Professional speakers fall under different categories. To pursue public speaking as a profession, one has to undergo the necessary training and have adequate knowledge about how to deliver a good speech. While most people will go through public speaking exercises or activities at one point in their lives or another, not everyone decide to pursue a career as a professional speaker. There are many different training courses, mostly short-term, that one may take to master public speaking. While these courses are not necessarily required to get a job as a professional speaker, it does help in verifying one’s skills as a qualified speaker.
As previously mentioned, professional speakers have different specialties. Below are some of the most popular types of jobs or occupations that professional speakers get into:
Motivational speakers, as their title suggests, deliver speeches for the primary purpose of motivating groups of people in a particular area or towards achieving a particular goal. Motivational speakers also fall into various categories. For instance, you can choose to be a motivational speaker for a university to motivate students into pursuing particular courses or fields of expertise or you can be a motivational direct sales speaker for direct sale companies tasked with motivating thousands of direct sales reps into working harder, training their teams or achieving particular sales goals. Corporate speakers can also be tasked with motivating employees when it comes to leadership and other aspects of their jobs.
Some professional speakers may choose to specialize in training other people in the field of public speaking. These speakers offer their expertise and knowledge on public speaking to others for the purpose of training them to be good speakers themselves. Their services may be offered through short training courses, seminars, or they may also be hired by companies to conduct public speaking workshops.
These types of speakers are trained to be persuasive speakers, as their job typically involves convincing groups of people towards purchasing a particular commodity or availing of services. Professional speakers who are specifically trained in selling products need to be charismatic and convincing in order for them to achieve their goals. Sales representatives may fall under this category, as they have to speak to different people on a daily basis for the purpose of selling a product or service.
Informative speakers are professional speakers who deliver speeches for the purpose of informing groups of people about a particular subject. One might consider lecturers to fall under this category, as it takes a certain level of confidence and knowledge of public speaking to be able to deliver good lectures. Basically, these types of speakers are tasked with educating people. However, informative speakers may also be persuasive speakers and motivational speakers at the same time.
Becoming a professional speaker requires different qualifications and not all of these qualities can be learned, as some come naturally to certain people. Nonetheless, additional training courses can hone an individual’s ability to speak in public. Below are some of the qualities that an individual must have in order to pursue a career as a professional speaker.
Knowing how to control your voice’s pitch and tone is important in public speaking. Your inflection can significantly affect the way you deliver your speech. You must know how to apply the right voice for every part of your speech, as this can determine how your audience will react towards what you are saying.
Using gestures while speaking in public makes the speech more personal. Professional speakers must know how to naturally incorporate gestures into every part of their speech.
Of course, having a good command of language is essential to public speaking. Even if you have a speech written for you, if you don’t have a good grasp of the language you are speaking in, it may be difficult for you to properly deliver your piece to your audience.
Adding some humor into your speech can instantly capture your audience’s interest. No matter how serious or boring the subject matter, if you know how to be funny, you can easily deliver an engaging speech that will appeal to your audience.
Introductions are important. While every part of a speech is important, your introduction will capture your audience’s attention at the onset so you have to have a powerful introduction that is capable of captivating your target audience.
Professional speakers have to be confident about themselves and the subject matter they are tackling in their speech, as this will affect their delivery. There may be different types of professional speakers but all of them must have excellent oratory skills, especially since they deliver compelling speeches for a living.