Exceptional Public Speaking Must-Have Skills

Before you ever walk in the room, you have to invest in your public speaking skills. And no, this isn’t about rehearsing your speech, organizing your slides or ironing your shirt. This is pre-work and research on an entirely different level. It is the investment in must-have detective skills you need to make to be exceptional in public speaking.

Think of yourself as an audience detective. You are going to find out absolutely everything you can about your audience. And you’re going to do this as part of your public speaking skills for exceptional presenting. You’re going to do this research before you finalize your presentation. And certainly before you walk in the room.

Now, I can already hear your objections:

• “I don’t even have time to get my presentation ready”

• “This advance work takes way too much time!”

• “I just get called in to do this presentation and I have to go.”

• “My boss told me to go deliver a presentation at the field office.”

• “I just got the word and I have to go present now.”

I understand. Really I do. Because I’ve felt and said just about each of these myself! But there’s a reason why you want to do this kind of in-depth preparation. It’s called the end result. When you understand your audience, they will listen to what you have to say. When you don’t, you come off as being the next sales presenter, or the guy from corporate. You don’t want this to happen to you.

In many situations, it’s your in-depth knowledge of the audience that makes transforms a prospect into a long time customer. In talking with clients from all industries and all geographies, my clients confirm this is true.

“There’s no substitute for knowing the audience for your presentation,” says Rick Williams, Regional Training Manager for Valero’s retail stores. “I’m more impressed by someone who has taken the time to know the problems and needs of my folks – in this case retail sales – than someone who is just spouting book-knowledge but doesn’t know anything about our real day-to-day issues.”

If you want your audience to listen to what you have to say, you need to understand their problems and needs. Once you do, you can speak directly to this in your message and presentation. Your public speaking skills start long before you ever step into the room.

Tagged as: Advance Work, Book Knowledge, Boss, Depth Knowledge, Detective Skills, End Result, Invest, Investment, Kno, Knowing The Audience, Long Time, Objections, presentation, Public Speaking Skills, Regional Training, Retail Sales, Retail Stores, Slides, Time Customer, Valero