For anyone unfamiliar with Toastmasters, it is a non-profit that costs about $80/yr. The skill ranges from masterful speakers to amateurs.

However, to reach the championship level is arduous with numerous regional contests that one has to win. Subsequently when you watch a Toastmaster champ, you are watching someone who has perfected almost every element of a speech.

Of course, training for presentation skills depends on a number of factors but I’ll offer a few guidelines in my years of experience.

These are the important variables when planning your presentation skills training:

1. How comfortable are you speaking in front of other people?
2. How much experience have you had speaking publicly?
3. What do you consider a high level of public speaking?

First of all, most people would say that they are “somewhat comfortable” speaking in front of other people. They gave some presentations in high school and at work they have to give a presentation once or twice per year. For these people to attain proficiency they will need to invest 100 hours into presentation skills training.

If you were to join a program like Toastmasters you would get a chance to speak every week on a variety of topics. It is possible that this could be all the presentation skills training that you need.

However, in my experience people attend a lot of Toastmaster meetings but usually do not speak. When I use 100 hours as a benchmark for public speaking proficiency this means that you actually need to practice. For example, when I prepare for a presentation I practice it in front of the mirror or film it. My preparation time takes 2 hours and this would count towards the 100 hours of presentation skills training.

Of course you need to get valuable feedback when you are learning any new skill. Preferably you would have a mentor who already has the level of proficiency you would like to emulate.

It may seem daunting that you have to invest 100 hours in your public speaking skills. However, the benefits of being a masterful speaker are lifelong and will surely have the highest ROI of any skill you could train for.

Most presenters speak about what’s important to them, not what is important to the audience.

People with advanced presentation skills approach each presentation in a different manner. They first ask themselves – “what does the audience actually care about?”

When you break it down, any audience usually cares first and foremost about themselves. They sit there with their problems on their mind.

For example in business presentations speakers will often highlight things like how long they have been in business or how many offices they have worldwide. Often times, the people in the audience simply don’t care about these things.

What they care about is – can you solve my specific problems?

When you are writing out your presentation ask yourself the dreaded “so what” question. I can guarantee you that members in the audience are asking themselves how you will add value to their business.

The second advanced presentation skill that I want to emphasize are the value of stories. There is a reason why Hollywood is a multi-billion dollar industry with a global reach – people LOVE stories. It goes back to the cave man days of sitting around a fire and nothing has changed.

People hate facts, figures and formulas. What they remember long after the presentation is complete are stories that were relevant to their lives and their problems.

Stories are remarkable for business presentations for several more reasons. First of all, stories create visual images in the mind. Usually, when you tell a story, you are forced to use adjectives and vivid imagery.

Another great feature about stories is that they are emotional. Good stories create an emotional response in the listener and when it comes to your presentation you want to stimulate the emotions of your audience.

Those with advanced presentation skills have usually mastered the art of telling a great story that is well structured, has a theme and also leaves the listener with a message.

The third advanced presentation skill that I would like to emphasize is the value of learning to speak with a smile.

What does a smile mean? It means that the speaker is both relaxed and confident. It also serves another purpose that is highly relevant in business presentations. It makes the speaker seem approachable. You want to leave the audience with the feeling that they can approach you with all their silly questions about your product or service.

The next time you observe a nervous presenter I want you to ask yourself whether this person is smiling or not. I can almost guarantee you that a person struggling with public speaking anxiety will not be smiling. You want to distance yourself from the people who appear nervous and that is another reason you want to smile during your presentation.

It may sound simple or self-explanatory but every speech has a beginning, middle, and an end. The two most important components of every presentation are the opener and the conclusion. You must be able to seize the audience’s attention and leave them with a lasting impression. It is a common tactic to memorize the opener and the closing since these are the most important elements of a speech. The last thing you want to do is to stand up at the podium and open your speech by looking down at your notes. Secondly, by memorizing the opening and closing you are developing much-needed confidence in your material.

Body of the Speech

The body of a speech is rather formulaic. After the opening you will make the points of your speech. The number of points will depend on the time allotted and your audience. It is rare that an audience can remember more than three points for any given speech.

For a 10 minute speech three main ideas are plenty. One must remember that the speech must be memorable. By glazing over or not clarifying a main point the speaker is making it impossible for the audience to take away anything from the speech. Remember, the audience is in a fog and each piece of new information you hurl at them only contributes to the fog. Most speakers know their topics well and have rehearsed the speech countless number of times. Consequently, they don’t realize that fresh ears hearing the speech for the first time are not grasping the main points quickly.

Management guru Tom Peters is an energetic presenter. You may not like his style because he is brash, loud and outspoken but he injects energy into every minute.

