61 Public Speaking Tips

I asked readers and colleagues to share one tip about public speaking, presentations or slide design. Here are the responses:

Don’t overestimate yourself or your audience. You’re truly not that interesting so keep it short, shorter than that even, and keep it as simple as possible without talking down to your audience. – Jeffrey Eisenberg

Remember that you are having a conversation… Present as if you are talking “with”… Not “at” or “to”. When you speak “with” – the others will participate in the conversation albeit silently. – Jane Fraser

Public speaking is never about you (the speaker) it’s always about them (the audience). When you have the other persons best interest at heart and truly believe the information you’re sharing can make a difference, it’s almost impossible to be nervous and you stop wondering if your zippers up, I call it “flipping me the you.” – Mike Slover

Know your material. It’s obvious when someonedoesn’t when they refer to their palm cards as if their life depended on it. Little eye contact means the speaker loses effectiveness in engaging his/her audience. Knowing your material means you can deviate and go off the cuff in some parts – this makes the presentation personalised and more memorable. – Sarah Ripley

Relax and BREATHE!! Your audience doesn’t enjoy public speaking either! They won’t bite or throw things if you make a mistake. – Cindy Stath

I find myself a better listener when the speaker appears happy as he/she presents. – Phil Figueiredo

One tip a mentor of mine gave me was to ask, “How will you put these concepts into action?” “How will you proceed?” The “How” questions can put the concepts you share into a thought process that creates accountability for those in attendance to put the ideas you share into action. – John Russell

Be prepared! I use Mind-mapping to organize my thoughts. – Staci Bowlen

Twenty five years as a stand up comic who does presentations in the corporate world as well. One Tip: Whether you’re in a comedy club, leading a meeting for your company or giving a sermon. It is all about Preparation. Know the topic inside and out. Write out your speech , word for word, it causes the brain to store the information differently than simply studying. – Daniel Pace

Don’t ever read from the slide and always have something you want to address that is not on the slide. This makes the presentation seem much more casual and conversational. If you MUST read your presentations, put that in the notes field and only have the high points in the slide. Big blocks of power point text stink like two week old trash. – Jeff Mac

Several years ago I was terrified of public speaking until I took the Dale Carnegie Course. One of the key points that stayed with me was the phrase, “Only the prepared speaker has the right to be confident”. You can’t “wing it”. Heart surgeons and airplane pilots don’t “wing it”. Neither should public speakers. You have to rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse. Make yourself uncomfortable in front of friends, family, the mirror, and you’ll be just fine in front of 300 people you don’t know. – Jake Sheafer

Preparation! Practice! Presentation! Many speakers, especially the extroverts assume they can just wing it and get by on the force of personality, but rarely is that the case. They often come off as pompous jackasses who speak to listen to the sound of their voice. Good speaking takes long hours of preparation, as evidenced by what you are sharing in the Daily Blur. For practicing your speech a good rule of thumb is 20 hours of practice time for every hour you are on stage. Then your presentation should be focused on what you are trying to accomplish with your audience. (My friend and partner Steve teaches a tremendous public speaking course in Austin with Roy H. Williams on May 9th and 10th, and you should go, yo) – Steve Rae

Be prepared! Put thought into what your presenting. Ifthe tables were reversed, would YOU buy what your presenting? If you help enough other people get what THEY want, you’ll get what YOUwant. It’s 1000% about the OTHER person! Public Speaking: Be human. Be real! Have fun! Enthusiasm is contagious! – Kim DeBose

The smaller the audience, the less call for theatrics and the more you can “teach” rather than present. The larger the audience, the more you have to put on a show, the more you are presenting, the more one-man-theatre you have to get. The tipping point, I think, is somewhere in the mid-twenties to thirty people. – Jeff Sexton

Pretty basic, but practise in front of a mirror. Doing dry runs for friends and family is really helpful, but those close to us can be so accustomed to our endearing little quirks (pushing hair back, ‘up-speaking’, rhythmically shifting weight from one foot to another) that they don’t mention (or even notice) them. Such habits could be wildly distracting to the audience, though, and detract from your message. Best of all? Record a video to dissect later. Best is for someone to do socandidly while you’re actually delivering the talk. But that would be difficult when you’d be the one requesting it be done, of course. ;o} – Crys Newland

Remember that the audience wants the speaker to do well. – John Rock

Use the black out function on the screen when you want the attentionto come directly back to what you are saying. – Nancy Nadolski

Time yourself with a stop watch, to see how many words you speak a minute. I reckon the average is about 155 to about 165. To find out – read a book at a rate like you would normally talk. Read 60 seconds then count the number of words on that page. Next write out your speech “word for word” – you won’t read it. Never read a speech! Typing it out word for word will cause you to have to think about what you are going to say and will also give you the amount words you can say in the length of time you have for your speech. If you speak at 160 words per minute and you have a 10 minute speech you can say 1600 words then you need to sit down. A very rude thing to do is to keep talking past your time to stop. – Clay Campbell

