4 lessons you can learn from a professional speaker
- Reading time: 6 minutes
- By Speakers Club Coaches
From potential to professional... A road every professional speaker has had to travel to get to where they are today. It often seems easier than it is. Just tell your story on stage. All you need is a story and the courage to tell it to do. But nothing could be further from the truth. Professional speakers go through quite a journey to actually call themselves professional speakers. That's why you can learn a huge amount from them. Because if there is anything these professionals have done in their careers, it is tinkering with themselves. Therefore, we are happy to share 4 key lessons on SPEAKER with you that you can learn from a professional speaker. Do you read along?
How to become a master in rhetoric
Did you already know the term 'rhetoric'? Rhetoric literally means 'the art of speaking' and was created by a number of ancient luminaries. Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian are the founders of the art of speaking, the art of public speaking. As a professional speaker, an important art to master, then.
What exactly does rhetoric entail?
So rhetoric is the art of public speaking. The approach to rhetoric depends on which founder you adhere to. But to stick to the commonly known story, herein we adhere to Aristotle's theory. He argued that rhetoric consists of three essential parts: ethos, pathos and logos. Here ethos is the speaker's ethos, the degree of credibility he/she exudes, logos the logical construction of the story, its comprehensibility, and pathos the feeling a speaker evokes, the extent to which what he/she says touches and/or captivates the audience.
Now, of course, this is extremely succinct, but broadly speaking, these three factors affect whether or not a story gets in with your audience. Professional speakers are therefore true masters of rhetoric and know how to use all three of these aspects in such a way that they can bring their audience completely into their story. Of course, we also have our tools to get you started. At Speakers Club, we always work with a S.C.I.L assessment: a personality test and coaching session to identify the interaction skills of our speakers and understand what tools they can naturally use to make an impact on their audience.
Want to know more about our S.C.I.L. assessment and what it can do for you as a speaker to take your performance to the next level? You can find all the info here.
What makes your message stick with your audience
The last thing you want after you have given your presentation is for people to immediately forget exactly what you were saying again. That is why every presenter, speaker or manager is looking for ways to get the most impact can make. And let a professional speaker be a master at that.
To ensure that your message sticks with your target audience, it is of the utmost importance that you make your target group knows well. What kind of people do you have sitting in front of you? What do they gravitate towards? What do they need? Do you score high as a speaker when you respond to the audience's feelings - also known as 'Sensus' called - or do they better remember what you have told them if you, à la the 'Intellektus', especially sharing facts and research? Does your audience like language, puns and witty comments, such as a 'Lingua'? Or does it work better to throw your body into the fray and convince people with your voice and your hand gestures, your 'Corpus'? In this, don't forget the role of the design of your presentation, the form in which you share your information. Whatever communication style your audience uses, the visualisation of your message always contributes to memorable information transfer. The old masters of rhetoric possessed only their body and voice to get their message across, but we now have many more tools at our disposal. So let's use them intelligently!
Whether your ambition is to become a professional speaker or your job requires you to speak regularly in front of groups, knowing your target audience, their communication style and needs will always enrich your performance. After all, your message sticks best when you speak the (visual) language of your target audience.
Want to be as prepared as possible for how to serve your target audience? Then download our free presentation canvas To get you started!
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How to stay authentic on stage (even when sharing the same story)
Staying authentic on stage - how exactly do you do that? Especially when, as a professional speaker, you regularly share the same story, it can be quite difficult to authentic stay. After all, you've done your 'talk' so many times before, it obviously shouldn't sound like you're reciting it verbatim. It is also important to remain authentic in your content and design: copycats fall through immediately. If you do not feel your story is complete (because it has been copied or copied), you will not make the impact on your audience that you would like to make.
A good example of an authentic speaker: Joseph OubelkasIf you look at the bigger players within the world of professional speaking, you will immediately notice that these speakers know better than anyone else how to remain authentic. Therein lies the key to success stay very close to themselves. Why do you do what you do? What do you relate to the topic you discuss during your keynote? That is why they use their strengths & qualities, as well as the unique experiences they have gained, as selling points. If you have the guts to embrace all who you are and what you can do, you will stand very strong on stage, every time.
It involves implementing a personal brand, getting the picture right from all sides. And that only works if you keep very close to yourself in everything you communicate, what you share during your keynote. That sometimes sounds easier than it is... Professional speakers therefore constantly look at themselves in the mirror. This is not a profession to master if you don't like self-development and reflection holds 
How to make something difficult like public speaking look easy
One of the biggest challenges of any craft: making something that is incredibly complicated and needs a lot of practice look like it is effortless. How often do you watch a performance by a band, dancer or artist and think "That looks super simple, I could do that too?". It is not for nothing that commenting from the sidelines is always easier than being on the pitch....
Tok professional speakers are great at making difficult things look easy. After all, public speaking is a pretty big fear for many people. Yet these professionals stand there without visible sweat drops on their foreheads and clammy hands. How can that be? They leave nothing at all to the coincidence about. They know exactly who they have in the room, what kind of tools they can deploy to strike the right chord. They practise until they drop, know their keynotes from front to back from their minds. That makes them able to tell their story as if it were nothing. As if everyone else can do the same with two fingers in their pockets. But nothing could be further from the truth.
do it yourself?
Do you also want to work on your speaking skills and have ambitions to stand on big stages as a speaker? Then register for our master class 'Professional Speaking'. In it, you will learn all the ins and outs of successful speakership in two days and we will take you through the essential pillars of a successful performance: 'Content', 'Design' & 'Delivery'. Will you be there?
MAILSERIE: 'this is what you can learn from a professional speaker'
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