Motivational speaking is all about keeping up with your audience and using what works at that particular point in time so as not to grow irrelevant. Once you combine what is working at the moment with what has always worked, you will always have your audience hooked. The mark of a great motivational speaker is sustained audience engagement.
To help you hone your motivational skills, here are some tips we got from our friends over at adamchristing.com on how to become a top-notch motivational speaker.
1. The Importance of Visual Communication
Technology is a boon to communication since it has given us plenty of new and innovative ways to share our ideas and communicate. If you want your speaking engagement to be exceptional, you will have to engage as many of your audience’s senses as you can. That includes infographics, pictures and other universal symbols that help you connect to a vast and diverse audience. Punctuating your speech with appropriate visual cues can take your motivational speaking engagements to the next level. Consider signing up for executive presentation training if you really want to learn how to captivate your audience.
2. Keep It Short and Sweet
Times are changing. We have a new generation that is steeped in technology, and the nature of the digital landscapes is such that attention spans have grown shorter, and people prefer that their information be served to them concise and quick.
If you want to engage with an intergenerational audience, you will have to take into account their shorter attention spans and hectic lives. Always keep these details in mind when writing a TED talk script. Many modern speaking engagements last 30 minutes instead of the once-popular 60 minutes. In fact, Motivational speakers rarely go past 45 minutes these days.
3. Support Your Facts With Real-world Examples
When people come to listen to a motivational speaker, they want to walk away with nuggets of wisdom that they can put to action straight away. You could, of course, serve them with timeless principles and facts that they can then unpack themselves, or you can offer them real-life examples of the facts in action to help them connect even better with what you’re saying and apply it later on.
A good speaker will include as many well-researched facts as they can into their speech. A great one will also support them with real-world examples so that the audience internalizes it better and can implement it later on.
4. Your Biggest Focus Should Be Value
The very best motivational speakers know that it’s not about how the audience feels while you’re giving the speech, but how they feel when they’re leaving that matters. You want them to walk away with something that will cause them to reflect on what they heard and then trigger them to action later on. A good way to achieve this is to give them follow-up material, such as slides, handouts, summaries and so on.
5. Prove Your Value
Don’t leave it at the speech ― allow the audience to interrogate so that you can prove the value of your content. Have workshops, Q&A sessions, social media engagements and other ways to help the audience follow up with you and take action on the wisdom you have imparted.