In pitching, learning to speak well is an essential aspect of your success. Nothing kills communication more than not being able to understand a person pitching. If the intonation is not clear, sounds sloppy, mumbled or slurred, this affects the impact of your pitch and can make it difficult for anyone to want to listen to you. Now we don’t want that happening.
Besides it’s normal to feel scared to speak in front of people and this doesn’t come to many people naturally. However, there are a lot ways that can help you on this. In this lesson topic, we discuss some of these exercises that can help you practice your public speaking skills so that you can also become better at pitching!
1. Tongue Twisters
A great way to learn to intonate well to deliver a successful pitch is to practice tongue twisters!
Below we have compiled 5 tongue twisters you can test out. Are you ready? Let’s go!
- If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
- Betty bought butter but the butter was bitter, so Betty bought better butter to make the bitter butter better.
- Six thick thistle sticks. Six thick thistles stick.
- Of all the smells I have ever smelt, I never smelt a smell that smelt like that smell smelt.
- How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Now wasn't that fun and effective?
Keep practicing it over and over again until you do it perfectly without any mistakes!
2. Speak About Anything
3. Q&A With You As An Expert
We ask you to find a friend for this one. Choose a topic, interest or job that you don’t have much knowledge on. Now, ask your friend to interview you about this topic and you will act as an expert answering their questions. This will help you practice on both your delivery and stage presence.
4. Thirty Seconds Without Fillers
Filler words like “uh” “um” and “hmm” are not always nice to listen to. It makes it difficult for people to listen to you and keep engaged. You also present yourself as unprepared. For this exercise, record yourself giving a talk on any topic for 30 seconds, remembering to be careful of using filler words. Whenever you notice that you are using a filler word, we challenge you to start over and try again. Now take this a step higher and do the exercise five times, completely filler-free.
Research online for pitches that are widely accepted as exceptional! Now, we want you to choose the pitch that you’re most interested in and watch it critically. Take the time to analyze the following points:
- The structure the speaker uses to pitch an idea.
- How and what about their delivery of speech makes their pitch effective.
- If they include visuals in their pitch and how this enhances their presentation.
- Other components that you think make their pitch good or bad.
When you’re done watching, take a pen and paper. Write your answers down to the points analyzed above.
