Posts Tagged ‘audience’

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Hey Speaker, Do You Really Want Your Body To Be Saying That?

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012
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Do you know what your body is telling your audience?

Do you know what your body is telling your audience?

I’m sure that you’ve heard this before, but your audience is sizing you up once they lay eyes on you. Sure, we hope that they have good listening skills, but this may not matter. You’ve got somewhere in the neighborhood of about 30 seconds or so to make a good first impression. It’s not just what you say, but even more importantly it’s what your body is saying to your audience that is going determine what they think about your speech. Sure seems like we should figure out what your body is telling them…

The Eyes Have It

In the world of fancy PowerPoint slides in which we all live, it can be easy to think that it’s all of the extras like presentation tips that we bring to a speech that really count. Guess what, it’s the old standbys that will allow you to really communicate with your audience – simple things like making eye contact with them.

It turns out that your eyes are the most expressive part of your face. You do need to be careful where in the world you are giving your speech. In the West, direct eye contact is expected. Looking away or avoiding direct eye contact will make you come across as being shifty.

However, in Asian cultures, the opposite is true. Lower eyes are a sign of respect and honor. Too much direct eye contact will not be appreciated.

In the West, you want to shoot for making enough direct eye contact with your audience. You should try for making direct eye contact for roughly 60% of your speech.

Become A Mirror To Your Audience

Your audience will tell you what they are currently thinking by the way that they position their bodies. This is a great help to you when you want to connect with them.

In order to start to build a bridge from the stage to your audience, what you are going to want to do is to “mirror” your audience. This occurs when you take on the body posture and language that your audience currently has. If they are crossing their arms, then you do the same. If they are slumping in their chairs, then you do the same.

Once you’ve connected with them by mirroring their body language, then you can lead them to where you want them to go. When you uncross your arms, they’ll uncross their arms. When you stand up straight, they’ll sit up straight. You are in control of your audience when this happens.

3 Tips For Improving Your Body Language

We all know about the importance of public speaking. Having powerful and effective body language is a skill that every public speaker needs. In order to get this skill, you need to know what you have to do.

To boost your body language skills from where they are to the next level, there are 3 things that you need to do as a speaker:

  1. Watch People: You are going to be speaking to an audience that is already “somewhere”. You need to find out where that is and join them before you start to speak. Take a look at the body language that they are transmitting and then match them before you take the stage.

  2. Learn From The Pros: We can always learn from the professionals who are paid the big bucks to speak. YouTube is littered with speeches from professional speakers. Additionally, you can switch on any of the nightly news programs and watch a true professional use their body language to deliver the daily news to an audience of millions.

  3. Take A Step Back: In order to do a better job of using your body language to connect with your audience, you need to be able to understand what messages you are currently sending. Two ways to do this are to record yourself giving a speech and then play it back (yes, I know that this is hard to do; however, it really works) or practice giving your speech in front of a mirror.

What All Of This Means For You

In order to be an effective public speaker, you need to control not only the words that come tumbling out of your mouth, but also the story that your body is telling your audience. Being able to tell your story two different ways at the same time is one of the benefits of public speaking. This can be trickier than it sounds.

It turns out that with a bit of attention, you can control the message that your body is sending to your audience. To do this you need to be aware of your eyes, how your audience is positioning their bodies, and how others are seeing you.

Speakers who are able to combine their words and their body language so that they are both telling the same story can be very effective. Follow these suggestions and you’ll have your next audience eating out of your hand!

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

Question For You: If you are going to watch people in order to determine how to behave, who do you think you should watch – your host?

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

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make your next audience laugh. Good luck! We all know that humor is a powerful tool in the hands of a speaker; however, we all also know that on top of all of the other presentation tips that you are trying to get right, it’s quite difficult to use humor correctly. How about if we talk about two tips that will maximize the importance of public speaking and make it easy for you to have your next audience rolling in the aisles during your next speech?

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Does Your Audience Like The Way That You Move Speaker?

Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
Image Credit You don't need to dance while you are speaking, but you do need to move

You don't need to dance while you are speaking, but you do need to move

This giving a speech thing is hard to do! Think of all of the various things that you need to do at the same time: remember the words that you want to say, keep eye contact with your audience, keep your hands at your sides, maximize your audience’s listening skills, etc. Oh yeah, there’s one more thing – you need to remember to dance…

Why Moving Your Body While Speaking Is So Important

When it comes to moving your body, today’s speakers get a lot of mixed messages from the so-called experts. On one hand, since new speakers tend to be nervous and move around way too much, they are often told to find a spot and to then plant their feet there and not to move.

This is a good way to solve the problem. However, it just creates another problem: as a speaker you suddenly become quite boring. That’s right I said the “B” word – boring. You need to remember that in addition to the words that you are saying, your body has a language of its own and it’s trying to tell its own story – using body language. By not moving, you are muzzling this conversation with your audience.

Additionally, when you are in front of an audience giving a speech, despite the importance of public speaking, you are not one of them. You are removed from them. In order to be a successful speaker you need to find a way to break down the wall that exists between you and your audience. The good news is that you already know how to do this – use your body language.

How To Effectively Move Your Body While Giving A Speech

Knowing that you need to move your body in order to support the words that you are saying is an important first step. The next step is to discover exactly how to go about doing this.

The first thing that you need to do is to get closer to your audience. If you stand away from them for your entire speech, then you will be seen as being remote and distant. Connect with them by stepping in to the audience for at least part of your speech or, if you are on a stage, step down into the audience for a portion of your speech.

Before you start your speech, you are going to want to pick out three different spots where you’ll stand during your speech. The reason for doing this is that it will allow you to customize the content that you deliver from each position.

You’ll use the first position to deliver the bulk of your presentation. Often times during your speech, you’ll make a point and then you’ll explore alternatives. Use your second position as the place that you’ll stand when you are off on these side tangents. Move back into your primary position when you start your mainstream discussion once again.

Finally, your third position will be reserved for those times during your speech that you want to get closer to your audience. Use this position to walk out into your audience and to become closer to them.

What All Of This Means For You

On top of everything else that you need to do as a speaker, forget presentation tips — you also have to learn to use your body in a way that will support the words that you are saying. In other words, you need to learn to dance while you give a speech in order for your audience to get the full benefits of public speaking.

The one thing that you don’t want to do is to just plant your feet and not move. This might have been good advice when you were just starting out, but it no longer works. You need to come up with ways to let your body language talk to your audience.

Getting closer to your audience is a great way to do this. Walking out in to the audience allows you to become one with them. Picking three different spots to use while you are delivering your speech is another way to accomplish this.

Body language is a powerful communication tool that speakers can use to truly connect with their audience. You need to take the time before you give your next speech to come up with ways that you can use this tool to make an impact and change lives!

- 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 use too much body language when delivering a 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

I don’t know about you, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found myself in a situation in which I needed to share some information with my audience that was too big, or too strange for them to be able to grasp it. What’s a speaker to do? I knew that if I just told them the fact or statistic that I had, there was no way that they would remember what I had said. I needed a better way – isn’t there some collection of presentation tips that would help in this situation? It turns out that there is a better way – use an analogy.

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Video: Persuade An Audience Using 3 Secrets Used By Presenters

Sunday, August 28th, 2011

Dr. Jim Anderson investigates how a speaker can persuade an audience to take action.

Dr. Anderson reveals the secrets that you can use during your next speech to get your audience to agree that there is a problem that they need to take action to fix.

To get more tips and techniques for creating and delivering great speeches, sign-up for the free The Accidental Communicator newsletter at: http://goo.gl/GJ2Z1

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What Transformers 3 Taught Me About Giving Speeches

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011
Image Credit
Speakers need to find ways to Transform their speeches

Speakers need to find ways to Transform their speeches

A little while back I went out to the movie theater and saw the movie “Transformers 3: Dark Of The Moon”. If you are hoping for a movie review, I’m afraid that I’m going to end up disappointing you. However, it turns out that this movie has a lot of lessons for speakers if you know where to look for them…

What You Can Learn From A Bad Movie

Transformers 3 is not going to win any awards for being a good movie. It’s actually pretty bad. Yeah, yeah, it’s going to end up making a ton of money for the folks associated with it, but when the summer is over, this movie is going to be quickly forgotten.

