Speech Tips
Got a presentation coming up? Need to give a speech at your son or daughter’s wedding?
Club member Phil shares his top 10 tips for delivering a sparkling performance.
- Stand with your feet apart pointing outwards at about 45 degrees. This demonstrates to the audience authority and confidence and can be used to reinforce your own confidence, through seeing an engaged and relaxed audience.
- Eyeball the entire audience. Make sure each and every person feels like they are being spoken to.
- Use hand gestures to emphasise different parts of a speech in different ways. Gestures can be used to demonstrate size, speed, undulating movement and various actions such as opening and closing. This makes for a more engaging experience.
- When making important points in a speech, follow them with a pause. This demonstrates to the audience that something needs to be digested and gives them the time to do that.
- Where necessary, vary the speed of delivery. Pace can be used to indicate a tense situation when sped up, or relaxed when slowed down.
- Think of using the volume of your voice as though it were light and shade. Change the volume speaking louder to emphasise tension, or more quietly to emphasise relaxation.
- No matter how short or long the delivery is, create a structure with a beginning, a body and an ending. A timeline of “before”, “now” and “in the future” is one way of approaching this which works for many topics.
- Practice your delivery several times so that you become familiar with your speech. When it comes time for the actual presentation, you’ll appear confident and authoritative.
- After you’ve nailed your first speech, next time try speaking from an outline or bulleted points, expanding each point on the fly. With practice this becomes easier and has the benefit of being able to maintain eye contact to strengthen engagement with the audience.
- Join Three Kings Toastmasters club, obviously!
More speaking tips from our friends at Toastmasters NZ and Toastmasters International
