TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

How do you put your audience at ease when you're giving a speech?

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

I do frequently get this question, how do you put your audience at ease? It's also a question that's widely searched on the Internet. So I want to address that today in the program. For starters, I will give you specific suggestions on this, but first and foremost, be interesting and relevant and memorable to your audience. That will solve all your other problems. If you actually give people a great speech, a great presentation that's interesting, useful and memorable, nobody's going to have any time to be nervous or uncomfortable, at ill at ease. I think a lot of what makes audiences uncomfortable is the idea of, uh, oh, this might be really boring. Because most speeches I hear are really boring. How can I get out of this? How can I sit in the back of the room so that I can sneak out or check my email if this person starts to get really boring? That's why most audiences are ill at ease. So your first goal should be make the speech interesting and memorable. That will solve most of your problems. I'm going to give you a lot more very specific advice in just a moment.

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It is possible that your audience feels uncomfortable because you're a big shot, you're famous, you're a celebrity, or you're a king, or you have power and they feel like you are so far above them. That could happen. One of the things you can do, and it happens before your speech starts. That's just a matter of simply get there early, get to the room early, shake hands with people, introduce yourself, be a real person. Don't act like the celebrity who has to come in from behind the curtain at the last second and dash off the second the speech is done. Unless you really are running for president. You have so many demands on your time or you're Tom Cruise or someone like that. But for most of us in the world, if you're going to give a speech, let's make the most of it. And an extra 10 minutes of getting there early won't hurt you. The other problem people have is they get to the venue and they want to read their notes or go over their slides or go to a private room and look over the slide. That's not the time to be rehearsing. You should have done that before. Now it's time to Start the whole process of communicating and the first part is making sure the audience doesn't feel ill at ease with you, that they do feel comfortable simply going around the room, introducing yourself, shaking people's hands. Ask them a question about themselves, ask them where they're from, ask them what they want to get out of your presentation. If they know the topic and know what you're about, ask them. I mean, that's something I do in every presentation I give, even if it's to three people. Before I start for that day of training, I ask people, what do you want to get out of today? Where do you feel less than great when you're speaking? I will then incorporate exactly what they said into my presentation in the first 60 seconds. And that makes them feel a lot more comfortable that this isn't some canned, generic speech or training. I might make them slightly uncomfortable at the moment because I've mentioned them by name, but it's a good kind of being uncomfortable because they realize, hey, the spotlight is on them and I've listened to them, I care about them, I'm respecting them and I'm being responsive to them. So that's a huge thing you can do right off the bat is simply get there early and talk to people physically. Unless you just don't like that sort of thing. Physically shake people's hands and touch them. It's just harder to dislike someone and feel like they are arrogant, off putting if they've taken the time to walk up to you, look you in the eye, shake your hands and ask you how you're doing, what you want to get out of something. It's just human nature to feel a lot more comfortable with someone like that and to want to listen to them more carefully. The next thing that will really help make your audience more at ease is the structure of your speech. No, you do not have to start with a joke. A joke could work if you're making fun of yourself and it doesn't seem canned and it doesn't seem phony and it doesn't sound like, okay, my speechwriter said I had to start with a joke to make everyone comfortable. So here's my joke. Please laugh or I'll be disappointed. It can't seem like that. It has to seem genuine, real and not forced. Not like you're begging for a laugh or you're going to be uncomfortable. But you don't have to use humor. The main thing you have to do is just say something interesting to them. Again, a little different. If you're the King of England, and you're talking to poor peasants. And I'm sorry, I realize they don't call them peasants anymore. But for most situations, business people, political leaders, others, the audience doesn't really feel typically that you're so much better than they are. Yeah, I guess if you're talking to business students and you're a billionaire, you're a Warren Buffett. They may feel like, oh my gosh, he's such a God, he's such a deity. But Warren Buffett is the first person to use self deprecating humor to sound conversational and to sound relaxed and put everyone else at ease. And that makes it easier for people to ask him questions. The next thing I'd urge you to do is make people realize you're approachable. Too many speakers, whether they're advanced and highly successful billionaires or they could be a 17 year old giving a presentation in school, have this attitude of, I'm going through my little presentation, don't interrupt me. You got a question, hold it till later, let me go through my stuff. Well, that makes audiences uncomfortable. They're like, eh, this person doesn't want me to interrupt his speech. He's so important, he's such a big shot. And then they've forgotten what their question was by the end of the time period, by the end of the presentation. My advice, let people know you're happy to take questions. Unless you have a very, very strict severe time limit. Ten minutes, part of a conference, you've got to hit a number of points, then perhaps you can't. But for most presentations, it's not that structured in time. Let people know you'll take their questions anytime. You could say, well, Batich a, this person's interrupting my presentation. Guess what? It's not your presentation. It is your audience's presentation. And if you let them know that, they're going to feel more comfortable. You want them comfortable tossing out a question and making it more like a conversation. Because any question the audience, one member asked, maybe other people have the same question in mind. They're creating variety in the tone and the sound, the room. They're essentially turning you from a solo act to a group act. Most people prefer groups. There's just more variety. The Beatles sold a lot more albums than the typical solo artist. So again, I'm not suggesting you have to turn over your entire presentation to the mob every single time and let one person ask you 50 questions. No, there are limits. But the general principle of letting people engage you ask questions is a good thing. It'll make them more comfortable. It'll put them at ease. It also puts you at ease because now you've got time to think, reflect. It makes it more like a conversation and it makes everything just more relaxing for everybody. When people are in a relaxed state, it's easier for them to focus, easier for them to remember things if there's no tension. So please keep that in mind.

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I want to thank all the regulars out there for the questions you sent. Again, I'm happy to answer any question you have about public speaking, speaking to the media, speaking in times of crisis. All questions will be answered here. This is the one place, anywhere on the Internet, audio, video, you name it, where every single question is answered as it relates to speaking and spoken communication. The show is about you. It's not about me. I'm certainly using my experiences having trained thousands and thousands of executives and politicians and CEOs for the last more than 30 years. But it's to help you and give you a better sense of what best practices are, what works, what doesn't work when it comes to presenting more effectively. So please send me your questions. You can email me directly tjediatrainingworldwide.com that's my personal email, so send me your questions directly. Thanks so much as always. May all of your presentations in life be a success.

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