How to Assess Public Speaking Seminars
There is no doubt that public speaking seminars can be a great place to learn valuable public speaking skills. The challenge though is to be able to assess just how much you are likely to get out of a seminar and how much it is likely to help you long term.
The first thing you need to be clear about is what you hope to get out of any seminar. For example are you hoping to improve your leadership and people skills, or do you want to focus on improving your communication skills. Improved communication skills will help to:
• reduce public speaking nervousness,
• make you think more clearly and be more concise when you speak,
• be more persuasive and influential when you speak,
• think and speak better when you stand in front of an audience, and
• command the attention of audiences more easily,
Ultimately these communication skills will also help you to communicate better on all levels, not just as a speaker talking to an audience. They will also help you to share and market thoughts and ideas more effectively.
Improved leadership and people skills will help you to:
• remember names and positions (because your general memory skills will improve),
• build relationships of trust,
• reduce tension and resolve conflict,
• make other people enthusiastic and co-operative,
• motivate and inspire people (that why great speakers make such good motivational speakers), and
• build your leadership skills and share them with others.
Public speaking seminars, like all seminars, will have a specific focus and will be organized in a specific fashion. For example, they may have key speakers and then workshops where delegates get to discuss what they have learned. Most give people attending the seminar the opportunity to ask questions, often directly after a key speaker has spoken. Some allow delegates the opportunity to practice their newfound public speaking skills as well.
So the second thing to establish is how the seminar will be run. If there are going to be key speakers, find out who they are and then do some research to find out more about their speaking skills and success. After all, you want to learn from winners.
Do you know anyone who is able to recommend specific seminars to you? Personal recommendation is great.
Talk to business associates and friends who have attended previous seminars and find out as much as you can about:
a) key speakers, and
b) seminar organizers.
If your business associates and friends have attended seminars organized by the same people, or with the same key speaker or speakers, you should get their opinion. Did they benefit or were they bored? If you’re going to bother to attend any sort of public speaking seminar you want to be inspired and motivated, certainly not bored.
Of course you will also want to assess the cost factor. Unless you have an unlimited budget, compare the costs of seminars offered by different organizations and individuals.
Lastly you will need to decide whether you attend the seminar you choose on your own or with a friend or colleague. The great thing about going with someone else is that you can continue to share the experiences you had and skills you learned, long after the seminar is over.
How to Overcome Public Speaking Nerves
There are very few people who are able to get up in front of a crowd of people without feeling public speaking nerves.
Just watch actors and actresses speaking at the Oscars and see how some of them start to stammer and stutter. If you suffer from excessive public speaking nervousness, you should immediately feel a whole lot better. After all, these are people who are being awarded for their acting skills, and here they are falling apart at the seams. The thing is though, that the Oscars are awarded to movie stars and not to people who are trained to act on stage, in front of a live audience. While both stage and screens stars may be able to act with great confidence and credibility, the two disciplines are quite different to one another when it comes to nerves.
Stage fright is generally what leads to nervous public speaking. Movie stars don’t have to stand on a stage and perform. They don’t have to face an audience. Their audience will judge them later on. So when movie stars are placed in a situation that forces them to ad-lib or improvise a speech without lots of preparation and rehearsing, sometimes they just can’t get it right.
Feel better? You should. But now you are going to want to get to grips with how to overcome your nerves when you have to speak in public.
First off, be prepared. Unless you are called on to speak spontaneously, make sure you have an outline that you can follow. You don’t have to learn a speech off by heart — in fact it’s better not to do this. But you do need to have a very good idea of what you are going to say. Oscar winners have usually prepared their speeches. Even though they didn’t know they were going to win, they do know they are nominees. But maybe not all of them practice enough.
A proven approach is to make key words that you can refer to during your talk. Write these on small envelope-sized card so that you don’t have to hold sheets of paper that flap, or a notebook that you have to page through. One of the most common symptoms of stage fright is trembling. Your hands start to shake and your legs feel all wobbly. And if your hands are trembling, you aren’t going to find it easy to hold anything to refer to. So keep it small.
If you know your subject well, and you really have planned your speech, then the key words will help to keep you on track. You may always feel nervous when you speak in front of a crowd of people, but the more practice and experience you get, the easier it will become. Practice in front of the mirror, in front of friends and family. Join a Toastmaster’s group.
Something else that helps to minimize stage fright is to do some deep breathing just before you go on stage. Also consciously relax your body so that you increase the flow of oxygen to your brain. Breathe so that your entire chest cavity expands. You will find that this helps your speech as well, because you will be more in control and your voice tone will improve.
Last of all, try to feel confident. Even if you aren’t, act as if you are!
