Public speaking course Scotland

Admin
January 21, 2026

What does a public speaking course in Scotland help you achieve?

It makes sure the audience understands, agrees and is moved to act upon your message.

Here are five questions to ask yourself.

And five answers, which our public speaking course helps to answer.

Does everyone understand why I’m here?

“That’s not even a word!”

My single favourite scene from the TV show Friends is when Monica berates her flatmate Rachel for being unable to describe their friend Chandler’s job.

Rachel described him as a ‘Transponster’.

Her confusion was justified, in my mind at least, by reading the show’s notes to see Chandler actually worked in “statistical analysis and data reconfiguration”.

I wonder how many people in an audience could articulate what the speaker does and how they add value.

In these situations, a huge communication gap opens up, and into that gap falls missed opportunities to work together and solve problems.

General Electric and Google are just two of the companies that ensure every employee understands what everyone else in their office does.

They each pitch and update large groups regularly to ensure understanding and increase collaboration.

So ask yourself: do people know what I really do? If the answer is no, work hard to explain it.

Am I adapting my message for the audience?

26 words.

That’s how long you have before someone switches on or switches off based on your message.

Read your last email.

Did it get to the point in a way that was meaningful to the audience?

If they only read those 26 words, would they have understood the message?

Now read a news story from a reputable source.

If the journalist has written the story properly, you’ll have understood the story and how it relates to you in the first 26 words.

If your colleagues are failing to prioritise and limit information to the relevant details, they’re wasting everybody’s time.

Conversely, applying the 26-word test means instant engagement and understanding.

Faster replies.

Quicker decision-making.

There’s always room for detail, context and background.

But it comes later, after we’ve hooked the audience in.

Does my language inspire?

I see a lot of public speaking in Scotland fail at the first hurdle.

Normally, it is because the articulation is weak or the speaker is nervous about coming across as arrogant.

They’re introduced by a colleague as an expert and immediately reject the title with “I don’t know about that”.

When it’s time to describe what they do, they use phrases such as “I’ve spent a wee bit of time in…” or “I’ve done a bit of this and a bit of that”.

An audience, remember, is removed from the psychological cringe that’s happening on your head.

They’ve given up time to hear you speak.

They value you already.

So relay that value with capability statements instead.

“I’ve spent X years in…”

“In my experience…”

“I’ve learned to…”

“I firmly believe that…”

This language is far more likely to influence and persuade.

Am I pitching problems or solutions?

I boarded a flight last weekend to Munich from Edinburgh.

After some warm comments from the pilot regarding the flight time and German weather, he finished:

“You may have seen the news recently regarding Airbus planes and their sudden loss of altitude mid-flight. Just to reassure you, this is not one of these planes”.

I wasn’t thinking about a sudden loss of altitude until then, but suddenly it was all I could think about.

The return flight was even worse, as there was no mention of the plane not being an Airbus plane, so presumably it was affected, I wondered.

We call this a ‘Pink Elephant’: an unnecessary negative that conjures up the exact wrong image in the minds of the audience.

I’ve sat in public speaking training sessions in Scotland before, where we’ve all introduced ourselves. Many introduce themselves positively, explaining what they do and why they wanted to come along.

Others have said:

“I’m not a manager like Kevin”.

“I don’t present often like everyone else”.

“I’m not good at speaking like they are”.

By defining ourselves by what we are not, we run into a similar problem.

It’s a missed opportunity.

Bad things happen, and we need to speak openly and directly about negative situations.

But the language we use is always a choice.

Simply tell people what did happen, is happening, and what you expect will happen in the future.

Everything else is unnecessary.

Can I handle the heat?

A sports team is only as successful as its defence allows it to be.

Plenty of good football teams attack relentlessly. Plenty of good golfers are renowned for hitting low scores. Plenty of good tennis players manage to nil their opponents regularly in their service games.

But can they defend a corner kick in the last minute of a final?

Protect a 1-shot lead on the final day of The Open? Break their opponent to avoid a Round One defeat at Wimbledon?

Your argument is similarly only as good as your ability to defend it.

Most of us can make good presentations.

But can we defend them under pressure from the board?

Your team needs to be able to take the criticism and answer it directly.bv

‘Yes’ and ‘no’ help to build trust.

But after that, we need to redirect the conversations.

Doing so requires preparation and technique.

Start giving as much thought to the defence as to the attack.