The Absolute Best Way To Overcome Your Fear Of Public Speaking - Part 2
Posted 01-10-2008 at 12:19 AM by Bob Sommers
The First Technique
Send members of the audience a pre-program questionnaire and ask them to list their greatest concerns as they apply to your area of expertise. Re-write their concerns into questions and bring them with you to your presentation.
Open your presentation by thanking the audience for sending you their concerns. Tell them that you plan on taking your allotted time to answer as many of their questions as you can. Read the first question and answer it. Continue the process until you run out of time or until you've answered all the questions. If you have time, give the audience the opportunity to ask additional questions.
The Second Technique
Don't give a formal presentation. Start by telling your audience your area of expertise and open the floor to questions. If no one asks a question, which is seldom the case, ask a question yourself and answer it. By doing so, you will encourage the audience to get involved.
The Third Technique
Start by making sure that your audience knows your area of expertise. Tell them that in preparing for your presentation you asked yourself, "If I were in this audience, what would I want to know from me about such-and-such?" List the things you identified and answer them one at a time ... in any order you want.
This is a great technique if you have a very good understanding of the audience. It's also a good idea to encourage the audience to ask questions throughout your presentation.
Final Thoughts
If you choose to use any of these three public speaking techniques, make sure you take and keep control of the audience. You must be able to manage the room and field the questions that apply to the entire audience. More about that in a future blog post.
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Comments
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I love the first idea particularly. As you'll know (from another forum!
we train people in public speaking (but in the UK). Here it's unusual to be able to send out questionnaires prior to your presentation so what we suggest to our clients is that before you design your presentation you try your best to answer three questions.
- What does my audience already know?
- What does my audience need to know?
- What do I need to tell them?
Simon
(Curved Vision: Voice, public speaking and presentation skills training, Newcastle, UK)Posted 09-08-2008 at 03:10 AM by simonraybould
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