The foundations of good speaking practice

This week I’m sharing in my Facebook community Sought After Speakers how to enhance your speaking skills. 

Today I’m sharing what I feel are the foundations of good speaking practice. 

This will be different wherever you decide to get speaker training. My speaking career has been built from 15 years spent standing up and training leaders on how to communicate more effectively. In that time I had to not only learn that those techniques were, but I had to hone them myself. 

Here are a few foundations:

• Connection with the audience – being able to deliver a talk so you are ‘with the audience’ rather than talking at them
• Articulation – knowing what to say and how to deliver those words clearly and succinctly
• Impact – using the right words and stories to connect with the audience and achieve maximum engagement and the outcomes you are looking to achieve
• Presence – knowing how to present yourself without words so that it enhances your talk rather than takes away from it
• Interaction – knowing how to interact with your audience so that they continue to engage with you and go deeper into what you are sharing with them
• Simplicity – keeping your talk as minimal and simple as possible in terms of words, slides and information 
• Storytelling – using the most powerful tool in human communication to deliver your talk authentically and with maximum impact
• Structure – having a flow and arc to your talk that means it is going somewhere, has a prupose and an outcome for the audience.

I’d love to know, out of the 8 above, what is the ONE thing you need to develop in order to enhance your speaking skills? Hit comment and let me know.

And if you’d like some personal feedback? Join me in my free facebook community sought after speakers right now! www.facebook.com/groups/soughtafterspeakers

Much love

Helen x