Janet Schlarbaum Public Speaking Tips

3 Ways to Improve Public Speaking Skills

Janet Schlarbaum Speaking Skills By Ronnie Taggy

First of all, if you want to be an effective public speaker and improve your public speaking skills, you must get over your irrational fear of giving speeches and talking to large groups of people. Some people lose sleep for weeks before giving a speech, while others shake violently while they are speaking. This is a unnecessary evil and it can be dealt with easily with a little motivation, inspiration and perspective. Just like with anything else in life, you need training. You didn’t just KNOW how to use a toilet…you were trained! I know it sounds silly, but it’s true.

Also, it is important that you can stand behind any statement, statistic, argument or point that you put out there and back it up with reliable evidence or citation. If you can’t back up your arguments, the audience will lose interest fast and you will not be respected. Try to be more general in your speech, some people are easily offended and you really want things to go nice and smooth so tickle everyone’s fancy.

Don’t start talking about your beliefs about God or who should be th next president. Stick to your topic and if you are going to use humor, which is always a good thing…make sure it’s on topic! Nothing is worse than telling a bad joke that is off subject and losing everyone’s attention, trust me.

Finally, you want to grab your audience’s attention within the first couple paragraphs of your speech or presentation. Provide a really powerful headline or a shocking statistic (that you can back up of course). This will always snag your listeners attention and keep them waiting for more. It’s a time tested technique and you can use it to improve your public speaking skills dramatically. Once you have the confidence of knowing people WANT to hear what you have to say, it’s all uphill from there!

Public Speaking – Practical Tips to Get Started and Develop Self Confidence

Janet Schlarbaum Public Speaking By Edward Hope

The rewards of being a confident speaker are great. You will be recognised as being of leader material. You can achieve more through 5 minutes of effective speaking than 5 years of grind. A few well chosen words on the subject under discussion will receive favourable attention and command respect.

Getting started in any field of endeavour is often the most difficult part. The tips given here outline an approach to getting started in public speaking that have proved successful in developing self confidence in speaking either in public or in conversation.

Your First Appearance

Your first appearance in public need only brief. No more than a few words is all that is required, e.g. stating your name and occupation. If you are tempted to fidget or wring your hands, clasp your hands behind your back.

You can still be a hit with your audience by acknowledging the fact that you are new to public speaking. Just avoid using the clichéd “unaccustomed as I am to public speaking.” Instead say something like “This is my first appearance before an audience and I am very nervous. My name is …… and my business is ………, and some day I hope to tell you more. Then sit down.

Practice Fields

To find somewhere to practice will require a little initiative. When practicing swimming you will need to find a swimming pool and when practicing public speaking you need to find a meeting. Fortunately there are thousands of meetings held every day that will give an ambitious speaker ample opportunity to be heard. Also there are two organisations that are great places to help you to become more confident speaker. They are Toastmasters International and the Dale Carnegie Institute.

Persistence

A little and often is the key to building confidence and improving your performance. A brief speech delivered often is more effective than a longer speech given infrequently. More than any other human activity confident speaking is learned by doing and improved by practice.

Preparation

Thorough preparation is of key importance. Self confidence will develop as a result of full preparation for your speech. With a full understanding of your topic you will radiate confidence.

Overcoming Stage Fright

Unfortunately there is no silver bullet to over the normal human anxiety of nervousness before speaking. There are techniques that can help with this such as – positive mental attitude, visualising success and deep breathing etc. In the end it comes down to exercising a little courage to make the decision to start and then stepping out and doing it. Your first appearance will open a bud of confidence that with proper care and attention, you can flower into being an effective confident speaker.

It is worth noting when making your initial appearances in public – that a part time speaker that knowing their subject fully and having something worthwhile to communicate can outshine the seasoned professional from the audience’s viewpoint.

Overcoming Nerves – In Public Speaking And Entertaining

Janet Schlarbaum Speaking And Entertaining By Johnnie Gentle

Many people often assume that those of us who stand up to perform or take part in any form of public speaking are not troubled by nerves and that their own attempts would only be doomed to failure because of their feelings of nervousness and fear.

These thoughts only exacerbate the feelings. When they do attempt to speak, their mouth goes dry, the hands begin to sweat, the stomach churns and a feeling of nausea takes over. Very often they begin to tremble and the brain seems to stop working.

In this confused state they just ‘freeze’ and yet another negative experience is added to their memory banks, with the certain declaration of – “Never Again”.

First of all, we need to understand why we feel this nervousness. Let’s face it, – we know we can speak; we’ve rehearsed and practiced well, the family thought the act or the tricks were great, or the speech was amusing, so there’s really nothing to be afraid of there.

