Whenever I ask the people in my workshops and coaching sessions what they want their audience to feel by the end of their presentation, I usually hear a very consistent response: most say they want the audience to feel informed and engaged, almost as if audience engagement were the ultimate goal.
I understand why, because both matter, and I would never encourage anyone to stand up in front of a room without a clear intention to inform the people in it and hold their attention. What I tell my delegates, and what I want to share with you here, is that being informed and engaged matters, but it’s never enough
Information is a given, because it’s why your audience turned up in the first place, and if information were all they needed, you could have spared everyone an hour by sending an email or a well-written document they could read at their own pace and return to whenever they liked. Engagement is a prerequisite too, since nobody prepares a presentation hoping their audience will be bored, restless or quietly checking their phones under the table.
The difficulty is that neither of them, on its own, moves anyone to think differently, make a decision or change what they do on Monday morning. So here are seven thoughts to mull over the next time you sit down to prepare and ask yourself what you really want your audience to feel.
1. Information is the price of entry
Your audience expects to be informed, and they will certainly notice if you fail to do it, but they rarely remember a speaker simply for delivering accurate information clearly. What stays with people long after they have left the room is what that information meant to them, why it mattered, and how it made them feel about the choices in front of them.
Facts only truly resonate when people grasp what they mean for them personally. That’s why the same data can sometimes leave one audience unmoved while inspiring another to take action. The key isn’t the figures themselves, but the way the speaker helps the audience find significance in them.
2. Engagement is harder to see than we think
It is worth asking yourself what engagement actually looks like, and what it feels like to you when you are sitting in the audience. Most of us read it from the signals in front of us, the nods, the eye contact, the laughter in the right places and the questions at the end, and we take those signals as proof that our message is landing.
Audiences are typically polite, and many professionals are skilled at appearing attentive even when their minds are elsewhere, thinking about the next meeting, unanswered emails, or the train they need to catch. Even genuine engagement can be fleeting because, while we might remember a talk we truly enjoyed at the moment, it’s often hard to recall a single idea just a week later.
3. Engagement is the means and action is the end
Engagement holds your audience’s attention long enough for something important to happen, and every speaker needs to answer the question: what is that something? Think about the last time a presentation changed the way you worked, the way you saw a problem or the decision you made, and ask yourself whether it happened because you were informed and engaged or because something in that room made you care.
Behaviour changes when people have a reason that matters to them, and that reason is usually felt before it is thought through, which is why engagement on its own, however valuable, so rarely drives action or lasting change.
4. Name the feeling you actually want
Once you accept that informed and engaged are only the starting point, the more useful question becomes which specific feeling will move your audience towards the action you want them to take. You might want them to feel excited about an opportunity they had not seen until you showed it to them, inspired by what becomes possible if they commit to it, or motivated enough to leave the room and make the first move that same afternoon.
There will be moments when a quieter feeling serves your message better, such as confidence that they can do what you are asking of them or concern about a risk they can no longer ignore, and the skill lies in choosing the one that fits your message and the moment. Whichever you choose, tie it to something specific, because inspired, left on its own, can become just as vague and comfortable an answer as engaged. In The Presenter’s Operating System™, this sits within the Intention layer, which asks why you are standing up and what you want your audience to think, feel, and do; the feeling you choose is the bridge between what they think and what they do.
5. Why we reach for the safe words
Informed and engaged are comfortable answers because they ask nothing of us emotionally, and nobody is ever likely to challenge them. Saying that you want your board to feel uneasy, your team to feel proud, or your client to feel excited is a far more exposing thing to admit, because it means acknowledging that you are trying to move people, and in rooms where composure and objectivity are highly prized, that can feel risky, even unprofessional.
That discomfort is understandable, and it is worth recognising that it takes real courage to decide on a feeling and then commit to creating it, particularly when you have spent years being rewarded for sounding measured, neutral and safe.
6. Finding the courage to aim for a feeling
Courage usually begins with you rather than your audience, so start by asking yourself honestly how you feel about your subject, because if you feel nothing about it, there is little chance anyone listening will. Once you know what you feel, choose the one feeling you most want your audience to leave with and write it next to your message, so it guides every decision you make about your content.
Test each story, example and slide against that feeling, and let go of anything that informs without helping it grow. When the nerves arrive, remind yourself that you are not standing up to perform or to prove yourself; you are there because you have something helpful, important and valuable to share, and the feeling you have chosen is simply the way you help your audience recognise why it matters.
The reward for that courage is considerable, because a presentation that makes people feel something is one they remember, talk about and act on, and it achieves something no email or document could ever do on your behalf.
7. Feeling is honest when it is congruent
Some people worry that setting out to make an audience feel something is a form of manipulation, and it is a fair concern that deserves a clear answer. Manipulation begins when a speaker manufactures a feeling the facts do not support, usually to serve their own ego or agenda, and that kind of speaking tends to divide people far more than it unites them.
Choosing a feeling the facts genuinely warrant, and feeling it yourself before you ask anyone else to, is simply honest communication. Congruence makes it believable: if you want your audience to feel excited, you need to sound excited; if you want them to feel concerned, your voice, your face, and your presence need to carry that concern.
Beyond informed and engaged
If you would like to explore this in practice, our one-day public speaking courses in London give you the space to try it with real feedback, our presentation skills training for teams brings the same work into your organisation, and our one-to-one coaching lets us work together on the presentations that matter most to you.
The thinking behind how we work
The Presenter’s Operating System™ in full, free to read
If this has made you think about what you want your next audience to feel, please share it with a colleague who has a presentation coming up, because they may well be about to settle for informed and engaged.
Image courtesy of Canva.com
