Discover the secrets to becoming an exceptional public speaker with these top-notch tips!

A successful speaker has to master both what they say — their content — and how they say it — their method. Before you even think about the method, you must know your content: know what you are going to say and practice it over and over.

It is crucial to utilize a powerful storytelling technique to elicit emotions from your audience. As a storyteller, your goal is to evoke emotions and inspire transformation in your listeners. Simply presenting your content won't achieve this; you need to engage your audience actively.

Many speakers devote 95% of their time to planning the words they will use in their presentation or keynote talk. However, to effectively communicate and engage with your audience, it's essential to consider the method you will use to deliver your speech. This includes taking into account every aspect of your nonverbal communication, apart from the words themselves.

Let’s take a look at some key elements of nonverbal communication.

Facial expression:

The most crucial component of your nonverbal communication is your facial expression, with your eyes being the key factor. Your audience will follow your gaze, so it's important to have engaging eye contact. Avoid dull eyes, as this will cause your audience to lose interest.

The sincerity of your message can be conveyed through your eyes. It's important to be conscious of excessive blinking, overthinking (which can be detected in your eyes as you create or recall content), and wandering eyes.

Your use of facial muscles is closely linked to your credibility, genuineness, warmth, and accessibility. When discussing serious topics, scrunching your facial muscles can give off an insincere impression.

Instead, it's best to keep your facial muscles relaxed. When sharing powerful moments, such as an impactful quote, detailed content, or a low-energy part of the story, avoid engaging your facial muscles.

Instead, make your muscles as relaxed as possible. Then you will come across as authentic and congruent with your story, and you will have more credibility. There are also moments in your talk when you will engage your facial muscles, such as when you are excited or when the energy in your story is rising.

Pause

A discussion about voice includes ideas about the use of silence — that is, the pause. A pause will help build anticipation.

Use a pause to follow or lead into a critical point. The longer we pause, the more intelligent we come across. Jerry Weiss-man, described by The Huffington Post as ‘the world’s number one corporate presentations coach’, reminds us: ‘The pause gives the listeners — the audience — time to absorb the words.’ Slow down and use pauses to your advantage, and remember: the longer we pause the more intelligent we come across. If you listen to a High Court judge, you will notice that they usually speak slowly, pause often and for many seconds, and the pitch of their voice is low and deep, whether they are female or male.

Voice

Voice as a nonverbal component of your communication is also described as ‘paralanguage’. The Macquarie Dictionary defines the adjective ‘paralinguistic’ as ‘relating to factors associated with but not essentially part of a language system as tone of voice, rate of utterance, overall pitch range, facial expressions, accompanying speech’.

They are intelligent and thoughtful and this comes across in their voice. Compare this with the impression you form of a speaker who rushes through their talk, rarely pauses or even stops for a breath, and lets their pitch get higher and higher.

Intonation

This is, for example, the rise or fall within or at the end of a sentence, and it can determine the way your message is understood. Rising intonation at the end of a sentence can indicate that the speaker has more to say — so the listener will wait to hear what comes next — or that the speaker is asking a question.

If the intonation falls at the end of a sentence, the listener knows that it is a statement. If I have finished speaking, even to pause, I will end low. If I haven’t finished, I will end high and my audience will wait for what I say next.

People respond to our message depending on how we use intonation. Imagine you are on a plane, taxiing along the runway, and the cabin supervisor says over the PA system: The cabin supervisor comes across as warm, open, fun and approachable because of the rising inflection at the end of every sentence, while the captain comes across as having more authority and credibility — sounding like someone in control. Even though the captain is saying almost the same things as the friendly supervisor, through the falling intonation it sounds as if they are implying, ‘I’m flying the plane, so actually, please leave me alone unless it’s urgent’. This shows that not only is the captain in charge, but they are serious about their position and we learn to trust them through their intonation. As this example shows, intonation plays a huge part in how we come across in our conversations and in our talks.