Speaking Is Sexy Tip #23 - Listening To Your Audience

Speaking Is Sexy Tip #23

Are You Listening To Your Audience?

      In Speaking Tip #21, I recommended three simple things to remember when you face your audience and begin to speak: Talk about them. Talk about you. Then talk about your subject. Several readers have since asked, "What do you mean, talk about them?"
      Nothing will help your audience relate to you more quickly than showing them you're glad to be there and that you respect them and their organization. Whether you're behind a podium or there's just air between you and your listeners, you can start with a conversational, down-to-earth, friendly tone, a smile, and lots of eye contact.
      Well, yeah, sure, but what exactly do you say?

      I recently heard a speaker at a women's networking event who has this technique down pat. Her subject was disaster preparedness, but she didn't just plunge into a list of things we can all do to be safer during an earthquake, fire or flood. She began by mentioning several people in the audience by name. She didn't know them personally, hadn't met them before she arrived that day to speak. She's a very entertaining as well as knowledgeable speaker, but we didn't know that until we'd heard her whole speech. Yet in the first few minutes of her talk she

had us all in the palm of her hand. How did she do it?

      In Tip #21 I suggested that you arrive early enough to meet some of the key players and learn a few points that you have in common, so you can say something that will have the audience nodding their heads and smiling in agreement. That's exactly what our speaker did.

In other words, before she began to speak, she listened!

      Listen to your audience! Get to know as much about them as you can so you can incorporate them into your presentation!

      This particular event made it easy because the speaker was smart enough to arrive in time to hear the opening of the meeting in which everyone talked for about a minute about herself and her business. By the time it was the speaker's turn, she already knew something important about everyone that she could weave into her talk. From time to time throughout her forty-five minutes in the front of the room, she related certain key points to particular listeners. This technique engaged not only the individuals mentioned, but the whole group, because they knew whom she was talking about and felt involved and engaged.

       First Rule for a Sexy Speaker: Listen! Learn as much as you can about your audience!

      Unfortunately, most of the time we don't have the luxury of a networking situation to learn about every single person in the room. What we can do, though, is arrive early, check in with the leaders of the group, ask to be introduced to the key players, mix and mingle with as many folks as we can before we speak, and either trust our excellent memory for names and facts or, if you're like me, make brief notes on who is who and where a quick mention of them will fit into our presentation. A handful of references will engage and enthrall them and they'll admire us because they'll feel that this isn't just another speech, one of the many we'll give this year. They'll appreciate that we cared enough to speak to them, not as just another audience, but as new-found friends!

Click here for Speaking Tip #21