by Stephanie Bickel
Think of when you were the smoothest speaker. Chances are it was when you were practicing public speaking skills and talking frequently. When it comes to effective leadership communication strategies and public speaking, the best way to practice is to give the same message over and over again. When we work with management team presentations that will be delivered 10+ times, those individuals become exceptional speakers. Every time they deliver the message it becomes more interesting. They start to take more risks and have more fun. It's the same with military personnel who give the same briefing over and over for 6-12 months. It also happens with HR professionals who have to share the same onboarding message over and over again.
These are terrific opportunities for not only improving effective leadership communication strategies, and oratory skills, but improving all types of speaking skills. Oratory skills involve being good at writing a speech, memorizing that speech, and delivering it with maximum impact. Very rarely do we have the time in business to do all of those, even though it would likely drive wild business results to do so in front of the right audiences. When people want to work on speaking skills, we are also thinking about day-to-day and in-the-moment communication. Great speaking skills include a clear structure, good dialoguing skills, brevity, and the ability to control oneself to manage emotion effectively.
Here are 9 ways for practicing public speaking skills by yourself, without an audience.
1. Speak in the shower to your imaginary stakeholders.
Practice conversations with your boss, clients, team members, and partners. Anticipate their questions and objections to your ideas.
2. Become obsessed with the problem.
Think about what you are trying to solve and perfect how your answer it. Answer this question every morning: "What's really the answer?"
3. Use background noise.
Turn on background noise that could be distracting and try to deliver your full message.
4. Set a timer to shorten your message.
Set a 5-minute timer to see if you can shorten the message. Then, set a 3-minute timer. Challenge yourself to shorten every time.
5. Practice projecting your voice.
Pretend you are a soccer coach trying to share this message across the soccer field. Leader communication often uses more energy and a stronger voice.
6. Use the Voice Memo app on your phone.
Record your presentation or message. Listen back to this over and over while you do routine things: cleaning, getting ready, walking outside.
7. Practice your most important messages while exercising.
Work on your self-introduction, company overview, status updates, success stories, and picture of the future.
8. Use your virtual platform to help you practice.
Get on your favorite virtual platform, like Zoom. Record yourself delivering a message and watch it back. Pick one thing you want to work on before recording yourself again. Make small improvements each time to make a big difference in the end.
9. Take a break and watch some great speakers.
Check out our YouTube Library of best public speakers. Look at how they use their body. How they use a pause. Immediately imagine how you could transfer some of those behaviors to your own work.
The Greeks who had the greatest oratory skills were those who ran the beaches yelling their speeches while they were out of breath. Practicing public speaking is the only way to get better, but you can also practice public speaking privately and get tremendous results.
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