4 Tips to Improve Your Public Speaking Skills
By: Kessie Zhang
Tags: Life Lessons, Self Improvement, Data Science, Women In Tech, Startup

4 Tips to Improve Your Public Speaking Skills

What I’ve Learned as a First Time Webinar Speaker

Photo by Nycholas Benaia on Unsplash

I recently spoke at a Webinar about the Mentorship Effect hosted by Correlation One, a data and analytics training program sponsored by leading employers. Although this is not my first time speaking in front of a crowd, I have never been invited to be a panelist before. The idea of being one of the speakers as a new grad sounds totally intimidating but extremely exciting. I have been attending many Data Science Meetup events, where the speakers share their success stories. Who would have thought that one day I would be invited to share my experience as well! I’ve always been dreaming that one day I would be one of the speakers and inspire people, but I would never have thought this day would come so soon.

Me feeling nervous but excited to share my experience. (Image by Author)

Growing up, I was told by almost all of my teachers that I would be terrible at public speaking because I was too shy and never spoke up. I remember a couple of years ago, my boss even suggested I attend Toastmasters to improve my public speaking. I only realized last year that I, too, could be a good public speaker.

When I was at Metis, I had to give a presentation for each project I had worked on. I remember the first feedback I received after my first presentation was that I needed to speak up. So, I decided that I had to improve my public speaking skills. In the end, my teachers and fellows were impressed by how much I’ve grown, and that meant a lot to me! No matter how bad you used to be, you can always expand your skillset.

In this blog, I want to share some of the lessons I’ve learned that improved my public speaking skills.

Writing Your Speech

Once you’ve got a speech lined up, what you can do now is to prepare what you want to say. But where do you start?

I started with a rough outline of the topics I wanted to cover. Actually, kinda the same way I would for writing any of my blog posts. It’s not necessary to stick to your outline, but having an outline can keep you on track so that you don’t miss anything. When writing your speech, write your speech the way you would usually talk. If you want to drive the audience’s attention, feel free to add some small talk or humor. It’s helpful to look up some examples if you are not sure how to write an outline.

After you’ve got your topics figured out, you could start thinking about how much time you want to spend on each topic/question.

If this is a presentation, I try not to put more than three bullets per slide. The rule of thumb is to not list too many details on your slides, because what’s the point of listening to your speech when your audience can literally just read it from the slide!

Practice

Practice, practice, practice! Unless you’re the type who can talk about anything off the top of your head, you need to be prepared. Since English is my second language, practicing is even more important to me. I’m the type who tends to forget what I need to say under pressure. However, if you practice enough, I can assure you that this awkward situation will never happen!

Review your PowerPoint. You could even time yourself. PowerPoint allows you to add on an on-screen timer that helps you keep track of how much time you spend talking on each slide. This will help you make sure you’ll be able to cover all your points in a limited time. I don’t recommend making last-minute changes to your deck, because it can leave you feeling somewhat unprepared. You might even end up skipping the slide since you forgot what you wanted to say.

If you are willing to go the extra mile, I recommend recording yourself. After listening to your own presentation, you can try to fine-tune your speech. If you are not convinced by what you said, how can you expect the audience would be? Besides, it’s a good way to keep track of your progress!

Dealing with Nerves

You are almost there!! Feeling nervous before the presentation is totally normal for a lot of people. Not gonna lie, I always have sweaty palms when I’m nervous. That’s totally ok! One way that really helps me stay calm during my presentation is not to think about the audience. You could pretend you are talking to yourself or your family. You could also find several dots/objects in the distance to focus on when you are speaking, so it may look like you are looking at the audience when you are not.

This is something I’m going to have to improve on as well. But I do believe that the more I do it, the better I will be. And so do you!

Feedback

Congratulations! You did it!!! If you receive any negative feedback, don’t feel bad. If someone is willing to take the time to criticize you, you should take it as an opportunity for you to grow and be better. Remember, everything can always be improved as long as you put the effort!

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” ― Maya Angelou

The biggest thing I was afraid of was that people would be judging me. It turns out people judge you way less than you judge yourself. You might think people might NEVER forget the embarrassing things you did or said, but most people are actually pretty forgetful. They might not remember what exactly you said, but they would remember whether you were confident. So don’t worry about too much, just do it!

Final words

In the end, I wanted to say that don’t let where you are at determining where you can be.

“If you work hard, stay focused and never give up, you will eventually get what you want in life.” ― Donald Miller

I feel incredibly grateful that Correlation One invited me to be one of the panelists. Also, I’d like to give a big shout-out to Correlation One for hosting the DS4A program. If you are interested in Data Science, want to get connected to the hiring managers and recruiters 👥 from Fortune 500 companies, and have an industry mentor guiding you, don’t hesitate to APPLY!

Thanks for reading! I hope you find this blog helpful.