What I Learned in Toastmasters

If you want to be an effective public speaker, you must also learn to be an effective public listener!

What is a public listener?

Officially, this term "public listener" doesn't exist. It's something I coined to be the opposite of public speaker. Too often in your quest towards public speaking, you forget that part of effective communication is to listen using your ears and you eyes for feedback from your audience.

In a one-to-one conversation, it is relatively easy to maintain eye contact with audience of one. You can see her body language, facial expression and listen to her tone, pitch and volume.

However when you are a public speaker delivering a speech, you are having a one-to-many dialogue where one party speaks i.e. YOU, while the other party i.e. THE AUDIENCE, listens. The trick of powerful speech making is to make the speech a dialogue where you are not TALKING to but are INTERACTING with your audience.

How can you do this?

Firstly, make eye contact with selected members of the audience from different parts of the room to establish rapport and don't forget to smile. Look out for their facial expressions to see if they are happy, interested or bored with your speech.

Establish a connection with the audience by using YOU and US to be inclusive. Rapport with your audience can also be established if you understand the composition of your audience. Are they linked by geographical location, i.e. Singaporeans or Singapore residents. Are they affiliated through the toastmasters movement? Are they young, old or middle-aged? Are they members of the same company, club or charity?

React to the audience! If they laugh, pause to let the laughter permeate and then subside. If they are looking look puzzled or confused, you may want to slow down and articulate your next point carefully and take your time to speaker clearly. If they are frowning, then you may have to make some changes or lose your audience.

Listening to the mood of the audience

Your audience is a group of individuals who have different motivations, moods and mannerisms. However, when they are in the room to listen to you speak, there must be a purpose that draws them together with you in that room, hall or auditorium. Find out how they are feeling by mingling with some of the audience and picking up on the vibes by speaking with a few persons there. You'd be surprised how you can release some of the tension within yourself as you've made one or two acquaintances or even friends before you address the audience.

To really improve in your public speaking, follow-up by speaking with one or two members of the audience to get some feedback on your speech. They make give you the audience's perspective on how your speech went.

Speak well, listen well and live well.