How to evaluate professional speaker training: Pros and cons

Written by

Michael Duarte

Have an idea you’re eager to share or wanting to gain traction on? Looking to uplevel your presentation skills to advance your career? Have a big pitch to deliver? Preparing for a high-stakes presentation? Need to persuade your leaders to give you those resources, fund your project, or adopt your idea?

These are just a few among many reasons speaker training may be right for you. Whatever your industry, whatever your role, wherever you are in your career, presentation skills are a great way to help you and your ideas stand out from the crowd. And there’s no better way to uplevel your presentation skills than with speaker training. If you’re considering public speaking training, you’re in the right spot.

We’ll cover who is a good candidate for speaker training (newsflash — it’s you!), what makes a public speaking training good, what you can expect from a public speaking skills training course, and why Duarte offers the best public speaking training available.

What is public speaking training?

Public speaking training is just what it sounds like. A training geared explicitly towards improving your public speaking skills. Public speaking training helps improve your speaking and enhance your strengths, whatever speaking scenarios you may find yourself in. From sales pitches to wedding toasts, investor presentations to keynote speeches, the conference call to the conference room, honing in on your public speaking skills is a guaranteed way to improve your communication.

Training can come in all different forms.

• One-on-one coaching can help when you need to rehearse for a big moment or want to develop your skills over time with a coach.
• Public speaking training workshops are another great way to advance your skills and improve your communication.

An added bonus on taking your public speaker training with Duarte is we offer other courses to pair well with your speaker training — delivering you the full package of professional development for whatever your high stakes moment entails. Need to make persuasive presentation content? Pair your speaker training with Resonate®. Need to make a gorgeous slide deck to go with your speech? Learn slide design principles with Slide:ology®.

Why would someone need professional speaking training?

A lot of people come to us wondering if they need professional speaking training. A better question to ask is who benefits from professional speaking training? And the answer is simple — everyone has something to gain from a skill that year-after-year is ranked among the top most-wanted professional skills, regardless of industry.

You might need public speaking training if you’ve ever felt anxious before a presentation, gotten feedback that your delivery could improve, or been told that you come across as stiff, dry, or even monotone when you present. You also might need professional speaker training if your amazing idea just doesn’t seem to be gaining traction. Or if you’ve heard feedback like, “You’re so much more confident when we talk one-on-one.”

It’s one thing to need speaker training, but truly everyone can benefit from training for public speaking. Public speaking skills are a muscle we need to continue to exercise to stay in shape. And a bit of public speaking training is a great way to do just that.

What goes into making professional speaker training?

When it comes to developing professional speaker training, a deep history of academic research in the fields of Communication Studies, English, and Psychology combined with real-world observation, client engagements, and experience makes for a speaker training that’s rooted in theory and practice.

Add to that a finger on the pulse of shifting trends in presentations, audience expectations, business messaging, and delivery mediums and you’ve got the workings of a great professional speaker training.

At Duarte, we have the benefit of coining The Duarte Method™, the backbone of all our communication training. And with it, over 30+ years of experience coaching CEOs for audiences of thousands of people, to product launch keynotes at the world’s Fortune Top 5 companies, to even shaping how TED talks have come to be. We’ve seen it all, and no speaker training request is too large for us to handle.

Why are some public speaker training good and bad?

And while the experience can be great, just as with every type of training or learning and development offering, speaker training can come along a spectrum from bad to great. So how can you tell the difference?

• Bad speaker training just tells you what it takes to make a good presentation.
• Good presentation training shows you.
• And the best public speaking training not only teaches you best practices, but gives you opportunities to try out the techniques you’re learning, gain experience, and get feedback from peers as well as public speaking trainers and experts.

Given public speaking is one of the number one fears in the world (often beating out the fear of snakes, spiders, and even death), a speaker training that gives you opportunities to present in a low-stakes environment is preferred. Not just that, but so often we prioritize other things and don’t make time for practicing our delivery, even when it comes to important presentations. But when we’ve figured out our content and finished our slides, we’re only halfway there.

When it comes to a persuasive speech, it’s not just about what we say, but how we say it. Even the best ideas get passed up when not delivered well. Which is to say — and is worth saying again — a public speaking training that lets you practice your delivery should be your preferred choice when evaluating types of training out there.

