The Accidental Communicator » connecting with your audience

How To Make Your Audience Remember What You Said

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 13:00:07 +0000

It Would Hurt, But This Is One Way To Make Your Ideas "Stick"…

You’ve got great ideas trapped in you. You know the importance of public speaking and you want to use your speaking skills to make your audience’s lives better. The problem is that if you aren’t careful, what you say during your speech will just go in one ear and out the next. How can you make your next speech more “sticky”?

Make Your Audience Work For Your Information

When you get asked to deliver a speech, what do you think the person who is making the request is really asking you to do? I’d be willing to bet that what flashed into your mind was a mental image of you standing up in front of a bunch of people talking at them.

It turns out that that mental image, although very common among speakers, is dead wrong. The person who is asking you to give a speech is really asking you to change the audience that you’ll be speaking to. How you make that happen is up to you and more often than not we do stand up and talk to them in order to make a change happen.

In fact, most of the presentation tips that we talk about deal with how to do a good job of this standing-and-talking stuff. The problem with doing this is that the ability of your message to make an impact now depends solely on your audience’s listening skills.

I’ve got a suggestion for you: make your audience work for the information that you’re going to share with them. One of the benefits of public speaking is that there’s nothing that says that our audience can’t use words or movement in addition to their ears in order to learn what we have to teach them.

Think about the next speech that you are going to give. What could you do that would get your audience to think about what you are telling them, answer questions that you ask them, or even get up and move in order to demonstrate that they understand what you are saying? All of these are powerful ways to get your message to stick.

Make It All New

The worst thing that you can do as a speaker is to be boring – your audience will never remember what you said if you bore them. The ultimate presentation tip is to never tell your audience something that they’ve already heard.

A good example of this came from a speech I gave awhile ago. I was talking about emails and when I was researching email statistics, I ran across one that said that there are over 100 million emails sent every day. That’s an ok statistic, but we all have heard that one before – lots of email gets sent every day.

The next statistic that I ran across said that 35% of email recipients open email based on the subject line alone. Now that was something that I didn’t know (and it explains why that spam stuff works!)

If you find new and different things to share with your audiences, then you’ll be able to keep their attention because they will always be learning as you are talking. This is another way to make sure that your message sticks!

What All Of This Means For You

As long as you are going to go to the effort to both prepare and give a speech, you may as well make sure that what you say sticks with your audience long after you’re done speaking. In order to make this happen, you are going to have to adjust the way that you deliver your speech.

One way to do this is to involve your audience in your speech. Don’t allow them to just sit there and listen to you. Instead, make them answer questions that you ask them, make them stand up and take actions based on what you are saying. All of these things will help to make your message stick.

In addition, as you are putting your speech together, take the time to locate and include new information. If you use the same tired facts and stats that your audience has heard before, then what you say will go in one ear and out the other. Instead, present new and interesting information that your audience has never heard before and then what you say will stick with them long after your speech is done.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: How many times do you think that you could make your audience stand up during a 60 minute speech?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Communicator Blog is updated.
P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Communicator Newsletter are now available. Subscribe now: Click Here!

Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

When you go to see a movie, what’s the first thing that you always see? The answer is, of course, trailers! I must confess that there have been movies that I’ve gone to in the past in which the trailers were the best part of the whole movie viewing experience! What’s interesting about these trailers is that they have been designed with one thing in mind: to get you to come back and see the movie that they are advertising. Maybe we can learn something from trailers that we can use in our next speech.

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The Power Of Using Repetition And Triggers In Your Next Speech

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:00:35 +0000

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It's The Ideas That You Share With Your Audience That You Don't Want Them To Forget

Can You Say That Again & Again?

I must confess that I’m a bit torn when it comes to recommending this particular technique for getting your audience to remember what you’ve told them. For you see, it goes against one of my most cherished beliefs about how to be a successful public speaker.

I’m willing to break my long held belief because of the importance of public speaking – if it’s important than you’ve got to find a way to get your audience to remember what you tell them. One powerful way to do this (I can’t believe that I’m actually recommending this) is to repeat yourself.

I’m sure that we’ve all heard the saying “When giving a speech, you want to tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them again.” I hate this saying. In today’s environment, audience’s won’t pay attention to you if they think that you are just saying the same things over and over again.

