Public Speaking: How To Close A Speech

"Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening." -Dorothy Sarnoff

One of the worst mistakes you can make in public speaking is talking too long. Not only will you send some folks to never, never land, you will make some of them downright mad. So before any of such things happen, say what you have to say and take your seat. Before sitting down, give them a well thought out closing.

Whether you are giving a speech or a presentation, it is very important to have a good opening and closing as this is what proves your public speaking and presentation skills. You must put as much time into selecting and practicing your closing as you put into any other part of your presentation. Opening/starting and closing a speech or a talk or a presentation could be motivational, humorous, challenging, thoughtful, respectful of the length of the presentation, or it could restate your point in a different way. The closing must have a strong influence on the audience and they must know what they are taking home with them when you are done.

The following information shows how to close a speech that may have people having your message firmly planted in their minds.

1. You can close a public speaking subject by summarizing the main speech points.

2. Humorous ending by cracking a joke or funny remark. If you leave them laughing and applauding, and also you will leave an extremely positive impression about you on the audience. It has been noted that any public speaking matter can be closed in a humorous way.

3. If the subject is not appropriate to end with humor, you could end with a touching story or quotation that leaves the audience thoughtful and quiet.

4. Call for action. You may call the audience to act the way you say. For example you may ask them to stand up and take a pledge with you.

5. Visualize the outcome of your call to action with a prop or visual aid.

6. Ask a rhetorical question that captures the message and leaves the audience thinking. For example "What choice will you make when you leave here today?"

7. Close with an illustrative example.

8. Use some surprising facts or figures related to your public speaking subject that may leave the audience surprised.

9. Recite a couple of lines from songs, poems or speech quotes from a historical presentation.

10. Offer a so-called moral of the story.

11. Refer back to the anecdote, quotation or saying that you used in the opening of the speech.

12. Close with an illustrative example.

Always remember that the audience must have the feeling that you are really finished. So look at them after your last words and nod. Practice your last words. Write them out. Ask someone to judge your closing statement, just like you would do it for the opening of the speech. Closing of the speech is the final impression that you will leave your audience with.

April is Humor Month in Speak & Deliver

In honor of my FAILED humor on Sunday, April Fool's Day, I am declaring April HUMOR MONTH here in Speak & Deliver!

In case you missed it, my Facebook Status on the 1st announced that my wife was pregnant with our 7th child. This IS not true - but is our annual prank on our family, and I think we've even done it on Facebook in the past. It was meant to be funny, the ultimate Speak but NOT Deliver, but it was an EPIC FAIL, because so many people believed it, and didn't really find it humorous that we lied about it!

Why was it an EPIC FAIL?

1. Too Realistic - we already have six, so what's a seventh, right? If I'd said she was pregnant with triplets, the exaggeration would have tipped people off, perhaps. If you're joking about something that isn't obviously funny, it may just not be received as funny. 

2. Wrong Crowd - with over 2500 friends, most don't know me well enough to tell I was joking. Why would they risk offending me by challenging the joke? Since it was too realistic, and they didn't have enough of a knowledge base about me and my family, they did the logical thing, and congratulated us, leading more and more people in the wrong direction. Lesson - subtle, inside humor doesn't work on the wrong audiences.

3. Distracting - since it succeeded to fool so many, it actually became a distraction, requiring multiple clarifications by both myself and my wife. We didn't attend church that morning, and our study group actually prayed for the pregnancy! Its success made it a failure.

4. Delivery - on the internet, it's tough to determine tone without any verbal or visual cues to accompany the words on the page. I didn't add any emoticons or funny pictures to match the announcement, leaving people with less room to doubt the veracity of my statement. If you want people to laugh, give them clues and cues!

Ironically, Kristi pulled this prank back in 2004 on her father, who did not take kindly to it. I'm not sure who got the last laugh on that one, since it turned out she really WAS pregnant, and didn't know it yet!

