Motivational Speaking Tips - How To Rehearse A Speech

Not surprisingly, motivational speakers tend to love motivational quotes. For example “Practice makes permanent, not perfect.” The truth is that only proper practice makes perfect. Here are a few strategies that will save you a massive amount of your valuable time when you rehearse a speech (or any other kind of formal presentation).

A Motivational Speaker’s Five Top Tips
Number 1: Begin rehearsing early. If you leave it too late to start, you’ve put yourself in the worst situation of all. You’ll lose all the freshness you'd get giving the speech extemporaneously without having the fluidity of a professional speaker. (FYI: Rehearsing a speech always takes longer than you might expect.)

Number 2: (I learned this next tip from an inspirational speaker in Texas.) Check out how long it takes you to read your first page of content. To be crystal clear, I’m not suggesting you present it as if you’re actually in front of an audience, just read it and time yourself. This exercise will give you a relatively accurate sense of how many pages of material you’ll need to fill your time. Here's an example: If you find it takes four minutes to read your page of content and you’re speaking for 40 minutes then, obviously, you’re only going to have time to get through about ten pages of content, maximum. Using this simple tip will stop you preparing dozens of pages of content only to find (often of the day itself) that you don't have time ot get through it all.

Number 3: Don't memorize your material word-for-word as if it were a TV script. Working off a script in this way and making it sound fluent takes weeks of effort. (And that’s for someone who knows how to write a script in the first place.) I suggest you memorize the sequence of your main subtopics and keywords within each topic. (If you know how to use it properly - and that's a big if - PowerPoint can be useful as a way of ensuring you won't “forget your place”.)

Number 4: Most people hate this next one. I understand, it can be very off-putting watching yourself on video. Even so, it's really important. In particular, listen for verbal tics and watch out for distracting, repetitive gestures like toying with a marker pen. However you feel about watching yourself on video, just do it.

Number 5: Remember to do a technical rehearsal. This tip sorts out the professional motivational speakers from the amateurs. Something that’s easy, like changing a PowerPoint slide using a remote, can seem like an exercise in high-tech brain surgery when you're being watched.

Remember, rehearse properly now and then, on the say, you'll shine. I wish you the best of luck.