Hacking Public Speaking

You may never overcome a of public speaking but can get very good at hiding those fears, and look a very accomplished speaker if you know a few things.

Here are 20 practical techniques, learned from spending over 10,000 hours on stage that you can apply immediately.

1. Start with a your own stories — Open a file on your smart phone, call it “my stories” and bullet point list the ones old friends, family or colleagues always ask you to tell. Every time something funny happens to you or something jogs your memory add it here.
2. Link these stories to topics — Try and write one sentence that connects your story to your point. Complete this sentence: “I told you that story because……..”. This connection can be very loose.
3. Nail your timing — This can be done by intentionally delaying key words until the sentence end to heighten your impact. Eg, “We have an 80 per cent growth rate year on year” vs. the superior “Year on year we have a growth rate of 80 per cent”. This gives you an enforced pause for effect after your key point, and you’ll see your audience take note (literally in cases) or tweet the very parts you want them to react to.
4. Add a Funny Filter to Your Content — All the world’s best speakers and leading TED talks have one thing in common: They’re funny. When finished, go back over your talk and try and make it more engaging. Here’s how. Remember, if your story is embarrassing for you, it’s funny for audience and they love the humility and openness.
5. Never Finish with Q&A — Just like your favourite band you need to control the ending and realise it’s the most memorable part. To do this always save a conclusion slide and before you get to it say “I’m going to take a few questions before I make my conclusion”.
6. If the Energy is Down, Bring it Up — If the host didn’t introduce you with a strong round of applause, this is a good time for you to ask the audience to offer a round of applause for the host, some of the presenters before you, the sponsor or organisers of the event, and even one for the audience themselves (even though they think they’re clapping for themselves, it still feels like they’re clapping for you).This also takes their attention back from their devices, as it’s hard to clap with a cell phone in your hand.
7. Appear Confident and Conversational Using the Memory Palace — This is the most useful technique I learned in 8 years studding this topic. It takes away the fear of going blank and is the key to relaxed, conversational style speaking that frees up time to be spontaneous and in the moment. Here’s an article I wrote in Inc, a more detailed piece on my blog, and I recommend watching this great TED talk by Joshua Foer who wrote a great book on it.
8. Acknowledge the Obvious — If the audience is thinking it, you get easy points for vocalising it. That fresh stain on your shirt or the technical problems are never to be ignored and usually provide a quick source of laughter in their acknowledgement.
9. Go Short Before Long — The human attention span deteriorates after 9.59 minutes and never recovers. If you’re not confident in your ability to speak for 40 minutes plus, ask for less. How about I speak for 20 minutes and allocate 20 additional minutes for questions and answers. Better yet 10 and 10. No matter how good your talk is nobody will ever approach you after and say “that was amazing, I loved it, I really wish it was longer!” I use the Performance Timer App, which gives me a countdown timer on stage that I hide from the audience. Don’t rely on the venue having one on stage.
10. Practice Smart — Practice the opening and closing lines as many times as you can and then use the memory palace technique as mentioned above to memorise the key topic areas of your talk. This means memorising the first 30+/- seconds, the last 30+/- seconds and the keywords you will hit along the way. To save time try practising in fast forward. The extra speed helps highlight words that you might trip up on.
11. Screen Your Funny Bits — Up the laugh and engagement count by incorporating other people’s already socially proven funny content. The more you can build up the reveal to show it the funnier it will be. In a world where funny Photoshopped images, memes, and GIFs dominate our devices, visual humour has never been bigger. So don’t just say funny things in your presentation. Show funny things, too.
12. Use Your Hands — Try and speak with your hands in front of you, not flopped down to your side. Pretend your double fisting a couple of drinks that you’re going to spill if you put your arms down. Or just double fist a couple of beers. Granted, that might not make your presentation better, but eventually you won’t care anymore ;). If you have problems with shaky hands see this.
13. Help Your Host Help You — Often with nerves high, an event host will try some impromptu humour, unintentionally at your expense or say something unplanned that messes up your opening introduction. To get off to the best possible start supply the host with an introduction in advance of the event and also on the day of the event by writing or typing it out clearly on a small easy to hold card. Your introduction should be short, ideally say three things about you and only say your name once and very last. Eg, ladies and gentlemen our next speaker is the founder of some wacky startup, an award-winning writer, and occasional low-quality Elvis impersonator. Please give a huge welcome for “your name here”.
14. Go Virtual — Find an opportunity to deliver your planned talk virtually. When you deliver it make sure you can see as many of the audience as possible and ask a select number to unmute (10 or 15 is ideal) so you can hear some form of reaction. Make adjustments based on what worked. It’s not the same as in person but it’s similar enough in parts to be of value. Use Prezi Video or Mmhmm to enhance your visuals and the ability to play picture in picture content.
15. Audio Over Video — Many folks will tell you to video yourself and watch it back. In my experience teaching this to over 35,000 people about 1% of them will do this if not forced to do it. Better to audio record your talks and have them transcribed using a service like Rev.com. Most people hate listening back to themselves also so this helps side step this and gives you a script to review, evaluate and work on.
16. Speak up, Not ah, eh But — It sounds straight forward enough, but make sure you speak loud enough for people to hear you. You need to reach everybody in the room. The added benefit is that by speaking at little as 20 percent louder than normal you will reduce the amount of filler words (ah, eh, but) you tend to use. It’s very hard to say “eh” or “em” with this higher than normal tone. This feels strange to do but sounds perfectly normal to your audience.
17. Watch the 3 Speakers/Presenters Before You — This allows you build on their success and callback to their jokes and important points. Doing this really makes you one of the audience, as there was no way it could have been planned prior to the day and they know it. It also makes you are aware of any overlapping examples and helps avoid unnecessary repeats.
18. Interact with the Audience — But be specific in what you want them to do. Always ask an audience to do something, rather than just ask a question. Eg, “how many people here think Ireland is a country full of fine folks?” will not get as much participation as “by show of hands/by round of applause, how many people here think Ireland is a country full of fine folks? Of course they all do, but be clear about what you want them to do. If they don’t react like you wanted you can always use the tried and trusted lines, “This is not television. This is live. You know I can see you right?”
19. Score Your Content — Review your planned talk and rate all sections and items on a scale from 1–5. 4 and 5 mean folks love it, it’s essential to include, people ask you about it or reference it on social media. 1, or 2 means you’re not sure why it’s in there and it gets little reaction. 3 could be a keeper with some work. Try and rework your talk continuously so it’s all 4’s and 5’s. MakING it numerical takes the emotional attachment out of it and makes it easier to do.
20. Don’t Rely on Potential — “Don’t do it! Stay away from your potential,” Irish comedian Dylan Moran says. “You’ll mess it up. It’s potential; leave it. Anyway, it’s like your bank balance–you always have a lot less than you think.”

Hope that helps. Please shout if you have any questions. Sadly I know way too much about this not so sexy topic.

P.S. Do please excuse any typos. I’m dyslexic and despite writing a book I can’t spell for ship ;)

If you want to learn more I have way too much additional info here.