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When it comes to public speaking, a lot of emphasis gets put on eliminating an audience’s distractions —but what about a speaker’s distractions?
When you deliver a presentation, it needs to stand out and keep your audience’s attention — but it needs to keep your own attention too.
Eliminating your personal distractions and staying on track is vital when public speaking. Staying focused can help you improve the clarity and overall delivery of your speech.
Here are the ways you can keep yourself focused when delivering a speech:
Fewer Slides: Eliminate the Fluff
Flowery, convoluted content is doing more harm than good to your presentation. It’s making it longer, boring, and is likely diluting the points you are trying to make.
Fortunately, with the help of a design agency’s professional PowerPoint presentation services, you can condense your presentation and make it concise. Enlist the help of experts to create a clean, concise slide deck that will get right to the point, focus on the information that really matters, and keep you on track.
Your Body Language: Refrain from Making Sporadic Movements
Flailing hands are distracting and awkward. When speaking, try to maintain a stance that is natural — not stiff, but not exuberant.
If your body movements are seemingly sporadic (a common nervous habit among public speakers), it’s important to calm down so you can deliver your speech in a relaxed, clear way.
Take the time to deliver your speech in a relaxed, clear way. You can do this by taking a natural pause if you’re feeling uneasy to help you shift your pace and body language.
Maintain Control: Keep Question Time Contained
The reality is, as much as your actions can distract your audience, your audience can also derail your presentation.
A question period is a great interactive portion of any presentation, but audience members – coworkers and spectators alike — can sometimes go overboard during the question period. This can cause a spiral effect that, in many cases, can cause the discussion to stray far from your presentation and information you’re trying to convey.
Control your question period. Don’t abruptly cut people off, but pre-emptively ask that every person keeps to one question and that every question be allotted a minute or two.
Cliff Notes: Don’t Over Explain
The thing about delivering a speech in front of people is that you can directly see their reaction. This can be great if people are nodding and smiling in agreement with you, but if people look confused, unsure, or bored, it can start to impact your delivery. It can cause you to try to over-explain things in an effort to help your audience better connect with your point —which can spiral out of control quickly.
Instead of continuously pushing one point and explaining yourself over and over again in different ways, ask “any questions?” This way, you can clarify anything someone may be unsure of.
Practice: Know What You Want to Say
Have a game plan. If you are going into your presentation blindly, you will likely talk circles around yourself. You’ll jump from idea to idea as more things come to mind — which is exactly what you want to avoid. Be sure to practice before your presentation.
Know what you want to talk about to make sure you don’t skip any major talking points. This way, you won’t have to ramble until you actually get to the information you want to share.
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This content is sponsored by Mike John.
Photo: Shutterstock