Presentation Skills & Public Speaking: Key Skills

There are countless articles on Presentation Skills & Public Speaking.  The internet is full of them. There are so many methods and techniques that are spoken about. And then there are highly passionate ‘motivational speakers’ spread all over YouTube persuading viewers to join their online leadership training and become a master speaker themselves. All this variety of choices only ensures that a beginner gets confused about what one really needs to develop to become good at this skill.  This article explores a simple way of what is important and what are the things one needs to do and not do.

We have looked at hundreds of things one can do to become a presenter.  We have then broken them into these self-explanatory buckets of eliminating, must-have, and good to have.

ELIMINATE Things that you must remove so that you can speak well.

• Unnecessary wandering on the stage
• Filler words & sounds
• Gesturing for no reason
• Monotonous speaking
• Looking down or not having eye contact with the audience

MUST HAVE:  These are the things which are of paramount importance

• Authenticity
• Knowledge of your subject/topic
• Structure
• Eye contact
• Purposeful gesturing
• Pauses
• Body postures, gestures, facial expression, eye, and voice be in complete sync

GOOD TO HAVE:  There are hundreds of things which we can do here. But some of the important ones are

• Changing the intensity of your voice, gestures, and body postures
• Stories
• Humor
• Rhetoric
• Facial expressions

If you would focus on the above you would be able to significantly improve on your Presentation & Public speaking skills.  You need not worry about the others, to begin with. If you need help to see how you can improve on the above please do contact us.