Before Pursuing Public Speaking, Consider These 5 Things

Paid public speaking can be a fun and rewarding job, but many public speakers fail if they aren’t prepared to take on this career. Perhaps you’ve given a few talks and realized you have a knack for public speaking. Maybe you’ve been speaking in corporate environments and you haven’t been paid much for doing so. Maybe you see public speakers on your TV or computer and you feel like you could do it too. If you are thinking these things, you might want to go for paid public speaking as a career move. If you’re a good speaker, it’s pretty exciting that you could be paid to speak in front of groups. But before you make this career shift, you may want to think about these 5 things:

• Most of the money in this industry is in corporate speaking.

If you want to get paid a solid amount for public speaking, your best bet is to go into corporate speaking. In order to do corporate speaking, you’ll need to prove that your topic in some way improve a company. Maybe your topic decreases turnover or maybe it helps employees get along better. Perhaps it helps employees be happier or more productive. If you can convince companies of this, you’ll be able to reach success in the field of public speaking.

• Competition for high paying corporate “gigs” is tough.

In order to gain engagement, you’ll need to appear to be top notch, even before you are. In this industry, window dressing is key. Your website, your content, and the way that you market yourself will have a massive effect on whether you get the chance to show anyone how effective you are on stage.

• Paid speakers have to take their jobs seriously.

For prophets and celebrities, just speaking “off the cuff” might be acceptable. But in the world of paid corporate speaking, your message needs to be well-delivered, well-toned, and properly rehearsed. If you want to do well in the industry, you have to put a lot of effort into practicing your speeches. That means rehearsing everything from the tone of your voice to your gestures.

• Before you go after the biggest venues, test your performance, your content, and your jokes.

One of the biggest reasons speakers fail is because they are not right about their content. Perhaps they think their content is better than it is, they are basing their knowledge on things they don’t know much about, they deliver content that audiences have already heard a million times, or their research is from too long ago. In order to enter the field and gain success, you need fresh content, and you need to deliver it in an engaging, entertaining way.

• “Set it and forget it” marketing doesn’t apply to speakers

If you are the product, you will need to market yourself from the beginning of your career to the end. You cannot sit and wait for the phone to ring. If you jump into things without being prepared, you will slow down your progress. You cannot build a website now and expect to ride on it for the next decade. Most speakers are always working to write new promotional materials, new speeches, and even new books. You will need to keep your name under the noses of meeting planners at all times.

Now that you know some of the challenges associated with professional speaking, you can figure out if this is the industry for you. Professional speaking is a field that can be lucrative and even glamorous. Whether speaking is your business, or you are speaking to attract customers to your core business, professional speaking can be a fascinating profession.

The Speaker’s Dictionary I-P

Welcome back to my series, The Alphabet of Public Speaking. Here are some more quick tips to help you be a better speaker:

Inflection – It isn’t just what you say that is important. It’s how you say it. Inflections are changes in the intonation or pitch of your voice. When you’re practicing public speaking, you’ll need to think about this, as it carries a lot of meaning and affects how the audience perceives your words. Varying your pitch inflection is important because it keeps the audience attentive. It is also a key factor in differentiating critical points from information that is not as important.

Jargon – Jargon is a set of technical language associated with a certain profession, trade or similar group. While it is important to know the jargon of a topic before talking about it, many speakers make the mistake of filling their speeches with too much business jargon. Make sure you use jargon sparingly.

Keyword outline – If you want to be a top notch speaker, it’s a good idea to use a keyword outline to guide you. Akeyword outline is a written aid that can help you easily memorize a speech. To create a keyword outline, just take the most important words from your speech and write them down in order.

Leadership – When you’re speaking to a large group, you need to be able to influence people. You want your speaking to inspire people to work toward a common goal. Public speaking and good leadership go hand-in-hand. If you’re a good public speaker, then you’re also a thought leader.

Motivation – When we think of public speakers, we think of people who are motivational. A good public speaker is able to motivate the audience. Inflection and intonation is especially important for motivational speaking. People should leave your speech feeling inspired to do whatever it is that you encouraged them to do, whether it’s using a new skill in the workplace or shifting your perspective.

Nonverbal communication – Public speakers communicate through more than just words. It’s important to practice your gestures to make sure they are inviting, engaging and positive. It’s also a good idea to take up a good deal of space on the stage according to The Genard Method of public speaking. By commanding the space around you, you can show your listeners that they can have confidence in you.

Open-ended questions – One technique that people use while speaking is to ask questions that the respondents can answer however they want. Open-ended questions usually begin with how, what, when, where, and why. Asking an open-ended rhetorical question is a great way to get your audience thinking and involved.

Pause – There are times when silence in public speaking can have a negative effect, but pauses don’t have to be a bad thing. Pauses, when done correctly, can truly engage your audience. You can use pauses to separate the sections of your speech, or to let important information really sink in. Pauses can also help the working memory of your listeners. Silence can be powerful.

Stay tuned to see more posts with the rest of the alphabet!