His body language is dictated by quickly pacing around the stage. He also constantly uses hand gestures. At 1:10 of the clip you can watch him open his arms wide as he proclaims “I am not into quotas.” He then points his finger and shakes it up and down like a school teacher scolding a student when he criticized corporate governance in America. This is an example of how your body language must be consistent with your message. Another feature of Peters’ high octane presentations are A LOT of facial expressions. For example, when he is confused about a particular issue he will crinkle his forehead to emphasize his confusion.

Arguably the most famous orator of the 20^th century had a rule about the amount of preparation that is necessary for presentations. Winston Churchill would spend one hour for each minute of speaking time! This fact clearly dispels the notion that phenomenal public speaking is an inborn talent. Churchill is testament to the fact that it takes hard work and preparation. The modern rule of thumb for preparation is that you should spend 10 hours for each hour of speaking time in order to limit public speaking nervousness. This practice time does not take into consideration the time you should spend learning about the venue, audience research and research about other speakers.

What is Public Speaking Nervousness?

Here are the symptoms of public speaking nervousness:

• your voice starts shaking and it sounds like you “swallowed a frog”
• high degree of perspiration
• inability to remember lines or think clearly

Sound familiar?

The major preparation strategy that is effective to battle public speaking nervousness is positive visualization. This is a tactic used by high performers in sports or business. I even know of a surgeon who pictures himself performing the surgery successfully before he even steps into the operating room.

For example, you picture yourself speaking with confidence. You hear the applause of the audience in your ears. You think about what it would feel like to receive genuine compliments from your coworkers.

The more specific your visualization, the more effective the tactic at reducing public speaking nervousness.

What is Body Language?

Body language includes eye contact, facial expressions, hand gestures, your stance and your movements around the stage.

The use of body language is a personal preference. It is not something that should be forced as it is simply an outward expression of an inner feeling. The audience will detect faked or timed gestures. Physical gestures are personal and should not be imitated. For example, Bill Clinton used hand gestures to make his body speak. He often looked as if he were a conductor of a symphony. Other speakers such as Abraham Lincoln did not use the hands. Lincoln moved his head from side to make his body speak. Body language is a personal preference and there is no template for public speakers.

Eye Contact

The value of eye contact is no different on a stage in front of 1000 people than it is in a one-on-one conversation. Eye contact creates an air of honesty, confidence and inclusion. Obviously, you want to create an image of credibility. You want your listeners to believe your message and to believe in you as a person.

Eye contact is not simply bouncing your eyes from person to person. Rather, you want to look at one person and finish your thought while maintaining eye contact. After that point, you move your eyes to another person. Another key thing to remember is not to simply focus on the same handful of people. You want to experience eye contact with as many people as possible. On a subconscious level at the very least, people who have not received your eye contact will feel ignored.

You want to make your eye contact appear natural. Thus, you need to choose eye contact partners on a random basis. Look to the left of the room, and then look to the front of the room, and back to the left of the room and out into the back of the room etc. You do not want to have your eyes move in a perfectly circular fashion like a lighthouse beam into the ocean. Your eye contact must look spontaneous.

Facial Expressions

On stage you are a performer. Your face will convey a message the same way that an actor uses facial expressions. A face of sorrow and a face of ebullient joy are totally different. Even a toddler can distinguish between the two types of facial expression.

The most common mistake that speakers make is that they do not use any facial expression. This conveys no emotion. The second type of mistake is that the facial expression is not consistent with the message. Often I see speakers smiling as they are going over a point that requires persuasion and a face of aggressiveness.

The Way You Stand

You want to appear confident. This means that you want to stand feet shoulder width apart with your body weight on both feet. You want to roll your shoulders back as most people slouch forward. Push your chest out slightly. Rocking from side to side is a common tendency for nervous speakers. Their foot movement almost looks as if they are slow dancing without a partner.

There is a great example of proper upright posture in this video of a presentation by “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” author Robert Kiyosaki. You can notice that even though he is standing up perfectly straight, he does not look stiff. The air or message created by his posture is sheer and utter confidence. Obviously, if you are promoting financial literacy books this is exactly the type of posture you would want to have.

The Way You Move

Eyes are attracted to movement. This is why a litigator moves around a courtroom while he or she speaks to the jury. You do not want to nervously pace around the room but rather move with purpose. Your movement should be consistent with your presentation. When you move forward toward the audience it is because you want to emphasize a key point. You may shuffle a few steps after finishing a point to stimulate more attention.

There are four main categories of presentations. Many speeches will cross into two or more genres. For example, a sales presentation about the benefits of mutual funds may be informative in that it may talk about the broad financial benefits of equity ownership. However, it may also be persuasive as the speaker tries to convince the audience that their mutual fund company is superior.