All that being said, it turns out that repetition works. All you have to do is think about some of the TV commercials that we’ve all be exposed to over the years and you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can remember a jingle or a silly catch phrase.

In conclusion, I believe that repetition has its place. You probably don’t want to over use it and you certainly don’t want to end up repeating your entire speech; however, picking the key points that you want your audience to remember and taking the time to repeat them can have a powerful impact.

Don’t Just Say It, Trigger It!

No matter how good of a speaker you are, there’s a really good chance that your audience won’t remember what you’ve told them. What this means for you is that you’ve got to come up with a way for the key points that you made to be recalled by your audience – this is one of the benefits of public speaking.

Clever public speakers use what are called “triggers” to make this happen. A trigger is an association that you plant in your audience’s minds that will cause them to remember the point that you were trying to make. An example of this would be if you were trying to motivate an audience and you wanted them to realize that they had an unlimited potential. You could tell them that the green light on a traffic light represented their unlimited potential and that every time they see a green traffic light they should remember what you told them.

The great thing about triggers is that they can last long after your speech is over. A well done trigger will continue to remind your audience about what you’ve told them for a very long time.

What All Of This Means For You

As a speaker you have two main goals: to provide your audience with clear direction on how to solve problems and to provide them with ways to remember what you’ve told them.

There are many different ways to go about doing this. One such way is simply to repeat your key points more than once. The power of repetition is that it will cause what you’ve told your audience to firmly stick in their minds. Another way to make this happen is to create triggers. Triggers will be associated with your key points and will cause your audience to remember what you said when they encounter the triggers in their everyday lives.

Making and communicating powerful information is what public speakers do. All of the presentation tips in the world won’t help your audience remember what you’ve told them. Even if your audience has the best listening skills in the world, they’ll quickly forget what you’ve told them without some help. Use the two techniques that we’ve discussed and they’ll be able to remember what you’ve told them and, more importantly, apply what you’ve told them in their lives…

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: How many times do you think that you should repeat your main points?

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

If you want to add some class to your next speech, if you are looking for a way to make your audience come to tears or break out in laughter, then perhaps what you need to do is to incorporate some poetry into your speech. I’m not talking the “Roses are red, Violets are blue…” variety, but rather poems that really mean something and which can lend their weight to your speech.

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Mnemonic Devices Come To The Aid Of Public Speakers

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:00:29 +0000

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Mnemonic Devices Might Look Complicated, But They Aren't…

Make It Easy To Remember By Making It Fun To Remember

One of the big challenges that I run into in my ongoing quest to become as good of a speaker as Tony Robbins is that often I simply have too much to say. That is, when I’m building the speech that I want to give, it turns out that I’ve got so many individual points that I want to get across that there is no way that my audience is going to be able to remember all that I have to tell them.

This leaves me in a bit of a quandary – should I cut back on what I’m going to cover during my speech and thereby deliver less value to my audience? I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the answer to this question is sometime “yes”. However, it turns out that there is another way.

There is this thing called a mnemonic device that, if used correctly, can help your audience to remember a lot more than they can all by themselves. Although “mnemonic” seems like a big word, I’m willing to bet that you’ve already encountered one of these.

The classic one in my opinion is “SMART goals”. If you’ve ever heard someone talk about these, SMART is simply a mnemonic device that people use to remember the characteristics of a good goal:

S pecific
M easurable
A ttainable
R ealistic
T imely

It turns out these 5 characteristics of a good goal are about two too many characteristics for most audiences to remember. The creation of the “SMART” word provides a fun and easy way for them to remember it – retention problem solved!

Turn On The Siren And The Red Flashing Light

So there you are, up in front of an audience giving your speech. Yawn. Sure, what you are saying is interesting and all that, let’s even say that you’re doing a good job in your delivery. However, you’ve got to remember that your audience has a lot of other things going on. They simply don’t have time to remember everything that you’re telling them because they’ve got so much else going on.

Hmm, looks like you’re going to have to find a way to break through that wall of “I just don’t have time to pay attention to you”. Maybe what you need to do is to turn the siren on during your speech and for good measure add in some flashing red lights.

Now, of course, you could use an actual siren and red flashing lights, but maybe there is another way that would cut down on the amount of gear that you’d need to bring to your next speech. It turns out that simply by introducing a sense of urgency into your speech, you can cause your audience to sit up and listen to you.

