Speech Delivery Tips: For those who want to write their own speech, there are books to help. They will also give you tips on how to deliver it, which is extremely useful whoever did the writing. For the benefit of everybody faced with the task of making a speech here are a brief few pointers on delivery:
Read your speech or memorise it!? Few people are willing to trust everything to memory. An alternative is to thoroughly familiarise yourself with your speech and the reduce it to a set of brief notes on cue cards, the advantage is that your speech will not sound as if it is being read word for word and will allow for greater sincerity, emotion and improvisation if you get inspired. But if you decide to read it, nobody will mind.
Practice. Whatever you decide to do – rehearse it. Then rehearse it again – until you are sick of it. That should be just about enough.
Slow Down!! What ruins more speeches than anything else is a nervous speaker going too fast. He doesn’t pause to let his points sink in or allow for giggle to take hold. His audience is then so busy trying to catch what he is gabbling on about that they don’t have time to swoon, laugh or even enjoy themselves. Oh dear – no laughs. What does our speaker do? Panics and accelerates even more to get it finished with. Result – disaster! Even experienced speakers suffer from this urge to speed up. Don’t give in to it.
Body Language. Stand up straight and look confident. Even if you are reading, looking up at your audience from time to time. Eye contact makes them feel you are talking to them, and it will help you with your pauses.
Laughs. If you expect a laugh – wait for it. If it doesn’t come tell people they were supposed to laugh and refuse to go on until they do. It will give you an air of confidence and kick start them. Don’t begin again until the laughter has died down – enjoy it. If one joke in particular does not go down well, make a joke out of yourself to take the focus away from the unsuccessful humour. Finally, study professional comedians – you’ll learn a lot.
Interruptions. Enjoy interruptions, especially funny ones. They provide thinking time for you, and hey… people will remember it was your speech that got the laughs; they won’t remember that it wasn’t always your lines.
Drink. Don’t drink too much before speaking. You might think it helps, but your audience won’t. Two final important points to remember:
1. The audience is on your side. They want to enjoy your speech – give them the opportunity. 2. If you get totally unexpected laughs – check your flies.
Enjoy!!!
