Public Speaking Strategies
Choose 1 That Works For You

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Home > Strategies

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There are several public speaking strategies to choose from. Some more effective than others. I'll lightly touch on a few of them on this page.

First there's the old school "go to" strategy that is built along these lines:

"Tell 'em what you're going to tell them. Tell them. Tell 'em what you told them."

Oddly enough, and unfortunately, too many presenters still adhere to this protocol.

I strongly encourage speakers AWAY from this nonsense. It is the worst of public speaking strategies.

Here's why. No adult wants to be "told" anything. For the most part we resent anybody telling us what to do, how to behave, what to buy, what to believe. We want valuable and pertinent information, and then left to come to our own conclusions. We are capable of making up our own minds without being manipulated by a strangers rhetoric.

The other point of contention I have with this method is it's hypnotically based. The audience is required to do nothing but just passively sit there and be spoon-fed the speakers agenda without question. It gets boring - which is specifically what it's designed to do. A talking head on stage driving in the same point again and again. The programming behind this is to put you in a bored state where you just start accepting the spoken word as gospel. Not because you particularly believe it, but because it's giving you no time to reflect. No time to think on your own.

How many times have you bought into something, then almost immediately resented the babble that preceded your buy in? Well, that's exactly how it happened. I don't endorse this strategy for public speakers specifically because of its calculating and scheming tendencies. It's inauthentic and sooner or later you'll be found out. Those who truly want to make a positive change don't employ this tactic.

As public speaking strategies go there are others that give you far more credibility as a speaker.

One way is to incorporate examples of several short stories on your topic and present them in a linear way. Don't tell your audience what you want them to gather from the story. Allow them to make the connections themselves. That way they "own" their learning. They've gone within and sorted things out on their own. That's powerful for people. As a speaker you will be respected for allowing your audience the opportunity to do this. More about this on an upcoming page.

The last of the public speaking strategies I will address on this page is similar to the previous one. The difference is that you divide your stories, leave cliff-hangers as you move into the following stories. Once the first part of your stories has been delivered, then you begin to wrap them up consecutively as you delivered them. This is a little more complex in its composition so I will devote a separate page to address this specifically in the near future.