Creating this sense of urgency can be done in a couple of different ways. One of the easiest is to tell your audience that time is running out – they need to take action based on what you are telling them and they need to do it quickly or else the opportunity will go away. Another way is to convince them that there is a limited quantity of something that they need. If they don’t move fast based on what you are telling them, then a resource that they need will be gone and they will be unable to do it. That should get them moving!

What All Of This Means For You

The importance of public speaking is that this is one of the most effective ways that you have to communicate information to a group of people all at the same time. However, you’ll just be wasting your time if you don’t find a way to help your audience remember what you are telling them.

One fantastic way to make your points stick is to group them all together and make it fun for your audience to remember everything that you’ve said. Mnemonic devices take awhile to create, but the payoff for your audience can be huge. Another way to make sure that what you say is remembered by your audience is to create a sense of urgency and associate it with what you’ve told them. This will cause your audience to sit up and take notice of what you are telling them.

The great speakers don’t just have the ability to put the right words together in order to deliver a speech. They also have the ability to make what they are saying be memorable in a way that changes the lives of their audience forever. Use these two techniques the next time that you give a speech and watch how powerful your words become.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: Is there a limit to how long a mnemonic device can be?

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

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Public Speakers Need To Find Ways To Make Their Words Stick!

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:00:05 +0000

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Getting The Ideas In Your Speech To Stick Will Take Some Work

Everyone Loves A Good Picture

Considering how hard we speakers work to get our words right, you’d think that our audiences would have the common courtesy to develop the listening skills that will allow them to remember what we tell them, right?

Unfortunately, remembering words that we’ve been told is very hard for any audience to do. In fact, trying to remember a particular set of words when we’ve been hit with a bunch of different ideas during a speech can almost be impossible.

The good news here is that there is something else that works: pictures. Call it a fluke of evolution or whatever, but we humans do a much better job of remembering images than we do words. What this means for us as speakers is that we need to get better at creating mental images in our audience’s minds.

You might be thinking that all you have to do is to find the right image to put on a PowerPoint slide and then you’d be home free. Well yes and no. Doing this can certainly help make your message more memorable; however, it’s not where the real power comes from.

Instead, it’s the images that your audience create in their own minds that will stick for the longest time. These are the images that they build upon hearing the words that you say. What this means for you is that you need to start to use words that will describe the image that you want your audience to be imagining. Talk about how things look, what they would feel like if you could touch them, what color they are, how big they are, and of course what makes them unique or memorable when you look at them.

If You Can Tell A Story, You Can Make An Idea Stick

Painting images in your audience’s mind is a great way to start to make what you are telling them stick. However, you can take this one step further if you are willing to tell stories.

This is one area where you do need to be careful. Just telling any old story isn’t going to be enough. Instead, you need to tell stories that are going to connect with your audience and you need to make sure that those stories relate to the points that you are trying to make in your speech.

The stories that you tell need to be memorable. In order for this to happen, you need to make them be both emotional and unexpected.

The reason that you want to make your stories emotional is because if you can appeal to your audience’s emotions, then you will have found a way to make your story “sticky”. Long after you are done telling your story, your audience will remember what you said.

The worst kind of story that you can tell is a boring story. This means that you need to make sure that your story contains unexpected elements. By doing this you don’t allow your audience to become complacent and start to think that they know how your story is going to turn out. Keep showing them that they haven’t heard this story before!

What All Of This Means For You

All too often when we give a speech, our speeches which appear to us to be fantastic are loaded with too much information for our audiences to absorb. What we say goes in one ear and out the other. Clearly something has to change here.

As speakers, we are always looking for presentation tips that will allow us to share the benefits of public speaking. Getting our ideas to stick requires us to use two presentation tips: creating mental images and telling stories. The images that we can build in our audience’s minds are what will cause our key points to stick. We can enhance the “stickiness” of our message by adding stories to our speech. Long after the speech is over, the stories will be remembered and retold by our audience.

In today’s busy, busy world, it is no longer enough for us to give a good speech. We need to take the time to add presentation tips such as mental image building and the telling of stories to our speeches in order to make them stick. Doing so will transform your next speech from forgettable to life changing!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: How many stories do you think that you can reasonably fit into a 30-minute speech?

