Delivering a Successful and Effective Public Speech
You have more than likely spent numerous hours preparing and structuring your speech so that the actual presentation will not only be a successful but will also be effective according to the perspective of your audience. The key to delivering a successful and effective speech is to genuinely be yourself, allowing your own unique personality to come across in your speech. The audience will be able to view you as a genuine, trustworthy person and, therefore, the people that make up the audience will attentively listen to your speech in order to retain the main points in which you wish to convey.
Again, with any process, there are specific key elements that you, the speaker, will want to take into consideration when delivering your speech.
Speak clearly and adjust the tone of your voice accordingly. Do not shout simply for the sake of being loud. Instead, use different tones as a way to capture the intense parts of your speech so that the audience will be able to recognize the main points and make mental notes as to the important aspects of your speech. Also, when speaking, remember that you will naturally speak more rapidly than usual, so you must force yourself to speak at a rate that sounds as if you are communicating with your best friend. This type of calm rate communicates to the audience that you are comfortable with them; therefore, you are confident in delivering your speech. When delivering your speech, do not let a natural pause scare you because when used appropriately, a pause in your speech can be used to emphasize a point. Essentially, you must combine all the components of voice in your speech so that you can effectively hook the audience's attention in order to focus them on your speech.
Looking directly at your audience when speaking helps to build a trusting relationship. In addition, it is understood, if the people in the audience trust you and feel as if they identify with you, then, as you speak, they will listen attentively to what you have to say.
As a human, you will naturally be a little nervous or timid when you finally deliver your speech. You must realize that this is a common reflex to a situation such as this and there are many ways in which you can calm yourself before and during your speech. Before you speech, for example, you might take a hot bubble bath and listen to relaxing classical music to calm yourself.
During your speech, remember to breathe in and out, filling your lungs with air so that you are able to think more clearly, thus, as you talk you will realize that you are calm due to the fact that you have oxygen circulating through out your body. Also, do not put your hands in your pockets because this makes you appear stuffy to the audience and they will not be able to identify with you, thus, making it extremely hard to communicate effectively. Remember that using hand gestures effectively, in a controlled manner, will add dramatic emphasis during your speech.
Deep down, as the speaker, you must make yourself come to the realization that it is just a speech! Delivering a speech is not a life or death situation even though it may feel like it.
The audience is patiently waiting to hear your speech and to use it as a learning experience so they can further their own knowledge. You, the speaker, are the expert as far as the audience is concerned. If you have taken the time to properly prepare for your speech, then you have nothing to worry about because you know all the techniques needed to deliver an alluring and effective speech.