Definitely do not hold a laser pointer on a slide for more than a second as nervousness is greatly shown with a bouncy laser on a slide. – Seth Rockmacher

Get a pack of those cheap plastic poker chips. Because they sort-of interlock, they are the best way to prop up a projector leg and they look much better than a book or a pile of magazines. A good stack of them will fit in a large prescription pill bottle and not take up much room in your computer bag. – Dave Young

Find places to change dynamics and pace. Sometimes when you’re gallopingalong in a presentation, your audience fatigues – but by changing pace -slowing to a whisper – or building to a crescendo and pause – thesechanges are just enough to reset your audience’s mind and refresh theirbrains to start taking in new information again. – Monica Ballard

Use Humor. 5 Ways to Use Humor.

1. Tell A Punch Line Joke (Rodney Dangerfield)
2. Use Sound Effects (Dane Cook, )
3. Make fun of someone (Kathy Griffin),
4. Tell Self-Depricating Stories (Buddy Hackett),
5. Use an accent and comment on yourself (Jim Gaffigan) – Manley Miller

When you get to a key sentence in your speech, restate it. Immediately say the same thing in different words. Right away, find other words to get across the same idea. Before you go any further in the talk, use different terms to communicate the same sentence. (Note the restatements, which come across as redundant when reading but not so when listening.)

Restatement gives the listener’s ear more than one chance to grasp a concept. In speech, it is essential to clarity and should be used whenever you come to a key sentence in your message. Key sentences include: your speech’s “big idea” (thesis statement, etc.); or one of your major points supporting your big idea.

Restatement is not repeating it. It’s “blinking” it. It’s allowing your listener more than one chance to grasp it aurally. It will add clarity to your speaking. My preaching professor, Don Sunukjian, taught me that. – Randall Boltinghouse

Get into great physical shape to add energy and enthusiasm to your presentation. Higher energy adds power to your presentation. – Steve Sorenson

The best deck (slideshow) won’t save a weak talk. – Charlie Moger

Playing Games.

Great DJ´s,preachers,speakers,and other “Stage” personalities use this technique. It serves two purposes:

• Elevate attention
• Stimulate interaction.

It could be a simple “Gather together” brainstorm session,”Raise your Hand” Q&A to the audience,”Look for a prize, tapped to the bottom of the seat”,or a “Write on a blank sheet of paper” game,or a “move-around” game (Like musical chairs)

Once you’ve done it right, you can then move to a “Deepen perception” stage on your presentation. – Wicho Lopez

Drink lots of water/hydrate the day before and stay hydrated. – Paul Boomer

Go beyond what you have on your power point slides. And don’t put everything you have to say in your power point. – Walter Koschnitzke

Always remember that your audience is comparing you to the best movie actors, television spokespersons and music videos. If you don’t think you’re going a little ‘over the top’ in your attempts to keep your audience engaged and entertained, you’re probably boring the hell out of them. – Roy H. Williams

I thought that I disliked PowerPoint presentations. Truly disliked them. I was thrilled when I heard of a Swiss movement (after all, don’t the Swiss have a well deserved reputation for efficiency) to outlaw PowerPoint presentations. Oh for a flip-chart and Sharpie!
With that confession done, I rewatched a TED presentation by Kathryn Schultz on “Being Wrong.” Which, by the way, I give a 5-star recommendation to watch. After watching Kathryn, I realized that what I disliked was not the PowerPoint presentation itself. It was the text of the presentation projected as a sort of closed-captioning. It diverts the audience gaze to the screen urging a read-along. Yawn. PowerPoint doesn’t bore audiences. Boring presentations bore audiences. With that realization, I repurposed my PowerPoint to the “slide deck” style of visuals to amplify the content of the talk. If I have handouts, they are typically stand-alone take-away reference documents. I invest time in loading as simple and powerful a slide deck as possible or look for another visual aid. Hula-hoops, nerf balls. Ken Bennett, Arizona Secretary of State uses Kleenex boxes to build the State budget. – Donna Aversa

“Tell them what you’re going to tell them…Tell them…Tell them what you told them…” – Mark Mills

Keep pace in mind. Used to be the guideline was 1 slide per minute, today’s FaceBook obsessed world people’s attention span has been greatly reduced. If the screen doesn’t change frequently enough they’ll end up looking at their own small screens and ignore what you are saying. Once they’re busy on their phones it is much harder to get them to pay attention to you again. – Bryan Eisenberg

Arrive early, set up any gear, and get used to the room before your audience arrives. – Chuck McKay

