5 things you can do today to improve your public speaking skills

Every one of us wants to communicate better. Whether we’re presenting in a virtual environment, participating in a team meeting, or just talking with a friend, spouse, or stranger — we all want what we’re saying to be delivered well.

“Delivering well” means you’re saying what you want to say in a way that lands just right with your listeners. It means you come across as comfortable, dynamic, and empathetic.

How can you take practical steps to improve the delivery of your message? Are there ways to improve your public speaking skills?

Here are five things you can do today to boost your public speaking skills. Try the following exercises for immediate results:

1. Critical public speaking skills

As human beings, we love to critique other human beings.

This explains the massive popularity of reality TV shows. Be honest…did you watch “Tiger King” because you liked giant cats, or because you liked feeling superior to the show’s cast of wild and eccentric characters? You can use that critical perspective to your advantage.

Today, try to find a talk or presentation to watch or listen to. Then, take notes on the speaker’s delivery. You could grab a TED Talk, a business leader’s keynote on YouTube, or even a recorded presentation from your workplace.

The source doesn’t really matter. What matters is how you respond to the speaker’s delivery. Grab a piece of paper or open a Word doc and list out what about the person’s public speaking skills that you both like and dislike.

• Moving their hands without any rhyme or reason? Note it.
• Emphasizing key words to give them punch and make them stand out? Note it.
• Zero vocal variety? Meandering sentences? Pacing across the stage? Note ‘em.
• Using hand movements to show what they’re saying? Making intentional eye contact? Projecting with a strong voice? Note those, too.

What’s the point of this? To get better at criticizing other people? No. We’re already naturally good at that. The point is to sharpen the way we think critically about how people communicate so we can then turn that critical eye toward ourselves and find ways to improve our public speaking skills.

The better you get at articulating what you like — and what you don’t like — the better you’ll be able to see what you do — and don’t do — when you deliver.

It’s also a great way to identify things effective speakers do so you can start to adopt those delivery techniques for yourself.

2. Call a feedback friend

All of us have blind spots when it comes to public speaking skills. We either do the wrong things — and don’t know it — or we do the right things — and don’t know that either. Getting feedback from other people about our public speaking skills helps us see past those blind spots and correct them.

Before your next presentation, speech, or important meeting where you’ll be flexing those public speaking skills, ask your friend, coworker or significant other for feedback on how well you’re delivering. You can also take a recording of a presentation or meeting you’ve done in the past and share that for feedback fodder.

Now, do you just open yourself wide to criticism from Jane in Accounting or Jerome in IT, or your husband or wife, asking them something vague like “Hey, would you tell me how my public speaking skills are?” That likely won’t help. The feedback you get will either be too much, too little, or unfocused. Likely, Jane would say something like, “Uh, I don’t know. You were pretty good.” Responses like that aren’t very helpful. Instead, you need to give your feedback friends some guidance. Think of just one thing you’d like them to critique.

• Do you have a tendency to use verbal fillers such as “uh,” “um,” “er,” or “like”?
• Are you trying to move your hands with purpose, showing what you’re saying?
• Are you pushing yourself to make more intentional eye contact when you’re talking and listening?

When you ask for specific feedback, you make it more likely that you’ll receive helpful responses. Once you have that feedback, make sure you write it down.

The more specific feedback you receive, the more you can improve your public speaking skills over time.

3. Get over the cringe

No one enjoys watching videos of themselves presenting.

We all have this built-in gag reflex when watching ourselves.

“Do I really look like that?!” “Why does my voice sound so squeaky?!” “What was I thinking with that shirt?!”
Emailed links of our recorded Zoom or WebEx meetings show up in our inboxes, and we think, “I’m never watching that.” Delete.

We get it. But, to improve public speaking skills , you have to get over it.

After you’ve critiqued other speaker’s performances, turn the spotlight on yourself. Make a recording of yourself delivering a speech or presentation. Then use your critical skills to assess your own performance:

• Visual Check: Watch your body language with the sound off. Are you open and authoritative, or closed off? Are your hands moving with purpose to emphasize key points, or are they flailing without rhyme or reason? Are you pacing nervously, or planting your feet firmly to command the room?
• Audio Check: Close your eyes and listen. Do you sound confident? Do you vary your pace and pitch to land a joke or a serious data point, or is your delivery monotone? Do you use filler words like “um” or “like” too often?

