Public Speaking – 6 Key Areas to HELP YOU IMPROVE

This is an AI generated transcript so please forgive any errors and spelling mistakes. 

Do you have a deadline for improving your speaking? Maybe you’ve just got 6 weeks to get better. Maybe there’s a big presentation at work. Maybe you’re going for a job interview and you’ve got to do a presentation or give a talk. Perhaps you’re going to that conference that will make a huge difference to how you’re perceived within your industry. Well, I have a few tips for you coming up if you’re under a bit of pressure to improve your communication in your public speaking.

First of all, my name is Shola Kaye. I’m a communication coach based in London. I’m a professional speaker, also a speaker coach, and an entertainer. I love helping people around the world to improve and up their game with their speaking.

What we’re going to talk about today are some of the areas that you may want to look into if you are under pressure to improve your communication ready for a big moment, a big event, or a high-stakes meeting or high-stakes conference.

Public Speaking – bringing life to your delivery

Now, the first thing I wanna ask you is are you an engaging and lively speaker? Are you dynamic when you communicate with others? Because that’s one area that you need to look at. You may have the most wonderful content in the world but if you don’t have a bit of life and vigor when you deliver that content, then your message will most likely be lost.

Not sure if you’ve come across the study by Mehrabian which was done way back when, I think in California. Essentially, people debate the numbers, but what that study revealed is that only a small part of our actual words, the words we speak form the message that the audience takes away from our communication. And that our tone of voice and also our body language are incredibly important. If you imagine I said “I love you” how unromantic is that? Versus “I love you”, right?

Just a little three-word sentence like that it’s very easy for people to glean from the way that we deliver the words, whether we mean them or not, whether we are inspired and full of life regarding that message, or whether we are not congruent with the words that are coming out of our mouth because our body language and our tone doesn’t match up. So that’s the first thing: are you lively enough are you dynamic in your own way so that you get your message across completely in a congruent sense and a lively way that people are interested in?

Public Speaking – inspiring your audience

Second question for you is are you telling stories? Are you an inspiring speaker who can move people with the stories that you tell? I talked about this in more detail in another video. I referenced Aristotle, who is sometimes referred to as the father of public speaking. He said that to be a persuasive speaker we need ethos which is our credibility. We need logos which is our logic and our argument of that’s the content that’s in the content that we’re delivering but also we need pathos, which is the ability to arouse the emotion of the listener.

Typically, a great way to do that is with storytelling and also with using what I call you focus language, which is bringing the audience in by not just talking about yourself but actually bringing the message out to them and using a lot of the word you. You is more important than I when we’re speakers.

Public Speaking – paint a clear picture

The third thing that I want to ask you is are you being a valuable speaker? Are you arranging your content in a way that is easy for people to get and to understand? Quite often when we’re creating a presentation we’re in our own heads. We’re just trying to get as much information into that presentation as we can. But when we’re listening to a speaker, especially if we’re in a situation where we don’t have handouts, we don’t have anything we can follow along with, it can be incredibly taxing.

We need that speaker to paint a very clear picture, give us a very clear pathway of where they’re going, make sure the information is what we need to hear and not too much superfluous information on top that will confuse us rather than help us reach the end result with the speaker. So being a valuable speaker is in part taking away, pruning out some of that excess information so that it’s very clear what the audience needs to hear and where they’re going or they need to learn from you.

Public Speaking – let the audience know you

Then also are you coming across as your authentic self? Are you being yourself when you speak? Which to my mind is so important because we’ve all seen speakers who look like they’re not comfortable in their own skin. And again, going back to being congruent, words and our message all fitting together. If we go back to I love you again: “I love you.” that’s not very convincing. If someone said that to me on Valentine’s Day I would send them off, right?

So in the same way, is your message being delivered with authenticity? Can somebody look at you and listen to you and get who you are from the way that you’re speaking and the way that you’re delivering your message? That is so important.

