Developing Your Style for Public Speaking
One of the most important aspects to master so that you can be a confident speaker in public is developing your own style. Why?
Because without a style of your own, you will appear to be one of those “cardboard cutout” speakers, on automatic with no thought of the audience or the topic.
So let’s get started…..
There is no point in trying to present a speech using someone else’s style. Your audience will be uncomfortable because you will be uncomfortable. You will not be able to control your nervous reactions. You will not be able to adjust your speech to reactions from your audience.
In short, your presentation will be unsuccessful.
You need to develop a style that reflects the qualities in you that you want the audience to appreciate in the context of the presentation you are making.
Style is not just the words on the chosen topic, it is the combination of presentation content and delivery.
We unconsciously recognize this when we try to relate a joke or story told to us by another person. We tell the story and then say “I can’t tell it the way Joe does” or “You had to be there”.
What we are saying with these phrases is that we cannot deliver the material in our style and gain the same response , nor can we comfortably emulate the other person’s style to deliver it.
Now, how are you going to develop your style?
These days I will write out a presentation, then read it aloud and add a highlight mark at the points where I change an expression or word, then rewrite with the changes. Again I read it aloud to another person or record it for a further review.
For those I coach, I will write out the presentation as though I was presenting it and then give the person an opportunity to put it into their words and style before they do a practice run for me.
You need someone to help you recognize your style – you have found it when both of you are comfortable with the actual presentation of the material regardless of the content.