Q&A for How to Be an Effective Public Speaker

There are two national organizations with local chapters that can help you to become a better speaker. Toastmasters International helps you with the delivery of a speech, and the National Speaker’s Association helps with the business aspects of a speaking business.

The best way to check yourself is to practice the speech and record your voice for 5 minutes. Then listen back to it and it will help to keep right pace and voice. Keep practicing it.

Add in some rhetorical questions throughout your speech and give the audience a few seconds to think about your query while you rest your mouth and include a PowerPoint presentation to distract the audience for a moment. If your mouth still gets dry quickly, bring a small, open bottle of water with you to sip from after posing a rhetorical question or pointing out a PowerPoint slide.

You should try not to focus too much on the people who are hearing you, but focus on what you are saying.

It is often better to memorize your speech, as you can better make eye contact while you are speaking, which is important. However, you can use note cards or PowerPoint slides to help keep from getting stuck or forgetting what you want to say. Just remember to treat them as cues for what you want to say, rather than reading directly off of them.

Ignore and keep going; to react would be unprofessional.

Dress formerly, preferably with slacks and a collared shirt. If the situation is formal, a suit and tie would be best for men, and likewise for women.

Don't go down to their level. You can be assertive and stand up for yourself without being rude like them.

You can always skip to a point you remember. If you are prepared well beforehand, it is likely you simply forgot a point or two. With practice, you can learn to leave out things you forgot smoothly. Remember, no one has any idea what you wrote for yourself except you.

Try looking at something other than your audience, but in front of you. No one will ever notice.

The best thing to do is to be well prepared beforehand. Making sure you have practiced should help a lot.

You should listen to calm music while reading over your speech as it will make you calm down a bit easier.

The audience will probably appear rapt while you are speaking, and they'll probably clap warmly and smile when you're finished. Also, if there is a Q&A and you get some good quality questions, that is a good sign that the audience was paying attention and curious to learn more.

Making eye contact with your audience lets them know that you are focused on them. If it's something where you feel intimidated when you make eye contact while speaking, there are ways around that. If you are far enough away, or there is a group of people, focusing on the people towards the back, or simply scanning your audience (not pausing to make eye contact) can be a helpful strategy. Another way is to focus on the person's nose or their forehead instead of their eyes.They won't be able to tell that you are avoiding eye contact.

To become an effective motivational speaker you must first study your audience -- who are they (age range, and other demographic markers)? What are they interested in? What do they NEED?

Tell the person how important the speech is and that feedback would be really helpful.

If you focus on wanting to speak "smoothly", your brain trips you up with some level of "disjointed". Wanting "perfect", you get "imperfections". Sometimes, our brains need to be reset. Fool your brain--fool yourself into doing something unexpected! In your bedroom, speak (about anything) so softly that your brain has to listen harder to hear. Toss it up--do 1 sentence softly, then the next sentence loudly. Pretend where you "audience" is sitting--then turn your back and face a wall as you speak. Ignore the "audience"--they don't exist. Write out a short speech, but leave out important words-- then insert some jibberish when you read those parts. Trick your brain!

Yes, taking a deep breath before or during a speech can be very helpful. It can calm you a little, and it can bring more oxygen to your brain and help you think!