To connect with your audience give them SPACE

The best way to connect with your audience give them SPACE

In our training workshops, we are often asked to help people be like other presenters they’ve seen, heard and admire.

Our response is always the same; you don’t have to be like someone else to become a great presenter.

The best presenters are highly individual

They don’t perform to a template or prescribed formulas.

The presenters we tend to admire as ‘great’ speakers, get results through their own authentic personalities and speaking styles.

That said, we do believe that many of those high impact presenters share one thing in common.

It’s their the unquestionable ability to connect with their audience. Here at Mindful Presenter we have a simple motto which we love and live by:

‘Connecting is everything’

The best way we know to connect with an audience is through giving them SPACE:

Strength

Passion

Awareness

Connecting

Emotion

That doesn’t mean you have to change yourself or follow a step by step blueprint.

It means finding a way to reflect these qualities in a speaking style that works for you.

STRENGTH

Strength is the foundation of any great presentation.

It includes strength of your:

– Content

– Message

– Belief

– Impact

It means presenting your message with confidence, conviction and sincerity.

You don’t have to be an extrovert or naturally confident person to speak with strength. You just have to believe in your message and in the difference it will make to your audience.

Strength comes from speaking with the tenacity and faith that you have something important to say.

Without strength most presenters struggle

In her article, ‘The One Thing You Must Do To Make Your Message Relevant’, Stephanie Scotti sums it up beautifully:

‘To state it simply, if you don’t believe in your message, neither will your listeners. Some speakers make the mistake of relying too heavily on personal charisma, hoping that will be enough to get the audience to buy into the content of the presentation. In reality, that doesn’t work. People can sense when something is “off.” They might not be able to explain it but listeners know when you are not authentic, and the result is an automatic disconnect. You can’t make it by faking it!’

Your content needs to be rich and strong

It also has to be supported by your unwavering belief that it is of signifiance to your audience.

In the absence of that belief it will be forgotton by the time your audience return to their desk or the car park.

One of the many sources of anxiety for presenters is their content.

Presenters often have a wealth of knowldege and data

If they don’t feel the personal relevance and value it will have for their audience, they will feel excessively anxious.

Anxiety exists to protect both ourselves and our audience.

I like the way Katharina Star, PhD, writes about it in her article, The Benefits of Anxiety and Nervousness.

At Mindful Presenter we believe it’s the minds way of ensuring that we don’t just dump a ton of data on human beings and hope that they ‘get it’.

Everything we share with our audience has to be crafted to make a difference to their professional or personal lives.

PASSION 

Passion is the jewel in the crown of memorable presenting. Arguably, it’s a presenters greatest strength.

It’s hard to connect without passion

Passion isn’t a gimmick, tool or technique; it’s a feeling, an intention and drive.

When you show up with passion for a presentation people pay attention.

They know when you’re passionate because you are animated, engaging, and enthusiastic.

Passion is the art of showing you really care about the topic you are presenting. If you don’t care, you can be very confident that your audience will sense your  apathy in a heartbeat.

I like the way Dr. Nick Morgan puts it in his article, ‘How to Communicate with Passion:’

‘We don’t fully trust people until we’ve seen them get emotional — angry, sad, ecstatic — because these moments allow us to take the measure of their values.’

Even the most mundane content can be brought to life through passion

You can demonstrate passion by sharing insights, stories and personal experiences.

Once your intention is clear and meaningful it becomes much easier to speak with passion.

These 5 tips included in, Five Ways To Speak Passionately Without Getting Too Emotional. are worth considering.

AWARENESS

Awareness is the beginning of the presenter’s journey.

It starts way before PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi, or any other visual aid software presenters are normally keen to dive into.

Awareness begins with clarity of:

– Who your audience are

– What you have to offer them; how can you help

– Your message and the difference it will make

– How much your audience know and care at the moment

– You personal communication strengths and challenges

– What you want your audience to do

Awareness is a skill which like any other skill can be nurtured, strengthened and developed.

If you’re interested in learning how to develop a much higher level of personal awareness take a look at and listen to the audio link in Dr Dan Siegel’s, ‘Wheel of Awareness.’

CONNECTING

‘Connecting is everything’.

We all have one thing in common; the need to feel connected!

Presentations are an incredible opportunity to fuse that connection.

Self- disclosure is a great way of starting. It involves letting your audience into a little part of your world by telling them something about you.

Sharing your personal experiences, feelings, hopes and even anxieties will allow your audience to connect with you far more openly.

Show your audience you:

– Are human and vulnerable just like them

– Have their best interests at heart

– Care

– See things from their perspective

In his article, ‘How to Use The Power of Storytelling to Connect With Your Audience’ Pawan Kumar, shares a mutual belief that:

‘Stories are a great medium to express your views, impress people and make a human connection with them.’

EMOTION

Emotion  is the deepest function of the mind.

What better way  is there to connect with your audience than by helping them to feel something?

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Maya Angelou

Be mindful about how you want your audience to feel at the beginning, during and at the end of your presentation.

In a previous article I wrote called, ‘The 5 Most Important Words in Business Presenting’, I shared our passionate belief that those 5 words are:

Please Make Me Feel Something

A simple but exremely powerful formula to increase the likelihood of your audience feeling something is to:

Smile

Be intimate

Look them in the eye

Express yourself

Loosen up

Our readers are always looking for powerful ways to give their audiences SPACE.

If you have some that work for you and would like to share please feel free to do so in the comments section.

If you need to connect more effectively with your audience:

– Book yourself onto a powerful public speaking course.

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

– Get yourself some excellent presentation training

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