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

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Nelson Mandela’s Tips On How To Customize Your Next Speech

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 18:00:34 +0000

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Nelson Mandela Knew How To Customize Each Speech To His Audience

Hopefully everyone knows who Nelson Mandela is – he’s the South African leader who’s tireless efforts helped to get rid of his country’s oppressive apartheid policies. What is less known is how he marshaled world opinion in order to support the change that he wanted. It turns out that one way he made this happen was by giving speeches that uniquely connected with his audiences…

Nelson Mandela’s Speeches

Nelson Madela spent 27 years in prison before he was released by the South African government. When he got out, he quickly started to give speeches that all had one common message: support his African National Congress (ANC) party in their attempt to create a new government.

It was important that Mandela work his key message into every speech that he gave. No matter where in the world he was, no matter who he was speaking to, his message was always the same: lend your support to the ANC.

This meant that he really had to give the same speech over and over again. However, he couldn’t just show up and say the same thing each time – he would quickly lose the interest of his audiences. He needed to find a way to deliver his message in such a way that it would appeal to his audience while at the same time allowing him to incorporate his main message: please support the ANC.

It turns out the Nelson Mandela is a good speaker – he has a lot of natural ability. However, it was the realization that he needed to find ways to connect with his audience each time that he spoke that turned him to a great speaker.

How Nelson Mandela Connected With His Audience

Nelson Mandela connected with his audiences by taking the time to customize the words that he was saying. He knew that the core of each of his speeches needed to remain the same, support the ANC, but that he could modify the rest in order to reach out to and connect with the audience that he was addressing.

William Stevenson III has spent time studying the speeches that Mandela gave and he has been able to document the ways that the speeches were customized for various audiences.

When Mandela traveled to the United States, he gave a speech to a huge crowd in New York City’s Harlem area. During this speech he changed it to include statements about how his struggles in South Africa were similar to the struggles of the Harlem residents to overcome their economic and social challenges.

Later in the same trip, Mandela addressed the U.S. Congress. During this speech he invoked the struggles that had been incorporated into the U.S. constitution and he related that to what he was trying to accomplish in South Africa.

What All Of This Means For You

Nelson Mandela is an accomplished political leader who successfully overthrew the oppressive apartheid polices that were holding his country back. One of the key skills that he used to do this was his ability to deliver powerful speeches to diverse audiences.

The only thing that the audiences that Mandela talked to had in common was that they were so very different. Mandela talked in multiple countries always sharing the same message: support my effort to cast out the current government of South Africa. In each country he would talk to different types of audiences. He would talk to common people in the street and leaders of government.

The way he was able to make his message connect with each of these audiences was by customizing his words to match what was important to them. He would use this type of tailored speech to capture the attention of his audience and then once they were connected, he would share his main message with them. We need to learn from Mandela and use his knowledge to reach our audiences so that our messages will make a lasting impression on them…

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: How much customization of a speech do you think that you should do for a given audience?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Communicator Blog is updated.
P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Communicator Newsletter are now available. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Speakers who are facing a challenging speech or challenging audience often ask themselves what they could do in order to be more successful. Sure, there are a lot of tricks out there that one can use to capture an audience’s attention and make them laugh a few times. However, if you really want to deliver a successful speech then you are going to have to share the true you with your audience – you’re going to have to show them your personal speaking style…

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Speakers Need To Know What Their Emotional Intelligence Quotient Is

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:00:21 +0000

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Speakers Use Their Emotional Intelligence To "Read" Their Audience

Have you ever been giving a speech when all of a sudden you thought to yourself “I wonder what they are thinking?” I mean, you’re standing up there running your mouth and the audience is sitting out there looking at you, but do you really know what’s running through their heads right then? If you did know, how would that change what you were saying? It turns out that the best speakers DO know what their audience is thinking and they DO adjust their speeches to match this. You can do it also – you just need to have emotional intelligence…

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

So I’m sure that we all at least think that we know what emotional intelligence is, but do we really know? From a top-level view, emotional intelligence is simply the a speaker’s ability to be aware of their own emotions and the emotions of those who are around them.

It turns out that emotional intelligence is very important in our overall success. Somewhat surprisingly, studies have shown that a person’s emotional intelligence can be a bigger factor in their overall success than their intellectual aptitude. In fact, some say that up to 90% of the success that you’ll have in your life can be directly tied back to your emotional intelligence.