So, humor doesn't always work, even when used by a speaker who uses it constantly on stage. Them's the breaks as they say. So I'm doing 'penance' by making all my posts this month relate to using humor properly, one way or another. Practice makes perfect, right?

By the way, my book, Go Ahead and Laugh, is back in print - and tomorrow will be available for purchase directly from me, and then on Amazon later this week. Stay tuned for details! Until then, watch your humor, as you Speak...& Deliver!

Public Speaking's Great Big Sin Bin

If you really want to improve your presenting skills, volunteer to judge a public speaking contest. There's nothing quite like evaluating ten consecutive speeches to hammer home the differences between a good speech... and a ruddy awful one.

And the differences are fundamentals. We're not talking higher-level oratory technique here. The division between solidly good speeches and utter clunkers is usually just the presence, or absence, of some surprisingly basic mistakes.

And here they are... Relegate these 6 errors to the great sin-bin of public speaking and your own presentations will be significantly enhanced:

1. Looking like you don't want to be there

If you hope to sell your thoughts and ideas from the platform, you have to begin by selling yourself. Think of it like a first date, in which your audience is your potential sweetheart. Would you really win her over if you looked uncomfortable, pressurized, like you didn't want to be there?

As a speaker, you are a sort of mood-device. You set the emotional tone in the room; hot or cold, thrilling or boring; it's up to you. Ever seen a speaker lose their train of thought and look embarrassed? Could you feel the effect on the audience? But portray confidence and enjoyment and your audience will at once feel at ease in your hands.

2. Speaking as if to 5-year-olds

Treat your audiences like adults. Inexperienced speakers tend to fall back on an odd habit of over-explaining subjects, over-justifying points, and generally addressing their audiences as though they were gibbering juveniles who'd never read a book.

Let's go back to the 'first-date' dynamic. Would she swoon if you introduced discussion topics as though she were new to planet earth? Of course not! You'd get your spaghetti delivered to your lap.

Audience buy-in is the same. You must assume a certain level of knowledge and competence if you hope to win them over. You need to flatter their perceived level of intelligence.

Preaching is out too. It's not the same as persuading. The ideal tone is: 'I have exciting ideas to share today!' and not, 'Do as I say or men in dark suits will come for you.'

3. The Inward-Looking Eye

When speakers are uncertain of their content, they tend to develop facial paralysis. Their gaze turns inward as they search for the next point. The effect on their relationship with the audience is complete disconnect.

You must project your energy outward. Remembering words is only half of your job. Selling them with enthusiasm is the balance, and it's done through vocal tone, eye contact and facial expressions.

4. Dinosaur body language

Body language is important. Enthusiasm is visually appealing. But have you ever seen a speaker use clunky overacting to tell a story?

"I walked down the street," (imitates a speed-walker pumping his arms and bobbing), "Then I reached a taaalll building" (leans backward and looks up, hand to brow).

If you used such exaggerated gestures when telling a story to a friend, he'd excuse himself politely and go call the nice men with butterfly nets. So don't do it on stage. By all means, move with energy. But your movements must look real - authentic - or your audiences' built-in authenticity-detectors will go haywire.

5. Exaggerated realisations

Perhaps this happens more often in motivational speeches than in business keynotes. But I've seen it happen in the latter too; the old, "And all of a sudden, it dawned on me...!" gambit.

It is very rare that people stop mid scenario and have big epiphanies, ala JD talking to himself in Scrubs. Try to eliminate 'All of a sudden I realised..." structures from your speaking vocabulary. The worst example I ever saw was a speech in which three great adventures allegedly happened to one person, within one day, leaving him with a series of Chicken Soup platitudes. The audience just didn't buy it. Life's not like that.

6. A constant stop-start rhythm

Writing coaches always tell students to vary the length of their sentences: some short, others longer. If every sentence is the same length, the tone becomes annoyingly staccato. Don't do it.

Worse still is the series of lists, which typically follows a pattern like, "And then I...And then I...And then I..."

