Use Headline Cards to Improve Your Speeches By Arthur Cooper (c) Copyright 2003 Here is a simple and effective aid to confident and professional delivery when speaking in public. Are you making use of it?
The first golden rule to follow if you want your speech or business presentation to flow smoothly and spontaneously, is not to read it word for word from a written script. Your speech will sound stilted, and you will be looking down at your notes most of
time when you should be looking at your audience.
But unless you can memorise entire talk as an actor would memorise his lines you are almost certainly going to need something to help you remember vital points that you want to make.
That previous statement holds key. All you need is a reminder of vital points of your speech, main headings.
The filling in between can be added spontaneously at time of delivery. If you know your subject well enough you will find that infilling can quite safely be left unscripted and you will have no difficulty providing it when needed. You do need to know your subject, though. You can’t escape from that.
If you are less confident, then keep a scripted speech as ‘standby’ in case you get stuck and need to refer to it to get going again, but do try to do without it when you give your talk. Just fact of having this emergency script available in case of total blockage will give you confidence necessary to succeed without it.
