Public Speaker Training – How to Increase The Impact You Have On Your Audience

 As an effective public speaker, training yourself to improve your speaking voice can be done one step at a time:

Volume

It’s important to use an appropriate level of volume, given the size of the room and audience. If you speak too softly, then you’ll lose impact, that’s if people can actually hear you at the back. Project your voice, so that everyone is included. Conversely, a voice that is too loud can lead to audience overwhelm.

You should also vary the strength and intensity of your voice throughout your speech to emphasize certain points and keep your listeners interested.

Clarity

There is nothing worse than a speaker who mumbles their words or talks through a half-opened mouth. If the audience can’t understand what you’re saying, you’ll have lost them within seconds. You must pronounce your words clearly and distinctly in order to communicate your message effectively.

Variety

The difference between a voice that has impact and one that is monotonous is called pitch. Does your voice have vitality, colour and variety? Or do you sound lifeless and flat?

We all have a natural voice pitch, i.e. high, medium or low. As a public speaker, training yourself to vary the pitch of your voice so that your inflection rises and lowers at appropriate times is very important. For example, when you ask a question, your pitch naturally rises. When you’re making a statement, your pitch tends to lower. Once you’ve practised different pitch changes you’ll find it easy to work these in to your material.

Rate

Your personality and mood influences the rate at which you speak. Take care to avoid speaking too slowly or too fast. If you speak too slowly the audience will quickly get bored. People tend to think much faster than the average rate of speech.

And if you go too fast, your listeners will have trouble keeping up with and understanding you. If a speaker is too fast, it’s tempting to tune out with overwhelm.

Speaking too slowly or too fast also makes it harder to vary pitch and volume. The optimum speaking rate is about 150 words a minute. So when writing out your speech, this is a good rule of thumb to use. If you can comfortably deliver your content in the time allocated to your speech by speaking at about 150 words a minute, allowing for pauses, then you’re on the right track.

Pauses

The use of the pause is a much underrated technique. If you’re nervous, it’s easy to forget to pause because you’ll tend to race through your material. Also, it feels ‘uncomfortable’ to pause because then there is silence and that sea of expectant faces staring at you.

However, remember that a pause seems MUCH longer for the speaker than for the audience. Pauses are necessary to separate ideas and transitions, and to hold the audience’s attention. Pauses are very effective in underlining and highlighting important points that you’ve made. They allow what you’ve said to sink in with the audience. It does take some getting used to. The more you practice and incorporate pausing into your speeches, the more comfortable you will feel about using them. And pausing certainly lends you an air of confidence. Public speaker training can help you become adept at the use of the pause.