Many speakers are guilty of making faulty assumptions about their presentations, and their ability to deliver them well. Sometimes even seasoned speaking professionals like me fall victim to this behavior.
How about you?
In this article, you will learn:
Think of a group of people whose careers or circumstances require them to work well with one another: athletic teams, orchestras, or emergency room workers. If individual members “do their own thing,” the entire group suffers.
When you’re asked to present as part of a panel of experts or a team making a sales pitch, you might think that there is safety in numbers and that you need to prepare less than if you were speaking on your own.
The truth is that, for your audience, a group presentation is only as strong as its weakest presenter. Here’s how to help your team create a strong and unified group presentation.
Some speaking sins, like the occasional “ah” or “um”, will not doom your presentation. With good content, you can earn forgiveness from the audience for those sins.
Other speaking sins are so grave that when you commit them, your speech or presentation is certain to fail. This article reveals the seven deadly sins of public speaking.
When you deliver a message to your audience, you are providing customer service.
Do you provide good service, or bad service? More importantly, does it matter?
How many times have you sat in an audience and thought to yourself: “Man, I’d like to be up there!”
Perhaps you’ve given a few presentations and you find out that you’re pretty darn good at this speaking thing. Maybe you join Toastmasters and rise to the top of your club. Some time goes by and you start thinking “I can make a living at this. Imagine getting paid to speak!”
You decide to go for it.
So what’s next?
Is this the year you become a more effective speaker?
Is this the year you conquer your fear?
Is this the year you customize every presentation for the audience who will receive it?
Is this the year you worry less about ums and ahs, and worry more about connecting with the audience?
Is this the year you realize its not the quantity of information conveyed, but the quality of how you convey it?
When scheduled to speak, you may be tempted to review your notes or slides right up to the last minute. Last minute cramming like this is rarely of any value. Instead, this article explains three much more important things you should be doing to prepare.
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The opening article of the Speech Preparation Series outlined a six-step process for speech preparation.
This article focuses on the sixth step: critiquing your speech so you can learn from your strengths and weaknesses. Thus, a self-critique is really the first step in preparation for your next speech.
Have you heard this claim?
“Practicing makes me robotic. My speeches are better and more natural if I just work from my outline.”
This may be acceptable for scenarios where you don’t care about the result, but in all other cases, it’s hogwash.
The eighth in the Speech Preparation Series, this article provides practical ideas for maximizing the benefit from your practice time.
Previous articles in this Speech Analysis Series covered how to study and critique a speech, how to approach the task of evaluation, and how to use the modified sandwich technique.
This article provides a speech evaluation form and explains how it supports you in studying and evaluating speeches.
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