The best speech in the world is wasted if it isn’t presented well.
What does ‘presented well’ mean? To me it means a speech presented with confidence and conviction in your own unique style.
Look at it this way – if someone asked you to do a speech on the yurts of Outer Mongolia, chances are you won’t feel confidence in your topic and you won’t feel any conviction that this speech is going to be worth your time and that of your audience.
So your speech should be about a topic you know and care about. You feel that you have valuable information, or a unique viewpoint that is worth sharing. Your confidence flows from this assurance. You are giving your audience something of value.
Conviction flows from that sense of value. It says “Listen to me! You’re going to hear something important!”
Perhaps your topic isn’t of world-shaking importance – it’s about flower arranging or table setting. If it is important to YOU, if you know more about it than your audience, then you are giving them information they might not get elsewhere.
(A caveat here – Know your audience. If your audience is full of gun toting sheriffs maybe flower arranging isn’t the best choice of topic.)
If you sill feel nervous – and most speakers do – fake the confidence. Fake it till you make it. Walk on stage as if you are thrilled to be there.
Don’t apologize. New speakers seem to think that an apology for any type of weakness is a ticket to audience tolerance and approval. It isn’t. It just shows you to be new and nervous.
Speak with as much animation as you are comfortable with. The best advice about speaking I ever got was “Relax and have fun up there.” Relax? Fun? Me, on stage?
But it’s true. The more relaxation, the more fun you yourself have, the more your audience will enjoy your speech and think of you as a good speaker.
