Tip 631: Do Your Public Speaking Homework, Part One
From the Public Speaking Workshops: First, Do Your Homework
Effective leadership means effective speaking.
The great leaders—Churchill, Kennedy, King, Reagan—have been great speakers. (You can probably quote lines from their speeches without prompting.)
This is the first in a series on public speaking.
Let’s suppose you’ve been assigned to give a speech. A talk.
Do your homework. Break your homework into three parts: your audience, your topic, and your circumstances.
On your audience: Ask yourself three questions:
Who is my audience? People within your organization? People outside? Children? Teenagers? Adults? Seniors? People with a common interest? The answers help you tailor your speech to your audience. It makes a difference: “Bikers? I thought you said bankers!”
What’s unique about their culture? Special history? Special people? Special events? Acknowledging that history, those people, or those events bridges the gap.
How much to they know about your topic? A lot? A little? Are they old hands with this? Are they beginners? This determines the details of your presentation.
Next week, we’ll ask ourselves questions about the topic, the subject, of our talk.
We love this stuff. This is fun.