As an accomplished life coach and former television actress, Leigh Ann Orsi knows a thing or two about public speaking. In the early stages of her life and career, she developed skills that make for a great public appearance.
Effective public speaking requires relaxation and awareness.
If you have a speaking engagement, here are a few things you can do now to improve your performance.
- Know your Material
When you are familiar with what you are presenting, you can relax onstage.
- Plan what you will present
- Practice it out loud until you feel comfortable with your voice.
- Record yourself on video making your presentation, and then watch the videos.
- Give yourself feedback and record it again until you are happy with your delivery.
- Listen to your greatest delivery over and over again so it sinks into your mind.
When you complete this process, you have covered all types of learning.
- The somatic experience of feeling yourself do the presentation many times.
- The visual experience of watching yourself
- The auditory experience of hearing yourself.
All learning types are covered in this process and everyone, no matter what learning style, will know the material when you are done. In time you will learn which style is best for you and focus on that specific technique.
- Practice in front of people.
When you know your presentation well enough that you can focus on people’s reactions in the audience instead of what YOU have to say, then you will know you are ready to present.
Great questions to ask yourself about the audience’s reaction:
- What points did they respond to?
- What moments did you lose their attention?
- Did they have any emotional reactions?
Use this feedback to refine what you have chosen to present.
- Plan to Pause
It’s important to give space for your audience to digest your material before racing forward to your next thought. A pause can oftentimes be what makes or breaks a presentation. A pause can often allow the audience to think about themselves. A pause can invite the audience to interact with you. I sometimes stop and hold a pause until the audience cheers before moving on. If I didn’t pause and give them the space to clap, I would have never gotten the applause. The audience needs a chance to consider how this information has affected them personally to relate to you before you offer them more information.
- Trust Yourself
If you have done the preparation above, you don’t need teleprompters and you don’t need copious notes. Trust that you know what to do. Have a little minimal cheat sheet prepared in case you get lost in the moment and need something to get you back on track. However, no audience wants someone to have their nose in a paper reading to them. So prepare enough so you can trust yourself to focus on your audience.
- Focus on the Audience
Finally, remember a presentation isn’t really about you, it is about the audience. The audience wants to feel seen and heard as a result of what you say. They want your eye contact. They want you to think about and react to them. It doesn’t matter what you say. It matters how the audience feels when you are done. The mark of a great presentation or performance is to leave the audience drenched in emotion.
