For the past 8 years, I’ve been working tirelessly with people who’re looking to up their communication game – mostly for personal growth or business purposes.

This has also led to the creation of the public speaking school in Lagos and Awka – Fordax Training Academy (AKA The Speech Masters Academy).

 

Here’s some truth —

Whether you are speaking to persuade, entertain or educate, there are rules to communication and keeping these rules will make you a much better speaker than your peers.

Never screw up your chances again by committing these speaking blunders.

If you desire to become the speaker that communicates in a way that garners interest and admiration from the crowed, these rules will guide you into that realm.

 

Let’s discuss them briefly.

1. Monologue instead of dialogue – stop, murmuring, muttering or talking so lowly it’s almost like you’re talking to yourself while on stage. Be audible and be heard.

 

Speaking is a form of communication. Communication is a conversation — more like the everyday conversations we have with our family, friends and teachers in school.

 

So anytime you’re standing on the stage but you’re not speaking with the audience, you’re speaking to yourself alone and have failed in your task as a speaker.

 

How to go from giving a monologue to having a dialogue in public speaking:

 

• Avoid speaking to people rather speak with
• Ask questions, listen, expect answers and use their contributions.
• Connect with your audience by adding humor, a story or something that teases them.
• Make your audience feel like you are one of them – be down to earth.
• Make your audience feel like you’re having a conversation with them.
• Give your audience a chance to respond, react and even contribute to your topic while you’re speaking.
• Give your audience the opportunity to feel as though they are part of your research team by appreciating their views and opinions.
• Rob minds with your audience, then tell them something new or something old in a new perspective.

 

 

2. Making The Audience Feel Like Idiots

People hate speakers who are too proud and arrogant.

People hate speakers who claim to have all the answers and therefore cannot listen to other people.

What’s worse, it’s very disheartening to see a speaker talk down, embarrass or degrade a member of his or her audience.

 

Avoid this like plague.

 

Here is how to not be an asshole and speak with greater humility and respect for the audience.

• Make your audience feel good about your subject by carrying them along.
• Make the audience feel free to contribute by promising not to criticize them or by avoiding the temptation to be sarcastic to their responses.
• Treat your audience with some big respect even when you think they don’t really deserve it. If you do, they will do their best to live up or rise up to it.
• Don’t appear to be a guru or an expert who knows everything. Show yourself to be a friend and someone just like them who’s interested in helping them gain deeper perspective on a subject.
• Sometimes, use vulnerability to connect with them. Vulnerability is the act of displaying your harmless weaknesses or short comings for the purpose of making the audience feel that you are just as human as they are.

 

My grandmother used to embarrass me more, when she would pick me up from school wearing a big fuzzy hat. I didn’t like that. — Adam Sandler

3. Avoid Abstractness – talking in the air.

 

A great speaker is a person whose words create pictures in the mind of the listeners.

 

A great speaker uses concrete terms, visual instances and imageries that make the audience to quickly grasp his message.

 

How to avoid sounding too abstract while speaking on stage:

 

• Know your subject well enough to the point you can use relevant instances and stories to break it down to a novice or a child.
• Use enough metaphors, examples and simple registers to ensure that your audience understands you.
• Limit a broad topic into a simpler, more direct, more practical and applicable piece of discussion at the end of which your audience can at least leave with something to do and get some results.

 

Are you serious about becoming a more interesting, engaging and powerful public speaker or presenter?

 

Do you want an expert to take you by the hand and help you master some of the skills we discussed in this article?

 

If your answer is YES, then register for our public speaking school here in Lagos.

It’s a 4 weeks program that is designed to help you overcome stage fright, build self confidence, master communication skills and build your speaking career.

 

Here’s what you will achieve with the training:

• Overcome stage fright very easily so you can stand confidently to speak in front of 50 or 500 people, anywhere, any time.
• Build self-confidence so you can command boldness, eloquence and power on stage.
• Be able to prepare and deliver powerful presentations in your business or social meetings.  
• Be able to write and organize your speeches like a professional speaker following international standards.
• Be able to communicate your ideas with eloquence & charisma so you can easily win people to your way and get more people to follow you.
• Become a more interesting and persuasive speaker – no more being a boring person. No more having the awkward experience where you are speaking and people are dozing off to sleep or crashing their legs on the floor in utter boredom. Regain your power.

 

Do you want to start this week? Chat with DrMiki.