What are the most effective public speaking tips for beginners?

Practice talking to people. Turn off your screens, and talk to the barista. Meet a friend for lunch. Join a civic group, and talk to people. To speak to an audience, you need to be attentive to individuals. Because an audience is just a collection of individuals.

One thing that helped me immensely was focusing on my audience. I am there for them. Taking the focus off of myself and making my talk about them helped me to be more effective and to calm my nerves.

Joining your local Toastmasters group is a good start. Though I’m no longer active with them, I joined them via a chapter my employer set up very early on in my career and felt like it made a huge difference for me in many ways; building my confidence in speech/presentation prep, concentration, and getting my message through.

Knowing the 4 basic personality types is critical. These have different expectations and communication styles: ● Analytical: They value facts, details and logical argumentation. Focus on precise data and analysis to attract their attention. ● Driving: They are goal-oriented, decisive and prefer clear, direct communication. Make sure you emphasize your points clearly. ● Expressive: They love stories, emotional connections and respond well to visual aids, anecdotes and expressive language. Use this to create an emotional resonance. ● Amiable: They value personal relationships and harmony. Create a friendly, welcoming atmosphere and contribute to the betterment of their community or team. Tailor your keynote to these 4 types.

Knowing your audience begins with people skills. How familiar are you with concepts such as personality tendencies? Learning styles? Languages of appreciation? Core fears and insecurities? Birth order tendencies? The more you familiarize yourself with basic concepts of psychology and interpersonal communication, the more readily you can speak to any audience, at any time. In this case, “Know your audience” = “know about people”

Structure your speech with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Use a logical flow to guide your audience through your points. Rehearse your speech multiple times. Practice in front of a mirror, record yourself, or present to friends or family to gain confidence and improve delivery. Begin with a compelling opening. It could be a story, a surprising fact, or a thought-provoking question to grab the audience's attention.

Here is an example structure that works well: 1- Introduction: say what you are going to discuss at a high level 2- Discussion: discuss your topic, share data, share results, draw conclusions 3-Conclusion: repeat what you just discussed at a high level.

Antes de pensar en la estructura, deberías hacer una lluvia de ideas y luego seleccionar las que más van a ayudar a que tu mensaje llegue y a cumplir con el objetivo de tu presentación.... Luego ya puedes estructurar las ideas. Dispones de distintos patrones estructurales como el jerárquico, que es el más utilizado o bien puedes utilizar el problema-solución o el espacial... El patrón dependerá de lo que quieras conseguir de tu audiencia.

When in doubt of structure, use a classic storytelling method. Start with a hook to get their attention - through a joke, a shocking fact or a personal detail. Then go into giving the background of the topic, the meat, so to speak. Connect it to the hook and then proceed to connect it to the audience. Conclude with a call for action to engage the audience even more. If comfortable add some interactive parts in the middle. Do not write your speech, you can get focused on forgetting something and then actually get more derailed. Prepare the speech in stages with keywords for each stage that indicate what you will talk about. From your heart is always more impactful than prepared.

It might sound obvious, but delivering a speech in front of a group feels MASSIVELY different from practicing it alone. Eye contact, or the social pressure of being watched can completely change how your body feels in the moment, which can massively impact the quality of delivery. Is there a way you could practice your speaking in front of a live audience, without the high stakes of a pressured situation? Maybe a partner or friend could offer to sit through it, or maybe you could go to a free public speaking meetup. Even going live on social media apps can be a great way of getting used to speaking in front of people.

I would suggest that it take more than just delivering your message. I've found that a more impactful approach is to be the audience's host. Within the beginning of your remarks, show your personality and make people feel comfortable. Your goal is to build a connection with your audience. And once you do that, your audience will be much more receptive to you message, more engaged and you will be more memorable. And you won't have to work so hard to hold their attention, convince them of your point of view, deal with self-doubt at the end of your presentation about how well you did.

My recommendations for preparing for a speech is to first practice it alone with no other props besides the speech. Then, I start practicing in the mirror to see what my delivery looks like. On a mirror, I will map out the “audience” into different zones, and add queues into my speech of where to look so I can ensure I am addressing the room. Next, I will record myself and watch it back to see how another person will view my speech. When I am comfortable with my changes, I will then ask a trusted friend, coworker or mentor to watch my speech and give feedback. This seems like a long process, but it allows me to feel highly prepared, and helps me deliver the best possible speech that I can.

Do not focus to much on doing it in front of a mirror or a friend if that feels uncomfortable. The best way is through visualisation exercises. Sit or lay in a comfortable but grounded position, close your eyes and then imagine your speech, and visualise yourself delivering it in the best possible way. You will know just what you do when you open your eyes. In addition, you can also speak just to time yourself, to make sure you are within the agreed time, because no one likes someone who speaks too long or takes away time from the next speaker. You would have to be super interesting to be forgiven.

There are no "One size fits all" solutions in public speaking. Listen to speeches by business leaders, valedictorians, sports people, and absorb. Think about what you may or may not do similarly. Dedicate time to practice self-written content and content written by someone else. This increases control over content. Practice in front of amirror. Record your own speech and listen and/or watch it. We are our best and worst critics.

I know this is unconventional, but flexing your butt actually helps alot with nerves. You're giving all that energy somewhere to go!

