Public speaking, it is a kind of presentation that is given live before a specific audience. Public speeches cover a wide variety of subject matter. The objective of the speaking may be to educate, entertain, persuade, and train the audience. Often, visual aids help in presenting to support the speaker and make the speech more interesting.
The spoken word can even be more powerful than the written word in the hand of effective speaker. Public speaking is especially important for businesses since there is a need to get the message before potential customers and to market and advertise the business. Sales persons and executives alike are often expected to have good public speaking skills. It will not be an exaggeration on saying that major growth of business based on effective dealing with public interaction. Some benefits to public speaking include:
- Improves confidence that is the basis of a good personality.
- Better research skills as a good speaker speaks after deep research of the subject matter.
- Stronger deductive skills that help to grab the attention of the audience.
- Ability to advocate for causes like charity, education, businesses.
Types of Public Speaking-
Public speaking is to stand before an audience and deliver a speech at a formal or an informal occasion. For some people it is a very daunting task to stand in front of people and share their opinions though with effective training this fear could overcome. A good public speaking is of four types and each one of has their own peculiarities.
- Speaking to Inform
- Speaking to Persuade
- Speaking to Actuate
- Speaking to Entertain
a) Speaking to inform- Speech for information means, when a person’s objective is to impart information on a particular topic or issue to the specific audience. For example: business presentations, seminars and workshops in colleges, class presentations etc. An individual preparing for an informative speech has to do deep research over the topic to be presented. It should be short and precise, because long informative speeches become monotonous and audience lose the interest.
b) Speaking to Persuade- Persuasive speeches are those where the speaker tries to persuade or convince the audience about an idea or product. The aim of these speeches to influence the opinions of the audience in the favour of the speaker. The most important point that has to be kept in mind while giving persuasive speech that here the speaker must be confident about the content and present it with confidence and creative manner so the audience get impressed and have faith on the words of the speaker. This can be a difficult task as the speaker might face a group of people who have totally different views from the speaker. Persuasive speeches are often given by sales and marketing people to attract interest in their products. They are also used to influence political and religious views.
c) Speaking to Actuate- Speaking to actuate is a higher level of persuasive speaking style. Here, the speaker goes extreme in terms of persuasion and convincing. The objective is to motivate people enough to take a specific step by step to act. This is a powerful tool of speaking; few people have achieved this level of mastery of the art of persuasion where they convince people by their extreme logics that they move into action. This type of style is the pinnacle of persuasion where the speaker try the level best to influence the audience in favour.
d) Speaking to Entertain- Entertain speech is all for entertainment purposes such as ceremonial speeches usually given at weddings, funerals. Graduation parties, retirement parties etc. To make these speeches effective speaker adds a personal touch to his speech while speaking to the audience. In this speech speaker delivers the personal experience, anecdote, story to make it more effective and interesting. The speech can be humorous, touching or emotional, as per the occasion and the mood. However, one should take utmost care not to hurt feelings by making unhealthy remarks to the audience.
Public speaking is a skill that can be mastered through continuous practice. To give an effective speech, one must first understand the type of speech, the type of audience to be delivered. A good public speaker is one who understands the needs of the audience and is resilience enough to adopt changes that may arise even while delivering the speech.