Speaking is one of the most important skills for almost anyone, especially for entrepreneurs. It doesn’t matter if you consider constant public speaking to be a necessary factor in the process of achieving success, or if you prefer to work in a quiet office or by yourself – you will have to speak one way or another.
Unfortunately, not everyone is comfortable speaking, especially to a large group of people. I have done a lot to overcome my own share of struggles myself.
Here, in this article, we will teach you how to perform, before the art of speaking is also the art of performing.
If you wish to read more about my work, please see my website; we specialize in organic shampoos and skincare, which are based on the recipes only known the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians.
1. Overcome fear
The fear of performing is the most common after the fear of death. However, a ten minutes performance is unlikely to kill you, there is nothing to be afraid of. It is important to remember that people like you are sitting in the hall, and they might also feel uncomfortable in your place. It is your job to make yourself comfortable.
Before the performance, it is important to catch a minute and go on stage while the hall is still empty – then the situation during the speech will not take you by surprise, you will know what awaits you. After all, speaking, and performing can be fun.
2. Work with your audience
A speech is a conversation, just with a certain number of people (and it doesn’t really matter whether there are two of them or a thousand). In the same way as an individual conversation partner, a large audience will feel your attitude towards them. Do not forget that you are trying to convey the idea to the people in the audience, and not to your chin – that is why it is worth watching how you speak, how you move, where you look.
Remember to look people in the eye – they love it. To stir up the listeners, it is enough to joke several times (especially at the very beginning), ask questions, make them move (at least simply by raising their hands).
Laugh along. Be free. It’s a conversation.
3. Tell a story
The important point is that people love stories. It is even better if this is something personal, a story from life, your own experience (even if sad). You can’t give people advice (no one can give people advice), but you can show how it worked for you specifically. The audience will feel deeply, connect with you, because there is an appearance of intimacy and genuineness in personal stories. They will listen to you from then on. Well, this is a good way to defuse the atmosphere.
4. Prepare
You always need to prepare for performances, especially if this is new to you, the same way it is totally normal to enquire about a person’s interests before you start up a conversation with them. Get to know your audience
5. Joke
When you joke, the atmosphere is perfectly discharged with humor. If you’re a natural born comedian, great, you can improvise a little on the go, but it’s always best to prepare some kind of joke beforehand. And you can’t overdo it – yes, it will melt the hall, but at the same time it can turn your serious, in general, performance into a booth.
6. Get to know your audience
It is important, even at the stage of preparation, to understand who these people are in front of you, what they want to know and why. How you present information depends on this – it is obvious that people of different ages, areas of activity and social status listen in different ways. Teenagers need something livelier and with pictures, the board of directors needs sales schedules, people at the personal growth training want to see successful examples. In all cases, you not only convey different information, but also pack it in different ways.
7. Relax
Many people, before and at the beginning of the show, are tense to the limit – but of course, there are 50 people here and everyone is looking at you, you can’t let them down. But this is perishable – if you have a ready-made material, then your business is just to present it. No need to worry about what they think of you and how, just relax and do your thing. In addition, you will notice that as soon as your speech begins, you feel more confident every minute – the psychosomatic system understands that they are not going to kill anyone here, and, in general, they are throwing tomatoes too. So why worry?
8. Dress up
Lastly, appearance is very important – people first judge you by your appearance, and only then by what you say. Therefore, try to put on clean and ironed clothes, comb your hair, wash, clean your shoes and not slouch.A good clean appearance wins attention before you speak, and gives you confidence to speak.
A good clean appearance wins attention before you speak, and gives you confidence to speak.