Public Speaking Blog

Quick notes featuring five questions to help you reflect and usefully evaluate your presentation performance.

A starter guide to structuring your presentation. These brief notes support participants that follow our Foundation Presentation Skills course.

Contrast is a powerful public speaking tool that can be used throughout presentations.

A quick introduction to the goals and process behind my public speaking AI experiments.

A series of articles on my experiments using AI for public speaking.

How to become an expert presenter on technical concepts.

Will Storr's book is THE book to read for those who want to incorporate storytelling into their speeches.

Advice on the very best mindset to adopt when approaching a question and answer session.

Your agenda slide provides a unique opportunity to increase the chances of your sales presentation being a success.

Have you ever been sat in the audience whilst a nervous-looking, unprepared and slightly sweaty person has had to ‘fill’ an unplanned gap in the schedule? […]

Becoming a better presenter is all about having the right mindset.  Whenever I begin working with a new client, coaching them to develop their speaking skills, […]

The title of your presentation has the power to make or break your speech before you have even begun. Your audience will judge your forthcoming presentation […]

Last weekend I sat in a cinema enjoying the latest summer blockbuster action movie. These movies attract millions of people during the warmest months of the […]

(If you’re looking for advice on how to stop actual, physical hiccups, check out this guide here. If you’re more interested in delivering a presentation perfectly, […]

You will come across the occasional presenter that frowns upon using video during a speech or presentation. In my opinion, video is a vital part of […]

I was asked the other day about my top tips to avoid nerves when public speaking. A lot of the people that I work with on […]

I have a fascination with the ways in which people write, learn and rehearse speeches and presentations. The process is a very personal one, and although […]

Last week I was fortunate enough to win the UK Business Speaker of the Year contest and be crowned the official ‘UK Business Speaker of the […]

Delivering a speech in a second language is a challenge that many of us never dream of taking-up, but if you do challenge yourself in this […]

Two speakers. Both equally credible, both equally charming, both suitably polished in the delivery of their presentation. One supports his argument with anecdotal evidence, the opinions […]

For many of us, when we are asked to give a speech, lecture or presentation, our first thought is always ‘what will the Powerpoint look like?’. […]

I had to have a long and painful call with a call centre operator to persuade them to restore my Internet connection in my new home […]

This article is the continuation of my guide to preparing for a presentation or speech. Part 1 covered what you should be doing in the weeks […]

This series of articles aims to be a quick guide to how best to prepare for an important speech or presentation. Key steps are outlined that […]

I’ve been asked a few times recently about how many words one should write if they want to speak for 5, 10, 15 minutes. There is […]

I’ve been taking a lot of time in the past week to really consider the implications of speechwriting for someone else. In my opinion, I’ve managed […]

This post has been combined into a ‘super guide to impromptu speaking tactics’ article, which introduces and explains all of our favourite impromptu speaking tactics. The […]

In this Internet age it’s easier to be an expert. There’s more information, it’s more accessible and there are more niches to become expert in. I’ve […]

We’ve all either experienced it or seen a rather over-dramatised version of it in a television programme – the doctor delivering bad news to the relatives […]

My pet hate is the two-sided business card. It says to me that the owner of this card doesn’t know exactly what it is they want […]

Ok, so you’re nervous, trying to remember your notes, attempting to make eye contact with your audience and one hundred other things whilst you’re presenting. It’s […]

20 years ago I sat in a crowded assembly hall with 200 other school children and was told all of the stories from the Bible by […]

Ok ok ok, so nearly every post I write mentions your audience and how important they are – but it’s true, without them you’d just be […]

I’ve set myself another challenge – to find the toughest public speaking gig ever. For the purposes of this challenge, tough will equal ‘the most technically […]

This afternoon I ran a training workshop focusing on blogging and blogging strategy. The session was three hours long, and I was keen to break up […]

I watched a speaker go through the motions last week…and it showed. Speaking with passion is good. Speaking without passion is bad. Your audience can tell […]

At the very heart of communicating to an audience is the objective to get your message across clearly and in the most effective manner. So next […]

Ok, so I went along to my first open mic night on Monday and after ten pretty reasonable musical acts (and a questionable 70 year old […]

I’ve spent this afternoon watching strangers attempt stand up routines on YouTube, looking to identify the elements of successful stand up comedy at open mic nights. […]

I’m currently sat near Heathrow airport watching the planes come in over ahead. I’m estimating it’s one every 45 seconds, if not more. As a person […]

It’s the reason why a parent that tells their child off and explains why what the child has done is wrong will have a more obedient […]

A little bit of inspiration for a Sunday afternoon. Guy with no arms and no legs engages and holds an audience’ attention and gets his message […]

I thought it would be a bit of fun to take a look at the Queen's speech from 2010 and provide an evaluation, Toastmaster's style, on what she did well and what she could do better. After all, it's not like she gets a lot of practice at this public speaking malarkey is it?!

