Identify your message - your message needs to be clear – what is it that you want people to do? Sleep more? Take better care of themselves? Be kind to one another? What makes your message special? How does your message stand out from the crowd?
Let your imagination run wild when trying to imagine props to use. Humor can be introduced into your presentation with some “wild and crazy” props – I’ve seen speakers bring mannequins on stage and throw them around to make a point, I’ve seen people use simple magic tricks and sound-effect machine that make noises like a crying baby or galloping horse to illustrate a point.
One sure-fire way of keeping your audience attentive and interested is by using humor throughout your speech. Your ultimate goal as a speaker is to get your message across in an effective manner – but does that mean you need to turn into a comedian just so the audience hears you?
How well do you know your message? You need to be able to answer any question your audience asks. If you can’t do that, you haven’t prepared enough. Read about your subject, study it from every angle – you need to feel, look and sound like an expert.
Using humor in your presentation is another effective tool, but be very careful to tailor your use of humor or jokes to your audience. How many times have you gone to watch or listen to someone giving a speech and been bored to tears? The speaker obviously hasn’t polished their public speaking skills – they speak in a monotone, their stories are lame – and they apparently have no sense of humor. Even if the message they’re trying to deliver is an important one – they’ve lost their audience.
What public speaking is really all about is delivering something of value to your audience. That’s it. If people in your audience walk away with something of value they’ll consider you – and the speech – a success. That something of value can be feeling better about themselves, their job, understanding an idea or concept better, even feeling happy or entertained – if you can accomplish any of those things – you were effective as a public speaker. Give yourself a round of applause.
Your presentation should be interesting - regardless of topic. Don’t drone on and on and on for days about some boring little detail - tell them the facts and get out of the way. Don’t be one of those public speakers who can’t shut up - who loves the sound of their own voice so much they just can’t seem to stop talking. Believe me, your audience will be too polite to say it, but they’ll wish you put a sock in it.
Props can be used very effectively to help draw attention to key points of your presentation – visual aids of any sort, such as slides or flipcharts - can deliver your message more effectively to the visual learners in your audience. They can also add variety and a great deal of additional dimension to your speech, and make your key points even more noticeable.
A key point many public speakers forget is that they don’t have to be perfect to be an effective public speaker. You can get tongue-tied, forget whole sections of your speech, go off on a tangent, and not recall your best joke – and the audience may still love you. In fact, they may relate to you better if you’re imperfect than if you got up in front of them and delivered a polished and flawless speech. You’re less intimidating – more like them.
Make a name for yourself – Everyone starts off small. Speak for free at service clubs like Rotary or Lion’s clubs; find a community event like a Chamber of Commerce mixer where you can make an appearance. The more often you give speeches in public, the better a speaker you’ll be.
The dislike or loathing of public speaking stems from fear - the single biggest fear people seem to have is that they’re going to make complete idiots of themselves in front of a live audience. Or maybe that they’ll forget their lines. Or the audience will start throwing rotten tomatoes at them. Or perhaps they’ll pass out in front of all those people. I’ve seen many public speakers forget their lines, or lose their place in their speech, but I’ve never seen anyone pass out.
Your personal style and the subject matter of your speech should dictate the types of props you can use. For example, don’t use a humorous prop with a serious subject. Props can be simple or complex – they don’t have to be elaborate – the key to using an effective prop is that it should help convey your message – no more, no less.
That doesn’t mean your presentation has to be a “laff-riot” – in fact, your subject matter may not be appropriate for large doses of humor. For example, if you’re addressing cancer survivors, you’d want to tone down the ratio of jokes and one-liners, but if you were speaking to a group of salespeople, you could be a little more free-wheeling. You’ll be the best judge of content, knowing your own message and audiences. Just don’t toss out the humor entirely.
Some simple preparation and advance planning will get you past that overwhelming fear you feel about public speaking. There are relaxation methods you can practice prior to giving your speech, not to mention going over the actual material in your presentation until you know it backwards and forwards. In fact, that’s the place you need to start - knowing your material.
The word “props” actually derives from an old theatrical term – “property.” In public speaking terms it means any object or item that the speaker uses to help get their message across to the audience. That could mean anything from a podium to a laser pointer, a flipchart to a PowerPoint projector, handouts to a DVD player. Virtually anything can be used as a prop.