You may be a skillful expert, have a great business idea or a great product, but if you cannot communicate them to the audience effectively, you won’t be able to push out your business to the full potential.
From smaller scale meetup such as team meeting to bigger event like business or product launching, persuasive communication skill takes big impact in your success. Your journey as an entrepreneur needs this skill beside talent and experience in order to reach goals. Take Steve Jobs as an example. He can communicate thoroughly, bringing out his messages confidently and clearly pass them to his audiences.
While some people are born to be natural speakers, most of us are not. Thankfully, as human beings, we have ability to learn, as long as we know the secret to be good speakers.
Here are my personal experience in public speaking. I have talked in a few events with small and big audiences. From school project to business presentation. I am not a natural speaker and also, I am not a frequent seminar or big event speaker. But I like to challenge myself in becoming a good speaker and business communicator. Since I am not a naturally born speaker, what I’m going to share could be more useful compared to learning from a natural talent speaker. Why? Because I am learning from experiences, I know what we lack of and what we can do to improve ourself. Trust me. You will improve a lot if you can master these skills.
1. Know your topic and master its knowledge
This is a no brainer. When you are talking in public, you should have known what you’re talking about and able to answer anything being asked by the audiences. But still, you are not confident about it.
This is the solution. I know you should have had the knowledge, otherwise, you won’t be working in this field and won’t have this good opportunity to talk in public. All you need to do is get prepared, learn the topic much more deeply and be cautious of any questions that might be raised by the audiences. For example, if you are talking about finance, you need to prepare the charts and sources of the information.
2. Be brave and confident
Most of the time, it is not because you can’t get the word out of your mouth, but you are too scared to be in front of many people. You are afraid of mistakes and you are worry to be judged by the audiences.
Now, imagine you are talking with a group of friends. Are you worry? Yes you are, but you won’t take it too seriously. You are brave enough to talk and keep talking, ignoring whether you are going to make mistake or not.
So, here is the hack. You have to be brave, ignore your worriness and pretend you know the audiences. Look at them as your friends. Take as if they like you, otherwise they won’t be there to hear you speaking. Is it hard? Yes it is, but you don’t have other choice if you want to master this skill.
3. Be relax and smile
You are going to talk in front of so many people. It has been in your mind for weeks. It has been days of intensive preparation. You are under a lot of pressure as if you are having a big exam. How would you speak brightly on stage?
Here are what you’re going to do. You might want to take a day or two before event to not touching any of the presentation materials. Just enjoy your days with family and friends. You are guaranteed to have clearer mind. When the big day comes, stay relax, put a smile on, cross your fingers and you are good to go.
4. Practise, practise and practise
Everyone practises, even the talented one. Since you are not a natural speaker, you need to practise more. Learn by watching videos of great speakers.
One evergreen presentation practise is by standing in front of a big mirror, where you can see yourself from head to toe and begin speaking to that ‘guy’ in the mirror. Pay attention to your face and body language. Be expressive and try to speak in a good tone. Do this once in awhile. You will get better everyday.
What I share here are pretty basic rules. These are what I’ve done and they help me improve a lot. It would take some time to master this skill. You need to learn and keep trying to improve. Be confident. You will be a good one someday.
Wahidin Wong is a digital marketer at Adkomu.com and an editor at Tobeeko.com. He is also a jazz and bossa lover.
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