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“It’s not how strongly you feel about your topic, it’s how strongly they feel about your topic after you speak.”
~Tim Salladay
Dates, figures and statistics are all very powerful ways to support your points.
Overuse them, though, and they just become boring, and your audience will turn off.
If data is absolutely necessary, use your slides to create a visual rendition of it.
Tell stories about it.
Find some way to relate it to your audience – percentages of people like them, for example, or of their country.
Yes you are an expert in your field. Yes you can present mountains of information. But it will not impress your audience, nor will it create an impact … unless you make it relevant. Make it relevant to your audience. How will it solve their problems? How will it make life better or more profitable? Choose the pieces of information that will be of most use to them. Each piece of data or fact should be couched in a point about its usefulness. Use stories and case studies to further make an impact.
Think about your favourite speaker, or perhaps about a speaker you admire hugely. Chances are they use humour. Humour is certainly one of the elements of success as a speaker. Many successful speakers use it. That does not mean, however, that we should all use humour in every speech we give. It may not be our personal speaking style, and it needs far more skill and finesse than just throwing some good jokes into our speeches.
What may be a “good” joke on one occasion may be an absolute insult on another. And that will depend largely on the audience. Before you speak at any occasion, you need to know about that audience so that you do not insult them. Research their interests, their political persuasion, beliefs, this customs and their history. If you want to avoid insulting your audience be very aware of their culture.
Robert Orven said “I’m beyond being shocked – but I’m not beyond being offended.” Questionable humour may suit one audience but not another. So be very sure of your audience when you choose your humour. Be sure you are aware of your audience’s mores and beliefs and their humour buttons.
While you are researching your audience you are also gathering material that you can use to create humour. Imagine being able to share a joke with your audience about the event or the venue – something that they find humorous or ironic about their situation. It will be powerful because they are already open to the humour in that situation. Perhaps there is someone within the group who is already using humour in some way and you can call back to that and share in it. Maybe there is someone who has a particular character trait that they are used to being ribbed about. Be careful! If you can turn the humour against yourself because you share that same character trait it will be so much better.
So research your audience to mine possible situational humour. Find out their favourite sports teams, their home town, well-known people within the group and its history. You can send a pre-presentation survey or questionnaire. You can interview the program coordinator or event organiser or the person who invited you to speak. Read the organisation’s own publications and those of their particular area of involvement in the world or their profession. Talk to people who have been members of the group for a long time. Gather the stories. What are their idiosyncrasies? Find out what they think is funny. Uncover any running gags. There you have a source for humour customised and tailored to work for this group.
And that means you don’t need to bring in generic jokes that someone else has written, unless you re-write them to suit the situation. Being able to relate your humour to the people in your audience is a powerful way to connect with them and to take them on the journey of your presentation.
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© Bronwyn Ritchie … If you want to include this article in your publication, please do, but please include the following information with it:
Bronwyn Ritchie is a professional librarian, writer, award-winning speaker and trainer. She is a certified corporate trainer and speech contest judge with POWERtalk, a certified World Class Speaking coach, and has had 30 years’ experience speaking to audiences and training in public speaking. In just 6 months time, you could be well on the way to being admired, rehired as a speaker, confident and sucessful, with the 30 speaking tips. Click here for 30 speaking tips for FREE. Join now or go to http://www.30speakingtips.com
The success of any speech or presentation depends on making a connection with the audience. Good speakers establish that connection from the very beginning and use many techniques to maintain it right through to the end. It is through that connection, made with our audiences, that we can achieve the outcomes we want.
Making eye contact and scanning the audience to achieve it is one of those techniques and a powerful one.
Firstly, make eye contact with each member of the audience. Be present. Though this conversation is a stylised one, it is a conversation, nevertheless. So make the audience feel you are talking to them, not just presenting your material.
The eye contact also builds your authenticity. One of the main signs of a person who is not authentic – not sincere – is lack of eye contact, and that would be a guarantee of losing any hard-won connection!
If you use notes, use them sparingly, or they will diminish your eye contact. If you must look at the projection screen, look briefly, or that, too, will diminish your eye contact. Any time that you look away from the audience make it a choice, make it deliberate, to support the point you are making.
Secondly, while you are scanning the audience to make eye contact, you can evaluate your connection with them. The connection you are making with your audience – is, mainly, nonverbal on their part. So you are not receiving a continuous flow of verbal feedback by which to monitor that connection.
You will have to rely on their nonverbal feedback to make sure the connection is still strong. As you scan, monitor how they are sitting, what they are doing, if they are talking or listening, whether their eyes are glazed or not. Then, if you see the connection waning, you can re-establish it.
One of the best ways is to make a change – a change relevant to what has gone before, relevant to your material and relevant to that audience. Change your presentation style, change their state, change your visuals.