Effective speakers learn to pause after profound thoughts, but ineffective ones simply pause after every sentence, and it doesn't work. You need a certain roller-coaster of increasing and decreasing speed, short, powerful statements alongside runaway outpourings. It helps with musicality and creating the perception of enthusiasm.

Effectively cull these quibbles from your speeches and you will be leagues ahead of most speakers. Master just the first point - looking like you want to be there - and the difference will be noticeable.

How to Deal With Fear of Public Speaking

How to deal with fear of public speaking is considered by most of us as the hardest thing to deal with because this is the fear that we alone do inflict on ourselves. However, as we always say, fear is only in the state of mind so fear in public speaking is nevertheless a manageable state.

We have two options when dealing with the fright on speaking to the public. Either we run or we face it. If we shy away from people, we can never be able to achieve our goals to be effective public speakers. But if we learn how to deal with the nerves, getting to be an accomplished speaker can be one of the greatest accomplishments we can achieve for ourselves.

So here is the deal now, we can teach you steps on how to deal with your fear of public speaking and then try to develop you skills further by practicing so that one day you can find yourself facing and talking to your audience full of ideas and confidence.

Basic Steps to Become an Effective Public Speaker:

Always be prepared whenever you are tasked to speak in public. Preparation is the key to arm yourself to become more confident, skillful and better in public speaking. The better you are prepared the less nervous you can become. You can practice alone. You can create a presentation, face the mirror and say your piece. While delivering your speech, watch your hands, facial expression and your head. This is how you project yourself in front of many people. When you are familiar with practicing alone you can become more prepared by practicing with actual people. You can make your friends or relatives as your audience and use a microphone to feel your words. After your short speech, ask for your audience's observations. You can use their suggestions to improve yourself.

Use visualization technique. Whenever you practice your speech alone, you can imagine yourself speaking in front of a crowd. You can choose the crowd in your mind which most likely would be your actual audience.

Dress for the occasion. When it will be the time to deliver your actual speech, you must always dress for the event that so that your looks can help you deliver your message. You must not overstate your clothes but avoid wearing too simple outfit. Remember that your audience must see you as someone with an authority and has the power to address them. Dressing right is essential because it can give you the feeling of confidence and authority as well.

Examining the venue. Always try to arrive earlier to feel your speaking venue and observe its space accordingly. You can acquaint yourself with the lighting, audio and the gears which you will use.

Relax yourself. Practice deep breathing and relax your mind as you wait for your audience. You can drink a cup of herb tea and talk to people around. Avoid coffee by the way. This can make you feel more anxious. You can also walk around and exert some energy to release the tension that is building up inside you.

When your audience starts to congregate, examine them carefully. You can chat to some of the people you know or better yet approach a group who recognize you. Talking to familiar people who are among the audience can help you feel you are not alone.

As you wait for your turn to speak, take deep relaxing breaths. If you get nervous, you tend to accumulate oxygen in your brain thus you must release the tension to loosen the grip inside you. And when doing your speech, try to draw a deep breath silently for every long phrase you say.

You can also throw a joke sometimes. If you know some jokes that you are sure can draw laughter from the crowd, say it but say it right. Laughter from the crowd can also be the antidote for your wrecking nerves.

You can use bodily or hand motion to stress your point. This can also release the tension that is gripping your breath. Also moving about and moving your body as you speak can also make you feel relaxed and can create an air of confidence.

Look into the eyes of your audience. You don't have to look intently at the eyes of a single person because this can make you more nervous. Instead, you look at one person's eyes then turn your sight to the crowd as if you are just talking to people familiar to you.

Don't be too overly anxious in what you say. If you feel that tension is holding you down, you can always take a deep breath and drink some water to cool yourself up. Don't apologize if you stutter because this can also make you more anxious. Just say whatever you say and see your audience as people you have already met.

Feeling the nerves or becoming extremely shy in facing a crowd is just a normal reaction. Even professional public speakers do experience the nerves sometimes. But anyone can be able to learn how to deal with fear of public speaking through constant practice, actual exposures and if you have the motivation to become an effective public speaker, you can really succeed.