Understand your Audience

You have paid out convention fees, travelled a great distance and given up your valuable time to hear presentations about new and emerging trends in your field, You sit amongst a crowd of your peers as a speaker is introduced, striding across the stage to shake the hands of the master of ceremonies. The applause settles and you and the rest of the audience lean forward towards the speaker as the presentation is about to commence.

As a presenter we need to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of the audience in that moment – what is it that they are hoping for? What are they expecting? How do we reach out to them?

Understanding your audience is critical to establish esteem, engagement and enthusiasm, all of which are going to add power to your presentation.

Esteem is about how the audience sees you as a presenter. Many traits will affect the level of esteem with which the audience sees you including you past interactions with the group, what they have heard about you, the introduction to your presentation and even your physical appearance.

Building esteem as a presenter is about building an authority with your audience convincing your audience that you have something to share with them.  For a formal presentation this maybe achieved though the introduction and this is an opportunity to establish that first links.

Many times I have heard speakers introduced with a resume, providing a generic description of what experience and qualifications the speaker holds to establish their authority with the audience. While effective to a degree, rather than a generic resume I find value in tailoring the introduction to both the purpose of the presentation and the audience.

A generic introduction may include qualifications that are not overly relevant to the message or the audience and the audience really does not expect (or for that matter want) to hear about every single detail. Ask yourself the simple question “What in my past would make the audience want to hear from me”.

In practical terms, a strategy is to quickly tailor a presentation is to have a full written introduction that is able to have the irrelevant elements quickly deleted. This tailoring allows the audience to get to know why they should listen to you without having the audience fall asleep waiting for you to take the stage.

Having a sense of esteem from your audience will provide confidence in your presentation, a sense that your audience respects you and is wanting you to succeed in sharing your message, however esteem on its own means that the audience think you have something to say, but not yet that they have any reason to listen – these reasons are the engagement of the audience.

The most basic element to engagement is the often over-used phrase “What’s in it for me?” This does however capture an essential question – what is motivating the audience. The earlier in your presentation you can capture what is motivating your audience, the higher the level of engagement the audience will have in the presentation, so as a result most presentations trying to drive those motivators home in the introduction and link the audience and the speaker.

Opening with an appropriate question that focuses the audience on their own needs is effective. Asking an audience of teachers to reflect on their own memories of their schooling and to think of a teacher that made a difference in their own lives and to move the group to the desire to make a difference in the lives of their students would be effective in building engagement, however the same opening to a group of accountants would not be as effective.

If you have esteem they are prepared to listen to you talk at them, if you have engagement they want to listen to you talk with them, but enthusiasm is about the audience wanting not just for you to share with them but are actively hoping that you will carry them on a journey through the presentation.

This enthusiasm is sometimes referred to as the energy in the room. The time of day, previous speakers, the weather and the environment can all have an affect on the energy levels and experience in delivering presentations will be your best friend when determining the energy level.

When developing the presentation, think of the energy level appropriate for the presentation.  Enthusiasm is not just the type of speech of a fire and brimstone preacher trying to elicit a “Amen” after every sentence – while this is an example of visible enthusiasm it is equally possible to have an audience with quiet energy, which maybe more appropriate to the content and culture of your audience.

Enthusiasm results from an audience that respects the person delivering the message, both that the speaker has something to say and that the message is relevant to the audience, delivered in a way they understand and relate to.

Tips for taking telling to a true transfer of ideas

·         Prepare a tailored introduction to establish esteem in your audience before you even open your mouth

·         Know what your audience have in common and use those common traits to engage them

·         Understand the energy in the room and make sure that it suits the presentation

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Article reproduced with permission of
Robert Green from RJGreenConsulting
http://rjgreenconsulting.blogspot.com/

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