© Bronwyn Ritchie If you want to include this article in your publication, please do, but please include the following information with it:
Bronwyn Ritchie is a professional librarian, writer, award-winning speaker and trainer. She is a certified corporate trainer and speech contest judge with POWERtalk, a certified World Class Speaking coach, and has had 30 years’ experience speaking to audiences and training in public speaking. In just 6 months time, you could be well on the way to being admired, rehired as a speaker, confident and sucessful, with the 30 speaking tips. Click here for 30 speaking tips for FREE. Join now or go to http://www.30speakingtips.com
“The audience only pays attention as long as you know where you are going.”
– Phil Crosby
So what is this elusive thing called “passion” in public speaking?
It’s an overused word, “passion”, and yet it is an attractive concept – a person who is passionate.
Well …
a passionate person is enthusiastic.
There is a saying that “enthusiasm is contagious.” And it is so true.
If you are enthusiastic about your subject then your audience will be too.
Behave this way and you create the impression that the subject is worth talking about, worth learning and worth sharing.
And if it is worth talking about, worth learning and worth sharing, then your audience will be engaged, doing just that – learning and remembering and repeating what you shared.
A passionate person is confident in their enthusiasm.
If you speak with confidence, you give the impression of being authentic and sincere.
Confidence gives the impression that you know your content, and that you are confident to share it.
An audience is far more likely to engage with someone who knows what they are talking about and is confident that it will be useful and worth sharing.
A passionate person shares their passion with energy.
Speaking with energy shows your passion for the subject and for your opportunity to share that passion and the information.
Energy presents itself at different levels, though.
It does not mean presenting for the whole time with high energy.
You will need to go into the speech at the energy level of the audience or you will seem strange, seem to be outside their circle, their experience.
You can build the energy, or tone it down to suit.
Try to avoid speaking quickly and excitedly the whole time. It will get boring and will be wasted just as much as speaking in a monotone will.
Keep the power of that passion by using pauses, by using deliberately slow speech and by creating down time. They work just as powerfully as speaking quickly and with excitement.
Combine those three elements of enthusiasm, confidence and energy and you have passion, and passion creates engagement with our audiences.
© Bronwyn Ritchie If you want to include this article in your publication. please do. but please include the following information with it:
Bronwyn Ritchie is a professional librarian. writer. award-winning speaker and trainer. She is a certified corporate trainer and speech contest judge with POWERtalk . a certified World Class Speaking coach. and has had 30 years experience speaking to audiences and training in public speaking. In just 6 months time, do you want to be 3 times the speaker you are now? Click here for 30 speaking tips FREE. Join now or go to http://www.30speakingtips.com
Your audience knows whether you are speaking to them, of just presenting information. They will either feel the connection or tune out very quickly. With any conversation, whether it be informal or a formally presented speech or something in between, you keep that conversation going by choosing things to talk about that interest the other person, get them responding. So you need to know what interests your audience, what they will respond to.
This is what underlies the construction of most of your content.
It is the reason to talk about the benefits of a product instead of the features.
It is the reason to use language the audience understands. Look at your technical terms, and any jargon that they may not understand. Use examples, stories, quotes and other support material that has relevance to their lives and their interests. You will keep their attention and their interest.
And if your presentation has been advertised in media or in a conference program, the material in that advertising is what drew people to your session, so try to stick to it, or they will disengage very quickly.
So research you audience before you create your presentation if you can.
Find out as much as you can – their age range, gender, income levels, dreams, needs, wants, culture.
You can gain much from a registration form.
You can ask the event manager.
In your preparation routine, you can mingle with them before your speech.
Then you can use that information in constructing your speech. If you need to persuade, for example, you can use your knowledge of their interests and dreams.
You will choose language that they understand, and that is not irritating or offensive to them, and subject matter to suit that audience – themes, supports, anecdotes all will be tailored to them. Find out how best to dress, speak and what will meet their needs, or solve their problems and you have the first step to keeping their attention.
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(c) Bronwyn Ritchie
If you want to include this article in your publication. please do. but please include the following information with it:
Bronwyn Ritchie is a professional librarian. writer. award-winning speaker and trainer. She is a certified corporate trainer and speech contest judge with POWERtalk, a certified World Class Speaking coach, and has had 30 years experience speaking to audiences and training in public speaking. In just 6 months time, you could be well on the way to being confident, admired, successful, rehired. Click here for 30 speaking tips FREE. Join now or go to http://www.30speakingtips.com
[Via Tom Antion]
“When speaking to a very small group of people you should be able to include an extremely large amount of customization. You should have researched the group and done your normal homework including phone interviews with the expected attendees (if it is a public event and you don’t know who is coming, be set up way early so you can greet and interview people as they arrive.) Jot down a note of why each person attended. Then, when a section of your talk applies to them, point it out and name them by name.
Example: “John, you told me you wanted to learn how to sell more to the people that visit your website. This section specifically addresses that, especially the part about the psychology of the sale.”
Don’t assume that people will perk up when you come to the part that specifically applies to them. Make a big deal to point it out to them. You will be adding an extreme amount of value which makes them realize that it was a good thing they attended. Oh and don’t forget they’ll love you for it.”