One of the most important qualities you need to have in your career as a fitness professional, or any other career for that matter, you need to learn how to speak to make people listen. There are many tips and tricks to help you learn how to speak to people to make them listen! However, a lot of these techniques are hopeless and do not work nearly as well as they should. Realistically, there are only four key skills you need to learn in order to be a successful speaker!

As a speaker, you need to be prepared for public speaking! This can seem alarming to some people because they do not feel that they have the confidence or stage presence to speak to a greater audience! However, you never know what situations might arise so you need to be prepared for everything. A great thing to keep in mind is to speak as if you are only speaking to one person or to a small group of people. This will set your mind at ease and you will be able to relax and have the best effect.

Whether you are speaking to a few people, one person, or to an audience of people, if you are not successful in gaining and KEEPING their attention, you will not get your point across, let alone get people to listen to you! You need to learn how to command the attention of a room! A lot of speaking is 75% mental and 25% of your speaking ability. How you carry yourself and how you act when speaking is, by far, the most important factor you need to know. You need to be confident in yourself and what you are speaking about! The way you look also says wonders about who you are as an individual! You need to look professional at all times. People tend to have a likeness and want to pay attention to somebody who is well groomed and confident!

If you are shy you really need to learn how to let that go and be outgoing and carry yourself well. Confidence says everything when it comes to speaking! A great tip to speaking well is to speak with emotion and relate to your audience! When it shows how passionate you are about what you are talking about, when you are enthusiastic about it, you make people WANT to feel how you are feeling. They are far more likely to pay attention to you! A great way to relate to your audience is to tell a funny story relating to the topic you are speaking about. For instance, you do NOT want to joke about lines at the grocery store if you are talking about tax liability. Your joke has to make sense with the topic of conversation! Laughter is the most common similarity among people!

The first skill that will help you become a better speaker is to KNOW who you are speaking to! You need to familiarize yourself with your audience! When you have an idea of who you are speaking to it becomes greatly easier to speak to them with ease and confidence. If you are going in blind, and do not know who you are talking to or what your audience consists of, you will fail miserably at getting your point across as a speaker! To help avoid this situation you should do a little bit of research on who you are talking to and who is most likely to be a part of your audience. It won’t take much research to attain the facts you need about your soon-to-be audience.
The second skill to will help you immensely when it comes to your speaking is you need to KNOW what you are talking about! Most people can detect someone who is trying to bluff their way to an audience. Chances are there is someone sitting among the audience who knows a little bit about the topic you are speaking about and will know instantaneously when you are being dishonest or trying to fool your way through the speech. Once they detect that you aren’t being truthful, they will most likely turn to the person next to them and mention it. This can have a domino effect and soon everyone around will know about it. Word of mouth spreads like wildfire, as you can see. NEVER try to bluff your way through you need to know what you are talking about!

Your speaking personality needs to stand out above the rest! A simple way to help you achieve this is to take your great personality as is, and amplify it! People love to listen to people who seem heartfelt, genuine and knowledgeable! If you can make people smile, laugh, nod and shake their heads, you will see that you are a good speaker and that people enjoy listening to you. You need to be outgoing, confident, relaxed, funny, knowledged, and, most importantly, relatable! A great way to help you become a great speaker is to gain experience with speaking, both publically and otherwise. The more you speak, the more comfortable you will become and the more confident you will be with yourself as a speaker!

It is almost an unspoken guarantee that if you do not speak with emotion, relate to your audience and have confidence in yourself and your knowledge, you are NOT going to be remembered nor are you likely to be listened to by anyone! When you can relate to your audience with a lighthearted laugh or conversation, the effect you have as is monumental. You are far more likely to be remembered! A great speaker speaks with such emotion, knowledge, and confidence that they make people want to listen to them. Do you want to listen to someone who has that classic monotone voice? Like the infamous “Bueller? Bueller?” Or someone who makes you smile, laugh and entrance you with exactly what you want to know? Thus, this is what makes a great speaker!

Personality & Experience!

By Brian Cannone