How to Develop Public Speaking Skills

If you want to know how to develop public speaking skills, you need to concentrate on being both heard and understood when standing before an audience. And, ultimately, it comes down to these 3 things:

Preparation. To develop public speaking skills, the most important thing to remember is the importance of preparation. You simply have to be prepared. When seemingly confident presenters manage to have just the right words roll off their tongue, it’s nearly always the result of practice and rehearsal.

Practice to an empty room, practice in front of a mirror. What’s the worst that could happen? It’s only you. Get used to how you say words out loud. Make notes. Understand the way your mouth moves when you speak. As we have said before, public speaking is not the same as conversational chitchat.

Content. This is inextricably linked to preparation, for obvious reasons. What material are you preparing? What is the point? What is your presentation sales message? To develop public speaking skills, you need to know your content. Audience questions are an inevitable part of public speaking and there is no sense in learning a script word for word if you do not really understand the material. It will be obvious. Genuine passion and self-belief make up half of the public speaking battle.

Breathing. It sounds silly but in order to properly develop public speaking skills, you need to be able to breathe. Not just normal breathing, but long, carefully controlled breaths. Controlling the expulsion of air from your lungs allows you to use your voice to its full potential. And developing public speaking skills is, ultimately, about making your voice the very best it can be.

“Breathing exercises for Presenting” is part of our free advice library. It discusses the four aspects of voice in detail and offers relevant breathing exercises designed to strengthen your voice. Download your free copy today. Click on the cover image for more information...