If you’ve ever had a conversation with someone and they couldn’t understand you, you know what it feels like to not speak articulately. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re always speaking inarticulately, but we all mumble and fumble our words from time.

I get a lot of questions from people about articulation and how to speak more articulately. It’s actually a lot easier than you think to speak more clearly so that others can better understand you. Here are some of tips about improving your articulation that I teach in my classes.

Speak slowly

Most people that are difficult to understand are that way because they speak too quickly. Sometimes it’s due to excitement, other times due to nervousness. What happens here is that words and sounds end up running together causing a challenge for the listener. They simply hear too many sounds jumbled together and have a hard time separating them.

Slowing down will ensure that you both pronounce words fully and stop words and sounds from running together. This is the key to good articulation. When you catch yourself starting to mumble or run words together, simply slow down and pronounce every single sound separately. So if you were reciting the last word in the previous sentence, you would say it sep-a-rate-ly. One thing you may notice when you start doing this is that you’ve been skipping sounds when you say words. Many people pronounce “comfortable” as comft-able rather than com-fort-able. So try this right now with either a paragraph from this article or a few sentences from a book or speech or you need to give.

Speak in a consistent tone

Ever notice how some people tend to vary the volume of their voice when they speak? This can make it tricky for the listener to understand you as the variation in volume can cause them to miss sounds or even whole words. Most of us when we speak tend to start out strong but then our volume drops as we get deeper into the conversation. It then goes back up as the conversation starts winding down or the speaker notices the listener straining to hear them.

The best way to trap this is by recording yourself. In the old days, I’d tell you to grab a tape recorder but your computer, or even your phone, probably can record sound. If not, leave yourself a voice mail reading something and listen carefully to the tone of your voice throughout the recording. If you find that you do it, just being conscious of it is usually enough to help you stop. Practice recording yourself speaking three times a day in a consistent tone and within a couple weeks, the problem will go away.

Practice the tricky sounds

If you find that certain words, phrases or sounds give you trouble then practice them. I remember giving a talk with a friend and we each had trouble with the word “philanthropic.” There are lots of words like this that either come up speeches or conversations that can cause us to stumble.

The nice thing is that it’s easy to deal with this one – all you need is a few two-minute blocks to practice the word or sound each day. You can do it in the car, while walking, in the shower or whenever you have a few minutes to yourself – just try to do it at least four times per day for a week (more frequently per day if you don’t have a week to get it right). In these blocks, just practice saying the word clearly ten times. After a while, you’ll automatically start saying it correctly.

So there you go, three quick ways to speak with better articulation. Remember that all you really need to do here is identify the problem and then practice saying it correctly. If you’re not sure how a word is supposed to be pronounced, do a quick web search on the word and you’ll either find videos or a dictionary entries that tell you exactly how to pronounce it.

Related posts:

1. How to Improve Your Articulation
2. A Fast Way to Improve Your Articulation
3. Public Speaking Success: Three Ways to Improve Your Speech Delivery
4. Quick Tip: How to Stop Mumbling

There is no faster way to scare the living daylights out of someone then telling them that they have to give a speech. For extra points, you can tell them that they’ll be speaking to a large audience – which depending on the person could mean more than 50 or more than 1000 attendees. Why do people associate fear to speaking? What’s the big difference between a speech and a conversation?

A person’s personality and attitude weighs heavily into this equation. People who describe themselves as introverted tend to avoid public speaking more than self-described extroverts. On the flip side, someone who has something that they feel is important to share with as many people as possible will tend to be more open to giving a speech than someone who doesn’t believe their ideas have any merit. So how can this all help you when you’re either tasked with or given the opportunity to give a speech? Well here are three ways that you can change your attitude about speaking.

