How to Give a Memorable Talk

There is an art to being an interesting speaker. You could be a fascinating person to talk to one on one but that does not always translate to speaking before an audience. The skills required to be a memorable speaker are certainly built while you are talking to a single individual. However, if you are to gain the attention of a broader audience, there a few rules to follow.

1- Know What You Want to Say.

We have all listened to a speaker who had no idea where he was leading us. You could look around the crowd and folks were starting to check their phones and losing interest in what was being said. This is not their fault. Yes, there is a common courtesy of listening that we can give each other. But, more often than not, if someone has lost our attention it is because they are not talking to us - they are talking above us. What do I mean by that? They are more interested in sharing what they know or what their perspective is instead of sharing that info in a way that relates to us. Their focus is themselves and not us. There is a confidence with which we should share our information, but that should be in humble arrogance and not pride.

2- Be Brief.

This is one of the easiest rules to spot, and one of the hardest to follow. We all enjoy sharing our opinions, and it is obvious when we have a willing audience by the people sitting at attention. The problem may be that they are too kind to say shut up. I am more than willing to listen to people when they have something to say. My problem is that I can be too kind and let someone go on for an hour before catching their breath.

The basis of this guideline is knowing that people's time is precious - time in itself is precious. There are important ideas to discuss, and many of them need more than a few minutes to properly detail. Yet, we must be kind enough to our listeners to say what we need to and sit down.

3- Make Eye Contact with Your Listeners.

This is a tough one for me. My natural inclination is to raise my eyes and start thinking if I am working through what I want to say next. This goes back to rule #1 about knowing what you want to say. If you have in your mind what you want to say, it is easier to keep eye contact with your group and just talk. When you are like me, you enjoy mulling over your words before they exit your lips. I tend to take the mindset of Treebeard and don't say anything unless it is worth taking the time to say.

My time in Toastmasters International helped a great deal with this bad habit. Toastmasters is an international group that helps everyday people learn how to speak well in public. The advice I received for my sky staring was to pause and make eye contact with people. This was also hard for me because I wanted to use a filler word such as um, uh, or right as I made eye contact. It took several months of practice and speaking to curb these two habits. The results are priceless. My family often speaks at large business conferences, and they have ask me to speak without notice on a few occasions. I would have been scared stiff and stared into the heavens if it was not for the positive atmosphere of Toastmasters.

4- Know Your Audience.

This is perhaps the most important rule. We do not generally remember what a speaker said - we remember how we felt as they were speaking. We may be an avid listener and doing our darndest to pay attention but we will be hard pressed to recall what was said afterwards.

We must know our audience in order to give a memorable talk. There is something to be said for knowing what needs to be said in a certain hour. There are numerous men and women who had the foresight to see the opportune hour for their message. That knowledge is key in order to grab the attention of those you are speaking to and lead them to follow you. The great speeches were not necessarily the longest or the shortest but they were speeches that cut to the heart and ignited the passions of those listening. That does not happen unless you are aware of who is listening to you.

5-Be You.

One of the most painful things to watch is someone working to be someone they are not. We see this in Apple announcements now that Steve Jobs is gone and Tim Cook has assumed the leadership role. Tim has seemed to pick up on this as pundits have commented how he was trying to be Steve Jobs as he presented a new product - it is for the better.

Your personality shines through when you are comfortable. The joy of human interaction is interacting with interesting people. These are people that enlighten us, inspire us, and lead us as they talk. That is impossible if you act as an impostor. We can spot a fake a mile away and we will not allow them to show us what they have or listen to the advice they are giving when we see them as a fake. You must be you when you are giving a speech. If you are not, it is a sure bet that you just wasted your words.

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