When you speak in public, do you WING it?

YOU HAVE BEEN ASKED TO SPEAK AT AN EVENT

There is only 1 week until the event

What do you do?

I cannot count the amount of times someone has said to me, “I just wing it, I am confident about speaking in public”.    And when I ask how they know if their speech has been effective, they look at me with a blank expression because the idea of their speech being effective had not occured to them.

Here are 5 reasons why you should never wing it.

1. You will not have the exact message you want to give to people worked out
2. You will not know what you want your audience to do
3. You may go all around the houses with you speech because you have not prepared a structure
4. You will be trying to remember what you are going to say, all through the speech and that is nerve wracking
5. You audience deserve for you to have prepared your presentation or speech

That is not to say you cannot do a presentation or speech at the last minute, but you should be able to work out the structure, the message, what you want from your audience and your call to action in the week, day or hour before someone asks you to speak.

I am often asked to do a presentation or speech at the last minute, and I have never just WINGED it.   I spend at least 5 minutes working out what my message is and what I want your audience to do and how I can get that in, in the time allocated to me.

So if you think you can just WING a presentation or speech – think again.