We’ve checked our ‘flies’, – so nothing to worry about in that respect. If you have prepared what you want to say and rehearsed your act well, then you should be ‘home and dry’ and it should be a breeze. I can assure you, if you have done the preparation, it will be a breeze, but you will still feel nervous.

During my entertaining days I suffered badly from nervousness prior to going on stage. As a matter of fact I still do to this day. My act always went down really well and I was inundated with bookings and re-bookings, so my confidence was always high. However, the nerves were always a nightmare prior to starting my act and I could never understand why.

An old experienced entertainer once told me that all good performers, whether in show business or sports performance or even academic or business performers, – feel nerves to varying degrees, and usually the higher standard of performance, – the greater the feeling of nerves and apprehension.

He explained that it’s not the fear of not being able to perform, or of forgetting your lines, (or in the case of the sportsman, of not being able to run the race), it is actually the fear of not quite living up to your own high standards.

You see the good, conscientious performer sets his sights and standards as high as he possibly can, and so even as he improves, he keeps pushing his standards that little bit higher. You can therefore see why he will never free himself of these feelings of nerves and apprehension. It’s simply a concern that you will not live up to your own high standards.

So how do we overcome nerves? – Well, you don’t. You simply learn to understand and nurture them as your friends and your guides, which help to ensure a really high standard of performance.

You could of course lower your sights, but this would surely lead to lowering your performance and eventually no performance at all. Yet, this is what most people do. They lower the standard of their performance, taking on only the easy stuff, the things they are confident they can do.

However, lowering the standard of your performance is not the way. It may just help decrease nerves, but it will eventually kill your performance completely. You see, when speakers or entertainers get a bad reception or “die”, as we say, they very often never perform again. “Finished!”

Secrets on How to Improve Your Public Speaking Skills

Improve Your Janet Schlarbaum Speaking Skills By Zach Keyer

It is True… for some, it is spiders; for many, ghosts; and others would say heights, but there are those who actually admit that public speaking is their greatest fear.

It is actually commonplace. Come to think of it, there can sometimes be nothing more frightening than having to stand up and speak in front of a group of people who could very likely shout at you, laugh at you, or leave while you are in the middle of talking. Even actress Debra Messing of the hit show Will and Grace surprisingly had this fear all her life. And she is a professional actress! Imagine how much worse this could be for those who have not even had the chance to go up on a stage at all in their lives.

Thankfully, public speaking is a fear that can easily be overcome. If you are not exactly paralyzed by fear, but you think you still have room for improvement on it, then you are realizing the fundamental truth that is facing us all. You can improve your public speaking skills quite easily by following the beginning tips mentioned below.

Remember to be prepared and get your practice. The value of preparation can never be overemphasized. It adds confidence and substance to your speeches and presentations. Research the topic you will talk about and try to find the best way to present it (angle-wise). Outline your major points and use cue cards if necessary/available. Practice your speech-delivery to make sure that your talk will not exceed the time allotted for you, and so that you could also asses your delivery from your own perspective. If you are to be the lead-speaker in a very important engagement, try to practice your speech in front of someone who could properly assess how you have done… and is able to provide honest feedback to you.

Also, Know your audience… technically, this is still part of being prepared. However, it is just so important that it calls for a separate mention. Knowing your audience provides you with valuable insight on the angle and perspective of presentation that would appeal best to them. It guides whether you can be casual and funny or whether you would be better served to be serious and analytical. It also gives you great input in streamlining your speech by suggesting what you need to include and what you can do without.

Also critical is to dress the part. As much as we refuse to admit it, image can sometimes be everything. How the audience responds to you can highly depend upon how they perceptually perceive you. Generally, you would appear as a more convincing speaker if you are dressed as business casual or business formal. Also, since the audience will have to look at you anyway, you might as well make your appearance a pleasant one for them.

Keeping the KISS in mind. Keep It Short and Simple. Even geniuses have limited attention spans… no special talent for the A.D.D. afflicted needed at all. Do not bore your audience to death with a speech that is too long. The faster you can get your message across, the better. A short and simple message also appears smarter while preventing you from being perceived as someone who came unprepared and is fumbling through their presentation. It also allows your listeners to retain what you have said easily. Including the opportunity for you to perform valauble rephrasing of your concepts – for added comprehension by your audience.

In addition to these quick tips, your public speaking skills will also be improved if you practice establishing periodic or constant eye contact with your audience. Also, if the occasion and your resources will permit, you can use visual aids such as slide presentations, handouts, product samples, etc to stimulate your audiences attention. To finish off your presentation, you should plan to answer the audiences question confidently and with a caring and informative attitude.

Improve Your Janet Schlarbaum Speaking Skills