What are the best ways to develop public speaking skills as a facilitator?

Aside from knowing WHY you are speaking, you should also take time to learn WHO you are speaking to. Why is your purpose relevant to the specific people in your audience? What does your audience want to get out of hearing what you have to say? As a speaker, more often that not, our purpose is to provide some kind of value or guidance to our listeners. Knowing WHO you are speaking to will help you tailor your speech to better serve your overall purpose.

Practice. Practice. Practice. When it comes to public speaking and facilitating, nothing beats practice and preparation. If you want to practice in a safe and supportive environment while receiving valuable feedback on areas for improvement, consider joining one of the Toastmasters clubs. Toastmasters was founded in 1924 when Ralph C. Smedley who worked as a director of education for the YMCA. He named his group "The Toastmasters Club" to reflect the pleasant, social atmosphere he wanted to create. Today, Toastmasters has 270,000 members in over 14,200 clubs across 148 countries. It is highly likely that you will find a club nearby if you live in a decent-sized town.

A professor once told me to live by the 7 P’s, Prior Proper Planning Prevents P_ss Poor Performance! I live by that motto! If you want to be great do the ordinary extraordinary.

Additionally one can also learn some EFT techniques (tapping on certain body parts) to ease out the anxiety. Breathing exercises surely helps big time to calm the nerves. And another technique that I found very helpful for me is Think Fast and speak slow. Most of times we are always matching the speed of what we are thinking and we may have the pressure of speaking correct that also adds up to the anxiety or it can make us feel nervous or conscious and can impact the tonality or articulation of speech. When you are clear in your mind you don’t have to relay exactly what is in the mind, you can think fast but when you are speaking you can go slow taking the pauses and articulating in mind and then delivering it to the audience.

Some of my tried and tested tricks to engage the audience: - ask questions to specific people. call out someone in the front row, or address a specific group. they shouldn't be difficult questions, just enough to get some reactions. Yes or no questions would suffice. If you know the audience is comfortable enough to share insights, more open-ended questions would be ok and might start interesting discussions. - if it's possible, go to the audience. If you're speaking in a small room of maybe 50-100 people, it helps to come closer to the audience or even go around a bit if your speech requires some kind of interaction with the audience.

Attend workshops, conferences, watch experienced facilitators in action. Observe their techniques, how they engage with audience and how they handle challenging situations.

- Reflect on your performance post-event - ask trusted colleagues in the audience for feedback - share a feedback form to the audience or event organizer - record your performance and review after the event - remember to find the right amount of grace and criticism towards yourself when reviewing/reflecting on your performance

Work on expanding your vocabulary to express your ideas clearly and effectively. Use varied and precise language to convey your message.