The author Daniel Goleman who wrote the book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
believes that there are four “pillars” to your emotional intelligence:

Self-awareness: understanding what you are feeling at any point in time

Self-management of behaviors: the ability to control your emotions including your body language, facial expressions, etc.

Social Awareness: the ability to be aware of what people around you are feeling.

Relationship Management: the ability to develop and foster relationships with others.

The good news about emotional intelligence is that these types of skills can be taught and learned. One of the key skills is for you as a speaker to become adapt at reading facial expressions.

As a speaker, in order to truly connect with your audience you are going to want to create the correct mood between you and your audience. This means that you are going to have to be able to identify what their current energy level is so that you’ll know how to steer it going forward. Based on your opening comments, you should be able to read your audience’s facial expressions and using your emotional intelligence you should be able to determine what their mood is.

This ability to “read” your audience and adapt to their mood is what can turn a good speech into a great speech. Audiences really respond to a speaker who seems to fully understand where they are at. If you can use your emotional intelligence to connect with your audience, then you will be well on your way to becoming a great speaker.

What Does All Of This Mean For You?

The goal of any speaker is to find a way to connect with their audience while they are delivering a speech. A powerful tool that we have to do this is called our emotional intelligence. This skill is simply our ability to be aware of how we are currently feeling and how our audience is feeling.

Once we are aware of the power of our emotional intelligence and know how to use it, we can change how we give speeches. Being able to sense how our audience is feeling gives us the ability to adjust how we deliver a speech on the fly. We can adapt our message to how our audience is currently feeling.

Speakers who are able to connect with their audience are the most powerful. They have the ability to change the world just a little bit with each speech that they give. Use your emotional intelligence to connect with your audience and watch what happens!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: Do you think that it is possible to prepare to adapt your speech before you start to give it?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Communicator Blog is updated.
P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Communicator Newsletter are now available. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Hopefully everyone knows who Nelson Mandela is – he’s the South African leader who’s tireless efforts helped to get rid of his country’s oppressive apartheid policies. What is less known is how he marshaled world opinion in order to support the change that he wanted. It turns out that one way he made this happen was by giving speeches that uniquely connected with his audiences…

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Customized Presentations: How To Make ‘Em

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 18:00:41 +0000

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Every Presentation You Make Must Be Fitted To Your Audience

Let’s say that you were going to go out and buy a new car. Now lets say that you didn’t get to make any decisions about what that car was going to look like. You don’t get to choose the color, the accessories, or even the type of car. When the car got delivered to you, how would you feel? I’m willing to bet that you’d have almost no connection to that car – it had not been customized for you. What this all means is that if you don’t take the time to customize your speech for your audience, then you’re going to get the same reaction: they aren’t going to feel any sense of connection with you.

Gather Your Information Before The Speech Starts

Somebody very important once said that “… all news is local.” The same thing can be said about any speech that you give: your audience really wants to hear about themselves, about what’s going on in their lives. If you have a generic speech that works for anybody, the truth is that it probably works for nobody.

In order to strike a balance between what you want to tell your audience and what they want to hear, you need to take the time to customize your speech for them. In order to do this correctly, you are going to have to do some work before your speech starts.

What you need to do is to take the time to meet some of the members of your audience prior to giving your speech. The reason for doing this is simple: you want to interview them. What you are looking to find out is why they are there, what their issues and concerns are. Everyone has a different story to tell, you want to get people to tell you theirs and then you want to either write it down or remember it.

Work The Information Into Your Speech

Once you’ve collected the information that you need, now it’s going to be time to work it into your speech. The goal here is not to dramatically change your speech or its main message. Rather what you are going to be trying to do is to add a “local flavor” to your speech that will allow your audience to feel as though the speech was created just for them.

One of the best places to add this local flavor is in the beginning of your speech. You can do this by adding a reference to an issue that someone that you talked to brought up. What you want to do is to tell your audience that you were talking to so-and-so and they mentioned that such-and-such was an issue. Then let everyone know that you’ll be addressing this issue during your talk.

The second place that you can locally customize your speech is on the backend. As you are wrapping your speech up, you can revisit the local issues that you brought up in your opening and assure everyone that they have been covered. By including local content in your closing statements, you leave your audience with the feeling that they’ve just heard a speech that was handcrafted for them.

