Have you ever been to a seminar or presentation where the speaker is boring, dull and unattractive? Then you might understand the fallout of an unprepared speaker.
Yes, we often come across the public speakers who transform an occasion of learning into a dreadful event by their awful speaking.
For every aspiring public speaker it is important to know the common mistakes made by even an experienced speaker and the errors that disrupt the entire flow of an otherwise attractive presentation.
In an occasion of public speaking, the speaker has to communicate some ideas or information to his audience and in most of the cases he only has his body language or inflection of his voice to complement the word of his mouth.
Thus the act of holding the attention of the audience for quite some time becomes tough. But you have to do this if you wish to achieve your goal, that is, sending across your messages to the audience.
Now, it is a hard task to master indeed, as the speakers often make some silly mistakes that turn their entire presentation absolutely dull.
But it is not impossible to overcome these mistakes either. Let us first examine the common errors made by the public speakers and then discuss how to overcome them systematically.
Lack of Preparation
The first mistake that a public speaker makes is coming unprepared. Always remember even if you are an extremely gifted orator, you need some research on your topic.
The impromptu speech is never informative and for that matter valuable for the audience. If you come unprepared, without knowing the topic very well your uncertainties will be noticed by the audience.
Even if you are making a speech on a very familiar topic, if you come without adequate brush up you may end up with forgetting to include some vital points in your speech, thus considerably reducing its informative and teaching value.
The audience better connect with a speaker who is passionate about your subject and your lack of preparation reflects your indifference about the topic.
As a result audience also does not find interest in following what you are trying to establish.
Lack of Confidence and stage fright
Unpreparedness leads to lack of confidence and nervousness while on stage. As you do not know the subject well you run the risk of forgetting lines and stumble over cruicial stages of your lecture.
If this repeats time and again, it adds to your nervousness as you start being self conscious and probable frustration of the audience.
Use of offensive languages or bad humor
Some speakers are insensitive enough to be indifferent to the audiences sentiments and make culture specific remarks or make jokes of particular groups or religion.
This reflects only the bad taste of the speaker and reduces the credibility of the speaker.
Errors in language
Public speaking is all about communication and language helps you to express yourself before the audience.
So, in addition to the information, you should be careful of the language in which the information is being served before the audience.
Over elaborative language is a gross misfit for public speaking style. Language should be simple enough to convey your message, but well constructed so that it reflects your culture and station.
Non use of any attention gaining devices
Some inexperienced speakers treat public speaking as some sort of monologue and they simply read out from written text.
There are speakers who never smile or move in their place. This stiff presentation appears to be devoid of energy or enthusiasm.
If you do not want to be labeled as a boring speaker, give emphasis on the following areas:
Prepare your speech in a lucid conversational language avoiding the stiff phrases. Make number of rehearsals to improve on your volume and pace of talking. The practices will help you to keep to the time.
Organize your speech in an efficient way with a proper plan of where to take pauses and move to the next point.
Make home task on the type of audience and set the mood of your speech. It will add to your confidence.
Do not get panicked by seeing the number of faces before you. Just say to yourself that those people are there to hear from you and they are here because they have interest in your subject. Be clear and vivid in your explanation.
