Which of the following are the benefits for a speaker of arriving early to a speech or presentation?

1. Career development
2. 14 Rules for Public Speaking

By Indeed Editorial Team

Updated May 6, 2022 | Published April 13, 2021

Updated May 6, 2022

Published April 13, 2021

Related: How to Overcome a Fear of Public Speaking

In this video, Jenn, a certified Career Coach, explains the common causes of a fear of public speaking.

Public speaking can be a stressful experience for some and an enjoyable one for others, but regardless of how you feel about the process, you likely want to know how to give the best speech possible. There are some basic rules for how to give an effective speech and for how to interact well with your audience, and these can make everything run more smoothly. If you're planning on doing any public speaking, you should know what the rules for public speaking are. In this article, we explain these rules for public speaking, including practicing, arriving early to your speech location, focusing on your audience and slowing down.

14 rules for public speaking

Here are some of the top rules to follow when you are doing any public speaking:

Decide on your purpose

When you are drafting your speech, you should know what the purpose of your speech is. This is different from your topic and is more about if you intend to sell something, persuade an audience or inform people. Whatever your purpose is, you should write your speech with that purpose in mind. Every part of your speech should serve your purpose, and if it doesn't, you should consider if it's necessary. This is a good way to reduce confusion in your audience and to keep your speech full of important statements.

Related: 13 Types of Speeches

Practice

Most people know that you should practice when you are going to be doing some public speaking, but its importance can't be understated. Practicing can help you ensure you have a speech or presentation that takes up the right amount of time. It can help you find if there are any words or phrases that are more difficult to say than they were to write. It can help you make sure your visuals are helpful and work with the flow of the speech. You should practice as you're writing, once you've written your speech and after you've prepared any visuals.

Even if your public speaking will be on a panel and not prepared remarks, practicing some sample responses to common questions on the topic can help. You may be able to get the moderator of the panel to give you some of the questions or topics so you can prepare.

Related: How To Prepare for Public Speaking and Different Types of Events

Critique your practice

It's not enough to just practice, however. You should record yourself practicing, preferably with a video recording rather than audio, and then review the video to critique your performance. The quality of the video isn't all that important, so long as you can see your movements and facial expressions as well as hear your voice, so you could use a phone camera if needed. You may need to watch each recording more than once and as you watch, track one aspect of your performance to critique. This is the best way to understand how the audience will see you.

Know your timing

One of the most important parts of preparing for public speaking is to know how much time you have to talk and then to make sure that your speech fits that time frame. Through practice, you should know how long your speech is, but it's also helpful to know that when you're actually giving the speech, it's likely you'll speak faster, so plan for that. Before you give your speech, you should have a good idea of how long it is.

If you know you have a 30 minute time but you have to use some of that for Q&A, don't create a 30 minute speech or you won't have time to answer questions and the audience may be disappointed. You should plan for a shorter speech than the full time and you may also consider some other topics you may want to cover if there are no questions, as most public speakers fear being on stage with no questions during Q&A.

Only use helpful visuals

Some people think you need visuals to go along with everything you say in your speech, but a good rule to follow is to only use visuals that help your speech. Showing slides that just repeat information you're saying in writing can distract from your speaking and doesn't add anything valuable for the audience. Anything you use visually should have a value and purpose, otherwise it's best to use no visual at all.

Arrive early

The day of your speech, you should arrive early to the location for a variety of reasons. First, you may encounter traffic on your way so this can prevent you from being late to your actual speech. Second, you then have an opportunity to familiarize yourself with the space. Third, you can speak with the support staff and work out any technical needs like putting your presentation on screen. You don't want to be late in speaking with your audience, especially if you're a part of a larger event.

Prepare the audio equipment

Once you've arrived at your speech location and you have an understanding of the setup, you'll want to prepare your audio equipment. If a microphone is necessary, it's likely there's someone there who is in charge of making sure everything is working, but it's important to test it with you specifically. This helps make sure you're audible throughout the venue and if the microphone is a clip-on or anything similar that it can be adjusted as needed. This is an important step for making sure your speech goes smoothly, so it's best not to skip it.

Focus on the audience

When you are preparing your speech and when you're giving your speech, it's important to focus on your audience. Your speech should be tailored to the group you're speaking to, their interest in your topic and the general level of knowledge they have about the topic. You might lose the interest of your audience if you are covering the topic in a way that is too simple or too complicated. When you are giving the speech, you should make regular eye contact with the audience and see how they respond to certain parts of your speech, like jokes.

Related: What Is Making Eye Contact?

Don't apologize

If you've made a mistake while giving your speech, you've fumbled at all or maybe even made a physical mistake like tripping, don't apologize. You are human and these types of things can happen, and apologizing draws more attention to what happened than if you just move on with your speech. It may be reflexive for you to apologize, so you might want to practice or use some mindfulness techniques to be more aware of how much you apologize in daily life.

Use your movements

Some public speakers prefer to move only minimally, while others like to wander and gesture a lot. Whatever your preference is, your movements should be part of the speech and should add value and emphasis to the speech. When you are critiquing your practice, your movements should be something you watch and critique. One big reason for this is that movements that are nervous or unrelated to what you're saying can be extremely distracting for the audience. You might want to practice gesturing for emphasis or learn ways to reduce nervous gestures and movements.

Vocal delivery matters

Your tone of voice impacts how the audience perceives the speech you're giving, so it's important to keep that in mind as you are practicing and then delivering your speech. If you are telling a joke, you want to have the right tone of voice for that so that the audience understands you are joking. If you're discussing something serious or sad, you don't want to have a jovial tone to your voice or you risk alienating your audience. Additionally, speaking with confidence throughout your speech is important as it tells the audience you know what you're talking about.

Related: How To Overcome a Fear of Public Speaking

Slow down

One of the biggest issues people who give speeches encounter is that they speak quickly when they are actually in front of their audience. This is often even faster than how they performed in practice. Speaking too quickly can make it hard for your audience to understand what you're saying, doesn't give the audience time to process what you're saying and can change the length of your speech and leave you with empty time. As you're giving your speech, always consider if you're speaking too quickly and try to slow yourself down to speak at a more even pace.

End strong

Your audience's final impression of your speech and its content, value and influence is in how you end your speech. Your ending should be extremely strong, often the strongest part of your speech, although it may be equal to your opening. Depending on the purpose of your speech, you may want your audience to feel like they need to take action, learn more about a topic or even buy what you're selling. Your ending is the best time to reinforce that call to action and encourage people to fulfill the purpose of the speech.

Know how to handle Q&As

For many involved in public speaking, participating in a Q&A is a part of the process. Q&As can be different from just giving a speech and require a slightly different skill set, especially because they are not pre-planned statements from you as you can't fully anticipate what questions the audience will ask. The good thing is that hopefully you have learned enough from preparing for your speech or are already knowledgeable enough about the topic to speak with authority.

You should prepare for your Q&A by considering what questions the audience may have about your topic and by asking anyone you know who fits the demographics of that audience what questions they might have. You could research online what people ask about that topic or potentially even ask the people who hired you to speak what types of questions they think the audience will ask you. You should also find good methods for handling Q&As, such as having someone in charge of who gets to ask questions or limiting questions per person.

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