Public Speaking – be intentional about how you present yourself

Another couple of areas to look at as well, let’s go back to delivery a little bit more. Have you thought about how you’re delivering your presentation and how you would like to be perceived? Perhaps you want to come across as very relatable so that people feel that they that you’re their friend and they can approach you. Or perhaps you want to come across as somebody with lots of gravitas and somebody who is perhaps it and authority, because the two can be quite different.

Have you thought about how you are going to articulate your key message and where it comes in your presentation and how you’re going to punctuate that so that people know that this is the most important thing that they should take away? One more question here is on top of that let’s say you have to deliver a Q&A and you’re a little bit worried about how you’re going to get through that (which is quite a typical thing, people often are concerned about being put on the spot) so do you have a system for answering questions that come at you in the Q&A session?

Sometimes people might learn broad topics or broad areas where they think they may be asked questions. Sometimes people might devise an entire list of all the questions they think they’re going to be asked and work through those. Have you come up with a strategy for tackling your Q & A and speaking extemporaneously in such a way that people are really convinced by you?

Public Speaking – a step by step formula to cover all the important areas

The reason I’m asking you all of these questions is, first of all, so that you are fully prepared for your next opportunity, but secondly, if you aren’t prepared I have just the thing for you. I have a course which is called 6 Weeks to Speaking Success and it has six core modules and bonuses. Each of those modules deals with the questions that I’ve just asked you.

There’s a module on being a dynamic speaker, having a bit of life when you’re on stage. There’s a module on being inspiring and telling stories, so there are different frameworks for telling stories that you can apply to your speeches. There’s a module on how to structure your speech, so that you’re incredibly valuable as a presenter. There’s also a module of being more authentic, that takes you through a variety of different tests and assessments that you can look at to help you really know yourself as a speaker so that you can really shine out. There’s an expression I use let you shine through so you can shine through when you’re speaking.

On top of that there’s a module which is all about being whether you’re wanting to be more have more gravitas or be more relatable and also how you articulate your message looking at your voice and looking at how to warm up your voice and so on. Finally, there’s a module on how to be better at impromptu speaking. Impromptu speaking could be anything from answering questions in a job in to situation all the way through to answering questions in front of a group in a Q&A session.

Public Speaking – improve in only 6 weeks

This course is designed to be taken over six weeks. It’s lots of little bite-sized lessons that are very easy to digest and to get through. What I will do is I will provide a link to it in the content here. If you go to www.sholakaye.com/6weeks you will find that course. If you’re watching this in the month of March I’m actually running a special offer on this course and all you need to do is plug in the discount code which is IWD2020 (that stands for International Women’s Day which is in March). So IWD2020 and then if you plug that code in you will get a substantial discount on this course.

Never fear if you are watching this video or listening to this podcast later on down the line because I do offer periodic discounts on this course. If you’re somebody who needs to improve your speaking in a bit of a hurry and you can identify that those areas that I just talked about will help you to get better. I think they’ll help everyone get better, personally. Why don’t you take a look at www.sholakaye.com/6weeks then plug in that code IWD2020 to get a whopping 200-pound discount on the course.

I’ll see you in 6 weeks time as a more dynamic lively speaker, a more inspiring speaker with great stories, a speaker who has a wonderful structure and helps your audience through your content, a speaker who is very authentic and lets themselves shine through and permeate every area of their presentation, a speaker is great at doing Q&A because they’re not afraid of speaking up on the spots, and finally a speaker who understands the difference between being somebody with lots of gravitas this is being relatable and can easily move back and between the two as required during their presentations. So check that out www.sholakaye.com/6weeks

I will hopefully see you on the other side of taking 6 Weeks to Speaking Success.

Take care 🙂

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways I can help you improve your speaking or grow your business:

1 – Get my free guide – 5 frameworks to ace a short speech.

Create a speech stress-free and fast. Make it work every time.

2 – Connect with me on LinkedIn.

3 – Do you need a speaking workshop or communication seminar for your organisation? Get in touch.

4 – Looking for an engaging speaker for your next event? Find out more.