Accepting an award is in some way a part of public speaking because you accept an award for something you have done publically. This public speaking project may be a speech, an act, a presentation etc. So if your public speaking has been so wonderful that you are receiving an award for it, your award acceptance speech must be even better.
A few tips to be remembered while giving an acceptance speech to make it make it more effective and natural coming straight from the heart:
1. Do not say that you’re so surprised by winning that you had nothing prepared. Since you were a nomination so you had all the chances to win.
2. Let the genuine emotions come out. If you want to cry then just go ahead. Do not hide your emotions at this time
3. Don’t say you have no idea how you won against such a strong pool of competitors.
4. When giving an acceptance speech, use notes only to enhance your presentation and not as a crutch. Use them only for remembering the opening sentence, important names to thanks, or whatever facts you need to mention. Don’t have the entire speech on notes. And avoid any notes as far as possible.
5. Look up at the audience after every two or three sentences to maintain rapport with the audience while using notes. Not only in this but maintaining an eye contact is essential in all public speaking situations.
6. Keep the time constraint in mind. Many times when you are given an award during a meeting, conference, etc., you are also under time restrictions. In most cases, you will have longer than thirty seconds. Take the time to ask the person in charge of the meeting how much time you have for your speech.
7. As you are speaking keep a sense of the audience, similar to the way you adopt in public speaking, are they captivated or are they losing interest? If they appear to be falling asleep, then try to wrap up quickly.
8. It is important to be humble, but do not be too humble. If you appear too humble, people will perceive this as fake and may think you have a big ego and may not really deserve the award.
9. Most importantly, keep your speech short and sincere.
Award acceptance speeches can be hard, but you’ve already won the award – the speech is the easy part.
At Anurag Aggarwal Institute of Public speaking, you get many opportunities to grab an award in public speaking and personality development course. For course details, visit www.anuragaggarwal.com or call us on +91-9971776852.
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