, your face. You want, generally, not to be fixed like a statue because you’re so nervous, but moving in a relaxed and comfortable fashion like you’re having a conversation with friends.

Number two is to be passionate and enthusiastic. One of the keys to effective public speaking is not to bore your audience. You wanna keep them engaged, and you do that with energy and enthusiasm, and nothing comes across with more energy and enthusiasm than if you have passion in the topic that you’re talking about.

The best way to do this is actually to speak about topics where you genuinely feel this passion where you don’t have to fake it because you really are passionate and enthusiastic about the thing you’re talking about.

That won’t always be the case because sometimes at work and at school we have to give public speeches about topics where, let’s face it, we’re not exactly naturally enthusiastic about them. But we have to find something in the topic that allows us to be passionate and enthusiastic, and then you have to share that passion and enthusiasm with the audience.

That will keep them engaged. Then they’ll be hanging on every word. So you’ll see that I tend to speak with a certain amount of intensity. That’s because I really do feel passionately about these topics.

I really want you to improve your communication skill. I really want you to learn these five techniques to be a better public speaker, and that comes across in the way I speak. The third tip is to use humor.

Now, this doesn’t always mean telling a conventional joke that has a traditional setup and then a punchline. Some people are really good at telling jokes. If you’re good at telling jokes and you know some good jokes that are appropriate to the audience, then go ahead and tell a joke.

But a lot of us aren’t like comedians good at telling standard set up jokes. So in that case, if that describes you, then tell funny stories. People love to hear stories, and people love to hear funny stories.

Even better if they’re funny stories about you or things that have happened to you. So work hard when you’re developing your speech to find something humorous in the topic itself or in the way that it relates to you or in the way that it relates to your audience.

Something humorous. Humor can be a double-edged sword because some humor borders on being inappropriate for certain audiences. So you have to use your professional judgment to only use humor that’s appropriate for your audience or else humor can really backfire, and you can leave a very bad impression if you use profanity or humor that in some way offends part of your audience.

But most of the time, a funny story about yourself on the topic will be a huge winner. Step four is to use surprise. Try to surprise your audience with a fact that they didn’t know, with an anecdote that they didn’t know, with some sort of twist on the topic.

Most topics that we have to talk about have a kind of conventional set of facts that many people know maybe a little bit about. Try to find that one thing about the topic that’s counterintuitive, that’s unexpected, that’s surprising, and save that to the end.

Lead people along. Lead them to believe one thing, and then hit them with that surprise. Surprise has a great way of engaging an audience, drawing them in, and keeping them interested. So find that surprising fact or story and include it in your presentation.

Tip number five, Alex, is to use a conversational tone. You can tell in the way that I speak that it’s like I’m having a conversation. Well, you and I are having a conversation, Alex. But for those of you who are out there watching, next time you’re giving a public speech, I think this is the most important advice I can give you.

Try to speak like you’re having a conversation with the audience. Try to bring down any artificial wall or barrier which exists between you and your audience. You can tell many of my other tips are related to this tip.

So getting out from behind the podium, being passionate and enthusiastic, using humor and surprise, all of these are trying to break down the formality of the public speech. Most of us don’t have to give formal public speeches like the State of the Union, like a politician has to give.

Most of us are giving public speeches in relatively informal business and social settings. So in that case, have a conversation with your audience. Talk to them as if you’re talking to them one on one.

This lowers these boundaries of formality, opens up people’s minds, gets them engaged, and because a conversation involves turn taking, they’ll always be on the edge of the seat as if you’re about to ask them to contribute to this conversation that you’ve started.

So be conversational. – Okay, Bruce. Now hit us with that bonus tip. – One last quick tip. Show some vulnerability. This will draw the audience towards you, and make them feel closer to you, and make them appreciate you more.

One of the best ways to show vulnerability is to use a little self-deprecating humor, to tell a joke at your own expense, to tell a story about when maybe you did something embarrassing. To just be a little bit vulnerable reveals something slightly personal about yourself.

Reveal a flaw or a foible or something that you’re not completely proud of that allows you to show a little vulnerability to the audience. Alex, thanks so much for having me on your channel. You know that you’ve been a role model for me here on YouTube, and I’ve been a big fan of you and your channel ever since I first discovered you on YouTube.

So thanks again for having me on. – Great tips, Bruce. I love them all, especially that last tip about being vulnerable. It’s really like a secret weapon. People love authenticity. Bruce, I’m honored to have you on the channel, and if you would like to see more from Bruce I’ve linked to a popular video on his channel about how to listen better.

Also, Bruce will post a comment, and I’ll pin that comment to the top of that section so you can go to his channel just by clicking on his name, and make sure to say hi. So God bless, and I will see you soon.

Source : Youtube

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