What This All Means For You

As speakers, it can be all too easy to fall into the trap of giving the same speech over and over again – I mean, why not: you’ve gotten good at giving it. Doing this means that you are missing a fantastic opportunity to connect with your audience.

Take the time to meet members of your audience before you start to speak. Ask them about their cares and concerns and what they’d like to get out of your speech. Then use their input when you are delivering your speech and refer to them by name. Doing this changes what could be another generic speech into a customized learning experience for your audience.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: Do you think that it is possible to over customize a speech for a given audience?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Communicator Blog is updated.
P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Communicator Newsletter are now available. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Have you ever been giving a speech when all of a sudden you thought to yourself “I wonder what they are thinking?” I mean, you’re standing up there running your mouth and the audience is sitting out there looking at you, but do you really know what’s running through their heads right then? If you did know, how would that change what you were saying? It turns out that the best speakers DO know what their audience is thinking and they DO adjust their speeches to match this. You can do it also – you just need to have emotional intelligence…

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Never Be Lonely Again: How To Include Your Audience In Your Speech

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 04:01:15 +0000

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Friends Don’t Let Friends Speak All Alone

Why Does Giving A Speech Have To Be So Lonely?

Let’s face it – anyone can give a speech. However, not anyone can give a good speech. It sure seems as though if you’re going to go to all of the effort of preparing and delivering a speech, you sure would like to do a good job of it. That means that you’re going to have to find a way to really connect with your audience. Guess what – it turns out that this is actually pretty easy to do. The trick is that you have to start to use more “people words” when you speak…

It’s All About How You Say Things

Once you understand what I’m talking about this is going to be a simple concept – it’s just that it may be a bit difficult for me to explain. Let’s start our discussion by thinking back to the last time that you sat down to create a speech. I’m sure that what was front and center in your mind as you wrote your speech was the point that you were trying to make by giving the speech. There’s no problem with this.

Where we run into problems is when you sit back and take a look at the speech that you’ve written: I’m willing to bet you that it’s pretty cold and impersonal. Don’t get me wrong, you’ve probably did a great job of getting your main point across; however, it’s not going to be an effective speech because you’re not going to be able to connect with your audience.

The way to fix this problem of great speech / lousy connection is to go back and plug in more “people words” . These types of words are very clear references to human beings just like you, me, and your audience. The more of these types of words that you can include in your speech, the warmer your speech will appear and the easier it will be to connect with your listeners. Oprah does this all the time.

Kevin Johnston and Tennille-Lynn Millo are writers who use this technique in their work. The most effect technique that they’ve found to use is to start to ask the question “who” when you are reviewing your speech. What you will be trying to do is to replace the impersonal “the sales department” with “Mike and the rest of the team in the Sales department”. See how much warmer that is?

The Problem With Statistics

I can already see some of you rolling your eyes – look Dr. Jim, my speech is filled with facts and stats – there’s nothing warm and personal about it. Well, you’ve got a point there but never say never. Even this type of speech can be warmed up with some more people words.

Take an ugly stat: about two thirds of U.S. adults are either overweight or obese. Ouch, but who cares – that’s cold and impersonal. How could you warm this one up? Simple, say something like “If you and your two best friends were in the room with us today, statistics say that that at least two of you would be either overweight or obese”. Much better!

Does Anyone Have A Body?

One of the reasons that so many speeches fail to connect with their audience is because what’s being discussed is not human – and so your audience tunes the discussion out. If you take the time to apply human words to non-human things you’ll be able to get your audience’s attention back.

The classic phrase “take a bite out of crime” is known by everyone. You can apply the same technique by saying “we’ve got to kick the competition” or “we want to stop crawling towards our goals and get up and start to run.”

It’s Name Time

The final way to warm your speech up and make a better connection with your audience may be the simplest of them all: start name dropping. When you are looking over your speech, search for places where you reference a position or a role and instead of saying “the company’s treasurer”, replace it with “Tom, the company’s treasurer”.

If you want to take this up a notch even more, if you can insert names of people who are in your audience you’ll score even more points with them. This is one of the reasons that the great speakers show up early for a speech and chat with the audience – they are collecting names to use later on in their speech.