Insist on using your own gear. Nobody’s computer/remote/etc. ever works the way yours does. – Charlie Moger

Technology breaks. Always have a Plan B. – Craig Arthur

Writing powerfully isn’t the same as giving a powerful talk. Know the difference between the two delivery methods. – Joshua Stevens

People aren’t really built to process complex information in the form of facts and figures – what really makes it stick is illustrating your point with a story. If you want people to learn and to remember, you need to give them an anecdote, an example or a story that makes your point. – Shawn Kinkade

Roy says you have to meet them where they are before taking them where you want to go. That seems to be the best advice to share at the moment. Otherwise we just talked past each other. After 20 years of pursuing the mastery of the craft, I keep coming back to that. – Anthony Dina

Pants are overrated. – Adam Donmoyer

At least once in your presentation, include an appropriate activity that requires physical movement from the audience.
Such as “everyone who has a smart phone, stand up”, or some thing that is appropriate for the topic. The idea is to get the audience involved and participating. – Scott Howard

I overcame my stage fright when I realized and accepted up front that I may say something silly, that I may mess up, but that it was okay. That if I laughed openly with my audience at myself, that it wasn’t an indicator that I was a goofball or that what I was saying had no value.
I know I’m going to utter some nonsense every once in a while. However by accepting this imperfection of myself, the pressure to be perfect goes away and I’m more at ease and confident in front of people. – Greg Renoe

Eventually, it’ll be over. Nothing lasts forever, so (as the cliche goes), make the most of that moment. At some point, it’ll be 5 minutes after it’s over… what do you really want people to come away with? That you were nervous or knowledgable? – Laura Harris

Take a deep breath and exhale completely at least twice before you start.Not to calm your nerves, which is a nice side benefit… but it will helpyou fully exhale before you start. Do you know that feeling of not beingable to catch your breath when you start speaking? Yeah, it sucks and youcan’t recover without being obvious. Full breath in and out will help makesure you aren’t holding your breath out of nerves. This one has killed memore than once. I got ready to speak and realized I couldn’t breathe. – Erica Pefferman

Best thought…be prepared. You owe it to your audience (no matter how few) to not wing it. Know your material and make it your own. – Bill Montgomery

One tip…always set the context to make the topic pertinent to the audience. My favorite way to do this is through One Minute Introductions where I give audience members an opportunity to meet five new people using answers to questions pertinent to the topic. It gets people in the mindset of the topic and ready for interaction. – Annie Hernandez

My speaking tip to the masses is PRACTICE – give yourself enough time tolisten to your speech. Practicing it will allow you to make little tweaks atthe end of the creation process. Also, when you have practiced, you are ableto connect better with your audience through eye-contact and sinceritybecause you are more confident about what you are saying, not worrying aboutwhat’s in your notes. – Julie Whitehead

If you want to get the attention of the audience or emphasize a particular point, simply say it again introduced by the phrase, “let me repeat that again…” Even in our instant replay world, instant repetition in a speech is still unexpected and breaks the “spell” of a speech. It only works once so save it for the crowning jewel in your speech. – Thomas Cadwallader III

I approach a presentation as if I am talking to a group for whom English is a second language. For someone who typically speaks softly, quickly, and occasionally mumbled, this “swing thought” (I thought you might like the golf reference), this helps me speak in a slow, clear, and audible manner. – Dave Fortier

Relax, be conversational, and don’t make your slides text-heavy esp. so you don’t stand there and read them! – Michelle Huls Rice

Out of everyone, they asked you, so be confident. But they asked you, so be humble. – Brad McCarty

Hold something in your hands (papers, pen, side of the dais) so you don’t fumble with them. – Amy DeGraff Swiney

Slow down, don’t talk too fast, look directly at people – some on each side of room … helps everyone stay connected, especially when they think you might be asking them a question or pointing them out…for some reason, say, maybe…cell phone use! – Kathy Nizick

You should be nervous, you can be nervous, and you can still be terrific! And it never looks or sounds as bad as it seems to you. – Gayle Pesavento

Read Presentation Zen. – Joey Helleny

Audience, tone, and purpose – Joanna Christopher

Make sure your talk has a clear focus and that you can summarize that focus in three words. If there are things in there that don’t pertain to the focus, throw them out. i.e. “Learning from Will.” – Joey Helleny

People respond to passion first, then expertise. Speak from the heart and share what means most to you. – Lynn Peisker

To slow down. It lets people take it all in, and for me personally, helps me avoid the ‘likes’ and ‘ums’!:) – Ashly Lagneaux

A good presentation is always a conversation and not a lecture. – Jerry Gamblin

Only talk about things you know about and are passionate about. Be real, transparent, authentic. – Tim Rich

And, lastly and most amazing …