Elizabeth
Elizabeth
Aug 25, 2017 · 6 min read

Top 3 Ways To Improve Your Impromptu Speaking

Many of us are nervous about any type of public speaking, but we’re particularly concerned by impromptu speaking. Impromptu may also be referred to as spontaneous speaking, extemporaneous, or off the cuff. Although we often have the opportunity to practice our bigger speeches, sometimes we’re expected to say a few words with no time to prepare, and that feeling of suddenly being in the spotlight can cause many people to clam up and stumble over their words.

It may seem impossible to become a confident impromptu speaker, but like many things, it’s not just about natural talent. There are certain quantifiable skills and techniques that you can employ, both in the long term and immediately, to become a better impromptu speaker.

1. Preparation

At first, this may seem like counter-intuitive advice. The whole point of spontaneous speaking is that you didn’t have time to prepare! Allow me to illustrate my point with an example.

When I was in high school, I competed in an event known as Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking. We were given three questions about foreign policy, and we chose the question we liked best. We weren’t allowed to access the internet, but each school’s team was allowed to share an evidence box. Every week, we printed out articles from every major newspaper around the world and carefully filed them. Then, at the competition, we’d have a good evidence box filled with material. Having a good evidence box could make the difference between an excellent speech and a forgettable one.

Obviously you can’t tote around a box of newspaper articles. What you CAN do, however, is start compiling a list of quotations in your head. These quotations can come from literature, history, pop culture, science, or sports. You can gravitate towards whatever interests you, but you should start building a compendium of assorted quotations in your mind. This is YOUR evidence box.

It can, and ideally should, be a slow process. Try to memorize just one new quotation each week. Remember who said it, and the context in which they said it.Write the quotation down every morning, or once a day at lunch. It will only take a minute or two out of your day, but if you keep doing it for even a few months, you’ll discover that you’ve built a mental toolbox for all of your impromptu speaking.

There are two pitfalls I suggest you avoid. First, don’t try to tell a lot of funny stories. When you use quotations or anecdotes or references to pop culture, try to keep them under fifteen seconds. You don’t want to go off on tangents or test the ability of your audience to focus.

The second pitfall to avoid is beginning all of your spontaneous talks with the same opening line, “Somebody somewhere once said blah blah blah.” You don’t want to have a predictable pattern like that, because people often have comically short attention spans and their focus will drift. You should start speaking about your topic, THEN bring in a quotation, then move on like it was nothing. Your audience will be more impressed the more casually you can include quotations or anecdotes.

2. The Callback

Building a compendium of quotations (although far easier than it may initially sound) still takes time. What are some ways you can improve your impromptu speaking right now?

A powerful strategy to employ is the callback. A callback is when you reference something that happened earlier, whether that’s something you said at the beginning of your talk to which the audience had a strong reaction, or something funny a previous speaker said, or even something notable that happened to your audience (a tile falling from the ceiling at the beginning of the meeting or gathering, for example).

Before you even start speaking, you may have something in mind that would make a good callback, but you certainly don’t need to refer to anything outside of your speech. Carefully watch your audience when you begin to speak. How are they reacting? Did something you said cause several of them to look up at you unexpectedly? Did several of them chuckle at a particular turn of phrase? Pay attention to your audience, and you’ll start to see when they react more strongly to something you’ve said. That’s your callback.

Towards the end of your talk is the best time to employ a callback, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be the last thing you say.

There’s one pitfall to avoid with callbacks. Don’t reference something that didn’t have an effect on the audience. Sometimes, if you’re facing a tough crowd, you may not have anything obvious from which to choose. In that situation, it’s better to skip the callback entirely.

In short, monitor how your audience is reacting to you. Don’t be afraid to go with an idea that the audience seems to love, and don’t be afraid to abandon an idea and move on if the audience doesn’t seem to be responding. The majority of the time, however, you’ll start seeing opportunities for solid callbacks.

3. Make It Relevant

So you gave a solid little talk. Maybe you threw in a quotation and maybe you even made a callback, but now you’re ready to wrap it up and you’re not quite sure how, so you abruptly say thank you and sit down. That’s still a good talk, but how could you have ended it more strongly? How can you end an impromptu speech in a memorable, skillful way?

The following technique is a great way to end any impromptu speech. Regardless of the topic you’ve just discussed, take it and make it relevant to you personally (Why do you even care about this topic? What has this topic caused you to learn? How are you different since you began to take interest in this topic?) You can also take the topic and connect it very clearly and distinctly to your audience. (Why should THEY care about this? What should they have learned from your talk? How can they improve their lives with the knowledge you have conveyed? How is this topic going to still be affecting them in six months or a year?) These are all ideas about how you can take a topic and make it either about you, about the audience, or both.

People might not remember the specifics of your discussion about mergers and acquisitions, but they WILL remember how mergers and acquisitions might affect them in a few weeks. They might not care about the classic cars you were discussing, but they’ll remember that the last time you saw your father alive he was driving a restored muscle car.

Make it personal. Make it relevant to them. Remember that even the most rational people can be powerfully affected by their emotions, even if they don’t consciously realize it. It’s ok to play off their emotions a bit, because it makes you more memorable and it makes you seem more skillful.

Final Advice

If you remember one thing, remember this; if you appear confident, the audience will believe that you are. Own your space, own your words, and make eye contact. The rest will follow, and one day you may be surprised to discover that impromptu speaking has become exciting instead of frightening.

Elizabeth Saucier is the founder of Sinclair Public Speaking. She works with businesses, professionals, job candidates, and private individuals to improve their public speaking ability and build confidence. Elizabeth is available for personalized coaching, speech writing, wedding vows and toasts, eulogies, conference preparation, and detailed performance evaluations. She is available through her website, SinclairPublicSpeaking.com.

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Elizabeth

Written by

Elizabeth

Elizabeth Saucier is the founder of Sinclair Public Speaking. https://sinclairpublicspeaking.com/

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