How to Improve Your Public Speaking Skills

I don't believe in the phrase "Practice Makes Perfect."  I believe practice makes "better," but never perfect.  I don't know anyone who is perfect at any one thing.  The trick, though, isn't just to practice in and of itself; it's to practice being one step closer to perfect.

You see, if you are a dancer and are practicing the wrong move over and over again, you are not getting better you are just solidifying errors.

Today I was reminded how important practice is when it comes to public speaking.  Even if you have a compelling topic, novel information, and a great personality, your presentation will fall flat if your public speaking skills are poor.  I finished 8 hours of a 24 hour course on financial success today and decided I will not return for the final 2 days.  There are many reasons for this, but the one that I can make into a constructive discussion here is on the topic of practicing your speaking skills.

If there were one single piece of advice I could offer it is to video tape your presentations frequently.  Tape the practices and tape the official speeches as well.  We are typically our own harshest critics and chances are you will pick up on your own speaking habits.  I feel I am a competent public speaker, but by no means a super public speaker.  My own bad habit during speeches is to say "right?" at the end of a sentence.  You know what I mean, right?  The more nervous or unsure of the audience's reaction, the more frequently I default to that habit.  

The problem with a habit like this is once an audience member takes notice of it, that is all they hear.  The fault becomes so distracting that they lose engagement on the topic, and focus solely on the repetitiveness of the nervous habit.

When you video-tape yourself you see every flaw.  You may realize you sway or pace when speaking, move your hands too much, say "um" too often, etc.  The key is to pick one issue at a time to work on, and make gradual improvements.  Chances are if you are like me, as soon as you reduce the frequency of one bad habit you notice another smaller one that you need to work on.  This is why I say practice only makes better- not perfect.

The speakers today lost me within the first hour.  The first speaker had a "thing"...after every 2-3 sentences he'd say "The point of this is this" OVER AND OVER AND OVER again!  Seriously, during the last 1.5 hours of the day I lost count somewhere after the 37th time he said it.  I stopped paying attention to the content of his speech and his level of expertise on the topic because I was so distracted by his catch phrase.  His phrase wasn't even a nervous habit- it was more like an attempt to brand his speech but so overdone that it became a train wreck.  This speaker's father owns the coaching company that presented this workshop, and his catch phrase was "Get this..." so I am wondering if he chose his phrase to emulate a similar speaking style to his incredibly successful father.

The 2nd speaker of the day was Mr. Rhetorical.  In his 2 hour presentation, there were 10 minutes of substance and 1 hour and 50 minutes of:
Raise your hand if you want to learn how to be a millionaire.
Who here wants to retire some day?
If I could tell you how to double your income would you?
Raise your hand if you think making money is a good thing.
Who here thinks a 20% ROI is a good investment for the day?
Who here....
Raise your hand if....

By the end of his excruciating 2 hour presentation, all I wanted to do was trip him as he walked down the aisle!

I don't play along with silly rhetorical questions or the obvious "get them used to say yes" psychology. Plus, I REALLY hate "being sold" so even if he had substance to his speech, I was so totally distracted by his style that I checked out mentally.

If these professional speakers took time to video tape themselves I have no doubt they would pick up in their speaking idiosyncrasies.  

Another way to improve your presentation style is to ask the audience for feedback.  I can guarantee that at least 3 people in my row were tallying up the number of "the point of this is this" phrases.  The feedback would have been clear.

Now, once you've mastered the art of speaking without distracting, a more deep analysis would be to bring in your personality type "shadow"- someone with opposite personality preferences to your own brings a different perspective and has very different audience expectations.  As an ISTJ, I just wanted the facts.  How can I be more financially independent?  Give me the steps!  Where do I go to do X, Y, and Z?  What paperwork do I need?  How much money, etc?  I needed facts, logic, and structure.  There was no such thing in this speech.  There were lots of "warm and fuzzies" though. 

That style DOES appeal to certain personality types.  The key is to do as much as you can to keep each personality type engaged as possible.  Be flexible.  Give the 10,000 foot view and the warm and fuzzies, but then drill down into specifics.  Give structure and a plan for those who crave it, and allow for flexibility for those who want to chart their own path.  By having someone with a shadow to your type critique you, there is a good chance that he/she will help you see what type you have neglected.  

There are tons of wonderful public speaking and PR coaches out there who can offer tons more tips, but this may be a great start to making your presentations one step better!

To all my public speakers out there--what tips/tricks do you use to improve your skills and maintain wide audience appeal?