Why do I say this? The #1 thing that is wrong with this movie is that its plot is just so bad. While you are watching a movie you want to be swept away by the movie. For that brief period of time that you are sitting in the darkened movie theater, you want the cares and concerns of your everyday life to go away while you become one with the movie. While I was watching Transformers 3, this did not happen!

The reason that I’m making this point is that as speakers, we know the importance of public speaking and this means that there is a need to be able to allow our audiences to get swept away by our speech. We need to find ways to allow them to leave their normal lives and become one with our speech. Perhaps we can learn from the train-wreck of a movie that Transformers 3 is.

Here’s one of the key points that throws the audience off track right off the bat. A key character in the first two movies, the hero’s girlfriend, isn’t in this movie (she got fired by the producer). Considering the key role that she played in the first two movies, this is an issue that needs to be dealt with. However, the movie just says that “it didn’t work out” and moves on. Not good enough for the audience – we want to know WHY it didn’t work out. We were invested in that character.

In the previous two movies the hero’s parents played a role as people that things happened to – comedy relief. Ok, I can live with that. In this movie the hero’s parents show up and appear to be poised to once again play a role. However, poof – all of a sudden they are gone, not to show up again. The audience is left confused – why where they there in the first place if they didn’t play a role in the movie’s plot?

Finally, things happen in the movie for no reason. As our hero hides in a building all of a sudden the bad guys start to attack that building for no reason. Yes, it puts the hero in peril, but there is no reason for this to happen except it allows a lot of nice special effects to be shown.

In the end, the audience is left feeling confused. When we give speeches we need to make sure that the plot of our speech holds together. The main point of our speech needs to be there in everything that we say – all of our stories, all of our main points. We can’t introduce topics that have nothing to do with our main point. Finally, everything that we say needs to move our audience closer to our closing – there should be no unexplained parts of our speech.

Why Is This Movie So Popular?

This movie is a stinky movie. However, it’s going to make a lot of money. This bring up an interesting point for speakers: if it’s so bad, why is it going to make so much money?

Frist off, the director used his listening skills to understand what his audience wanted and he got one thing right: the movie has a lot of action. Almost from the get go things move at a break-neck speed. Even though the plot has holes in it that are so big that you could drive an 18-wheeler though, since you are moving so fast you tend to notice this less.

Next, the movie’s hero spends most of his time on the big screen in life-threating situations. You are constantly wondering how he is going to get out of his current predicament. You know that he will, it’s just that you don’t know HOW he will and so you are forced to keep on watching.

Oh yeah, there is that romance thing where its hero gets the girl, hero loses the girl, hero gets the girl. We all like a good love story and so we need to know how they get back together so we must keep watching.

Finally, in all such movies we all know that the good guys will eventually win. We just don’t know how they are going to do it. Therefore we’ll stay until the end of the movie in order to find out.

This is all standard movie stuff. We watch because we get hooked on some part of the story and we want to see how it is going to turn out. As speakers we need to realize that we can do the same thing. This type of control is a bigger deal that just using a few presentation tips. One of the benefits of public speaking is that you control the flow of your speech. In your opening you need to present your audience with a problem or a challenge that you keep coming back to during the speech. Finally, during your closing you need to wrap it up – how can the challenge be overcome?

What All Of This Means For You

So in the end, let’s be honest here. Transformers 3 was a pretty lousy movie. I’m not really sure what I expected, the previous two were not all that good, but this one was by far the worst. It wasn’t the acting that was so bad (but it was pretty bad), but rather the plot.

It turns out that plot really does matter for a movie. Likewise, when you are giving a speech the plot of your speech matters also. There has to be a reason for you to give the speech and that has to form the basis of its plot. You can’t just introduce new characters into stories. You have to tell your audience what happens to the people that you talk about. Additionally, if you choose to include something in your speech there had better be a good reason for it.