Speaking Tip 1: Change your attitude about speaking:

When it comes to delivering a successful speech, attitude is everything. It gives you the courage to get up and talk to an audience as well as the confidence to sell your audience on your ideas. Like anything that you feel like you have to do, look at your speech as something you get to do. Someone gave me a tip when I first started out as a professional that helped me a lot. He reminded me that it’s an honor to address an audience no matter whether you’re paid to do it, volunteering or asked to as part of your job. It was this piece of advice that made me realize that the opportunity to give a speech really is like winning an award – you wouldn’t be asked to if someone didn’t think you had something worthwhile to say. So looking a speech as more of an award/honor than a task is one powerful way to change your attitude about speaking.

Speaking Tip 2: Think of it as a conversation:

I like to tell the people that take my Fear of Public Speaking that a speech is simply a (one sided) conversation with an audience. Just like when you’re having a conversation with business associates over lunch, a speech to a group follows many of the same rules – just on a larger scale. The problem is that many people instantly panic when they hear the word “speech” (and these days, “presentation”). You’re describing basically the same thing as a conversation, but you’ve put pressure on yourself.

We do this in a lot of situations. A conversation that you might have with a person from a recruiting firm is similar to a conversation that you might have on a job interview, but you put more pressure on yourself for the latter because a job offer is on the line. A quick conversation with someone you find attractive is more challenging than a conversation with someone you think of as a friend because you’re worried about the impression you’re giving. And giving an overview of your project with a peer at work is much easier than giving the same overview to someone far above you on the food chain, simply because you’re worried about how they might perceive it.

In all of these cases, it’s interesting how saying the exact same words can be more difficult depending on who is listening. So if you can simply get past that one issue, you’ll not only have less fear when you give a talk, but your overall speech will be given in a more confident manner.

Speaking Tip 3: Prepare, prepare, prepare:

You can give a speech with all the confidence in the world, but if the content of your speech is garbage, your entire speech will flop. That’s why preparation is key. Know your audience and their expectations – research this if you need to because this isn’t an area where you want to make assumptions. Know your speech so you don’t miss any of the main points and don’t get lost. Lastly, know your speech material so you can answer questions – this is the part of speeches that most people (professional speakers included) fear most. So simply research your talk, learn it and then practice delivering it. It will help you exponentially.

Now, if you have a fear of public speaking, remember that the only way to truly overcome it is to get out there and speak. Start with a small group if you need to and build yourself up. I have a program on overcoming your fear of public speaking that will give you tips and motivate you to get out there and speak – but unless you get out and speak to groups, you won’t fully overcome your fears. So get out there and give it a try.

Related posts:

1. Public Speaking Success: How to Give a Great Speech
2. Public Speaking Success: Does it Really Make Sense to Take Every Speaking Opportunity You’re Offered?
3. Watch Your Language
4. Public Speaking Success: Four Speaking Experts Worth Checking Out

In my public speaking classes, one of the first things I teach is that you won’t improve your speaking skills unless you get up in front of an audience and speak. I was sharing this story recently at a networking event and a friend said to me “wait a second, don’t you sell CDs and books about speaking?” When I confirmed that I did, he asked then how do I expect anyone to buy them.

Now you’re probably wondering “okay, wise guy, how did you get yourself out of this one?” Actually, he raised a good point and got a conversation going. I explained that books and audio programs (and DVDs for that matter) are simply tools and like any tools, when they’re used correctly can help you do things quicker and easier. I brought up exercising and asked him if he ever watched a show or read a book or magazine about fitness. He confirmed he did. I then asked him if they helped him get into shape.

I talk about exercising in my speaking classes because both are very similar from a personal development standpoint (not to mention I’m passionate about both subjects). With speaking and exercising, you won’t improve unless you physically perform the action. And if you don’t keep doing both regularly, your gains will start to fade away.

So just like taking a fitness class can help you get in shape, taking a public speaking class can make you better speaker. However, taking a speaking class where you don’t get to get up and speak is like taking an aerobics class where you just sit and watch the instructor. Yes you can learn some techniques, but you’re not going to gain anything unless you physically practice what you’ve learned.

