3 Tips to improve your presentation skills (and how to become good at public speaking)

How important is it to be able to present yourself, a product or an argument in front of an audience? A key importance. The first impression is still the one that will affect all subsequent ones. If you are not able to present your arguments at university, during an exam or an admission speech, if you are unable to present your product correctly to a potential client or your results to your boss, if you are unable to showcase the best of yourself at the first job interview or at a romantic date, a second chance will be very unlikely to be achieved.

Each university course, each job position, and each social relationship requires some personal presentation skills. You can read as many books as you please, take as many courses as you wish, but these three tips which I am about to give you are only available in here and you will soon also discover why.

1) Improve your voice

Today there’ a lot of advertising about public speaking. You can find manuals and courses just about anywhere. Everyone underlines the crucial importance of being able to communicate in public. Have you ever taken a second to analyze the reality of the situation or did you get carried away by the advertising? They are talking about manuals, written in black and white, which claim to teach how to speak in public. They are talking about courses where they pretend to reveal all the major techniques necessary to speak in public. Too good to be true? Indeed, books and courses start by assuming that you already know how to use your voice in the right way, that you are able to express naturalness and credibility. They are castles built on the sand!

If someone is already able to communicate that way, he/she would have no difficulty in speaking or presenting. If they cannot, it is mainly because they are unable to use their voices correctly, they are failing to convey the message correctly. Of course, learning to move, to watch or to build speeches capable of striking the target is useful, but if you can not transmit it with the voice, as well as seeming boring or uninteresting, you will also seem awkward. Not to mention that all these courses and manuals create clones, in other words they do nothing but analyze, codify and repeat the techniques that were effective and natural in some of the greats of the past, such as Steve Jobs. Do you want to become a bad copy of someone else or do you want to give voice to your own personality?

2) Improve your voice

Sometimes you can even find a funny side in manuals or public speaking courses. You are given instructions such as “speak clearly“, ” scan the words“, “keep up the pace“.

In fact, these and other instructions are just part of knowing how to use your own voice. If you have no idea how to do it, these instructions don’t make any sense. Everyone is able to press a red button whenever a red light comes on. Action, reaction. But if you’re told to press the button only when a red light comes on after a blue light is present and only if you hear a buzzer sound too, it gets more complex. The longer you lengthen the sequence of operations to be kept in mind, however simple they may be when singles, we can no longer keep up the pace and we lose control. All of these courses only add elements to your presentation process, completely taking away any possibility of control. That’s why many people would rather die than talk in front of an audience. Yet if you learn to use your own voice, then everything becomes natural. It will become a result of your speaking. In fact, if you speak the right way, transmitting to others your message, your emotions, it is only natural to have a compelling rhythm, take pauses, look at the other people in the eyes. They are all elements of effective communication because you seek some feedback from those who listen. If you see faces that are unconvinced, dispersed or otherwise, you will repeat the concept in another way. All of this will gradually grow, quite naturally, once you start to improve the way you use your voice.

3) Improve your voice

To improve your voice does not mean to make it “more beautiful”, but it means to become its master. You can’t do this by following a karaoke style singing course or learning from those who can’t speak English without bad habits, without strong accents, or to those who have some difficulties in expressing themselves. Those who teach must absolutely be masters of their own voice.

What are the benefits of becoming masters of your own voice? Here I could also write a book, but I will point out the most common ones, those that you can also experience personally or by watching the video testimonials on this website. 

• You will gain more confidence in yourself and gain confidence in the message you want to express. This may not sound like much, but it’s all you need to transform your life from one who will undergo the voice of others to someone who can express his/her ideas.
• You will be more able to communicate in any area of your life: at the university, with friends, at a job interview, at work, in a relationship and even with your children.
• Your stress level will drop, because you will no longer have doubts and uncertainties about the results you will achieve. Only those who use their voice to persuade others of some untrueness maintain a high level of stress, those who communicate their truth, will relax.
• Your entire time management will improve accordingly. You will stop wasting time uselessly by delaying or awaiting to take action. With a confident voice, there is no longer any reason to doubt yourself and your abilities, and you gradually learn to maximize your free time to enjoy your life as a couple, family and leisure.

Learning to use our own voice means to affirm our personality in every situation and make us an active part in our lives, without excuses or unnecessary complaints. Obviously, also in the case of vocal training, we must be careful, not always everything that glitters is gold and only those who begin along the correct path will find themselves able to reach the end.