EP 32 How to Speak to Large Audiences

How do you go from the comfort of speaking to a small audience to all of a sudden speaking to a large audience.

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

This question comes from one of my online students, Pete Rouse from the Dallas Fort Worth area. Reid writes, tj, I've been a consultant my entire life, been a past member of Toastmasters. In my consultancy, I often speak to small groups. It's interactive. Oftentimes there may be four or five of us in the room. So sometimes they're spread out across the country and it's a combination of online offline meetings. I'd like to get to the point where I can speak to larger audiences and actually speak to larger groups on webinars. How do you really do this? Well, Pete, one of the most common problems I deal with, one of the most frequent questions I get from people I train in person is, TJ, I'm comfortable speaking to small groups of 1, 2, 3, 4 people. I get nervous. I get uncomfortable when I have to speak to a larger group. Now, for some people, that means going from two people to sitting to standing, talking to six people, or from six people to 20 people. Everybody has a different threshold. Once I had a client who said, dj, I'm very comfortable speaking to small groups, but I get nervous speaking to large groups. And I asked him what that was. He said, yeah, small groups are 5,000 people or fewer. Large groups are 100,000. That's where I get nervous. So everybody has their threshold. For some of you, it may actually be one person you're comfortable with, and if it's two people, you're uncomfortable. I want to give you a lot of tips, specifically on how to get over this hump and get to the point where you're just as comfortable. Let's start first with this.

Body language.

Okay? For starters, most of us, when we are speaking to a larger group, completely change our body language. And what I mean by that is if you're really comfortable and you're sitting down, you're talking one on one with a good client, a customer, a colleague, someone you're familiar with, or you're talking to two or three people, what tends to happen is you move your hands, you move your face, you move your head, you move, you move your body. Everything's moving in a relaxed, comfortable way, and everyone just feels comfortable. You feel comfortable. Therefore, you're moving in a comfortable way. That comes across well, makes everyone more relaxed. It makes you relaxed when you're speaking. So that is why it works. Now, here's the problem when it comes to speaking to larger audiences is because we're nervous. We tense up. We physically tense our bodies. We see this with speakers all the time. I'm sure in your own organization or people you deal with, you've seen speakers who were great one on one, talking to two, three people. You put them up on a stage in front of people, and they're grabbing the lectern, they're stiffening their body, they're rigid. Nothing's really moving except their mouth. And maybe they're rigidly holding up a clicker to move a PowerPoint slide. So one big problem people have when they're going from smaller groups to larger groups is just this idea that they have to be different. And they stiffen themselves up because they're nervous. Now, you've heard the advice, oh, just be yourself, be natural. Unfortunately, that is worthless advice if you are going from speaking to a small group where you're comfortable to speaking to a group that's outside of your comfort zone, a much larger group. Because if you don't normally speak to 100 people or a thousand people, and now you are, you're not used to that. So the natural thing is to be nervous. And when you're nervous, what do you do? You take tense your body up, you freeze, and you're thinking, oh, my gosh, how do I get out of here? How do I run out of here and save face? How do I get out of here before people throw rotten vegetables at me and point and laugh? That's the natural thing to do. And when you're doing that, it doesn't help. So the big challenge for most people that I find is. Is not that I have to teach them how to speak in front of a large room of people, how to command a huge audience. It's not that I'm teaching them how to act differently. The big challenge for me is getting people to stop acting. The problem most people have when they go from working with a small group of an audience that they're presenting to to a large group is that they start acting. They start acting scared. Once you start acting scared, it sets off a chain reaction of negativity. You freeze your body, you freeze your hands, you freeze your face, Your voice becomes monotone, you're not thinking clearly. So you all of a sudden use all sorts of devices to take pressure off of your memory. For the. For some people, that means head down and reading the speech word for word. So I don't make a mistake. And I get everything just right. Well, that's obviously awful for other people. It is sort of turning their back on their audience and reading PowerPoint slides. A horrific, unmitigated disaster. And that's a big problem. So the challenge is, how can you not act scared and do the things you do when you're in your comfort zone? So the problem many people have is all the things that work for them when they're talking one on one with a favorite customer, client or colleague. They're being interactive, they're listening, they're giving examples, they're telling stories, they're giving case studies. They're not reading off of a script all the things that work for them in that situation. Now they're speaking to a larger group. They take all those things that work, all those successful tips, strategies, techniques, they ball them up and they throw them in the trash can and they do something completely different to now speak to that larger audience. Big mistake. If you have something that works, stick with it. Here's one of the big secrets of some of the greatest speakers of all time. Whether it's Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Tony Blair, they don't sound any different or talk any differently when they're talking to 5,000 people versus five people or even one person. They speak in a conversational way. They give examples, they tell stories, they gesture, they move, they use the full range of their voice. Well, that's what all of us do when we're comfortable. So, Pete, that's my biggest suggestion to you, is you've got to do exactly the same things you do when you're comfortable talking to two or three. Now, the big challenge, of course, is if you literally are scared, which it's normal to be scared, how do you do the things you do when you're relaxed there? Unfortunately, you're not going to like my answer. Some of you who are regular listeners of this will say, I've heard this before, but it just bears repeating. You have to practice your presentation on video until you're really comfortable with it and you see exactly how you want to come across, and then you follow that. That becomes your role model. When you are doing the speech in front of 100 or a thousand or whatever your definition is of a large group, you've practiced it on video, you know how you want to come across, and at that point, you're basically going through the motions because you want to do it as you did in practice. That leads to the second part of your question, Pete, which is, how do you address larger audiences if you're doing A webinar that's nationwide or worldwide. You have perhaps thousands of people watching you live on a webinar. Again, Pete, it's the very same thing. Think in terms of I'm now addressing thousands of people. I'm glad all of you are here today in this vast no, talk as if you're talking to one person and you'll come across more interesting, more likable, easier on the ear, more engaging. So don't even visualize thousands of people out there. Instead, imagine you're having a conversation with one person. If you do that, you'll come across extremely well to the entire audience, I promise you. Good luck, Pete.

