EVEN Sneak Peek: How to Get Better at Public Speaking
By Dr Nora Koslowski
Whether you have ambitions of becoming a public speaker or not, the skill of speaking is one to absolutely nail if you want to progress in your career. Public speaking is, at its core, simply about articulating your ideas clearly to an audience in the pursuit of an outcome. That audience can be people in a meeting who you’re seeking to convince of the value of a project, or it could be thousands of people while you’re presenting on stage. The principles are the same.
I’ve honed my speaking skills over the last 16 years. Some foundational moments that will stay with me forever include teaching groups of 500 undergraduate students in intimidating tiered lecture halls, while I was barely old enough to teach them myself. They also include moments in front of the camera, on radio, and being paid as a professional speaker. Here’s what I’ve learned.
The Heavy Lifting is Your Scoping and Preparation
This is the point where you first start planning your public speaking event, pitch, meeting, etc. Your job here is to be very clear on outcomes. Why are you planning to speak in the first place? Is it to pitch something, is it to share an idea or a project, to get budget approval, to teach something, etc? Based on the desired outcome, you then define what would make this particular speaking session a success for you.
And if this session is focused on delivering value to an audience, you should also think about what a good session outcome looks like for them, not just for you. For example, will they have learned something new, will they be able to do something differently, or perhaps have a moment of connection?
And even at this early stage, think about your audience call to actions – what do you want them to do afterwards, beyond having facilitated new insights. Do you wish for them to sign something, introduce you to somebody, visit your website, become your investor? Consider how you build your session to arrive at the call to action. Next, you move into specific content.
Content Planning
It should come as no surprise that you need to tailor your content to the outcomes that you’re seeking to achieve. At this point I always roam widely. I read, watch, and browse to gather ideas, stories, statistics, frameworks etc that will help me to land my key points. Here I look for different types of information that will help me achieve my goal and will help engage the audience, and on different levels (e.g. a story will activate personal connection and emotion, statistics will help understand the size of a problem or will add evidence to my argument, a framework might help make sense of complexity).
Now you’ve got a good base from which to begin crafting your master narrative, and your key points within that.
For example, if I’m speaking for 20 minutes, it means I will have one master narrative (one main argument that I’m making). I’ll introduce the master narrative at the beginning, then I might use the different bits of information I’ve collected and categorise those into 3-4 points that support the master narrative. And of course I’ll finish by reinforcing the main point once again.
At this point, I start to assemble slides for the master narrative, supporting points, and the information, stories and evidence that will be the content of my presentation. Of course you need to mix up and vary the different kinds of information (e.g. start with a story, then add some evidence, then perhaps a quote, or a framework, etc.). Once I see all my slides in front of me, I Cut.It.Down. by about half. Yes, really! It feels painful to lose stuff that you’ve just laboured over (but don’t worry – put it in archives for another time). My upper limit is about 20 slides for 20 minutes, and even that is stretching it as you then have only 1 minute per slide. I also think for an audience it’s a lot to expect anyone to sit through more than 20 slides.
If there’s too much text on the slides, now is the time to make the slides less text heavy. Commit any text to your notes or to memory instead. You don’t need to read out slides.
If you’re planning for a public speaking event where you won’t have slides, or it’s much shorter, such as a 5 minute pitch for an idea, a meeting where you’re seeking to convince someone to do something, or let’s say you’re on radio for 2 minutes, then you need to adapt your planning, but the basics remain: what is your master narrative, i.e. one point everyone who’s listened to you needs to remember? And then, what are 1-3 sub-points that you want to land (ideally you’ll also number them in the moment, which will help structure your information). And is there one especially salient statistic or one anecdote that helps support your argument?
Now that you’ve got clarity on your content (the what), let’s move on to practising for the big moment.
Practice
I vary my level of practice based on the event I’m preparing for, whether it’s a new talk that I’ve never given before, and what’s at stake. If you require a high degree of practice, then start by practising delivering your content out loud and recording it, e.g. through voice memos or video. That way, you can play it back and critique yourself and do it several times to improve.
It's so important to know what your content will sound like, out loud. Practising it that way will show you whether you’re ready to speak coherently about a topic yet. If not, it means you’ve either got to practice more, learn more about the content, or maybe just write down how you plan to say it the first time.
And, crucially, when you record yourself, you can practice your timing. It is incredibly rare, but trust me, so appreciated by your audience and whoever organised the event or meeting you’re speaking at, when a speaker sticks to timing. That alone can make you stand out. Being concise, clear, and to the point is an art form. Typically, we underestimate how long we will speak for. Most people who are on stage seem to be baffled by the fact that time has somehow sped up while they’ve got so much more they want to share with us. (Pro tip: ask the organiser if there’s a countdown timer, and practice with a countdown timer at home to mimic the level of pressure).
If you’re looking for practice that’s much lighter on then I recommend doing the bare minimum: nail and rehearse your first and last sentence. Good beginnings include “it’s good to see you today”, then making a quick joke about something related to the event or meeting if you feel confident you’ll pull it off. Your ending should re-emphasise your main point, help people remember who you are, and direct them to your call to action. Primacy and recency matter in human psychology – make them work to your advantage.
