I really enjoy speaking in public, giving presentations that give me the opportunity to present my ideas to others and feel more in touch with them, but I understand that not everyone has the ease of facing an audience.
In fact, I must admit it, at first I didn't have it either. The first times I faced an audience I would get nervous and struggled to remember what I had to say. That's why I practiced various strategies, until I found the one that worked best for me and the one that best adapted to what I needed.
Now, I want to share with you the foundations of that strategy, so that you can build your own structure from it, and your public presentations are professional and of the highest quality.
First of all you have two options: Make a script. I must admit that I'm not very good at this, because it makes me feel like I'm giving a somewhat stiff performance, but if you have the necessary skills to carry it out and maintain a natural pose, go ahead. The second option is the one I use for all my presentations, making note cards.
The cards will help you keep a record of the topics you want to address, with the key words you want to mention in them and the time you have for each subject, but without the rigidity of a script. This method allows you to always use your own words and achieve the same objective even if you vary your speech each time.
You don't need to be consulting your cards during the presentation, in fact, the ideal thing is that you can use them, just like the script, only during rehearsals and that the presentation appears as a completely natural conversation. Watch some famous speakers and notice how they talk to their audience casually without letting on that they had already studied that entire speech beforehand, everything flows and the audience stays attentive, as if they were listening to a good friend.
To achieve this effect of confidence and spontaneity, what you need to do is rehearse a lot, rehearse again and again, until you perfectly master the topic you're going to present, your space, your movements and your entire presentation.
So, once you've made your script or cards, it's time to start rehearsing. You will probably have to do the first ones with your notes at hand, but gradually you'll be able to do without them and you'll start to become comfortable and confident with what you're saying.
For this, there are different ways to conduct rehearsals, each with different benefits, so I recommend you practice with all of them and see which one best suits you. In fact, if you wish, you can rehearse with all of them, depending on the level at which you consider you are already at mastery of your topic.
First step / First technique: Personal rehearsal
You perform this rehearsal alone in a place free from interruptions and distractions. Preferably the space should be spacious and should have a mirror so you can better see how you move and the expressions you make. If you decide to only use this technique, you must be very aware that you will be responsible for evaluating, at the moment, everything you need to correct and improve so that your presentation is successful.
Second step / Second technique: Record your rehearsal
Although you also perform this rehearsal alone, this technique has the advantage that you don't have to notice all the aspects to improve at the moment you're doing them, but instead you can perform the presentation imagining that you're already in front of a real audience, and at the end analyze everything you did when you see it in the recording. This also serves to keep a record of the words you said in case you consider that any of them could become a key word.
Third step / Third technique: Rehearsal with audience
This rehearsal is already much closer to a real experience. The ideal is to do it with people you trust who can give you feedback and help you improve on what they consider necessary. With this technique you can notice some things that you may have overlooked before because it's not as easy to identify them when you rehearse alone, such as whether everyone heard and understood you throughout the presentation, or if you managed to keep everyone's attention the whole time and what you could do to improve.
During your rehearsals, in addition to memorizing or adapting your speech well so you can present it without problems, it's necessary to keep in mind other important aspects that help make the presentations you give look professional and will keep your audience's attention the entire time you're on stage.
Diction
If the audience doesn't understand you, it's impossible to maintain good communication with them and their attention will be lost very quickly, so it's important that you take care of how you say each word, without doing it in an exaggerated way. There are many exercises that help improve diction, they are simple exercises that will help you speak better and that don't take you more than five minutes. What I recommend is that you always do them before your rehearsals and, of course, before making your final presentation.
Volume
Playing with the volume of your voice is something that helps a lot in maintaining continuous attention from your audience, being able to accent certain words, or having "secrets" that create an atmosphere of more trust and confidentiality, make people feel closer to you and want to know more about what you're saying. That said, even if you pretend to speak at a lower volume, you have to make sure that everyone in the room can hear you all the time.
Express yourself
Body movement is a great tool that we can use to our advantage, it's always much more visually attractive someone who coordinates their movements well with what they're saying, than someone who moves nervously around the stage or who stands rigid like a statue at one point. Practice postures, walking, movements, expressions, everything you think might work and that you can adopt naturally to your body.
Inhale and exhale
Perhaps it seems like obvious advice, but you should know that a crucial aspect of any good speech is knowing how to breathe, breathing can help you relax and stay calm throughout your presentation, it also helps maintain the proper functioning of your mind and body. Do diaphragmatic breathing exercises before starting your presentation and you'll see how everything will have a remarkable improvement.
Now you have all the steps to follow that you need, don't forget that consistency is what will lead you to perfection, always practice with awareness and, in very little time, you will become a much better speaker and you will feel much more comfortable when you have to give a presentation.