Public speaking seems easy, but in reality, it requires a lot of forethought and practice. Even though you may not be the president addressing the nation, you may be the Maid of Honor at your friend’s wedding. Have these tips on hand for whenever you may need to give a killer speech that will impress everyone.

1. Find Your “Main Message”: Before you start writing, know what it is that you want the audience to walk away understanding. The main message should be able to be summed up into a short sentence. Discover what your take home message is, and build your speech around that focal point.
2. Have 3 Supporting Points: Now that you have a main focus to your speech, develop your argument. Have 3 separate points that support your main message. Make the connections for your audience. Even though you may have said it one way, repeat it again with different words. Sometimes, people need to hear the same message in different ways for it to register.
3. Make It Personal/Relatable: As you are giving your examples, relate to your audience with personal examples of your life. People can understand a message easier if they can follow a story that they understand. Don’t leave out details. The more open you are about your personal life, the more the audience will connect with you.
4. Short and Sweet: An effective speech doesn’t need to be long. It’s actually better to keep things short and sweet to maintain people’s attention spans. You don’t want to say so much that your main message gets lost in the context. The Gettysburg Address was 15 minutes, and I Have A Dream was 17 minutes. Keep things personal and direct so your message doesn’t get lost.
5. Make Eye Contact: While giving your speech, you want to be seen as an authority figure. Maintain eye contact with the crowd while you are speaking to portray the image of confidence. Diverting eye contact is a sign of fear and makes you look unsure about what you are saying. Maintaining eye contact also adds to the personal connection that you are establishing with your audience. You’ll look much more genuine by making eye contact rather than reading from a card.
6. Change Your Inflection: There is a normal cadence that you speak in. Typically, it’s suggested that you slow down your normal speaking tempo ever so slightly for the speech. That way the microphone feedback, as well as your audience’s attention, can catch up to your words. As you are trying to drive home a message, change the volume and speed of your words. Keep your listeners engaged by whispering, raising your voice, having pauses, and various other inflections.
7. Move Around: Stay visually entertaining as well by moving around. You can walk out from behind the podium, or if you can use hand motions to better illustrate what you are communicating.
8. Use Props or Volunteers: Make things even more visual by recruiting the aid of props that correspond with what you are talking about. You could even get the audience engaged with your speech by asking for volunteers to visually act out what you are speaking about. When people hear words and see the visual explanation that go with the words, it’s much more likely to stick with them.

Whether you are aware of it or not, you give public speeches almost daily. If you are in a meeting, then you need to be able to get your message across clearly to your coworkers. The main principles of these 8 tips are how to effectively communicate to someone. We live in a social world, and we all need to know how to express our thoughts and feelings to others.