Editor’s note: This article was first published in September 2014, shortly after Hettiarachchi won the 2014 Toastmasters International World Championship of Public Speaking, which is why it describes him as recently named champion.
Public speaking is an art too. And it is an art you should learn as soon as possible, because it is not only useful in case you one day become someone important and need to give a talk or a lecture. You need to learn to speak in public because throughout your career you will have to give certain presentations. So today we are going to look at some public speaking techniques.
Some people get nervous in a job interview, others when presenting an idea to a group of investors, at company meetings and so on.
According to Dananjaya Hettiarachchi, recently named world champion of public speaking after competing against more than 33,000 speakers from around the world, there is no difference between speaking to 6 people and speaking to 5,000. The only thing that changes is that to address a sizeable crowd you will need a microphone.
But most people fail simply because of a lack of practice and rehearsal, which leads to insecurity and nerves. And this happens even to the most confident people.
So Hettiarachchi shares six tips for anyone who at some point has to give a presentation, a talk or a lecture.
See also: The secrets JFK and Hitler used to win over the masses
Six public speaking techniques
1. Always start with a message
This veteran speaker says that one of the most common mistakes made by people with no experience of public speaking is to begin their speeches with a topic rather than a message. You should start with a message that is as concise as possible, and that message should stay with your audience once your presentation is over.
The message he opened his latest talk with was that if you don’t burn for your dream, your dream will burn.
2. The message and the talk should be spontaneous and natural
Although you have to rehearse and prepare the speech, you should write it down or record it and practise it until you have it memorised. Then you have to keep rehearsing until it sounds as natural as possible and not mechanical.
Along the way you will add some parts and drop others and make changes as you go, and the initial speech will have nothing to do with the one you finally deliver.
3. Be confident enough to be yourself
You have to sell yourself before you sell your message. Hettiarachchi admits that this is easier said than done, saying it took him ten years to learn to be himself on stage. In his view, a speech should be conversational, not theatrical.
And this only comes through trial and error, even pretending that you are in a room with your friends and not with hundreds or thousands of people you don’t know. After all, would you talk to your friends the same way you would talk to strangers? Until you achieve that same naturalness, you will not fully connect with the audience.
4. See yourself through your audience’s eyes
Novice speakers tend to ramble on too long, and sometimes their talk is completely flat, which ends up being boring. When you put yourself in the listener’s seat, you discover that what you want from a talk is to be made to feel emotions.
That is why the perfect speech is more like a roller coaster. Hettiarachchi says that one of his famous TED talks was a constant ride of emotions mixing drama and humour. When you get the audience to shudder at your story for 10 minutes and, a minute later, roar with laughter, you have achieved the right level of attention.
5. Have a forum to practise in
Eighty per cent of the road to becoming a great speaker is trial and error, and the only way to learn is to get up in front of an audience. There is no other way. It is like learning to drive: you will never learn until you take the driver’s seat.
A forum will also give you honest feedback. More and more groups and communities are springing up in practically every city, meeting once a week to practise the art of public speaking. If you are too embarrassed to go to one of these forums, then when the time comes you will die on a stage in front of 100 people.
6. Find a mentor
As with everything in life, finding a mentor who is already an expert in what we want to do will make the learning process much faster, because they will give us some of the techniques that helped them and some advice on what to avoid. In short, they will help us see the right and wrong steps, although they will not stop us from failing.
Hettiarachchi acknowledges that he has had several mentors throughout his life. In his words, the road to becoming a great speaker is the road to feeling comfortable sharing who you are with other people, and a coach or mentor can push you to reach that goal.
Further reading
- Advanced techniques for becoming a good speaker (the ones TED speakers use)
- The nine most common mistakes when speaking in public
Featured image: delegateconnectimages, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
