Connecting is the key to high impact presenting

Connecting is the key to high impact presenting

Before each presentation skills training course or public speaking coaching session we run at Mindful Presenter, we ask every client one very important question.

‘What do you want your audience to feel?’

More often than not, the typical responses we hear are: informed, engaged or interested.

At Mindful Presenter we believe that’s not enough.

I can’t imagine that any presenter, regardless of their topic, message or intent, would want their audience to feel anything other than informed, interested and engaged. In fact, the absence of any one of those elements will leave your audience not only very uncomfortable but also frustrated for wasting their time.

Connecting with your audience is the answer

Whatever your position or role is, everyone wants to feel connected to you and your message.

They don’t just wasn’t the data; they want a dialogue.

Your audience want a conversation that they can relate to in a way that connects with them emotionally as well as intellectually.

What every audience wants from a presenter is trust, belief and a level of empathy that ensures they not only understand the message and receive it with clarity but that it sparks something emotionally too.

Connecting with your audience to help them feel:

Excited

Inspired

Supported

Empowered

Motivated

Invincible

Concerned

Angry

Determined

_________ You choose

Connecting starts with clarity of intention

In other words, deciding well in advance exactly what it is you want your audience to feel about your message and why. Once you have that clarity your next priority is to make sure that you feel it first.

Please keep in mind that if you want your audience to feel excited or inspired and you don’t feel it yourself, you can be certain your audience won’t either.

Here are 10 great steps you can take to ensure you connect with your audience

1. Don’t assume anything

The more you know your audience the more likely you are to be able to connect with them. Don’t make the mistake that many presenters make by assuming you know who they are, how they think and what they want and need from you. Do your homework and ask them.

Whether you are presenting to your boss, a client or your team, pick up the phone or send them an email asking them what they would really like you to include in your presentation.

2. Make it personal

If your content and message aren’t relevant to your audience, you won’t connect with them. Make sure that everything you say and show is personal and relevant to your audience in some way. If it’s not relevant, doesn’t serve any purpose or offer any value to your audience, then it’s just ‘noise’, which will quickly disconnect you.

3. Be maverick

Many business presentations are very similar. Professionals reading bullet point after bullet point or simply dumping information on their audience in the same monotone voice. A maverick challenges the status quo.

Be independent, innovative and dare to be different.

Don’t do what everyone else does.

4. Smile and make them smile too

A smile has the power to win allies and calm dissenters. It sends a very clear message to your audience that you are pleased and happy to be there. A smile can change your own emotional state in an instant and it can be as infectious as a yawn. Have you ever wondered why many of the great speakers inject humour in their speech?

It’s the best signal you can give your audience to relax in the knowledge that they are in good hands.

5. Stretch their minds

Nobody likes being lectured to but everyone likes a stimulating conversation. Ask your audience questions, even rhetorical ones; get them thinking. Ask them to use their imagination. Create images in their minds using examples of the point you are trying to make and how you’d like them to see things.

Tell them something they don’t already know, hadn’t thought about or couldn’t easily Google for themselves.

6.  Share personal insights

Show your audience that you have your own thoughts, values and opinions by sharing how you see things personally as well as professionally.  Instead of simply offering generic or even market perspectives, let them know exactly where you stand on the issue or topic and how you arrived there.

7. Be them

It’s extremely difficult to connect with fellow human beings if we are unable to see things from their perspective. Before you sit down to craft your presentation spend some time being your audience for a day.

In other words, imagine you were them; what would you care about, want to know and need to help you even further. Remember, you’re not simply making assumptions here because you’ve already asked them; your now taking it to another level.

8. Let them in

Be prepared to be a little vulnerable and let them in to your world. Give your audience at least a glimpse of the real you. Have the courage to lose the ‘corporate spokesperson’ from time to time.

Open up to them in a way that they can relate to personally as well as professionally. Focus on connecting with them.

9.Tell them stories

Our minds are all too easily overwhelmed with data and information.  There comes a point where we are all so overloaded with facts and numbers that we become numb to the ‘noise’ and begin to tune out.

Telling your audience short, relevant and compelling stories is the most powerful way of connecting with them.

10. Hold a gaze

It’s been written about for millennia. Every book, article, play or song which ever speaks of the key to human connection refers to the inherent power of eye contact.  Eye contact has the unrivalled potential to create, sustain or deepen any relationship.

It reduces resistance to persuasion, promotes trust, belief and sincerity. If you really want to connect with your audience emotionally as well as intellectually, be very sure to make eye contact with them.

The people we listen to, remember and whose words we act are on the ones we feel connected with.

‘Connecting is everything’

If you need a little help connecting 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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