The Big Day Has Arrived
And it begins with logistics. Make sure you know where you’re supposed to be (Do as I say, not as I do – I once confidently walked into the wrong conference venue entirely to deliver my keynote. But I heeded my next bit of advice, which is to always show up super early, and so I was able to course correct and still make it to the actual venue in time). Getting to a venue early allows you to take in what the room will look like. This is really important as it increases your level of confidence and reduces your level of uncertainty.
If you’ve been to a venue, or a lecture hall, or meeting room before, you can also practice by visualising yourself in a location and visualising yourself giving your talk.
Next, ensure you’re all set for all AV matters. Make sure slides are up and running, the microphone works, the clicker works, and that all your videos play, so you’re not fumbling in the moment.
Side note, if you haven’t yet, learn how to speak into a microphone. The amount of time I see people on stage holding a microphone a mile away from their mouth is astounding, and people refusing to use a mic because they claim to have a loud voice is an audience nightmare.
And you’re almost up!
Calming Your Nerves
The hard work is actually behind you. You’ve done your prep, you’re in the room, you’re ready to go. Now it’s just you, your nerves, some interesting self talk, and a group of people waiting for you to do your thing. What do you do in the ten minutes just before you’re called?
My first bit of advice is to calm yourself by focusing on connection with others. Focus on how you’re going to make an impact on their lives. It comes back to your desired outcomes. Think about what this person in your audience might be struggling with, and how you might be able to provide insight or guidance. What will they be able to do that they couldn’t before? Basically shift your attention away from you and onto others in order to get out of your own way.
Then focus on your breath. Use your breathing technique of choice to reduce the amount of tension you’re likely holding in your body. One technique I use often is called box breathing: you inhale, counting to four. You hold your breath for four counts. You slowly exhale, counting to four. You hold your breath again for four. And then you repeat for several cycles until you feel calmer.
If you’re a fan of mantras, you can bring them in at this point, too (e.g. “it went well last time”, “I am ready to do this” or whatever phrase you like). And if you don’t feel confident using mantras or breathing techniques on your own, that’s all good, just find a guided meditation on Spotify or one of the many other platforms to support you in that moment.
I definitely advocate against last minute rehearsing or note scanning at this point, and instead optimising your mental state. Your content prep is well behind you, and the gains from doing so at this point are minimal, in my experience, and only increase anxiety.
Last deep breath in and out.
Your Name is Being Called!
The first thing I try to remind myself of, regardless of whether I’m starting to make a pitch in a meeting, or whether I’m presenting in front of thousands, is to SLOW DOWN. Don’t race through your words, and don’t rush in your body movements. Take it slower than you think is appropriate.
Next, focus on your body. Be conscious of how you walk into a room, onto a stage, how you sit, how you stand. It should reflect confidence, openness, and calm. So walk tall, stand with both feet firmly grounded, keep your arms open, and if you’re a user of hand gestures just go with it and let your animation and energy shine through.
Also don’t be shy about pausing for a drink of water. Dry mouth is real. And it’s normal. Don’t battle through it, just accept the water.
As you’re talking, if you feel like you’re getting lost, remember that you have a structure you can keep coming back to. You have a main point, and you have your supporting points that you can keep anchoring on if you’re finding yourself down a rabbit hole. Number the points that you’re making (“The first point to remember is…”) as it helps you to be clear and helps your audience to digest your information.
And what if somebody interrupts you, and not in a good way?
A long time ago, when I was being trained to appear on TV and radio, I was taught this little technique that has stayed with me: ABC
· A for acknowledge (“thank you, that is a point worthy of further discussion…”)
· B for bridge (“but what we need to remember is…” and then)
· C for communicate (go back to the point that you want to make).
You’re the one running the show and you will need to find opportunities to say what you’ve come to say. You cannot wait for someone to ask you, or to give you the opportunity to articulate your brilliant insight. It’s your job to bridge to what you want to say.
And what if you stumble or have a mishap?
Mishaps happen all the time. Speakers lose their train of thought, they trip, or they have a massive coughing fit. Rather than pretend it isn’t happening, if there’s an obvious mishap, I just talk about it and make it into something funny. A moment for you and your audience to relate to each other as humans.
And one last bit of advice that transcends all of the stages of public speaking, from preparation to delivery: quite often we have insecurities about a unique aspect of ourselves that we think will prevent us from being a great speaker. E.g maybe you sweat a lot, maybe you have an accent, or a lisp, maybe you’re very clumsy. Don’t let any of these things hold you back from speaking. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to embrace the thing we feel awkward about as a feature (vs a bug). I’ve felt awkward about my unusual accent and name for years, until I realised that both were actually a big part of what was special about me.
And there you have it – three key stages to think through: the preparation, the nervous moments before, and the delivery of your public speaking. Hopefully you now feel well prepared and feel more confident in this crucial skill.