Basic Public Speaking Skills

Think first about your audience. Why should they want to hear what you have to say? What's in it for them, it other words? Secondly, think about how you can best communicate with your audience. What's the best way for you to explain what you want to them to know? Third, think about the actual content of your message, and make sure that message is clear and easy to grasp. And here's the secret----if you concentrate on these three key components of your message (audience, your delivery, and the message itself) you WILL be far less likely to be nervous. You will appear credible, because you ARE credible. You will appear knowledgeable, because you WILL be knowledgeable.

Now let's take each part separately. How to meet your audience's needs? Well, do you know what the needs are? If you don't know, this is your first piece of homework. You need to find out what the issues are. You need to understand what the concerns your audience have and may have in the future. Go and ask people. Go and ask people who work with the people you will talk to, and who manage those people. Find out what's going on.

Second, once you understand where your audience is in regard to the issues, you have a real head start as to how communicate with them. If, for example, they are most anxious about the impact of *******, you need to create information surrounding ******. Seems obvious, doesn't it? But, believe it or not, many speakers blindly regurgitate information, whether it's what the audience wants to know or not.

Third, your obligation is to make sure your message is understandable. Have you ever heard the story of "Napoleon's Servant?" Supposedly it's true, but regardless of whether it is or not, there is some real value here. The story relates that Napoleon had a need to communicate with his leaders in the field. He would formulate a plan and develop the words to explain that plan. Then he would call in "Napoleon's Servant." He would explain the plan to the servant. If the servant understood the plan, then Napoleon knew he could send the information out to his leadership in the field! Well, true or not, it's a great story, and brings us a valuable learning point. If you have complex information to impart to your audience, do a dry run with a colleague who has the same kind of knowledge-level that your audience will have. Believe it or not, this really does work. You will be able to determine the edits you need to make to your presentation once you have a sense of how it would be received by your target audience.

And that's about it! You truly can deliver a great presentation if you do your homework. Find out where your audience is, what they want and need to know, and how you can best deliver that information to them.