Know Your Audience Before You Speak!
Know your audience before you speak!
Know your audience and their triggers before you open your mouth to speak.
It starts with WHY. Why are you presenting and to whom? Examine the purpose of your talk, seminar or workshop in relationship to your audiences’ profile. Their age, profession, titles, projects, organization, company and the event play key roles in why they came to listen to you. Remember an audience is a collection of individual people. Every collection is different.
Each event has its own dynamics. Where you are on the agenda, the mood of the event and audience should play a large role on how you prepare and improvise on the spot.
If people were required to attend your event, they typically fall into three categories sometimes called The Rule of Three:
- 1/3 want to learn what you have to offer
- 1/3 hope they will learn something and
- 1/3 wish the &#%!? they were somewhere else
On the other hand, people may voluntarily come to listen to you because you have an idea or information worth spreading. A key to getting them to listen is your presentation’s relevance to their individual realities, the event, their geographic location and, especially, learning what’s new in relation to their interests or professions.
Once you answer the WHY and customize your presentation and the benefit(s) you bring to your specific audience—be it 1 or 1000—and begin with an interesting metaphorical story, your audience will listen to you.
…larry
As a coach, trainer and consultant, Larry Blumsack partners with people and organizations on the move and those already there to accelerate their communication, presentation and speaking skills to be on par with their ambition. Through one-on-one coaching and group training Larry helps leaders and aspiring leaders elevate their presence and communication skills to influence more people, sell more products-services-ideas and inspire others more successfully than they ever imagined.
Larry is the bestselling author of Face-to-Face is The Ultimate Social Media and founder of Zoka Institute and Zoka Training®. Zoka Training® — Mind/Voice/Body/Mindfulness in sync — is the result of Larry’s 45 years as a coach, acting teacher, actor, voice-over artist, theater and TV director/producer, radio & TV commentator and show host, speaker, trainer, serial entrepreneur, and syndicated columnist. Larry was a founding member of the theater department at Northeastern University.
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