One of the most effective ways to calm your anxiety/nervousness and lower your heartbeat before a presentation is using the box breathing technique: Step 1: Breathe in, counting to four slowly Step 2: Hold your breath for 4 seconds Step 3: Slowly exhale through your mouth for 4 seconds. Step 4: Repeat steps 1 to 3 for 2-3 rounds Step 5: Smile! You got this.

One great way to manage your nerves is to anchor your positive emotions to a favourite music track. Listen to the track each time you practice, and visualize your successful completion of the speech. Also feed it into your running playlist or some other points in time when you can pick up your energy. Then listen to the track and breathe before you actually speak. You can combine this time with simple breathing exercises too.

Having taught Oral Communication for 40 years, there is no better technique than abdominal-diaphragmatic breath control. But, you must be prepared and organized. Know your rate and how much time you are alloted. Turn your notes into a tool to support your delivery path. Use at least 16 point font to better see your words. Mark punctuation for pause and stop breaths. Underline the last words in the sentence for eye contact and return breath. Positive performance energy and negative anxiety have the exact same physiological results. Rehearse aloud. Again. And again. Breathe deep before you start. Several slow smooth inhalations to oxygenate and reduce adrenaline affect. Pour out your message like fine wine. You got this!

La visualización creativa está genial, la autosugestión también, haz mindfulness si esto te ayuda... Pero hay algo que está muy claro. Es nuestro EGO el que se siente amenazado por el famoso "qué diran". Así que piensa.... Hagas lo que hagas, todo el mundo te va a juzgar, así que entrega lo mejor que tengas para dar, muéstrate humano, vulnerable y accesible y todos empatizarán contigo liberándote de ese incómodo estrés.

Engaging your audience is great advice. However, I would be cautious as we are talking about beginning your journey. Before you engage your audience you need to be in control and prepared. Imagine asking your audience a question that you aren't prepared to answer if they flip the question back on you. Engagement is critical, but keep it at a level you can manage. You are the public speaker.

Envolver your audience is a phenomenal thing and makes your speech memorable. Tell great stories, make people laugh, and emphasize crucial moments of overcoming.

Consider exploring tactics like VAK Talk - a concept I use with many of my clients. People, listeners, audiences and conversational partners have different communication styles and preferences. We make them comfortable, build rapport and have a greater impact when we are able to cater to these preferences. This concept can be used in one-on-one conversations all the way to large keynote talks with a vast audience. Want to learn more? Feel free to contact me and I'll walk you through the steps.

Add a personal twist to your story and make a connection between yourself and your content. People love hearing about personal stories. Avoid generalized statements. Share your personal feelings, beliefs, and thoughts.

For beginners in public speaking: Seek Varied Feedback: Gather insights from your audience, peers, mentors, and self-assessments. Focus on Key Areas: Ask for specific feedback on content, structure, delivery, and impact. Recognize Strengths and Weaknesses: Use feedback to identify areas of excellence and improvement. Self-Review and Goal Setting: Analyze your performances and set clear objectives for future speeches. This approach helps create a cycle of continuous improvement, enhancing both skills and confidence in public speaking.

Every 'expert' was once a beginer! Give yourself grace and room to grow. Some people learn best seeing and hearing themselves and others and others by doing practicing and speaking. Knowing what your learning style will accellerate the learning curve. Another good tool, is identifying your common filler words. When nervious, we often inset these words more frequently. Raising awareness and discoveing the situations under which your use of filler word use increases, allows you to refine your delivery and speak more authoritatively.

Hacer una presentación y ponerse delante de un público requiere tiempo, metodología y sobre todo horas de vuelo, así que adelante! Siempre que tengas la oportunidad de hablar en público hazlo... irás cogiendo más soltura con cada nueva iteración. Tienes mucho que contar, cuéntalo bien ;)

Another great tip for public speaking is to reduce the use of filler words. Things like "um", "like", or "you know" don't add much meaning. People often overuse them out of habit or nervousness. But they can hurt your credibility without you even realizing it. What works better is taking small pauses between sentences instead. Try recording yourself practicing your next speech. Listen for any verbal filler crutches you lean on too much. We all have them! Make note of where they happen most. Then focus on letting those habits go and replacing them with brief pauses. You’ll sound much more natural and confident if you can cut down on the “umms” and “likes.” Give it a try - you can break those filler word patterns with awareness and practice.

Be Relatable - Try to find common ground by sharing similar work problems, pinch points, that everyone will understand. You will be a subject matter expert and know a lot more about the topic than your delegates. However you have to get them to understand you were/are one of them and know the difficulties they encounter.

When conducting public speaking classes and coaching, I like to compare them to exercising at the gym. If you don't exercise, you won't change your body, so if you have ambitions to become a public speaker, you have to sweat. Coming back to my metaphor, if you exercise with 1kg dumbbells at the gym, don't expect to get strong. It must hurt, you must be sore, you must sweat. Look for challenges and go on stage so that it hurts a little, that there are nerves, sweat, and that your hands shake a little. Just like in the gym, you don't want to try to lift a 150kg bar when you're just starting out, so don't overdo it on stage either. Look for challenges that are a little out of your reach to make it a little difficult. Difficult=progress.