How You Can Your Public Speaking Abilities every single day 

For every successful public speaker, there are at least 1000 people who dream of it. That adds up to ~0.1%. Does that sound discourage you? Well, it doesn’t have to be. 

What the 99,9% don’t know or aren’t willing to come to terms with is that public speaking skills take practice. Yes, I know it’s not as fun as reading the latest self-development book or watching your favorite motivational speakers on youtube. Suppose you want to become the best possible spokesperson for your company or personal brand. In that case, you need to practice with intention. 

What do I mean by practicing with intention?

The one secret tool that the most successful public speakers use is a rubric. Do you remember your English class in high school? The chances are that your teacher used a rubric to evaluate your writing capabilities. The teacher would check for your spelling, grammar, and persuasiveness of your overall essay. 

If you were an “A” student, you likely paid attention to this rubric that was handed out to you in class before you began any class project. 

So what Does a Rubric have to do with public speaking?

While we all have taken at least 12 years of English classes going through school, we have only had to give a small number of presentations in our lives. Of those presentations, they were geared to come across as academic in presentation. It’s no wonder that many of us try to use “big” words and act stiff when giving presentations to colleagues and news outlets. We have an unconscious formula for a media disaster!

Record yourself on video Regularly  

Just like we had to write many essays for English class, we also need to practice and rehearse whatever we are communicating to our audience. Whether you are rehearsing for a keynote speech or a quick announcement at work, you always have an opportunity to practice anytime you have a quiet moment throughout the day. Back when our company was founded, there were no smartphones, so you had an excuse not to practice. Now that we have cell phones that record higher resolutions than $100k Hollywood-grade cameras as recently as ten years ago. If you have 5 minutes of quiet in your day, then you have time to rehearse and practice public speaking. It’s really as simple as taking your phone out of your pocket, hold your phone out like you are taking a selfie, and then hit the record button. Hit the red button again to stop the recording and review your footage. Notice what you like about it, and notice one thing that you dislike. This time when you are speaking, make one single change in how you are coming across. And then hit the record button again. If you do this regularly, you will become a great communicator in no time. 

Review the videos your Record of Yourself

When they start out filming talking-head videos of themselves, many people get flustered by their lack of fancy video and lighting equipment. The fact of the matter is that you don’t need to spend a dime on video equipment using this method. However, doing this method alone will be way more intricate and take far longer than working with one of our trainers. If you are on a very tight budget, you can have a friend or colleague review the footage. Be aware that they are not professional media trainers and can give you very bad advice. Take any feedback that friends, families, or colleagues share with you with a grain of salt. When you are reviewing videos of yourself talking, be sure to be a harsh but fair critic. You must be fair enough to notice both the things you are doing well and things you need to improve further. There is no such thing as being a perfect communicator, but you can grow into being one of the best speakers you can possibly be. 

Post Videos of Yourself Publicly (Create a Feedback Loop) 

When you post videos of yourself publicly, you are making a statement both for your brand. One of the most critical steps in becoming a thought leader is creating videos regularly. This is how you will begin to share your industry insights. You can post as little as one 60-second video a week and have a significant impact on Twitter, LinkedIn, or your company website. 99% of industry experts are too self-conscious to share their key insights from their industry publicly. You can easily differentiate yourself from the competition by posting videos on your social media platforms. Google may be the number one search engine globally, but Youtube is the second most used. For every 100-1000 website pages indexed in your industry, there may be only one video related to the work that you do. And there are far fewer videos from people who are highly effective communicators. If you are serious about improving your public speaking abilities, getting feedback from strangers through sharing your expertise is the best and most selfless path to take. As long as you are focused on delivering value to others, you are continually growing your personal and corporate brand. 

Conclusion 

Suppose you hire our firm for your next media or presentation training event. In that case, we provide you and your colleagues with customized training, a rubric that you can use, and a blended learning experience that is tested and perfected. We have over 20 years of experience transforming even the most nervous speakers into captivating speakers who light up the room and become the thought leaders of their industry. Becoming a great speaker doesn’t require you to be throwing darts at a board in the dark. By working with us, we will help you hit the exact targets you need to be a highly successful communicator in the most efficient amount of time. We will work with you to show you how dramatically you can improve within a single session with one of our trainers. Suppose you are an executive who is ready to become the thought leader of your industry. IF you are, you can contact us about our executive coaching program. We will devise a plan to make you one of the most sought-after thought leaders in your industry. We have time-limited seating for our executive coaching seats, so you will have to act fast. 

If you are ready to transform yourself or your colleague’s presentation abilities,

contact us today at 1-212-764-4955.