Your 4 Goals For Public Speaking

Your 4 Goals For Public Speaking

When you think of Goals for Public Speaking, what comes into your mind? Most of us, either under-present, or over-present. To come up with the best strategy for your public speaking, or presentation just remember this - nobody will truly hear you unless you’ve got something important or relatable to say to them.

Therefore, setting achievable goals, before your presentation will help your plan immensely! Just ask yourself, “What do I want to achieve from this speech?”

If you want to inform - make it short and precise

If you want to influence/persuade - be motivational (influence the heart)

If you want to engage and get feedback - do less talking and interact

Humans are forever evolving, learning, unlearning and improving. As a speaker or team leader, its important to have empathy and understand what the human behaviour is. Learn to read the room, its not easy, but its doable and if you can do that you can surely master the art of public speaking!

For your next presentation, or speech, here are 4 goals for Public Speaking to have in mind when preparing.

Your 4 goals for public speaking to help you achieve results:

GOAL #1 “ I want To Inform the audience.”

Many technical leaders make the mistake to jump straight to the do’s and donts, or stating the points. Yes, data and research is good to have, but it’s not a good first 3 minutes starter. Just imagine a room of 50 people, who a minute ago, just finished 50 different tasks. Everyone’s in a different state of mind. Perhaps, one just had a difficult and complex phone call. Another person had to skip lunch and is terribly hungry. The gentlemen infront of you has another meeting in 1 hour and have not finished preparing. There is a lot going on in one room!

You now, have to think, “I have so much information to share, how can I start this with everyone in a calm and stable frame of mind?”

Here’s some advice:

First 3 minutes: Welcome everyone and get a feel of the room. Pick 2 or three person, and ask them how their day was. If generally you sense, gloom, you know you need to do something to lift the spirit - (we’ll share how in our later blog!). If the room feels welcoming, you’re good to go!

Next: Remind them of why you are having this session.

For example, your task is to inform that there will be an IT software implementation taking place in the next 24 hours. Don’t expect the audience to care nor remember. But as the speaker, you have the power to influence care, and remind them of why.

Here’s an example of what you can say

“I acknowledge that you’ve had trouble registering to the company website. We’ve identified that the anti-virus we used is not powerful enough to block the bugs. We’ve come up with a solution that would make it easier for you, and we hope that your experience will be better. All we need is 24 hours to reset the software onto your computer! Perhaps you can use this time to detach from the PC and unwind. In the next 30 minutes, we will explain you what exactly will take place…”

Notice that you made this about THEM, the audience. This should help hook the audience at the start.

Now you’re ready to spill the details. Before you do - Break it down.

Usually, whenever we are about to go for public speaking event or any occasion where we have to give a speech or doing any presentation, we over inform. Over informing not only loses time, but is also ineffective. For informative public speaking, we recommend to have the document to include ALL the information for you to send later, so that your presentation or speech should be a simplified, and broken down version of the document. Don’t get us wrong, if there is research and data to support your session, you are more persuasive and trust-worthy. However, select, key ones that is most important.

Lastly, end with the reason again, and a positive not. What’s important is that you’ve instilled keywords into the subconscious!

GOAL #2 “ I WANT TO Persuade the audience”

The power of persuasion takes the will of both the speaker and audience. So our first advice is to get to know your audience. Know what they like and don’t like. This will be very helpful during the persuasion phase whereby you will know what to  say, how to say and what to avoid mentioning. It is always helpful to slip in an emotional factor that is relatable. For example if you are asking for a donation for an orphanage house, you may consider adding the ages of the orphans, how much they need and how much they actually have and add in how much they have endured in their lives. It brings a feeling of empathy, sympathy and feeling of hope to help and to do that we need learn the art of public speaking.

The highlight of an issue and a solution is also very persuasive as it shows a clear direction for the audience to consider.

The Power of Persuasion

Ever thought of how dictators managed to get a whole nation or large groups of people to do horrible things in the name of hate and even kill for them? That, ladies and gentleman is the power of persuasion and that is achieved by the art of public speaking. It is probably human’s biggest super power.

It is the power of persuasion that can change people’s morals, outlook and beliefs. Imagine how many people have been influenced and persuaded to purchase things from Instagram or Facebook from pictures, description and reviews and ratings.  Put online business on a face of a representative. Public Speaking does more because people want to see a human being who is relatable. Think of Huda Beauty and Kylie Cosmetics. The success of a personality and those who make their selves public. You too can achieve greatness with the power of persuasion through presentation, personality via numerous interviews, public speaking and appearances. Try these 2 techniques to start with!

a. Keep eye contact when speaking, and if possible, be at eye level.