What All Of This Means For You

It’s all too easy to write a cold and impersonal speech. It might do a good job of discussing our main topic; however, it’s going to be a waste of your time to deliver it if you can’t connect with your audience.

Taking the time to review the speech that you’ve written and working in “people words” will provide you with the opportunity to warm your speech up. Every speech can benefit from this kind of attention including speeches that have lots of statistics.

The more names that you can use in your speech, the more of a connection you’ll be able to establish with your audience. If you can work the names of actual audience members into your speech, then you will be well on your way to becoming a great speaker…

Question For You: Do you think that it would be possible to make a speech too warm – should some speeches not connect with an audience by design?

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

I don’t know about you, but more and more I’ve been finding myself being asked to deliver speeches that have technical information in them. I’ve got a great deal of self confidence; however, having had to sit through more than my share of boring technical presentations this is the one type of speech that scares me the most. There’s got to be a better way…

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Act Up Or Sit Down!

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:01:50 +0000

Photo Credit
If You Aren't Acting While You Are Speaking, Then Sit Down

When I come to hear you speak, no matter if it’s at a departmental project status report or at a local restaurant or even if it was at a convention, the worst thing that you can do is to waste my time. What are you going to do about this?

Why So Many Speakers Suck

Let’s be frank here – most speakers that you listen to really aren’t that good. In fact, the ones that we think are good may not really be all that good – they may just be better than the ones who are really bad! What’s going on here? It’s actually pretty simple, most speakers are boring. Who wants to listen to that?

All too often a speaker will focus exclusively on what they are going to be saying and spend little or no time thinking about how they are going to say it.

If you need an analogy to clear things up, this would be like a chef who worries about what ingredients go into a meal without spending any time thinking about how to actually cook the thing. Sure he’ll be able to make something, but it’s not going to taste very good.

Fixing The Problem Of Your Boring Speeches

You are in a rut. You’ve found a particular speaking style that you believe suits you (that means that it worked once and you’ve stuck with it ever since) and you have become what we all fear the most – a boring speaker. How are we going to fix this problem?

You are going to have to take action. You are going to have to start to experiment with the unknown. You are going to have to step into the world of theater.

Birgit Starmanns has spent time in both the world of speaking as well as the world of theater. She points out that actors spend their time working hard to allow the audience to feel what the actor is currently feeling. In order to make this happen they use six tools:

Quotes: quotes are a powerful way to invite someone else into your speech. All too often speakers just stick any old quote into their speech in order to give themselves credibility – don’t do that. Instead, make sure any person that you invite into your speech by using their quote helps to move your speech along and gives you more creditability with your audience.

Roles: It’s just you up there and that can get pretty boring for your audience. How about if you stop being you for a bit and turn into someone else? You need to make it very clear to your audience that you are doing this, otherwise they are going to think that you’ve all of a sudden lost it. I’ve used this during internal status reports in order to bring the voice of other departments (e.g. finance) into my presentation.

Props: This is one of the simplest things to use, and yet all too few speakers take the time to think about what props would help them get their point across. In the past during presentations to sales teams, I’ve used marketing brochures from their competitors that they instantly recognized in order to drive a point home.

Staging: I hate it when a presenter acts like a block of stone and stands in one place during an entire presentation. You’ve got the entire stage / front of the room / etc. – use it! In fact, as you move from section to section in your speech, move to a different spot to speak and your audience will understand that you’ve moved on in the speech.

Costumes: Ok, so you’ve got to be careful here depending on your audience, but you should at least consider it for every speech that you give. I’m not talking about a full on Hollywood costume, but rather wearing something that will enhance your message. I’ve used a chef’s hat during a presentation to show that we were “cooking up” some new products to sell – you get the point.

Audience Participation: Do you feel lucky? Well, do you? Bringing someone from your audience up on stage during a presentation is a huge risk. However, it’s a great way to capture everyone’s attention – they will all be breathing a sigh of relief that it wasn’t them that got picked. If you are ready to interact well with you victim, I mean volunteer, then your speech definitely won’t be boring.

Final Thoughts

Anyone can give a boring speech – don’t let it be you. You’ve got to realize that no matter the setting in which you’ll be presenting in, be it a boardroom or a convention hall, you are ultimately putting on a performance for your audience.

