4 Habits of World-Class Speakers

1. Practice, Practice, Practice

The best way to learn how to speak in public…is to speak in public!

Get as much stage time as you can.

The best speakers are the ones who got up on stage every time they could, made mistakes, learned from their mistakes, and then continued learning.

 2. Get Feedback

After your speech or presentation, get feedback from your audience members. Ask them for points of improvement. They will give you ideas on how to make your speech/presentation more effective.

 3. Record and Review

You can’t learn from your mistakes unless you know what your mistakes are.

I highly recommend investing in a video-camera. Buy one of the flip-cameras so that you can carry it to your presentations and record your speech.

After your presentation, review your performance: first, watch your performance with the sound turned off and analyze your body language. Are the gestures and stage movement appropriate and purposeful? Are there any repetitive and distracting gestures you could cut out?

Next, review your presentation by closing your eyes and paying careful attention to your voice. Do you have an appropriate tone, pitch, pace?

Finally, watch your presentation with both the sound and the video to see how both the visual and audio elements fit together.

As you go through this process, write down notes about what areas you can improve on next time.

 4. Learn from the Best

The most common element of the World’s Best Speakers is that they learned from the best.

If you want to be the best, you’ve got to learn from the best.

Get coaching. Read great blogs on public speaking. Read books on the art of public speaking and apply the principles you learn.

Keep speaking up, and be sure to subscribe to the blog for more tools, techniques and processes to help you become a world-class speaker.

Written by Akash