News anchors and motivational speakers always seem so calm and confident when they address the masses. For most people, though, speaking in front of people is a fate worse than death.
The fear that grips them sends all rational thought and ability flying and they are left falling over their words and coming across as someone who does not have a clue. So how do these guys make it look so easy?
Always be prepared
If you want to speak like a news anchor, then you have to be prepared to put in the time to prepare. The more comfortable you are with a topic, the easier it becomes to speak about it. The Difference Guru is an excellent source of content if there is a topic with closely related concepts.
You would do well to consult their website and read up on your topic as much as possible. Once the knowledge is in your head, half the battle is won.
From here, practicing what you want to say and ensuring that you have all the correct pronunciations down is what will bring an extra bit of calm. Nevertheless, this is all just background prep, and the practical execution still needs to be done.
Listen to your voice
When a couple of friends are in conversation with each other, the way that they speak seems natural. Good motivational speakers and news anchors have perfected the art of speaking naturally, even when speaking from a script.
Do yourself a favor and do a mock recording of yourself, reading from a script. The chances are that you are going to sound flat. Natural conversational speech is filled with intonation, speed, emphasis, fluctuating volume and tone. When you compare your recording to a news anchor’s speech, the difference will be clear, as they come across as speaking naturally.
Practice going off-script
Most novice speakers are so stressed about getting the words and the order of their script right that they struggle to go off-script. To be prepared does not mean that you know a script off by heart. It means that you know the flow of your script so well that you can ad-lib.
The moment when an anchor or speaker does this, the tone becomes more natural and you can hear that it is a person speaking and not a rehearsed piece of text. Scripts can often be tight and complicated, puffed up with big words that most people do not understand. When you go off script, you regain the attention of the audience.
Practice vocal training
Most of us have seen movies where the actors do some vocal training before they deliver a speech. The problem is that these scenes are generally associated with comedy movies and are not taken seriously.
Vocal training is essential and the best news anchors and motivational speakers all train their voices before addressing the crowd. Then again, real vocal training is more aimed at trying to control your voice so that the audience does not notice the difference between when you read from a script or when you ad-lib.
Find the sweet speed spot
When you read the news, there is a speed-sweet spot where you are not reading too fast and not too slow either. Going too slow will put the audience to sleep and going too fast means that you will lose them.
The top readers and speakers speak at a rate of between 150 and 170 words per minute. If going too fast is your problem, spend time enunciating your words better. Nevertheless, experience is the best teacher.