Another parallel between the two topics is that bad instruction can harm you. Using the wrong technique in weightlifting an damage your body. Following bad advice when giving a talk can damage your reputation or career. Which brings me to the point of why I created these programs to begin with – there is a lot of bad advice out there for speakers. I’ve sat through numerous programs on speaking from Toastmasters to Dale Carnegie to dozens of so called “presentation experts.” The latter group by far produced some of the worst advice I’ve ever seen – some was so bad, I actually spoke to other attendees afterwards to give them different advice to help them avert disaster.

I’m not a fan of any one-size-fits all program when it comes to personal development. The more mass-marketed a program is, the less credible it becomes in my mind. We’re all different so that needs to be considered. In my speaking class, one topic I go over is how to memorize an ordered list – this is to help remember the main points of a speech or a list that needs to be recited. I teach two different methods and encourage people to try both and see which one works better for them. Throughout all my courses, I teach more than one way to do something to compensate for the fact that people are different.

So provided that the book or audio program contains good material, it can help you become a better speaker. But only if you take what you’ve learned and get up in front of an audience and speak.

Related posts:

1. Transitioning From Toastmaster to Professional Speaker
2. How To Be a Better Public Speaker – Ranking the Methods
3. Don’t Be a Matt Foley Speaker
4. Can You Really Write a Book in Three Hours?

I get asked this a lot by aspiring speakers, especially those in Toastmasters that are looking for a shortcut on the path to becoming a professional speaker. The short answer is no, you can become a successful paid speaker without joining the National Speakers Association (NSA). The follow up question is then “will it help me if I join?” My reply: it depends.

Just like joining Toastmasters alone won’t make you a better speaker, joining NSA will not necessarily get you booked as a paid speaker. It all depends on how you use it. Anyone can join a Toastmasters club, attend meetings and even give speeches but it doesn’t guarantee that they will become a good speaker – there’s a lot more to it. The same is true for NSA – except you need to qualify for membership and not everyone does.

Before I get much further into this topic, let me tell you my experience with the NSA. I have attended several meetings here in the greater Boston area but never joined. A few years back, I had set a goal to join the NSA. I think back then you needed to give roughly paid speeches in a calendar year to qualify. I qualified the year after I set that goal but never ended up joining.

I don’t have any problem with the NSA. The people I met there were friendly and very helpful – especially to someone like me who was still learning the ropes of being a paid speaker. I also learned several good ideas from the workshops they offered. Truthfully, I owe quite a bit of my success to the NSA because several years ago I attended a workshop (which ironically, most of the NSA members were disappointed in) where the presenter talked about blogging. I figured I’d give blogging a try and now blogging is a big part of what I do. So I recommend at least checking it out.

Here in New England workshops are held monthly on Saturdays. They go a full day often starting at 8 AM and lasting until the late afternoon. While I enjoyed attending these meetings, it became difficult for me to continue to do so as at the time, I had a lot going on both personally and professionally. Since this, to me, was the biggest benefit of joining the NSA, I never pursued it. Sure there are other benefits such as the monthly audio program (which is decent) and to be listed in their directory. I’m not truly sure of the value of the latter as most of the companies and meeting planners that have hired me have never heard of the NSA (or think it’s the government agency) and the couple members I’ve asked about it couldn’t tell me about any business generated solely by being in the directory.

With that being said, you can definitely benefit from attending their workshops. I am lucky because the New England chapter always puts on great workshops and is a great group of people. I can’t speak for other areas, but some of the speakers I’ve met from other regions have spoken positively about their local chapter.

So my advice is to check it out but don’t sweat it if don’t qualify to join. You can still benefit from it and it’s worth checking out. If you’re not sure how to find it, just use the search box on this page and type in “NSA” followed by your state or country. Then take a look at the website for your local chapter to see what they have to offer.

Related posts:

1. Transitioning From Toastmaster to Professional Speaker
2. Public Speaking Myths: Joining Toastmasters will Make You a Better Speaker
3. How Toastmasters Can Help Professional Speakers
4. Toastmasters – A quick way to become a good speaker