Not everybody is a born entertainer, but that’s ok. Where you’ll really tick me off is if you don’t at least try. Theater actors have to connect with their audience every time they put on a show. In order to do this they pull out all of the stops and use every device that they have available to them in order to make their performance unforgettable.

You need to learn from them, research their techniques, and then apply them to your next speech where appropriate. You may not turn into the next Robert De Niro or Glenn Close, but that doesn’t matter. You won’t be giving boring speeches anymore and that’s all that matters…!

What’s the one thing that you can do to make your next speech unforgettable?

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Bored audiences will get up and walk out of your speeches. How would you keep the attention of 400+ engineers who were attending an industry dinner event that they didn’t really want to be at on a weekday evening? I recently had the opportunity to be the master of ceremonies at such an event – great gig, tough crowd.

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How Boys Can Talk To Girls (And Visa Versa)

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:00:15 +0000

Reaching An Audience Of The Opposite Sex Can Be Difficult (c) - 2008 by Steve Hopson

Man, as though giving a speech wasn’t hard enough already, then you go ahead and throw that gender thing in there and all of a sudden it gets that much tougher! It can be a challenge when you are asked to talk to an audience made up of members of the opposite gender. How can you not screw-up this speech?

Boys Talking To Girls

Male presenters need to adapt their speeches when they are presenting to a primarily female audience. Neil Chethik has a great deal of experience presenting to female audience and he points out that even in the enlightened age in which we are living, there are still differences between the sexes and a skillful presenter has to know about these differences and find ways to steer around them.

R-e-s-p-e-c-t: A male presenter needs to treat his female audience with respect if he wants to have any chance of the speech going well. Women are generally willing to learn from a male presenter; however, they have to feel as though they are being respected.

Down To Earth: A man who starts off his presentation by telling his audience how wonderful he is will instantly lose the connection with his female audience. There’s no problem with you being an expert in your area, you just don’t want to come off as being a know-it-all. You can connect with your audience by telling a story that points out a personal failing or error and a female audience will connect with you.

Evidence Counts: One of the biggest errors that male presenters make when they are speaking to an all female audience is that they give an emotional presentation and leave out all of the facts. Yes, women do like stories; however, they won’t believe what you are saying unless you can back it up with hard evidence – facts & stats.

Humor: talk about a minefield! Many a good speech to a female audience has gone wrong when the male speaker tried to interject some humor. Your best best is to let the humor naturally flow from the stories that you are telling. Trying to work in one-liners can only lead to disaster.

Girls Talking To Boys

Yes, men have it rough when they try to address an all female audience. However, women have it at least as rough and perhaps even rougher when they are called on to present to an all male audience. Once again, there are several ways to make sure that this type of speech goes well:

Stand Up: One of the simplest issues for a woman to solve when she’s addressing a male audience is to make sure that they can see her. All too often,Ã‚Â a lectern can overwhelm a speaker and hid her from her audience. Stand on something if needed and adjust the mic so that it works correctly for your height.

No Expression Is Good: Often women speakers will become flustered because no matter what they say, the expressions on their male audience won’t change. It turns out that this is very normal – men don’t tend to display their emotions.

Be A Straight Shooter: Whereas women tend to enjoy hearing lots of stories, men tend to be more “to the point”. Clearly communicating your main points and making sure that any stories that you do tell quickly come to the point will help to hold their attention.

Be A Professional: Men do a good job of dealing with other men. They will struggle with any presenter who comes off as being too “girlish”. This impression can be caused by clothing, gesture, or even a vocal tone that takes away from what you have to say. Ask a male friend that you trust for help in order to make sure that this is not a problem.

Final Thoughts

Giving any presentation can be a challenge. When it is complicated by the additional challenge of having one gender present to the other gender, it can get even more tricky.

The key to making this type of speech a success is for the presenter to acknowledge the situation and adjust the presentation to match it. Men have to make sure that they show respect to their female audience and women need to not get flustered by their male audience’s lack of outward emotions.

Speakers who take the time to adjust what they are going to say and how they are going to say it when addressing the opposite gender will be able to intimately connect with your audience and make an lasting impact in their lives.

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Stop. How funny was the last speech that you gave? What – you were talking about how best to diversify a 401k basket of investments in order to incorporate more foreign exchange funds & there’s nothing funny about that? Wrong. You’re not trying hard enough. Stop being not funny.

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