Ep 128 Public Speaking - Should You Punish Audience Members Who Show Up on Time May 7, 2018

Should you punish people who show up on time to your speech, your presentation, or your workshop?

Speaking the show about Effective speaking in public, to the media, at work and in life Speaking with TJ Walker.

This is a question that was posed recently on Ed Bark's excellent blog. That's the Media Training Blog. Google that and check it out. See what Ed had to say. I like some of his ideas, but I wanted to weigh in on this as well because this subject is near and dear to my heart. It is a question I get from clients from time to time. There are basically two types of people in the world. Those who show up on time, those who don't. And I'm sure there are good people and bad people in both camps. I am firmly in the camp of show up on time. I have many flaws, folks, and my family. My spouse will be happy to give you a list sometime, but one of my strengths is I actually show up on time. Work engagements, parties, festivities, social engagements. Someone says it starts at 8, I show up at 8. Doesn't matter if it's 8am for a Monday morning training or 8pm Saturday night for a party. I just show up on time. I've never found anything bad has happened to me by showing up on time. Other than the fact that sometimes the organizer isn't ready yet, no one else is there. But specific to giving speeches and presentations, what's the best thing to do? Because if you're slated to start at 10am you're expecting 50 people and there are 23 people there at 10, what do you do? More than half of the people you're expecting aren't there yet. So you could wait for them. But if you do that, you're telling the 23 people who showed up on time, hey, you did what I asked you to do. You were respectful. You are polite. I'm now going to punish you by making you wait for other people. So if you'd been smart, you should have done other things and come late like everyone else. Is that really the answer.

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I'll share with you what I do in those situations. There's a certain judgment call. Now, if people are still streaming into the room, if there's a lot of activity, let's say you're speaking to a large group, there's a thousand people, and there's plenty of people still coming through the door. I wouldn't try to talk over that. I don't Want to compete with the hustle and bustle. People are trying to get seats, trying to find their way in. So in that case, I would clearly wait a little. What if it's a situation where you're expecting 10 people and eight have shown up? I would start. I absolutely would not penalize eight people because two people couldn't seem to get there on time. There are closer calls. As I mentioned before the break, you're expecting 50 people, 23 have arrived. What do you do? I like to use a system that I call a soft start. And what I may do is just stand in front of people and say, hey, before we officially start, I want to take some questions from you now and reward you because you actually showed up on time and I appreciate it. And that often gets a little bit of a chuckle. People will ask questions. If no one asks a question, I'll just say, while you're thinking of your questions, one of the common questions I do get and I'll ask myself a question. So I'm very, very explicitly, intently trying to give value to the people who showed up. It might not necessarily be my first point or my most important point because if other people are coming and my content is sequenced, I don't want them to miss the foundation of the entire presentation. So I've got to really think strategically, what can I give these people where there is some clear cut value rewarding them? And sometimes it is an impromptu question and answer session. Sometimes it might be showing a video clip of one of them speaking. Now, in my own trainings, I'm typically videotaping people giving speeches, presentations or media interviews. I might show a clip of them to get going. There have been times when I'm giving a keynote speech and I may have a relatively lengthy bio video playing. In that case, I would have that start right on time. And then if people are coming in and they've missed half the video, they haven't really missed my presentation. So I don't feel bad about that. I do want to hear from you. How do you like to be treated? First of all, if you're a couple of minutes late, does it annoy you that the person spoke on time and you missed part of it? If you showed up on time, are you annoyed that you have to sit there and wait? I'd like to hear from you. How do you feel as an audience member? But also what do you like to do when you are the one standing up and speaking? So please send me your comments. You can send them on Twitter jwalker. You can email me tjediatrainingworldwide.com you can post it on our Facebook page or our LinkedIn page as well. I have a few other comments in a moment.

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To be a great communicator, to really be effective when you're speaking, I believe you have to give respect to your audience and you have to get respect. If all you do is respect them and they're showing no respect for you, well, that doesn't work because then they could show up a half an hour late, an hour late, They've missed your whole presentation. What does it matter if they're giving you tons and tons of respect and you're just showing you couldn't care less? You'll speak whenever you want to. They can wait for an hour. Well, then you seem like a prima donna rock star who was supposed to start the concert at 8am and you didn't take the stage till 11:45. And half the people had to go home to put their kids to bed or go to school the next day. So that may work for a rock star. It's not going to work for most business communicators, political leaders or others. To me, it's one of the few things in life where it's like the old Woody Allen expression, you know, 90% of success in life is showing up. I would tailor it to showing up on time. Not everyone's going to give a fantastic, beautiful, stirring, memorable speech every single time. That might be relatively hard to do, although not if you follow the principles we talk about on this podcast. But showing up on time is really easy. And that's why I believe, all things being equal, you should certainly try to start your speech on time as often as possible. Now a couple things have to happen. Planning preparation in advance for that to happen. Number one, you can't plan on getting to the room where you're speaking right when you're supposed to start speaking. You can't plan on getting there five minutes in advance because just like with everyone else, there can be traffic jams, trains can stop, planes can get delayed. So a huge part of your presentation starting on time has nothing to do with your audience and has to do with you. I try to get to any room where I'm going to speak a good hour in advance. Now. Sometimes it's because I'm setting up equipment with TV and laptops and other things. Sometimes I just want to get the Lay of the land. I want to talk to people in advance. I want to see where the room goes. I want to make sure that I can put my notes around the room in places where they will not be noticed. Now, when I'm using PowerPoint, I certainly want to get there early enough to plug my thumbnail in to practice, to make sure the keyboard works properly with the way I want to use it, to make sure it's projecting properly. And I don't really want to project my whole presentation, my slides in front of people five minutes before because then it kind of ruins the surprise. That's another reason I like to get to the room an hour in advance. That way, typically, no one who's there for your speech is there at that moment. And you can do a practice, a quick dry run. Make sure everything works smoothly. Your projector, your slide, your thumbnail drive, your notes, the lay of the lamp, the room, everything is working and is in sync. That way you can relax. In that final half an hour before your presentation, you can talk to the organizer of the event if it's not you. That way you're at your very peak. As far as making strategic decisions on when to start. I like to start on time. Different people can have different preferences. Different cultures are different. In some corporations, absolutely nobody ever, ever, ever, ever starts a meeting sooner than 10 minutes past the hour. So if you start on time, you're seen as rude and obnoxious and intentionally slighting people. You have to factor all that in to your consideration. The main thing I want you to do, though, is give it thought. Make sure whatever you do is done from the standpoint of truly helping and respecting your audience. Do that and you should be in good shape. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for spending time with me today. As always, may all of your presentations in life be a huge success.

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