No Wonder Public Speaking is a Number One FEAR! – No training, inadequate training, or too late training…
While some clients share having received some public speaking training in high school or college, most report that they were left on their own to figure out how to effectively speak to groups. Perhaps that is why there are so many more fearful speakers than confident and comfortable ones.
Public speaking fear results in part, from performing without any performance guidelines.
Would you write a letter before knowing the rules for margins, indentation and punctuation? Would you ski before taking a skiing lesson? Would you sing on stage before learning to use a microphone? Wouldn’t some instruction support your confidence and success at these endeavors?
Just because you can speak easily and well to one person at a time, does not mean you can speak well to many people at once! Speaking to groups is different from speaking one to one or contributing to a group discussion. Unlike with conversation or discussion, the presenter or public speaker has 100% of the speaking responsibility. Also, a public speaker usually stands while the audience sits, (a unique center stage experience which usually does not happen in conversations and discussions). Plus, the speaker, addressing a group, is always competing with each listener’s natural tendency to “go away,” to focus on what’s going on in his or her mind. Without training and practice, a speaker might feel intimidated, rejected or overwhelmed if he perceives his audience as distracted.
Most public speaking trainings teach the basics: presentation planning and presentation delivery, what I call the thinking and doing skills. These are essential and the core building blocks for speaking to groups. But there are other skills besides the cognitive and platform skills that help a speaker to be authentic, comfortable, engaging and memorable. These “being” skills are the invisible and energetic elements of public speaking that differentiate Speaking that Connects’ signature presentation training, 4 Points of Connection, from other public speaking programs.
4 Points of Connection addresses connection to your message, audience, inner self and physical self. Join our free 4 Points of Connection Webinar on April 27 at noon, EST, and sample the presentation training that grows your confidence and clarity and closes your presentation gaps.
You may also want to assess your presentation strengths and needs with this presentation self-evaluation questionnaire. Our goal is mutual satisfaction for both speaker and audience!
