Four Questions Your Audience Is Asking Before You Speak

When you stand up to speak, remember that everyone in the room has their own thoughts running through their minds. Some might be thinking about lunch, while others are in the middle of solving a problem left on their desk. Some might be trying to recall where they’ve seen you before. Most of them may not even realise they’re distracted, and a few are genuinely interested in what you have to say. Keep in mind, none of them is a blank page waiting to be filled; each brings their own stories and focus.

The encouraging part is that they want to connect with you. They are not the obstacle. You have a very short window to capture their attention, interest and curiosity, and to give them a reason to stay with you. Mindfulness is what makes that window count.

They will decide in that window, and they will decide using four questions.

Nobody asks them out loud. Most of the people in front of you would struggle to tell you they were asking anything at all. The questions run underneath the politeness, and they get answered in the first minute or so from whatever you give the room to work with: how you walk to the front, what you do with the silence before you start, whether your first sentence is about them or about you.

You are answering all four whether you mean to or not.

1. Who are you?
2. Why are you here?
3. Why are we here?
4. Do you really believe what you are telling us?

One — Who are you?

Not your name and title. Not the offices you run or the numbers you hit. They want to know whether you are relatable, whether you understand what they are dealing with, and whether they can trust you.

The first words you speak settle most of it. A short, personal story tied to your topic will do more than any biography, because it shows them what you value and what makes you human.

Tell it once you have shown them you understand the room they have walked into. Told too early, a story is an introduction, and people sit through introductions. Told thirty seconds later, after you have named something they recognise, the same story arrives as reassurance.

Two — Why are you here?

Your personal story usually answers this one as well. What have you learned that is relevant to what you are about to say?

Don’t boast about your qualifications. Tell them why you went and got them. Credentials are easy to say and impossible to argue with, which is why we all reach for them, but they are entirely about the past, and nobody came to hear about your past.

What is so important that it couldn’t be conveyed through an email?

Three — Why are we here?

Most people in your audience have sat through presentations that were too long, too dull, or nothing to do with them, and they arrive braced for another one. Your job is to tell them why they are in the room, and to make the prospect inviting.

Make them a promise. Not “I’ll bring you up to date on the project”, which is only a description of how the next twenty minutes will be spent. Promise them a specific benefit: something that will make their work easier, clearer or more successful. Make it concrete enough that they could hold you to it afterwards, and the room will relax.

Four — Do you really believe what you are telling us?

However good your slides are, the room is working out whether they like you and whether you mean it. They need to feel it in your voice, your face and your body.

It is also the only one of the four you don’t have to learn. You already answer it well every time you talk to someone about something you genuinely care about, without notes, without slides, and without a thought about how you are coming across. Nothing has to be acquired here. It only has to survive the journey into the room.

So, the work is not to manufacture belief but to find yours before you start building, and then to resist editing it out as you go. Ask yourself what you actually believe here and why it matters to you, and keep the answer in front of you while you work.

If you look honestly and cannot find it, that is worth knowing on day one rather than the night before. It tells you the presentation needs rethinking rather than rehearsing, and that is a far easier problem to solve at the beginning than at the end.

Where this sits

These four are the Resonance layer of The Presenter’s Operating System, the framework all my work is built on. Resonance is understanding these particular people well enough to build for them rather than for yourself, and it is the layer most presenters skip, because it is the only one you cannot do at your own desk with the door shut.

They sit alongside the seven questions I ask people to answer before they build anything, which is the M Point.

The next time you are asked to present, write the four questions at the top of a blank page before you write anything else. Don’t start building until you can answer all four out loud.

If you need a little help with your public speaking and presentation skills:

– Book yourself onto a powerful public speaking course.

– Invest in some really good one to one public speaking coaching.

– Get yourself some excellent presentation skills training.

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