Reviewing your presentation style will offer you insight into what works and what needs to change to improve your public speaking skills.

Here are a few more tips to keep in mind when watching a recording of yourself practicing your public speaking skills:

• Don’t just focus on the negative. I know, we all think the way to improve is by zeroing in solely on what we’re doing wrong, but that’s not 100% right. When we also identify the good public speaking skills we have — and ways we are improving over time — we actually build up some of the confidence necessary for public speaking skills improvement and momentum.
• Don’t watch the whole thing. Here’s where we let you off the hook. Limit yourself to five or ten minutes. That should give you enough time to sense what you’re doing well, what you’re not doing well, and ways you want to improve.
• Focus on just one thing you did wrong. Don’t just say, “I’m going to change everything!” You can’t and you won’t. Not all in one day anyway. Just choose one thing to improve about your public speaking skills, and go from there.

4. Make it personal

Public speaking isn’t just about speaking in public. It’s really about something deeper.

The reasons we communicate the way we do is often connected to how we feel about public speaking, our own history with public speaking, and how we feel about ourselves.

By blocking out 20-30 minutes on your calendar to answer the following questions, you can get a better sense of what’s going on and how to improve your public speaking skills.

• When did you give a presentation or speech and felt like you totally nailed it? What was the context? Why do you think that time went so well?
• When did you give a presentation or speech and felt like it landed flat? Why do you think that happened? How have you tried to improve your delivery since that time?
• What’s one thing you wish you could change about the way you speak to improve your public speaking skills?
• What’s one way you deliver well?
• When you speak in public, do you think it’s important for you to be heard? Why or why not?
• When do you communicate with passion? What does it look and sound like when you communicate with passion?
• How can you bring more of that to your business communication?
• When you’re communicating confidently, how does your audience know? What evidence are you giving through your voice, body language, and facial expressions?
• When you’re communicating nervously, how does your audience know? What evidence are you giving through your voice, body language, and facial expressions?
• Who is someone whose public speaking you admire? Why? How can you emulate them while still being you?

5. Be brave

You only get better through effort and practice.

So, volunteer to deliver…anything.

• Is your boss looking for someone to run the team meeting? Raise your hand.
• Is there an upcoming all-hands meeting that needs a speaker? That’s you, pal.
• Does your community volunteer group need someone to represent them and communicate their cause? Yep, you.

Why? Because when you frequently practice your public speaking skills, you get less intimidated by the prospect of speaking publicly. The more you do it, the less likely you’ll be to get nervous and will in turn, improve your public speaking skills. Doing more public speaking also gives you more opportunities to try new ways of delivering effectively.

• Consider that all-teams meeting as your chance to practice moving your hands to show what you’re saying.
• Run the team meeting with an eye toward leveraging more of your voice to land key points.
• Help your volunteer group while helping yourself by challenging yourself to make better eye contact with listeners.

You can’t get better by trying to improve your public speaking skills theoretically. You’ve got to do it in practice. So go for it. Take a chance. Push past your fear. Get your reps in so your intimidation levels go down and your public speaking skills improve.

If you do any of these five things today, you’ll take a solid step towards improving your public speaking skills. But first, each tactic requires you to challenge yourself and fight your current public speaking defaults.

Ultimately, as you get better and better, it will be worth it because you’ll communicate with greater confidence, power, and effectiveness.

Bonus tip: Get public speaking training!

Your co-workers Jerome and Jane aren’t really trained to help you improve your public speaking skills. They can call out what you might be doing right or wrong, but they can’t help guide you into ways of building your skills. Fortunately, a public speaking coach can.

Coaches not only point out what you’re doing well — and not doing well — but also help you go deep, understanding the reasons why you do the things you do. With public speaking training, coaches provide methods for overcoming your natural tendencies, and ultimately empower you to become the best possible public speaker you can be.

Illustrated by Jonathan Valiente