Have you had someone speak to you, but looking elsewhere? Its not very pleasant. That’s the same feeling as an audience. If you are able to capture eye contact with your audience, you can connect better and your message has a better chance of being well-received. Being at eye-level also helps, as it makes you and the audience equal.

b. Use “Persuasive” words throughout

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Goal#2 “I WANT TO Engage with the audience”

This is hard one. Forceful engagement usually ends badly, and its quite awkward. Think of ways where you make the audience feel empowered to “choose” to engage. You can find really great ice breakers here. Remember, its about them! Make them feel important and heard.

I’ve once went to a workshop, where the speaker asked me a question, and when I’m answering looked elsewhere and didn’t take notice, and went to the next person. I immediately disconnected.

As a speaker, also do remember to be aware of what’s going on, while speaking. If you see there is a distraction such as chattering between peers, playing with their phones or worse - fall asleep, you know its time for REBOOST. Ask questions, turn heads (e.g. say “wow, look at the car outside the window”), offer a stretch session, and even have a collection of 30 seconds funny videos to save the day!

 These are goals setting. If you want to improve the art of public speaking, you can check out tips on how to improve speaking skills here:

Now that you know that you can do it, we say, that children can do it too. In fact, they can start now to set goals and plan, so that it becomes a natural process for them!

Does children have the same goals for public speaking?

There are numorous and invaluable Goals for Public Speaking for children particularly ages 4 to 18 due to their vulnerability, perceptive, and development rate. Public speaking for children can be purposeful (e.g. speech assignments, college interviews, presentations). It is also a form of expression, where today, many struggle with, losing confidence overtime, and effecting personal development skills. Through effective communication, children can share their thoughts and ideas with confidence and with greater purpose.

The Goals for Public Speaking for a child is mainly to develop the child’s thinking process, build their confidence, self esteem and learn to trust in people and communication, patience, and character. If this tool is taught from earlier years in a person’s life, there are many other skills they can explore and attain that goes along with effective communication and Public Speaking. These include negotiation skills, persuasion skills, leadership skills, learning new languages and such.

Empowering thoughts is a Goal for Public Speaking for Children

SUKA was created initially on the desire to empower children who are at the vulnerable and at an impressionable stage in their lives. Children need to be empowered to question anything they are uncertain of, to speak up against anything that makes them feel uncomfortable, to convey what they enjoy. A child’s brain is like a sponge that soaks up everything they see, smell, hear, and particularly felt. Through Public Speaking training with SUKA, children are trained, exposed and taught to speak up on a variety of topics of their own choice, pace and in an environment they feel comfortable and safe.

Inspiring is a Goal for Public Speaking for Children

Children are generally unexposed and inexperienced to public speaking because they have a set schedule everyday with their sole purpose to go to school, play with some friends and quality time with the family. When they are exposed to Public Speaking in a group, they are put in a place which is out of their comfort zone, having to talk infront of a new audience and having to learn how to talk to receive the optimised attention. At the same time, they watch others speak and in this way, they are inspired or even feel positive competition. With more exposure to public speaking, this normalises the act itself, and removes the self told myth that “I cant do it”.

The feeling of getting inspired is from a place of self identity, self esteem and a desire to do and be more. Therefore, as a guardian, parent, or teacher, we must keep inspiring, and do more public speaking! Let them want to speak and present like you.

Here are a few tips when doing Public Speaking for Children:

1. Keep it short

2. Keep it PG rated (of course)

3. Keep it interesting and simple

4. Inspire through the Advice of an Adult

 

Motivation  is a Goal for Public Speaking for Children

Some children, even adults, are unmotivated in life as good and as bad as life is. Usually it stems from the mind on responsibilities, principles and situations. There are some people who are motived to work so hard and at a point, they burn out. For children, they are impressionable so they follow what they see. Ever seen a son grow up to be a pilot just like his dad? Or generations of family  doctors? We are all motivated if we want to be. Parents, please want this for your children if you want them to always feel hungry and desire to be better. We all need to better ourselves in a way or another. Staying motivated is on the individual but if you can play a part in motivating your child, support them to do Public Speaking in a group and watch their peers who they can learn from.

Can we measure the success of Public Speaking?

Yes!

Children exposed to Public Speaking, regardless on the feedback of the audience, we can see confidence, outspoken character, critical thinking, problem solver, leadership and many other improvements.

Measuring the success of Public Speaking is on the feedback and reaction of the audience. If you have an audience walk out after the speech clueless on the topic, declined your proposal or distracted during the during the speech, you can safely say they weren’t interested, not persuaded or did not have the respect of the speaker.

 

Now that we understand our public speaking goals and how we can help our children achieve theirs, let’s get to work! If you need coaching on communication or public speaking, contact us here.

Nina Nasirpublic speaking, presentation, strategy, goals, inform, influence, persuade, engage, feedback, evolving, learning, improving, team leader, leader