A bad movie can still end up making money if it has stars or if it has the latest and greatest technical effects. Your next speech is going to have a much smaller budget than even the cheapest movie. That means that you’re going to have to make sure that the plot of your speech keeps your audience’s attention. Take the time to do this well and you’ll have found a way to transform your next speech!

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

Question For You: Do you think that your next speech would be more successful if you have a happy ending?

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

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Read A Good Book Lately? How About “Everyone Communicates Few Connect”

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010
Image Credit The secret to a giving a good speech is to connect with your audience

The secret to a giving a good speech is to connect with your audience

So I’m not sure if there is really any big payoff for taking the time to write about how to become a better speaker; however, if there is, then it’s in getting the opportunity to review new books. Oh, and I get the books for free with no obligation to give a good review – how cool is that?

The other day I received John Maxwell’s Everyone Communicates, Few Connect: What the Most Effective People Do Differently book in the mail. Now I must confess that I had never heard of John Maxwell before his publisher sent me a copy of his book to review, but it turns out that he’s a former minister who has become a very successful leadership speaker and coach.

John Maxwell’s new book deals with one of the fundamental problems that we all face when giving a speech: how can we make our words count? Sure, with a little luck we can summon the courage to get up there and give the speech, but what can we do to really connect with our audience and change their lives? Maxwell thinks that he’s got the answers that we’ve been looking for…

The Problem With Speaking: You Are Wasting Your Time

The problem doesn’t lie in the words that we say, but rather in the impact that those words have on others – or don’t have. You’ve probably heard the phrase “talk is cheap” – there’s a reason that this phrase is used so much, it’s because it’s true.

If you are looking for a scientific way to determine when you’ve been successful in connecting with your next audience, sorry about that – it doesn’t exist. Maxwell points out that this is the kind of thing that a speaker will just “sense” when it happens. On the other hand, if you’re not connecting, you’ll be able to sense that also!

So in order to not waste your time, you need to connect. Just what is this connecting thing? Maxwell defines it in the following way: “Connecting is the ability to identify with people and relate to them in a way that increases your influence with them.”

The Answer Is 5 + 5

In his book, Maxwell lays out a system for any speaker to use in order to boost your ability to connect with your audience. One of the most important points that he makes right off the bat is that if you ever want to have any hope of connecting with your audience, then you’re going to have to make a fundamental shift and stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about them. What are their needs? What do they want from you?

Maxwell lays out what he calls his five “connecting principles” which are the fundamentals that you need to understand before you are going to be able to connect with an audience. These include such things as understanding that connecting requires energy and it is actually more of a skill that we can all develop instead of a talent that some have and others don’t.

The second half of his book is taken up with what is the real payoff: how to develop your ability to connect with your audience. Maxwell shares his five “connecting practices” which are explained in a way that speakers can use them to boost their ability to connect.

I won’t go into them here (buy the book, read the book!), but these practices are things that you already know, but may not be using. One that resonated with me is the “Connectors Do the Difficult Work of Keeping It Simple” practice. I know that that is important; however, it took Maxwell reminding me of it to get me to understand just how harmful it can be to your ability to connect with your audience if you overload them.

What All Of This Means For You

So I was impressed. For me, connecting with my audience is one of the most important skills that any speaker can have and to this day I keep trying to do a better job of it myself. John Maxwell’s book arrives at an important time for all of us: audience are becoming more demanding and we need to do a better job of connecting with them.

What’s been missing in the past has been instructions on how to make a connection with your audience happen. In his book, Maxwell lays out 5 connecting principles to guide us to becoming better connectors and then details 5 connecting practices for speakers to use to make this happen.

If, like me, you are looking for ways to do a better job of connecting with your audiences then John Maxwell’s new book is well worth you checking it out. Rare is the book on public speaking that can provide a reader with solid suggestions on how to become a more effective speaker. This book accomplishes this and makes it easy for the reader to become a better speaker simply by reading and putting its suggestions into practice.

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

Question For You: How can you tell when you are really connecting with an audience?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Communicator Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

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