How can you improve your public speaking skills as a new hire?

I was once an incredibly shy person, would shake with nerves when speaking in front of groups and my face would go extremely red if the spotlight was on me. This was the case until I was in University and I hated it - any presentation I had for college had me in knots for weeks before, and I always wanted to be comfortable presenting. I have been in the music, marketing, tourism & sales fields performing and presenting for the past 11 years and the two things I recommend to people are; practice and preparation. If you have your presentation info in your head, you can present it - it's like knowing the words of a song on the radio. And practice for confidence - if you don't practice in front of other people regularly, you won't get better!

Understanding your audience is crucial to being able to prepare your presentation in a way that makes it interesting and valuable to them. I often see presentations being directed towards a small subset of an audience, typically using overly technical language or too much jargon. Without adapting the presentation to include elements for the whole audience people may become lost or bored and check out. Try and find out before hand who will be attending your presentation, is it a technical or non-technical audience, managers or individual contributors, what teams or departments are attending? This way you can craft your presentation to give value to every single person.

I would give 2 advices: - attend course on public speaking to understand how to structure your speech / presentation - repeat, repeat and repeat your presentation until you master it

-Categorize you audience well would be the first task. -Learn how to deliver the message & each one of the audience can feel that you talk to him individually. -study the speech purpose well before any initiation. -gather as much as you can from information about the audience & their interests. -be ready to answer the questions. -trust in your team to support you any time.

Start by practicing your speaking skills regularly. You can begin by speaking in front of a mirror or recording yourself. This helps you become more comfortable with your own voice and gestures. Also seek feedback, from colleagues, mentors, or peers who can provide constructive insights on your speaking style and areas for improvement.

No matter how great a speaker you are, you still need to practice your presentation. There is such a thing we call “shadow run” in one of the previous places I have worked. You can present infront of your colleagues, family members or the mirror. This makes one develop more connection with the presentation as you become aware of where to modulate your voice, when to add inflections and increase energy for purpose of emphasis. Sometimes there are unforeseen circumstances that could happen and make one continue talking without the presentation slides rather than waiting to resolve the issue. Practicing helps boost confidence and has a great impact on the eloquence of delivery.

Interacting with new individuals and listening to them sincerely and carefully, And by believing to deliver the things without doing mistake. The perfect key zone is the Practice and Confidence. One can do anything while having the confidence with them.

One of the best thing one can improve the public speaking skills is to practice. Practice will make the one will be perfect. This always help you to identify the weak point and eliminate any faller words, pauses or mistakes that might distract or confuse your audience and helps you well to improve. Before delivering one should always try to jaw down the points, work on it, Look for all the gap and space where he/she is fallening, start again and try to improve in every step.

Coming from an actor's point-of-view, "We don't rehearse until we get it right; we rehearse until we can't get it wrong." Rehearsing out loud is a game-changer. It builds confidence, refines your message, and enhances engagement with your audience. Each practice session is a step toward mastering the art of public speaking. Keep at it, and you'll see remarkable progress in your ability to connect and leave a lasting impression. Remember, even seasoned speakers and actors practice relentlessly.

The one tip I give all my interns is to practice and deliver the material standing up. Standing up will enable your voice to carry itself better, which is why singing is always performed standing. Standing up helps you be more focused too!

In my experience, a delicate balance in utilizing visual aids significantly enriched my presentations. Strategic use not only enhanced the audience’s understanding but also ensured they remained focused on the central message.

Visual aids are brilliant! Everyone loves an inspiring quote or emotive image. They also love facts, data, trends! These should be used to support your points by adding colour to what you're saying, not distracting the audience away from what you're saying.

More importantly, know your visual aid options and adapt them to the content that actually needs one. Is a PowerPoint presentation really needed? Could a whiteboard, or a leaflet be enough? There's nothing more annoying than someone who relies too much on visual aids and only reads whatever everyone can read behind him/her.

Using visual aids is a good idea. However make sure they don’t distract from you the speaker. They need to enhance what you are saying or compliment key points but not take over. Short snappy slides which are easy to understand work well.

Making the switch from nervous/anxious to calm, is a big leap. And so trying to tell yourself to 'calm down' when you can feel your heart beating out of your chest, may be a bit of a stretch, and often ineffective. Luckily, experimental psychology tells us that there is a better way - reappraising this anxiety/nerves as excitement. The emotion of excitement is much more congruent, with what the body is already feeling (high arousal), and therefore feels more authentic, and believable to the self. Using simple strategies such as self-talk ("I'm so excited about being able to pitch my ideas!") or an opportunity mindset can therefore help reframe the feelings, and as such, improve performance.