Here are the four main types of presentations:

1. Informational Presentations
2. Persuasive Presentations
3. Inspirational Presentations
4. Entertaining Presentations

To come up with public speaking ideas, first choose the genre and then create the presentation content.

Public Idea: What is the Point of the Presentation?

Over and over again you must ask yourself what is the point of my presentation? This is also known as answering the “so what” question. To stay on course you need to prepare a focused presentation. The natural tendency is to ramble or to bounce around various tangents.

To combat this tendency, write out a mock review of the presentation from the audience’s viewpoint. For example, suppose you were giving a presentation on remedies for tennis elbow. Put yourself in the shoes of somebody in the audience and pretend to write a review of your presentation. In this case, the review might be as follows: “From the tennis elbow remedy presentation I learned that this type of tendinitis is common with tennis players as well as with hairdressers. I was able to list the symptoms of tendinitis by analyzing the type of pain in my elbow and the length of time that the pain persisted. Finally, I can now list the physiotherapy exercises that can treat tennis elbow.”

Notice how this exercise helps you answer the most important question of all – what’s in it for the audience? Why should they bother listening to your presentation? How does your talk help them with their desires and fears? Every presentation must be created for the benefit of the audience because the audience really only cares about their problems.

Once you write out the specific purpose of the presentation from the viewpoint of the audience you will be able to clearly answer the dreaded “so what” question. The key public speaking idea is to keep your presentation focused and speak for the audience’s benefit.

It is now important to discuss some common examples of poor opening.

1. Speakers often tell a story or a joke that has nothing to do with the presentation topic. This is a definite no-no.
2. Amateurs always seem to think that they have to be humorous or witty in their opening. Everyone thinks that they have to be like David Letterman. There are a dozen ways to grab attention and humor is only one strategy.

This is an example of humor that has nothing to do with the presentation. It is a commencement speech at Harvard given by comedian Will Ferrell.

“This is not the Worcester, Mass Boat Show, is it? I am sorry. I have made a terrible mistake. Ever since I left “Saturday Night Live,” I mostly do public speaking now. And I must have made an error in the little Palm Pilot. Boy. Don’t worry. I got it on me. I got the presentation on me. Let’s see. Ah, yes. Here we go.

You know, when Bill Gates first called me to speak to you today, I was honored. But when he wanted me to be one of the Roxbury guys, I — Sorry, that’s Microsoft. I’m sorry about that. Star Trek Convention. No. NRA. NAACP. Dow Chemical. No. But that is a good one. That is a good presentation. The University of Michigan Law. Johns Hopkins Medical School. I’m sorry. Are you sure this is not the boat show? No, I have it. I do have it on me. I do. It’s here. Thank you.”

This is a funny opener. However, Ferrell is a professional comedian with eighteen years of experience on Saturday Night Live. Unless, you can front that type of comedic resume, you are probably better off avoiding pure comedy if you want to improve public speaking.

1. Another way to improve public speaking is to avoid making an apology in your introduction. The time for humility is not in the opening of the presentation. Sometimes an amateur speaker will start the presentation by saying “I’m not much of a public speaker” or some other type of apology. Would your appetite increase if the chef told you that they were not much of a cook? The opening is used to whet the appetites of the audience. To make the audience interested or curious about what is coming up. When you apologize you numb that eager expectation. Their minds shift to “let’s see how much of my time this speaker is going to waste.”
2. This is a common opener: “Good afternoon, ladies and gentleman. I am happy to be here today.” This is boring. Use a catchy opening to improve your public speaking. For example, Al Gore gave a presentation on Green Energy and spent the first two minutes thanking people and saying how happy he was to there. Watch the clip and you’ll see there is a reason he earned the nickname Al “Bore.”

There are three primary objectives to any opening. Firstly, you must grab the audience’s attention. The second objective is to give the audience an idea of what you will be speaking about. Finally, the opening also sets the tone for the presentation.

Let us examine the opening of one of the most famous presentations in American history. This is the opening of the “I Have a Dream” presentation by Dr. Martin Luther King.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

First of all, if you watch the clip notice how Dr. King never attempts to speak above the wild applause of the audience. He waits for silence, pauses, and breathes deeply prior to the opening.

Secondly, the tone of the presentation is set in the first minute. The audience knows that this is a presentation about injustice. Dr. King has also given signs and a roadmap of what is to come. We know that he is going to speak about segregation and a Constitution that has failed its citizens.

Finally, notice the vivid imagery used in the first two paragraphs. This is how you grab attention:

• Beacon of light
• Seared in the flames of withering injustice
• Joyous daybreak
• Crippled by the manacles of segregation
• Island of poverty

Dr. King’s presentation clearly accomplishes the three main objectives. He captures attention using vivid, active language and sets the tone and theme of the presentation in the first two paragraphs.