When it comes to the most important factor in Public Speaking, I think the concept of boldness and confidence have been wrongly treated over time by many teachers, trainers and writers. You may have attended many pieces of training, Masterclasses and workshops on public speaking and have been erroneously made to believe that you need boldness and confidence to succeed.
As true as that may be, it is not all the truth.
Boldness and confidence simply make up an aspect of the things you need, in fact, they are not even the first, second or third you need.
A ‘Beautiful Nonsense’
I remember an incident that occurred in one of the many classes on General Studies I attended during my undergraduate days at the University of Nigeria. One of my classmates was assigned the leading role in one of our group presentations.
This my friend, naturally sanguine, was known for his boldness and confidence. And those were the qualities that earned him the role of the lead speaker.
On the day scheduled, he appeared before everyone, and just his introduction alone earned him a resounding and deafening round of applause from every other student present. Then, he began reeling out his points and went on and on for minutes, with many still clapping and “wowing”.
But when he was done, our lecturer, who had sat quietly all the while he presented, without a smile, noting down things in his notepad, stood up and to the surprise of my friend and every other person, discredited every bit of information he presented saying they were wrong.
He listed every one of them and the whole class was shocked to learn that they had only applauded a “beautiful nonsense”.
For two weeks, my friend was not seen or heard in class as many dubbed him “Professor sweet mouth”.
But many have been erroneously taught and made to believe that with boldness and confidence they can move mountains.
Do not get me wrong. Boldness and confidence are important to success in public speaking. But, as much as boldness and confidence may move the mountains for you they won’t crush the mountains for you.
To crush the mountain in Public Speaking, you need KNOWLEDGE. Yes! you heard me right.
Knowledge is the first and most important thing you need to do well in public speaking. Let’s face it, why do you think people go online to search out YouTube videos? Knowledge.
Why do people pay for conferences, workshops and training, oftentimes travelling thousands of miles? Knowledge.
No one wants to care how bold you are so long they get value for their money and time – Knowledge.
Two types of knowledge you need in Public Speaking
When it comes to knowledge as a factor in Public Speaking, there are basically two types of knowledge that you need in order to do well in Public Speaking. They are knowledge of your subject matter and knowledge of your audience.
knowing your subject matter in public speaking
Knowledge of your subject matter in public speaking
The knowledge of your subject matter should occupy most of your thought in your preparation for any public speaking engagement. I don’t think you would be happy with yourself to learn after your presentation that you spent the 40 minutes of your talk delivering ‘beautiful nonsense’, just like my friend who I made reference to earlier.
Imagine if Simon Sinek had not prepared so well for his TedTalk that went viral, do you think he would have become so popular, let alone becoming one of the top 10 most popular TEDx Talks? Even if he does become popular, it may not be for the reasons he would want to be associated with. This is why you must ensure you do your due diligence in your next public speaking engagement.
You may argue that you are not a professional so you need not care so much about all of these, but I believe you should care so much about your audience to not waste their time delivering ‘beautiful nonsense’ to them.
knowing your audience in public speaking
Knowledge of your audience in public speaking
The next important knowledge you need for success in your public speaking engagements is knowledge of your audience. Most persons, including professionals, often err on this aspect. They take their time to prepare themselves for a beautiful talk or speech, do their researches without caring to know what category of persons they would be speaking to.
I will share a personal experience. Some years back, I was invited by the Children and Teens department of my Church to speak to the youngsters in the church. With the manner in which the invitation came and with what I knew about the department, I concluded within myself that I would be speaking to young people in their teens. However, I was shocked when I arrived at the venue to see that among my audience the oldest was an 8-year old girl.
I had to quickly change my approach seeing that the direct teaching approach I had planned to use for them would not help them understand the subject matter. I must say it was not easy with me on that day.
So ensure you know your audience well enough. In fact, even before accepting your speaking engagement, you should know the audience you are going to be speaking to. Imagine accepting to discuss Coronavirus at a conference of Medical Researchers when you are simply a Digital Marketer.
The following details are important for you to know about your audience:
Their genders
Their ages
Their occupations
Their religion or cultural leanings
Their educational backgrounds
and so on.
To learn more about audience analysis as a speaker, check out this post on lumenlearning.
Conclusion
In public speaking, when you have gotten the above two in place then every other thing follows. In fact, there is confidence that comes from knowing that you know what to say to your audience. According to the educational writer Ron Kurtus, “your ability to speak effectively is enhanced with knowledge and skill, resulting in greater audience interest.”
Ifegwu-Mbonu Victor (Sir Vic) is a Personal Growth and Leadership Trainer, author and speaker. He is the Founder of the Double Edged Impact Network . He focuses on helping individuals go DEEP, that is, he helps individuals Discover, Equip, Extend and Promote themselves so they could live the lives they were created to live. He has trained and spoken to over 1,000 people so far on different topics of Personal Growth and Leadership.
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