When people ask me how to become a great public speaker, they sometimes follow it with, How do I keep my audience engaged in what I’m saying? My worst fear is boring them to death!

The truth is, I’ve spent years working on becoming a stronger public speaker. Practice and preparation got a long way, to be sure. But there are a few other things you can do to ensure your success for speaking in public.

I’ve gathered my top 10 easy tips for becoming better at public speaking for this blog series, How To Be a Great Speaker. With each tip, I’ll explore in detail how to become a confident, effective and powerful speaker.

Let’s make sure your audience stays engaged in what you’ve worked so hard to prepare!

Tip 5: Make Them Move.

Go ahead. Shake your audience up! It’s fine to ask everyone to stand up and stretch if you are the 4th speaker during a day-long meeting. They’ll probably welcome the opportunity to stretch their legs, straighten their backs and take a few deep breaths. If you feel comfortable, it’s also fine to make a joke like, “I’m sure by 3pm on a Friday you are just dying to hear what I have to say…”

Next, Get On a First Name Basis.
Also, feel free to use people’s first names while speaking. This is a simple, but extremely engaging, technique. For example, “John, I know that you had a simi-lar situation with HR and can appreciate this topic. John is not alone in this room, so I’m sure there are others of you out there. Let’s take a look at the challenge John faced.” This immediately makes your speech more of a relatable story and conversation, and engages the audience.

Small touches like these during your speech will help you become stronger, more relatable and more memorable as a speaker!