Have you ever searched “public speaking tips” and come away with a generic listicle that reads like it was written by someone who has never actually stood on a podium?
Yeah. Me too.
The reality is that most public-speaking tips on the internet were written by people summarizing others’ advice.
Not by speakers.
Not by people who have bombed badly on stage and had to pick themselves back up in front of real people.
Good news for you – I have bombed. I have had to figure things out and try again. And over the past 14 years, I have boiled the craft down to seven things I actually use before, during, and after every talk I give.
These are the seven public speaking tips that survived.
Why Most Public Speaking Tips Fail You
Most advice tells you to “be yourself,” “picture the audience in their underwear,” or “make eye contact.” These tips fail because they are abstract.
What you need are concrete, physical, repeatable things. Things your body can practice. Things you can check off in the car on the way to the venue.
The good news is that public speaking is a skill. Every skill gets better with the right reps. The bad news is that most people never stick at it long enough to get the right reps.
They try public speaking once or twice, realize they are terrible, and give up. And then they wonder why public speaking tips don’t work as suggested.
In this article, we will look at what really works instead. If you try these tips and stick to building your public speaking skills, you can get better. Here’s how.
7 Public Speaking Tips I Use Every Time I Speak
1) Start with the breath
Before I ever walk in front of a group, I do three slow belly breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth, four counts each. This is not a relaxation trick. It is a nervous system reset.
When you are nervous, your breath moves into your chest. It gets shallow, fast, and panicked. Guess what that does? It tells your brain you are in danger. Which makes you more nervous. Which makes the breathing worse.
The breath is the one piece of your nervous system you can control directly. Start with three deep breaths one minute before walking on stage and notice the difference.
2) Walk the stage before the talk
Whenever possible, I arrive at least 30 minutes early and walk the actual stage. I stand on the spot where I will deliver the opening. I look out at the empty chairs. I find where the camera is (if it’s being livestreamed or projected on a screen). I feel how the floor sounds under my shoes.
Why does this help? Because your brain has now seen and felt the room. The first time you stand up there is not live. It is in your memory as “been there before”. That small shift takes the edge off.
3) Memorize your first line word-for-word
I do not memorize my entire speech. That would make me a robot. But I do memorize the first line, word for word.
The opening is where most speakers fumble. Because the nerves are at their highest, and the brain is scanning for a starting point. If your first line is already locked in your mouth, you buy yourself 20 seconds of confidence while the rest of the room settles.
By the second paragraph, you are in the zone. You just have to get there.
4) Speak 30% slower than feels natural
When I speak in a conversation, my pace is already fast (the Australian tendency to run words together does not help). When I am nervous on stage, it goes even faster. The audience cannot keep up.
So I consciously slow down by about 30%. In my head, it feels weird. I am sure I am speaking too slowly. I wonder if I sound condescending. But to the audience, it gives them time to adjust to your pace, tone, and content. And when I look back at the speech recording, it sounds professional, deliberate, and confident. Trust the slowness and remember to drop the pace by 30%.
5) Use pauses as punctuation
In writing, a comma is a short pause. A period is a longer one. A paragraph break is a full stop.
When you read, you naturally take in the information in chunks that the punctuation helps to break up.
However, most nervous public speakers have zero verbal punctuation. Instead, they blast their audience with one continuous run-on sentence. No breaks or breaths. The audience is exhausted trying to take in the information just as they would be reading a page full of words with no commas, periods, or paragraghs.
Pauses feel scary because silence feels like failure. However, the opposite is true. A well-placed pause is the single most powerful tool a public speaker owns. It gives the audience a beat to process what you just said. And it subtly tells them that the next sentence matters.
Try this: at the end of every key sentence, count “one” in your head. Then keep going. That beat of silence is the pause that creates an impact.
6) Record yourself and watch it back
This tip might be the most painful. Because watching yourself speak on video is awful. In your mind, you sound weird and look weird. You hear every filler word and notice every odd hand gesture.
Well, welcome to the uncomfortable club. Every speaker I know hates watching themselves on video. And every great speaker does it anyway.
Watch the speech video with the sound off. Then watch it again with the sound on and your eyes closed. By doing this after every speech, you will catch things you never noticed live. And this practice will help you dramatically improve.
(This is how I found out I said the words “so” and “now” 47 times in a 20-minute keynote. It only took one painful viewing to cut that habit.)
7) Finish with a call, not a “thank you”
“Thank you” is a very commonly used speech close. But honestly, it is a weak one.
A thank-you ending signals to the audience that the talk is over and that they can clap now. It is a permission slip for them to forget everything you said and shared.
A call to action is different. It tells the audience what to do with what they just heard.
“Pick one thing from today and try it tomorrow.”
“Find one person in this room and tell them what you learned.”
“Go home and make the call you have been avoiding.”
Then pause, smile, and walk off.
The call to action creates an ending that stays with them.
What Happens When You Actually Apply These Tips
None of these seven tips is hard on its own. None of them requires talent, charisma, or a year of coaching.
The only difficult aspect of using these public speaking tips is that they require reps.
The speakers you admire on TED stages or at your industry conference are doing some version of all seven. They are breathing. They have walked the stage. Their opening is memorized. They are speaking 30% slower. They are pausing and punctuating their speech. They have watched their own tape. And they finish with a call to action.
But most of all, they keep practicing the skill of public speaking. That is the whole game.
Pick one tip from this list. Apply it at your next talk. That is all. Then pick a second one. Layer them in one at a time.
The reality is that public speaking is not a mystery. It is a practice. You have now read the seven things that survived 14 years of practice for me.
Now it is your turn.
Speaker Skills is dedicated to real-world public speaking skills to grow your influence and impact. Everything we share on this site is tested and used on stage by us.
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