Public Speaking Training....Toastmasters?

Anybody ever been to one of these? Are they useful in extracting your full potential as a speaker and building up your self-confidence? Or, are they just waffle-shops for big egos? Would I be better taking a specific course in public-speaking?

Squonk said:

Anybody ever been to one of these? Are they useful in extracting your full potential as a speaker and building up your self-confidence? Or, are they just waffle-shops for big egos? Would I be better taking a specific course in public-speaking?

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Been sent on lots of presenting, pitching courses during my time and never found any of them any good. They were great at designing the presentation, saying what you should do during delivery, but lacked enough individual hours speaking.
Toastmaster are the way to go, try out a few of the different groups find one that suits you, or a drama group can be good maybe more fun.

I am also looking to do a course in public speaking. If there is any good ones out there, it would be great to know. I found one that is free for women but the time of the course does not suit me !
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I dont know if you have to pay to join !

Toastmasters is definatly better than doing a one / two day course in public speaking, and taking home the notes never to be looked at again.
What I think makes it work is the fact at every meeting you will get to speak in public, it maybe only saying a poem when you join first, but to some this is a big deal.
There is a well structured programme to follow which helps you work on different aspects of public speaking eg vocal variety, body movement.
There is a great mix of people in Toastmasters and this is what makes it so good, all ages & professions and is good social outlet too.
You can go along to a club as a guest & check them out, see what the standard is like, if you think its high, join - working with good speakers will bring out the best in you. Like any organisation some clubs are weaker than others.
Declaration - I am a member, pm if you want more information

Squonk said:

Anybody ever been to one of these? Are they useful in extracting your full potential as a speaker and building up your self-confidence? Or, are they just waffle-shops for big egos? Would I be better taking a specific course in public-speaking?

Click to expand...

You ask some great questions and I'll do my best to (briefly) do justice to them:

1. Extracting your full potential as a speaker: that depends on the context in which you wish to speak or do speak currently. If you are intending to be an "orator" and your goal is standing ovations and applause, especially from other speakers, then TM may be useful in pulling out that potential. But if you wish to be producing results such as sales in speaking or seminars, my opinion is TM would be barking up the wrong tree, so to speak. To become a better presenter for business meetings and such... maybe.

2. Building up self-confidence: frankly, I would say that this is likely the *best* reason to join TM - is if you're a timid beginner who needs hand-holding and a lot of support because you're scared to death of speaking and not sure what to do or how to start.

3. Big egos, TM group is composed of individuals, and likely at some point somewhere, egos will be there, but it's impossible to say if you'd encounter them there for sure, or not. Each group is different.

4. Are you better off with a specific public speaking course: this is, IMO, the BIG question you pose - and the biggest problem that you face. You could, in theory, waste a lot of time - and realistically speaking, potentially a lot of money too - on clubs, associations, and/or trainings that don't help you get where you want to go or to be able to do what you want to do as a speaker. I know, I've been there. I've hung around the groups I figured *must* know how to get where I wanted to go, and realized only much later I was wasting my time and everyone was really just a wanna-be or someone who had some success but really had zero ability to help me to get to the next level. So, my best suggestion is to be very, very, very clear about what you want to be able to do and/or accomplish as a speaker - to the point of making a list that you can then compare to a training or use as a list of questions in checking out clubs or groups or classes. I really can't emphasize this part enough, and you can feel free to email me or PM me if you'd like more input.

Finally,there are a lot of decent free resources floating around on the internet but again, if you just keep sight of exactly what you're after, then you won't get sucked into spending time or money on groups or trainings that will never really help you much.

Hope that helps!

Best,
David Portney

Thanks for the great replies.

Let me give some more details of my behaviour:

• I’m from a technical background. I have no problem getting up and giving a pre-prepared technical presentation. I would be a little nervous before I stand up to speak but that goes once I start. Once I’m speaking I’m comfortable and really enjoy the experience. Once again, this is when I have a prepared speech and using powerpoint slides to guide me in a controlled environment.

• When I don’t have prepared slides and need to make a ‘speech’ at work I can be a mess. I tend to ramble, speak incoherently and get flustered. I don't get much practice of this at work which is half the problem. At any meeting with top brass I would be very nervous if I had to speak.

• I’m not good at telling long stories or long jokes

It seems to me that it’s the impromptu speaking that’s my real problem. I seem to need powerpoint slides as a ‘crutch’.

I would think Toastmasters would definatly help you. There are two parts to a Toastmasters meeting, prepared speeches & topics. The topics session is when you have a person who has a number of topics, and asks people in the audiance to respond & speak up to 2 mins,no more - this ensures there is variety in both the topics & most people get to speak.
Speaking impromtu is all about practice, the more you do it, the better you will become.
You are right though about powerpoint, it has become a crutch for a lot of people and they tend to rely on it.

Over the years I've heard the exact same thing from many, many of my students - that there are some "butterflies" prior to starting, but that things sail along smoothly and it's even fun once you get going, so that's really quite common.

The PowerPoint crutch is easily solved because I always teach and advise and actually admonish people to have a simple, one-page bullet-point print out of the main points and sub points. This means you can deliver your talk without PP and you stay on track, you just fill in the details of each point and sub point as you go along. Will that be a "perfect presentation"? - no, and there really is no such thing anyway.

The biggest sacrifice there is that a well-placed pie chart or bar graph etc. can be very powerful, but you could have a handout of that or a large printout for people to see.

No matter how detailed and technical your presentation is, you should be able to create a one-page back up (it can be longer than one page, but shoot for one to start, trust me on this...) - you need this because WHEN technology fails (not if) you are fairly-well in serious trouble without a back up plan; people generally sweat and get flustered and fall apart. Instead, YOU casually reach over to your outline and keep going.

Long stories and long jokes - I highly encourage you to abandon that as part of your talks. Shorter stories are your substitute. Also, just memorize a few inspiring and funny quotes instead of telling jokes and toss them out at the appropriate places.

Hope that helps!

Best,
David Portney