The more you practice, the better you'll become. Start with smaller audiences and work your way up. Don't be discouraged by setbacks; they're part of the learning process. Nerves will calm down over time, and it will all become easier - trust and believe in yourself

You are nervous when you speak in public because you’re so focussed on “I”. “What is my audience thinking about ME” “Am I delivering a good speech?” Just shift your focus from “I” to “THEM” “What is it that I want MY AUDIENCE to take away for my presentation today?” “What value am I giving to THEM” Just shift your focus from “I” to “THEM” and notice how your nervousness fade away!

It's normal to get butterflies in your stomach - how do you make them fly in formation? Use your emotions as data - are you feeling excited? Channel that excitement into your presentation. Are you feeling anxious? Figure out if there are gaps that are causing that anxiety. Eg. Is the anxiety telling you there's missing info in the presentation? That you're not prepped as much as you'd like? Work out what you need to do to fill in those gaps -- and know you're not alone. There's very likely someone happy to help you. Nerves are natural. Turn them to your advantage.

Positive affirmations definitely help with nerves but also deep slow breathing. Often the physical fight or flight anxiety can kick in but if you are fully prepared and can find some connection quickly to audience to neutralise the fear and 'supposed threat' then you'll find the rush slowly eases. Equally that adrenaline rush can be used to fuel your energy and engage your audience.

You can deliver the topic the way you have prepared but engaging your audience may be a tough job. Use of relevant lively examples, stories, trends on topic, any historical relevant incidence can make your topic interesting to the audience. In 2014 when I was doing MBA, one HR professor class I have never missed compared to other subjects classes because of the engaging activities he used to do along with the theoretical/books chapters. This was the main reason I used to attend the classes. From this I learn why engaging your audience is so important whether it may be in school, college, corporate event political speech or any other. The main common thing is to engage your audience.

The vast majority of the presentations you give will actually be dialogues. Keynotes and TED talks are pretty rare, but pitching ideas to your boss or delivering a report happens every week. In these situations, you’d never speak for the whole meeting. Decisions don’t get made that way. I recommend you speak for about a quarter of the time and actually discuss your idea for the rest. This gives plenty of time for going deeper into your audience’s concerns, aligning on next steps and generally making sure that something happens. Otherwise you’ll just end up having to book ANOTHER meeting.

Embracing audience participation and weaving interactive elements into my presentations has not only fostered engagement but also created a more enriching experience for both myself and the audience.

Engaging your audience can be tricky or daunting however it is the main key to easing nerves and ensuring a successful presentation. Add interactive sections into your presentation, ask rhetorical questions or even pick people out to ask questions/ opinions. Add in humour where possible. Always give live examples and your experiences that the audience can connect to emotionally or feel inspired by. Plain facts or education will quickly disengage the audience.

Confidence throughout shows the audience that you are passionate about your topic. People will want to engage with experts so make them think you are via your presentation. Actively ask for engagement, any thoughts on this part for example? What would you do? But it has to consistently follow the tone and context throughout. If your presentation is more mono tone and delivered without the need for interaction it’s hard to get it if you decide to change mid way.

Get feedforward. As people you trust to tell you what they liked about your presso, and what you can do differently the NEXT time.

It is simple: Feedback provides an objective perspective on your performance. It allows you to see your strengths and weaknesses through the eyes of your audience, helping you gain a clearer understanding of your speaking skills. Others can often spot areas for improvement that you may not be aware of. They can point out habits, mannerisms, or communication issues that you might not notice in yourself.

Always seek feedback from the appropriate people/colleagues. Consider: - Is this person certified to speak on behalf of either my presentation skills or the presentation itself? (or is it a ¨work bestie¨ who is an easy encouragement for my self-esteem?) - Is this person going to be tough but fair in giving their feedback? (am I requesting feedback from someone who is only telling me what's wrong/right without an objective eye for the matter?) - How much does the feedback matter to me personally from this person? Am I impartial when seeking feedback?

Get feedback from someone who knows how to give feedback to speakers. Most people don't know how, which drives you to make changes that don't improve your presentation. To get better at presenting, get better at crafting the stories you tell. Think critically about what words and phrases evoke the appropriate emotions. Relive your stories rather than retelling them to be more authentic.

Public speaking is tied with a lot of fear. Fear of all the above spoken. Fear of getting it wrong, Fear of not capturing and engaging the audience, Fear of becoming a joke if the joke u practised didn't come out well. The importance of public speaking in today's work culture is to create more space for opinions and also a sense of leadership. As a new hire into a company, the biggest effort is to put towards stealing the space and opportunity to be the speaker to an audience regardless of its size or purpose. If it is an announcement to be made or even host an internal meeting. If the fear is not met, the best visual aid may not be any use. And not forgetting of mastering the story telling ability.

The activity that helped me the most with public speaking is theatre! I highly advise you to take a few courses, and if possible, even participate in a play! It really is the best way to learn to overcome any public speaking anxiety as you often learn in theatre to get out of your own head and be more confident in front of an audience.