Written by: Maria Tecce, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Public speaking skills are no longer soft skills. They are the skills you need to get you that raise at work, the 1 million you need from investors or help you nail the TEDtalk you have coming up.
Becoming a better public speaker is a skill, like driving a car or learning Spanish, and the only way to become good at it is to get coaching from an expert, practice until you’re sick of the sound of your own voice, and get specific about what you need to improve.
There are a few tools you can practically apply right now that will move you up the ladder and raise the bar for yourself in your public speaking and presenting.
Here are three quick fixes that will help you become a better public speaker and start you on the journey to great speaking and presenting.
1. Eye Contact With Your Audience
Audiences love it when you make them feel like you are talking straight to them personally. When you make eye contact with audience members, it makes your message personal to them. Every audience loves to feel like they are the center of your world at that moment.
Eye contact when you’re face to face is straightforward: you make eye contact with real people individually in the audience. This creates a connection with the audience and makes your information personal.
Eye contact with your virtual audience is slightly different. The camera lens is each individual audience member’s eye line. So when you speak directly into the camera when you’re in virtual meetings, you’re speaking directly to each individual audience member.
The catch is, speaking directly to the camera during group meetings is awkward and it’s counterintuitive. Human instinct is telling you to look directly at people’s faces on the screen so you can see if what you’re saying is landing.
The problem in speaking directly to people’s avatars on the actual screen is that it appears you're looking AWAY from them and not at them directly. You have to do the opposite of what your instincts tell you to do in order to connect to the audience visually.
So get comfortable with the uncomfortable. Practice using the camera lens as a home base during your virtual meetings. It makes a huge difference to your audience and makes your words ALL about the audience.
2. The Power of Pause
The power of the pause is one tool that gives you huge bang for your buck when it comes to public speaking. We ALL need to slow down. If you rattle on apace and speed ahead, you will lose your audience. No audience will run to keep up with you. They’ll just stop listening.
The power of the pause is also hugely effective when it comes to parceling your information to the audience. In public speaking, you have to break down your story and content into bite-sized pieces for the audience.
The audience can’t take in too much information at once so parcel your words into chunks so we can hear your story more easily. Like the most exquisite meal, we want to savor each flavor and take our time, not be forced to wolf down the meal all at once!
Using the power of the pause in public speaking also helps create emphasis or drama. If you pause BEFORE a word or phrase, it creates that classic ‘tension... and then release' effect. If you pause AFTER a word or phrase, it gives the audience time to digest and process what you just said.
3. Breathe, Breathe, Breathe
For those of you who know me, you know that I harp on and on about breathing and how important it is for great public speaking.
Good breathing technique provides the highest quality fuel for your speaking, communications, and managing nerves. Breathing also is one of the tools that gives you big bang for your buck as a public speaking tool.
Breathing is the first stop on the journey to managing your nerves and helping to ground you when the panic and anxiety kick in. It also gives you time to think and reset if you get thrown off your stride during a speech, presentation, or high stakes meeting.
When you breathe, it gives you time to pause. And when you pause, it gives you time to breathe. Breathing also helps to slow you down and keeps you from speeding ahead and, as we mentioned above, losing your audience.
Breath is fuel for clear thinking and making clear choices with your words and how you color those words. It is also the support for your voice and the sound of your voice. When the adrenaline kicks in, your voice can sometimes shake with the nerves and breathing supports the sound to keep it steady and strong.
Quick Fixes for Better Public Speaking
Whether you’re an old pro or just getting started on your public speaking journey, these three techniques will turbocharge your speaking and presenting.
Clear, simple tools are always a shot in the arm and can transform your speaking in a short amount of time. Take it back to basics or launch yourself on a new road using these immediately applicable techniques.
Remember A.P.T.: Awareness, Practice, Prepare, and Play, and Take it public. Make a clear connection with your audience, slow down and take it to step by step, and breathe.
You’ve got this.
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Maria Tecce, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Maria Tecce is a leader in Public Speaking & Voice and Speech Coaching. After making her living as a professional actor, singer, and speaker for over 20 years, Maria began coaching business professionals and entrepreneurs in the same skills that professional performers use every day, so they can become memorable, engaging, and impactful speakers and presenters.
C-Suite and Senior Executives work with her when they want to up their game and show up as inspiring, passionate speakers in their businesses and for the people around them. Her clients include Google, Diageo, Ulster Bank, Bank Of Ireland, Ericsson, KPMG, Smurfit Business School, Johnson & Johnson, Salesforce, and Virgin Media. Maria is dedicated to helping powerful men and women take ownership of their confidence, authentic voice, and joy as speakers and communicators. Her mission states, "Own your voice, own your story, own the room.