For a free, no obligation online public speaking or media training course, go to mediatrainingworldwide.com and start learning. Today.

Folks, as always, this show is devoted to questions from you. If you have questions, believe me, I want to know what they are. Because this show is not about me pontificating on the political issues of the day. It's not about me just lecturing on and on and on. It's really a response to questions that you either write to me, call me with post on Facebook, LinkedIn, anywhere.

Your questions.

And now let's take another question. This one comes from Tara, another one of my online students. She says, TJ I haven't done a TV interview yet, but I'm certainly spoken in front of a live audience plenty of times. If there's anything I find a little bit confusing, it's what do I do with my hands for a TV interview? Now, Tara, a lot of debate about this and confusion. Many people think that what they're supposed to do is hold their hands. Oh, it's not professional to move your hands. A professional person should be like a news anchor. Have them firmly on the desk, put them in your pockets. All horrible advice in my mind, based on actual experience. What you should do with your hands for a TV interview is exactly the same thing you should do with your hands when you're giving a speech or a presentation. You shouldn't move your hands. When you move your hands, you move your body. When you move your body, you come across as much more relaxed, more comfortable, more confident, more authoritative. The second you freeze your hands, you're freezing your arms, freezing your shoulders, you're freezing a part of your body that tends to get into your vocal cords, and you come across as much less comfortable. Also, you can sound a little more monotone and flat and contrived and not conversational kiss of death. So I would recommend that you move your hands Now, a lot of people worry about, well, TJ, if the camera is only showing 8 inches below my chin and I'm gesturing lower, then it won't be seen. Don't worry about that. Because if your hands are moving, then your body's moving a little, your face is loosened up, and you'll probably sound more conversational. So I think people waste way too much time trying to frame. When you're in an interview, you don't want to be thinking about, how do I frame my hands just straight and do I bring my right hand up six inches? No, you just want to move your hands. Now, it is true that, that if you're giving a speech in front of a thousand people, you may have bigger gestures. And forgive my podcast audio audience, I'm now gesturing with my arms all the way out. And for people watching this on YouTube and Facebook and Vimeo, you can't see my arm. They're just sort of cut off. And that looks a little strange. Whereas if I were doing a speech and you could see my whole body having occasionally your arms all the way out or way over your head might make sense. So that's really the only difference when it comes to how you move your hands on TV is it's a little bit tighter. You don't really want them up over your face. Again, for those of you listening, I'm gesturing over my face and it's a little distracting for those watching the video. But here's the thing. I have trained thousands of people, more than 10,000 people from six continents for the last 30 plus years. I've never yet had someone gesture too much when we were doing TV interview preparation or for their actual TV interviews. In theory, you see it. You see Will Ferrell on comedies where he's the race car driver nervous and he's gesturing wildly. But in reality, that isn't what happens. The far bigger problem is we freeze our hands, sit on our hands, clasp our hands in front of ourselves as if we have to go to the bathroom. That is the far, far bigger challenge. So keep that in mind. The thing to do with your hands is to move your hands. Now, here's the advanced tip. Unless you're doing TV interviews every day, you're likely to be nervous when you're doing a TV interview. When. When you're nervous, you freeze up. What I would recommend is very consciously think when you're answering the first question on that TV interview, consciously think about bringing one of your hands up and then both of your hands up. You're essentially priming the pump. And when you do that, it gets things going. Then after you're talking for a few seconds, then you can get in the groove, focus on what you're saying and not have to worry about the hand gestures.

A question for you.

So here's my question for you. I want to know how many times have you really seen somebody moving their hands wildly and gesturing way too much on television? And I don't mean a comedy TV show. I mean an actual news program, talk show. And how often is that a problem? Maybe you remember one. But let's not forget you've seen tens of thousands of people interviewed on TV shows in your life. So if it's one out of 10,000, that should tell you in relative terms how big a problem that is. But I'd like to know. Give me an example. Send me an email. You can always write infoediatrainingworldwide.com you can post a comment if you're watching this on Facebook or our LinkedIn page or YouTube. And you can always send a tweet. Jwalker, I'd like to hear from you on that. As always, this program is interactive. We're here for you. Send me any questions. By the way, if you like this program, do me one favor. Actually, two favors. Make sure you literally subscribe in iTunes, number one. Number two, download as many shows as possible. Because the more downloads there are, that sends a trigger to Apple that this show is perhaps not worthless and they place it higher up in their search engine. So if you could do that for me, I would much appreciate it. And if you really want to do me a favor, leave a rating, an actual starred rating review for the program on itunes and it would be much, much appreciated. As always, may all of your presentations in life be a huge success.

Speaking with TJ Walker is the number one rated daily streaming TV and radio show devoted to all aspects of speaking, speaking and communication. If you received value from this show, then please subscribe to it@mediatrainingworldwide.com Please review the show, leave comments and share it with your friends and colleagues today.