Strategies to Succeed in Public Speaking

Achieving Your Speaking Goals

by Lanie Smith

Whenever you speak to people, the goals you are attempting to achieve are to verbally express your thoughts and ideas, satisfy the listener or audience, and get rewards from the process.

Questions you may have are:

How do you effectively express your ideas?
How can you be assured of satisfying the audience?
What rewards can be gotten from speaking?

This lesson will try to answer those questions. There is a mini-quiz at the end of the lesson.

Expressing your ideas

A major motivation in speaking to a group--or anyone for that matter--is to express your ideas. In some cases, people may actually ask you to express your thoughts on a certain subject.

Sometimes difficult

It is sometimes difficult to verbally express what you are thinking to other people. Those without the "gift of gab" may have trouble putting their thoughts into words or may even fear speaking to others or to a group. Even professional speakers occasionally come down with the jitters before giving a speech.

Organize your thoughts

You should organize your thoughts before speaking to a group or on a one-to-one basis with a superior. Try to keep things down to three major points. Some people can organize what they plan to say in their heads, while most need to write things down.

Provide listener satisfaction

Speaking is a communication process. If the listener or audience does not understand or enjoy what you are saying, you have not achieved a major goal of the process.

Important factors to remember in obtaining listener satisfaction are:

Speak with confidence,
Speak with clarity, and
Get the audience to participate.

Get rewards

You want to get some sort of reward for the work you have done. This may be self-satisfaction, applause from the audience, or financial gain.

Satisfaction comes from achieving your own goals and feeling that you did a good job. That is completely up to you. Don't set your expectations so high that you are never satisfied with your performance.

If you do a good job, you may get applause from the audience. Sometimes you have to set them up or even prompt them to applaud.

In school

Being able to speak well in school helps you communicate better in presentations and to the teacher and classmates. This ultimately leads to better grades.

At work

Speaking well at work in presentations, at meetings or simply in personal interactions will create a better impression of your competence and result in raises and promotions.

In conclusion

A successful speaker achieves the goals of expression, listener satisfaction and desired rewards. You should be aware of your goals as you pursue success in speaking.

Set your speaking goals and then achieve them.

Mini-quiz to check your understanding

1. What is a difficulty some people have in expressing their thoughts?

2. What is a major goal with respect to the audience?

3. Can effective speaking help you at work?

If you got all three correct, you are on your way to becoming a champion in public speaking. If you had problems, you had better look over the material again.