Jacob Ahmadzai – Page 111 – STL

Public speaking is an art form that needs to be mastered. There are certain traits that all of the best public speakers share, which is what makes them so good at addressing rooms full of people and captivating an audience. In this blog, we’ll share five tips that will help you become a better public speaker:

Confidence is Key

When you’re talking to a room full of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people, it will be daunting. It’s natural to feel nervous about your performance, but the secret is to find your inner confidence. Recognize that pretty much everyone in that room would be just as nervous as you if they got up to speak. The moment you embrace the fact that your nerves are normal, it makes you feel more confident. Now, you can deliver a speech that’s clear and concise!

Speaking Up Without Freaking Out | Matt Abrahams | TEDxPaloAlto

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It’s All About Efficiency

Efficiency is critical when it comes to public speaking. The great speakers will deliver talks that only last a handful of minutes. Ask yourself, what would you rather sit through; one hour of pure waffle or fifteen minutes where you get all of the same key points thrown at you? Audiences lose interest the longer a talk goes on, so be more efficient. Cut down your presentation, so you only focus on points that people want to hear.

Rehearsals are Essential

You can’t go on stage and expect to give a great talk without a proper rehearsal. All of the top public speakers will spend time going over their speech and rehearsing it on the stage the day before, or in their hotel room at night. This gives you an accurate idea of how long the speech lasts, if you make all the right points, and helps with pacing.

Use Visual Aids

One of the best ways to captivate an audience is by using visual aids to help you out. This helps supplement your endless talking, and it gives people something to look at and take in. Make sure your words complement the visuals, so they work in tandem with one another to get your points across. For example, if you’re talking about facts and figures, displaying a graph is a great way to help people visualise what you’re saying.

Improve your public speaking with effective visuals — Use engaging visuals

Always Hold Something Back

Lastly, the secret to being the best public speaker is to keep some information back. This way, you engage the audience with helpful advice or tips, but you leave them wanting more. As an example, you could give them advice on your to improve productivity in their business, but to truly achieve maximum profitability, they need to contact you after and sign up for your services. This helps you use a public speaking role to generate leads. If you give them everything in the talk, then they can just go away and won’t need more of your assistance.

If you want to get better at public speaking, then you need to be confident. You have to plan an effective presentation with visual aids that provides lots of valuable information but holds back on a few key points. At STL Training, we actually have a public speaking workshop that can help you with all of this and make you a better public speaker – check out our public speaking class London.

Also check out our infographic with techniques for increasing confidence when speaking:

Increase confidence in speaking with techniques in assertiveness — Build confidence with these assertive tips

Did you know that around 30% of your weekly workload is dedicated to managing your inbox? That’s an absurd amount of time, and it needs to change. So, we’ve compiled ten tips that will drastically improve your email time management, leading to far more efficiency in your working week.

Avoid Archiving

On the face of it, archiving your emails seems like a good way to get rid of things you’re not interested in. The reality is that this is a crime against productivity. It’s like moving mail from your desk to a cabinet under your desk; you’re not really addressing the problem! From now on, you need to stop archiving.

Send Short Replies

Too much time is spent relaying a long reply just to seem keen and nice. Instead, send short responses. Just make sure you fully get your message across, and there’ll be no problems.

Stop Unsubscribing From Spam

It sounds counter-productive, but when you unsubscribe it basically sends messages to spammers that you exist and are real. So, more will come your way, meaning more time is spent unsubscribing. To counter this, some tools will automatically send spam emails to the trash for you.

Stop Marking Emails As Spam

Similarly, marking emails as spam can take up time and be unproductive. Again, you can sort things out with a tool that automatically sends spam into the trash folder without you having to worry about it.

Learn Keyboard Shortcuts

A list of shortcuts can help you save time in Outlook — Learn some shortcuts to improve efficiency

It will surprise you how much more efficient you can be by using keyboard shortcuts. Instead of spending valuable minutes searching for things to click on, you can press a key and complete the action instantly. So, learn all the main shortcuts for your email client.

Sort All Emails Into Three Types

Whenever you get an email, sort it into one of these three things; read it and delete it, answer with a short reply, star for later. This instantly allows you to sort through every message and decide what type of response it requires. The result is an empty inbox all the time!

Microsoft OneDrive is an effective way to share files — Use the Cloud to share documents efficiently

Avoid Sending Attachments

Attaching a file or image to an email takes longer because it has to load up. Instead, send links to cloud storage like Microsoft OneDrive. The recipient can click it and see the file you’ve sent, and it remains updated as well – much easier and faster.

Schedule Time In Your Day To Check Emails

Don’t spend every minute checking your inbox as this is terrible. For more efficiency, schedule time in your day to check. Once every few hours will do, and you can focus on other things like improving the profitability of your business! A little bit of training may also be help – we regularly run Microsoft Outlook time management training courses.

Set Auto-Responses

This helps you stick to your email schedule without annoying anyone that sent an email. With an automated response, you send a message acknowledging that you’ve received their message and that you’ll respond in due course. It takes no time out of your day, and only seconds to set up.

Take A Time Management Course

If you really want to improve your email productivity, then take a time management course. At STL Training, we offer one-day workshops where you can learn all about email time management and how to use email clients as efficiently as possible – check out our time management email training London courses.

Gain control of your inbox with these email productivity hacks. Now, you’ll free up more time in your day to focus on what really matters; improving the profitability of your company and getting more work done!

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