Last month I was watching pastor TB Joshua giving a sermon to his congregation at the Synagogue of All Nations Church and I completely captivated by the way in which he spoke. This got me thinking about my own abilities as a public speaker, I often need to speak in front of large groups as part of my job and whilst I can do it, I was completely in awe of Joshua, standing there in front of thousands of people and engaging them all thoroughly.
I started jotting down some notes and doing some research on how you can be a better public speaker and what methods there were to improve your delivery and you ability to captivate and audience. A couple of weeks ago I had to speak at work and I employed some of the strategies that I’d studied and it went very well. I wanted to share with you then, a few tips and trick for how you can be a better public speaker.
Bookends
The most important parts of your speech is at the beginning and at the end, you need to utilize the beginning of the speech to grab the attention of the audience. You can do this with good joke or even a proclamation of some kind, anything that will get them looking at you with open ears. When it comes to the ending of your speech, this is what most people will remember such is the way memory function works and you should close on a profound point that rounds off your entire speech.
Use Your Body
In a strategy that will help both with your nerves and to engage the audience you should be using your body effectively when making points. Your arms can play a key role here and whilst you should avoid flailing them about, you can use them to reinforce key points of your speech. Using the space that you have to walk a little is also a good idea, this can help to calm the nerves and will keep the audience’s eye on you.
Don’t Avoid Humor
Far too often people think that injecting some humor into a public speech is a bad idea, this thought process usually comes from the fear of making a bad joke. There is nothing wrong however, with pre-planning a joke into your speech, don’t do it off the cuff as spontaneous jokes may end up being ill-timed and causing offense.
Practice
Religiously practicing your speech will not ensure perfection, what it will do however is calm your nerves sufficiently so that you can be more confident when delivering the speech. Perfection is not what you should be searching for when you are giving a speech, it should be a little raw and allow your personality to shine through. You ought to practice several times in the days before your speech in order to get to grips with what you are going to say and how you are going to say it.