Fredrik Haren on Being a Great Public Speaker

Fredrik Haren, speaker on innovation and creativity based in Asia, shares how to become a great public speaker …

Before my speech today the sound guy asked me: “How do you become a great public speaker?”.

I said: “Focus on doing a great speech.”

He said:”How do you know if you did a great speech?”

I said:

You get a standing ovation
or
People come up and book you on the spot
or
people come up and tell you it was the best speech they have ever heard
or
people come up to shake your hand and thank you
or
people come up and want to take a photo of you.

Then I did my speech.

I did not get a standing ovation (but it was close (and my brother Teo Härén got one today!)

But 3 people came up and booked me on the spot
2 people came up and said it was the “best speech they had ever heard in their life!”
40+ people came up and stood in line to shake my hand (that was more than 10% of the audience)
and 15+ wanted to have their photo taken.

What I did not tell the sound guy was that the real test on if you have done a great speech is that the sound guy comes up afterwards and says it was a great speech.

So did he come up afterwards?

You bet.