You’ve spent all day or all week planning and preparing for your speech. You may have even given a speech at an event in the past. Now, you’re getting ready to give your first speech at an event. Even though things are going well, don’t worry. There are still things you can work on to make sure your speech goes well. Even the weakest link in a speech can cause trouble if you want to impress your audience. Depending on how big the crowd is and how old they are, a bad joke or comment out of the blue could be seen as rude or unprofessional. A speaker from a talent management company said that being a great speaker means having certain qualities that will make you stand out from other speakers. Here are some tips on how to do well at an event with a guest speaker:
Learn your stuff.
According to the CTN News, Every speaker has their own way of talking. Some people are more creative than others, and some people are smarter. Even if you’re good at one kind of conversation, you’re great at another. Don’t just wing it as the event draws near. The people in the audience want you to help them get over their nerves. Make sure you know what you’re talking about so you can make people trust you.
Practice makes you better.
Successful speakers practice their speeches over and over again until they get it right. When giving your first speech, there is a real chance that you will mess it up. If you give a bad speech the first time you give one, it will be easy for the people in the room to dislike you. If you give a good talk the second time, you’ll get much better and be able to give much better talks in the future. So, practice, practice, practice. Even if you think the speech is perfect, you will probably need to change one or two things. Also, don’t worry about making a mistake. Most likely, the audience will be much more patient than you are, so it will be easier to fix your mistakes when they happen.
Keep to the point.
When you’re the only one talking, it can be hard to stay on message. Even if you have a team of professionals from a talent management company helping you with the event, you will have to give a speech on your own at some point. There may be times when the organizers of an event want you to be the only speaker. It’s important to stay on topic in these situations. If you keep going over the same points, people will start to get bored and leave. Make sure you talk about the main points of your talk and don’t get off track.
Be yourself.
To give a speech, you don’t have to be as tall as the Michelangelo statue. Thin guys can do it, too. Even though you don’t have to pull pranks or act like famous people, you do have to be real with the audience. If you sound like you just copied and pasted a Google talk, the audience will notice. A member of the audience once told me that he had noticed more “Mickey Mouse” speeches in the last few years, which made him worried. There are ways to change how you talk so you don’t sound like a Disney character. Be as real with the audience as you can. For example, if you’re a vegan and you talk about how your feelings about meat-free days at school affected how you ate as an adult, people are likely to take notice.
