How to Hold an Audience in the Palm of Your Hand! Part 6

Rehearse your speech

Now that you have added life to your speech you should put the three Ps into action and say the speech aloud to yourself as many times as possible. The best place to practice your speech is the bath­room because it has the sort of acoustics you will usually encoun­ter in rooms where speeches are to be made. The bathroom also offers the advantage of a mirror. Once you’ve overcome your modesty, you should check how you look when you are delivering the speech and correct any bad faults that you see yourself making. Try to deliver the speech as you would want the audience to hear it, pausing and emphasising, to give meaning and richness to the message you are delivering. As a result, you will probably find the speech starts to run over time. For most speakers this is quite a surprise. Usually most spend time worrying about whether they have enough mate­rial to go the required distance. It is a pleasant change to have too much material and a need to reduce it.

If you do need to reduce your speech, eliminate the details and the complicated bits. Then continue to rehearse until you feel good about how the speech sounds and you are comfortable with it.