How to be a really good professional speaker

I was speaking at Encender 2015, a toastmasters event organised by SIM students. It was a privilege to share how I moved Speaking From FREE to FEE.

As I reflect after many years of speaking, here are some ideas I have on being a really good professional speaker:

1. Speak on what you really love.
While it is true that there is money in evergreen topics such as leadership, sales or customer service, there are also other niche topics that a person is really excited about.

When you speak on what you really love, you realise that you tend to be a great subject matter expert on it. A person who is passionate on a topic devotes more time in reading, talking and even breathing about it, compared to one who is just knowledgable. You literally exude passion on stage.

2. Be authentic.
People love hearing stories and most speakers paint how they have been successful and have conquered many tough moments in their lives. However, when a speaker paints moments when they have been vulnerable, how they have fallen, but yet demonstrated a strong resolve to overcome it, it really becomes a powerful and riveting story.

I shared about how I got fired by my good friend, a defining moment when I lied to my wife about whether I was stressed and also the tough economic conditions in 2008. These tough and difficult moments made me extremely resilient. More importantly, it helped me to be real and acknowledge that I do not always have the answer.

3. Add tremendous value.
When one speaks, at the end of the day, it has to be audience centric. It has to cut straight into their hearts and help them search themselves in what you have said. If the talk is all about you, then you have delivered a great speech.

But if the talk is about them, then you have delivered a life changing moment that cause them to decide how they need to change their lives. A great speaker needs to constantly think how their message can create a shift in the thinking patterns of his/her audience.

In my opinion, if I can make my audience feel something for the topic, they will tend to act on it. The worst response to me is to say to me that this talk is 'interesting'.

4. The imperfection counts.
In speaking, we are taught to constantly be aware of our slangs, 'singlish' and even sentence constructions. In our midst of getting a 'great speech' that counts, one must also be aware that it is in our imperfections in our speech that really connects with the audience.

I have noticed that in public speaking training, people teach you to remove the slangs and 'singlish' but in professional speaking, we actually add it back to reflect the 'real' person behind the speech. Such paradox is in my opinion an art in public speaking and not just the science behind it.

I hope the 4 points above will inspire you to become a really good professional speaker! 

Kenneth Kwan is a High Performance Strategist who has trained and spoken to over 10,000 people across 10 countries in the areas of developing intrinsic motivation and leading high performance teams.

His highly popular motivational keynotes and team building programs has helped multi-national companies and government organisations like AIA,DHL, ANZ Bank, Ministry of Health Singapore shift the mindset of employees to create proactive and high performing team cultures.