One of the most common misconceptions I come across is that speaking with notes is the sign of a weak public speaker and that we should […]

For everything we learn about public speaking and all that we are taught about so-called 'best practice', is public speaking really as subjective as art?

Later on in their public speaking 'career', is it possible to identify a public speaker that was initially a nervous learner vs. one that was a confident learner?

Interesting thoughts last night that I need to get written down some where, hence the blog post. I'm rapidly approaching the conclusion that there are two very distinct types of person when it comes to developing public speaking skills.

So what should you look to include in a speech designed to persuade your audience or bring them round to your way of thinking? Here are the things I think that you should include - let me know if you have anything to add in the comments section at the bottom of this page.

Ok, so here's what I've got on my list as 'technical presentation best practice' (if there is such a thing?). I hope it helps you with your technical presentation and if I have missed anything, please do leave your own hints and experiences in the comments at the end of this post.

What is the best structure for a speech? - is something I've spent quite some time contemplating recently. Is it best to stick to a rigid, tried and tested structure for each speech, with a clear beginning and ending, or should you try and break the mould?

When I drive in England I do 70mph on the motorway. When I drive in France I do 130 kilometres per hour on the motorway. There's not a lot of difference in my actual speed, but one sounds a lot more impressive!

Ok, so now all that’s left is to practice my chosen humorous speech. I’m going to try and practice it out loud twice daily and then hundreds of times in between in my head. I usually find that I know I have a strong opening if it is constantly rattling around in my head so much that it becomes automatic. If I’m nervous, I want to be able to deliver my first few lines perfectly whilst still in autopilot, so this is no bad thing.

Am I funny? Now there's a question. Would I be happy if people laughed at my humorous speech or do I want them to laugh with me? Could I think that I have the funniest speech in history only for it to fall flat? It's probably about time I tested my humorous speeches. At the very least it will help me to decide which one to use..

Ok, so I’m now down to the slightly harder graft, the speech writing. Some people find speech writing incredibly easy whilst others can struggle for hours and produce nothing that they feel happy with using. I’ve found from experience that the way in which we write speeches varies too, depending on who we are and how important we believe our upcoming speech to be.

Ok, so now I’m beginning to think about the topic I will speak on in the Toastmaster’s humorous speech contest and my thoughts are being led by the two points I made in my first post on the subject: * Humour and what is funny is essentially the choice of your audience * This has to be a speech with a story, not just random stand-up comedy

Ok, so since yesterday I've had a few people ask what criteria the humorous speeches are judged on. Here's the humorous speech judging criteria...

By the time you read this I should be led on a sunny beach in the South of France. If all goes to plan, I should also be thinking about and writing a humorous speech for the Toastmaster’s UK humorous speech contest which begins in September. Apparently I have a natural humour with my public speaking but this doesn’t seem to make the speech writing process any easier. Humour is after all extremely subjective and the nature of humour has been written about extensively by much greater, more informed writers than myself.

It's 70 years to the day that Winston Churchill gave one of his most famous speeches to the House of Commons. His 'So Few' speech was given as an overview of why Britain was fighting, how the conflict was progressing and where he saw the conflict moving on to. A classic example of a well structured speech using the past, present, future method of organisation. It brings a smile to my face that a speech that was over 5000 words long is remembered 70 years later for one single line.

I recently worked with an individual that had a bad case of ‘hereiswhatIhavetosayImgoingtosayitandgetmymessageacrosstoyoureallyquicklyandthenIamgoingtositdownagain’. By this I mean he spoke to fast when delivering a speech. His audience could not understand him and as a result they disengaged and did not receive the message that he was trying to pass to them. At first I thought that this individual was nervous when speaking and this was why he spoke so quickly. However, I soon discovered that this speaker had been told in the past that he spoke too slowly.

What your audience knows about you before you start speaking can make or break your speech.

What if you embraced the silence and rather than seeing it as something to avoid, made it part of your arsenal for delivering a great speech?

Last weekend I spent the day with a group of young people between the ages of 17 and 23, who were all completing a 10 week Prince’s Trust challenge. These young people had all come from disadvantaged backgrounds and trouble homes, but have enrolled on the course to help them get their lives back on track and learn valuable skills that will help them to achieve their full potential.

Dave has a night out the day before the big presentation. He wakes up bleary eyed, hung over and goes and gives the presentation of his life. Dave’s lucky, a little cocky and gets away without the preparation and nerves that everyone else has about speaking. Lucky Dave. So what should the rest of us be doing the night before a big speech or presentation?

In my time working in marketing I actually found that public speaking was one of the most effective tactics for business development. Speaking and educating others in large groups allows you to position yourself as an expert in your field.

You wouldn’t run a marathon without knowing how far a marathon actually was. How would you know how hard to train, what to expect and how to succeed in running the distance? Similarly, speaking in public becomes much easier the greater your level of preparation.