Want to impress stakeholders with your speaking abilities? Here's an acting technique that will dramatically improve your public speaking. 

Are you as dynamic as you'd like to be when you deliver a speech or presentation?

Do audiences sense your authority? Just as important, do your listeners feel that they're in the hands of a seasoned performer?

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How to Be on Top of Your Game for Public Speaking

Don't be too concerned if you answer the above questions with some hesitancy. It's a sad fact of our educational system and professional training that little attention is paid to oral communication and the business of persuading others.

That's where the techniques of the theater come in.

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For the last twenty-five years, I've been training business people and other professionals in my system of the art of spoken performance. As a professional actor, I know that to be on top of your game for public speaking, you'll do best by using the tips, tools, and techniques of acting.

For many people, the self-consciousness, nervousness, and anxiety that accompany public speaking diminish either their performance or feelings of satisfaction for a job well done. Yet if there's ever a time when you need to be at your best, it's when you're delivering that important pitch, keynote, product demonstration, persuasive speech, or motivational talk.

Let's face it: the stakes can be high in any of those situations. So you need to harness your full focus and concentration with the best tools available to you.

Here's one way you can—with my Free Guide, 6 Rules of Effective Public Speaking. Gain a greater understanding of how to engage and move audiences. You'll be glad you did!

Now Is Not the Time to Develop New Skills!

There's simply no doubting it: in public speaking, stage presence and performance is the order of the day. It stands to reason, then, that your actual time in the spotlight isn't the time to develop the skills you haven't had until now.

Yet too many speakers insist on doing so. They spend most or all of their preparation time gathering and organizing content. Unfortunately, they neglect the performance skills which are the essence of engaging and moving audiences. How, then, can they magically summon those abilities at the moment they're in front of an audience of stakeholders?

Think about your own habits.  How much time do you spend taking notes, polishing your key points, obsessing over your PowerPoint deck, and preparing handouts? Now compare that with your time investment in getting up on your feet; carefully considering how you employ body language; using vocal dynamics effectively; moving and gesturing in your performance space; and generally becoming more at ease on your feet in front of a group of strangers? In other words, giving your attention to the performative elements of your talks.

As I tell my speech coaching clients: the chances are good that you should spend less time on stuffing your presentation with content, and more time becoming comfortable standing in front of groups talking to them and being comfortable with them. After all, it's your relationship with your audience and your passion that makes your message compelling and intriguing, not your data points.

Want to know how it's done? Here's my Free eGuide, The One Habit That Will Make You a Better Speaker. Tap into the power of your most persuasive communication tool!

Acting Techniques for Business Presentations

Fortunately, among the acting techniques to improve business presentations we train professionals in at The Genard Method, there's an approach that can help make your speeches fresh, powerful, and memorable. It's called "the illusion of the first time." And it's specifically geared toward making material that you deliver dozens or even hundreds of times sound new and exciting for your audience.

For instance, you may have used a sales pitch many times before, and will do so many times more. Sales teams, for example, often have a PowerPoint deck that every rep is required to use. So how do you make such a thing sound interesting and personal when you deliver it?

You do so by learning how to speak with maximum impact. Find out how in my Free eBook, High-Impact Speaking: The Leader's Guide To Presenting With Integrity and Influence.

That's exactly the position the actor is in who is playing a role in a successful play that's run for months or even years. But audiences don't care about that (except that they may be coming because of the buzz created by a successful show). The theater-goer who paid $250 for his or her seat wants the very best performance that actor can deliver.

Just as important, audiences need to believe deeply that the events of the play or musical are unfolding in real time before their eyes. That's part of the magic of live theater. The actor is challenged, of course, because the lines were memorized long ago for the "new" moment about to occur on stage.

That's where the illusion of the first time comes in: the actor, through the art of acting, gives the impression that this is all real: in other words, this is the first time the character has ever faced this situation. And so the actor responds viscerally and with total conviction, saying the lines which represent that character's honest reaction to what's happening in the script.

Using The Illusion of the First Time for Your Talks

The trick here, of course, is to make the content of your talk new for you. Only then will your performance, just like an actor's, come alive for your audience.

In a sense, acting isn't about doing anything—it's about believing. Once the actors believe they are the characters in the circumstances, everything they do will be natural and feel right to the audience. You can do the same thing in your business presentations: by putting aside the fact that you've said this same thing many times before, and investing yourself in the truth of the moment. In your case, of course, that means saying the true thing that you must get across. The audience, of course, won't have heard any of it before. 

Videotape yourself to see if in fact it sounds like you're saying it for the first time. And if vocal expressiveness is your challenge, tape yourself using audio only. Either way, you may be surprised to see and hear how excited you can look and sound when you're aiming for "the truth of the moment," rather than trying to look good. From there, no step at all is required to get audiences to share your excitement.

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Gary Genard is an actor, author, and expert in public speaking and overcoming speaking fear. His company, The Genard Method offers live 1:1 Zoom executive coaching  and corporate group training worldwide. In 2022 for the ninth consecutive year, Gary has been ranked by Global Gurus as One of the World’s Top 30 Communication Professionals. He is the author of the Amazon Best-Seller How to Give a Speech. His second book, Fearless Speaking, was named in 2019 as "One of the 100 Best Confidence Books of All Time." His handbook for presenting in videoconferences, Speaking Virtually offers strategies and tools for developing virtual presence in online meetings. His latest book is Speak for Leadership: An Executive Speech Coach's Secrets for Developing Leadership Presence. Contact Gary here.