In today’s technologically advanced world there is one skill that remains steadfastly essential to those who wish to become successful: public speaking.

But here’s the problem, for many people there is no other activity that causes more anxiety and panic. In fact, the fear of public speaking is considered the number 1 fear in the UK and USA – even higher than the fear of death!

What panics most people is knowing what to say, and what bores most audiences is how the speaker goes about saying it! Whether you are a CEO of a multi-national making a keynote address, a middle manager taking a team meeting or an entrepreneur speaking through online video and dominating YouTube, you’ll need the talent to be able to have impact, influence and inspire in order to increase your income. Andy Harrington has some suggestions on how you can be a better public speaker and radically improve your success at developing and applying this much-needed skill.

Success Resources: http://www.srpl.net/

Start with a Question Start by asking the audience a question. A question that engages them and gets them responding to you. Because ultimately, you want to be able to better lead the audience. Now, you can’t lead individuals, but you can lead a group. So by asking them a question and getting them to respond, you unite the audience and set yourself up as the leader.

Success Resources: http://www.srpl.net/

Eye Contact Begin by looking at just one person, look at their eyes and speak to one person at a time. Then at the end of that sentence when you would naturally pause if you were reading a book, and find the next individual. Have a series of one-on-one conversations with the individual members of the audience and hold that gaze until you have finished that point or sentence. You’ll find yourself more able to focus your nervous energy, slow down and connect far better with your audience.

Gestures What do you do with your arms, your hands or your feet and the rest of you body? First, you must have a natural resting place for your hands, which is best if loosely held between the navel and the chest. Use your hands only if you have to like when you want to show how big that opportunity is. If you are speaking about an increase, show them a gesture that reflects this. Use emphatic gestures and use gestures to describe things. Then when you are not using your hands simply allow them to drop naturally back into the neutral position discussed earlier.

Success Resources: http://www.srpl.net/

Inflection and Volume You want to increase your volume, and increase your voice inflection, which means the variance in the pitch or the tone of your voice. It is more interesting, more exciting to listen to a presenter that has passion and feeling in their voice. Speak to your audience with belief and you will soon see they will share that belief.

Call to Action

This is arguably the hardest part of the presentation. At the end of your presentation, you want to call people to action on your message and implement your advice. Great speakers enrol people and lead them to a decision – something actionable that they have to perform to secure their commitment to what your message is. One way to do this is to invite people to “click a link to find out more” if you’re speaking online or “move to the back of the room” if you’re presenting live.

Success Resources: http://www.srpl.net/