Really good public speaking training also depends on how connected the material and knowledge of the facilitator or coach is to the real world. It’s one thing to have a workshop on best public speaking practices. It’s another to learn from those who are constantly working with inspiring brands, incredible leaders, and game-changing speakers and thought-leaders. This gives them exposure to the latest trends, what works and doesn’t work, and a range of scenarios and presentation situations they can help you plan for.

This is one area where Duarte stands out from its competitors. We work with incredible brands, push the boundaries on presentations and corporate storytelling, and have seen and helped develop every kind of presentation you can think of. That breadth of knowledge gives those we work with a great foundation to learn from. We love bringing in examples from our latest projects to our coaching sessions and workshops, helping to illuminate some of the things we discuss, moving our teachings beyond just an idea to application.

What do you learn in a public speaking training workshop?

So, what can you expect to learn in a public speaking training workshop? Delivery workshops will focus on skills that allow you to deliver with more confidence, be more engaging, and better connect with your audience. They’ll focus on skills like using pace and pauses to enhance your message, using gestures, body language, movement, and facial expressions to underscore your content, and best practices for whatever mode of delivery — from zoom presentations, to hybrid presentations, to main stage presentations. Speaker training help you rehearse your talk, polish your presence, and ultimately transform your message delivery.

In addition to learning best practices, public speaking training workshops can also help you get some practice and feedback on you presentation skills. This approach helps reinforce what you’re learning as you apply it. And you’re able to walk away with the skills to continue to learn and coach yourself as you prepare and rehearse for presentations well beyond the workshop itself. As we said above, public speaking is a muscle that needs to be exercised, and your workshop facilitators and public speaking trainers are your coaches, but their goal is to give you the tools so that you can continue to train and improve on your own.

Why should you take executive public speaking training with Duarte?

A favorite of Fortune 50 brands and companies across Silicon Valley for over 30 years, Duarte’s experience and expertise are incomparable. Our speaker coaches have worked with clients from around the world and our public speaking skills training workshops have been delivered everywhere from Japan, to India, to New York City, to our home office in Santa Clara.

Duarte’s Captivate™ workshop was named the #1 World’s TOP Communication Development Program at the Global Gurus 2023 Awards. How’d we earn this distinguished designation? Votes are cast for communication speakers and trainers who have made a profound impact on learners, teams, and/or organizations. Votes are based on actions, unique concepts, and the learner’s personal ability to apply and benefit from what they were taught.

Do you offer executive public speaking training?

We offer several options when it comes to executive public speaking training:

• Captivate™ public workshops – This speaker training option is perfect for individuals looking to practice and uplevel their speaking skills in a group setting. Attended by a wide range of professionals from a variety of industries (e.g. tech, nonprofits, pharma, government, etc), public workshop participants get to learn and practice public speaking skills, while also getting and giving feedback.
• Captivate™ team training – L&D leaders looking to uplevel their workforce can sign their teams up for corporate speaker training. These single-client workshops offer the same material as the public workshop, but this time all the participants come from the same company. This speaker training option is great both for skills- and team-building. And the added bonus is participants leave with a shared language for continuing their learning, practice, and delivering feedback so they can continue to hone and improve their skills.
• 1:1 Speaker Coaching – For those looking to get personalized attention with an executive speaker coach, 1:1 speaker coaching is the way to go. Whether you’re preparing for a single high-stakes moment or just looking for some professional development, you can choose from one-month, three month, or six month packages.

Ready for your corporate public speaking training?

When a Fortune 500 sought us out to build a corporate public speaker training for their teams, Duarte answered the call and delivered a customized training. You can read more about the engagement here, but here’s a testimonial from one learner: “Captivate™ should be required for anyone who wants to give a presentation in the future. Your audience will thank you.”

Those who have worked with speaker coaches one-on-one also have powerful testimonials. Professional speaking training can be transformative for teams and individuals. If you’re ready to enhance your presentations, learn new skills, and level up your public speaking, then professional speaking training from Duarte is for you.

If you’re ready to start now, then it’s time to take our speaker training offerings for a whirl.