How to improve your speech

If you’ve lived long enough, chances are you’ve been to an audience and woken up to that great phrase, ‘In conclusion.’ In a super boring one I sat in recently, the speaker asked if anyone had a question, I’d be happy to try and answer it. A member of the audience stood up. “I have a question,” he said. ‘Is it still 2017?’ The moral of the story for all of us, of course, when asked to make a speech is

1. To be honest,
2. be brief and
3. sit.

Many people fear public speaking. It must be Him
public That’s part of the problem, because most people seem to cope well when they meet someone on the street or talk to a waiter in a restaurant. Speeches need not be as Alfred Neuman observed, ‘… like ox horns. A point here, a point there and a lot of bull in the middle ‘.

There are a few things you can do to prepare.

1. Don’t leave it to the last minute. Make prep a habit: drip, drip, drip.
2. Test your speech with your pet, then work with a friend (or two), seek their feedback, and when you think you’re ready, test it with someone else. The ‘someone else’ could be you standing in front of a mirror.
3. Use available technologies. The internet and your smartphone, for example, allow information to be transferred from one end of the world to the other. If you run out of words, you can even buy the speech you want.

Here is an offer too good to refuse. Almost everything you need to know about speaking is yours for the asking. Go to justasktom.com, check out the ‘Speechmaking’ e-book and if you’d like a copy let me know ([email protected]) and a freebee will be with you, soon.