10 best ways to improve your public speaking skill and influence others
Here are 10 tips that will help you improve your public speaking skill and you can easily influence others.
1. Learn from the expert public speakers
In the era of internet, you have access to cheap and faster internet but the knowledge you can receive is not so cheap.
You can easily search for the best books on public speaking and read them.
Some best-selling books on public speaking I personally like are:
These books are written by expert American writer Dale Cargnie and British writer Madsen pirie respectively.
Why you should first read book before actual speaking?
The first step to new thing starts from reading a book and learning the basic principles.
Stage fear is one of the biggest fears and before jumping in front of a larger audience, it’s better to read a book first and rewire your mind.
Rewiring works involuntarily and helps to reduce your fear that will make you comfortable with speaking.
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2. The mirror hanging in your house is your best friend
Go to your hanging mirror, stand straight in front, look into your eyes, and start speaking.
Doing it for 15 minutes, every day can improve your public speaking skill.
How?
Researches show that talking to yourself while looking into the mirror boosts your confidence and reduces the fear.
3. Increase your vocabulary
Dictionaries are updated with new words every year.
You should focus on improving your vocabulary because it will help you speak fluently without being stuck in middle of your speech.
Learning new words from a dictionary is quite boring so it’s better to learn while reading some good books.
How to increase your vocabulary faster?
- Keep a small diary each time you read your favorite book
- Write down each new word
- Search online for its meaning and write it down
- Make two or three sentences of your own
- Or you can associate each new word with some pictures so that you can remember them for a longer time.
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4. Practice before a smaller audience
Don’t jump directly to a larger audience to show your skills and to influence them because doing so will make you uncomfortable and you probably forget your influencing words.
So, what’s the best way to start speaking and flexing your vocals?
Start with a smaller audience say, 3 people, they should be your close friends or family members.
Giving speech before close friends or family members will make you confident because they will appreciate your work.
Gradually, you can increase the number of audience to deliver your next speeches.
5. Be open to constructive criticism
No work is free of criticism and so is true with public speaking.
Yeah, many people use harsh words not to give you any advice but to make you down.
You should ignore them at any cost.
However, you should be open to constructive criticism that genuine people such as expert speakers give.
Constructive criticism is important because it will help you improve your public speaking skill faster.
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6. Be open to new things
Life never stops teaching so why should we stop learning.
Be open to new things and never stop learning in your life even if you become expert in public speaking.
What you should keep learning?
- Keep learning new words
- Learn different styles of speaking
- Learn the psychology of influence
- Keep practicing to improve your vocals
7. Avoid use of negative words in your speech
Negative words influence negatively, you should try to avoid use of negative words as much as possible.
Our mind thinks in terms of pictures, it doesn’t recognize words, example: If I say think of an apple. What did you saw?
“A red apple” Isn’t it?
The same thing happens when you use negative words in your speech.
People imagine negative pictures, which makes your speech ineffective.
Read more: What things are stopping you from improvement?
8. Dress well before jumping on stage
Dressing well before giving your speech will make you confident and lay impact on people as well.
Well-dressed people look attractive and everybody wants to listen them speaking.
It adds to your benefit because people will listen to you with focus and your words can easily influence them.
9. Smile before you start your speech
Greet your audiences with smile because they will love it.
A smile can create a major difference in your speech. People love to connect with someone who smiles often.
Keep note of one thing that you don’t smile too much because it can break the message of your speech and it may become ineffective for the audience.
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10.Use gestures
Use your hands to make some gesture it will engage your audience more, they will listen with great enthusiasm.
You can also move on stage while talking, however, make sure that you don’t move too much as it can distract the focus of your audience.
