A tactical strike approach

Targeting your audience with specific strategies allows you to establish that sense of rapport, to engage the audience and build a degree of emotional support to carry you as a speaker through your presentation.

Any group that you are delivering a presentation to will share certain things in common, and by incorporating these shared traits into your presentation, you are able to deliver a presentation that will be of more interest to your audience.

Some of these shared traits include geography, that your audience is all (or at least a large proportion are) from the same local community. For a speaker from outside the community, referencing local landmarks, historical events or even sporting teams communicates to your audience that while you may be an outsider you have taken the time to try to gain a level of understanding of them.

These can be quickly incorporated into your presentation simply by leaving space and undertaking some observation, for example “flying into <insert name> airport and travelling to my hotel with its view of <Insert River or landmark> the aspect I first noticed was the hospitality and friendliness of your city …”

Another trait that your audience might share is an interest or occupation. Particularly when addressing industry conferences or community sector conferences, there is something that has brought your audience together and through referencing and linking your presentation to this interest you are able to establish a link between yourself and your audience.

An example is a recent presentation we conducted to a conference of medical staff on communicating with patients – not being trained as a medical professionals we didn’t even try to establish a link through medical terminology or history but rather picked an obscure town planning law and presented it in a way that assumed the audience would understand what law was about – This introduction produced the expected responses of puzzled expressions on the audiences faces who were suspecting that either we or they were in the wrong conference.

We were then able to transition to the body of the presentation by saying “What I just told you would have perfect sense to a town planner with years of working experience, however to an audience without that professional background the message was lost … Each of you are professionals with many years experience and training in your field however you too may find your message being lost in the complexity …”

This established both the fact that we understand where our audience was coming from and also highlighted a “light on the hill” a common point where the audiences needs and our presentation meet, answering in the first minute of the presentation the questions lurking in the audiences mind: “What’s in it for me” and “What could this person possibly be able to tell me”

Another strategy is to add context to your presentation by drawing upon previous events the audience has shared. This might include a situation where you are the third or fourth presentation of the day – you could refer back to the content of an earlier presentation and link it to the content you are delivering. This establishes a common starting point and helps your audience see your presentation as being for them specifically rather than a mass produced, oft repeated script.

Your group might also consist of a core group that attend the recurring event each time and that you have addressed previously. Referencing your previous presentation allows the audience to connect, particularly if there was something noteworthy that occurred – “Some of you will remember the airline shut-down that was occurring at our last conference together, I am hoping this weekend will not produce similar dramas but the fear of being trapped here with you all was certainly not keeping me away …”

For groups you are not familiar with presenting to,  never be afraid to ask questions of the organisers of the conferences or events questions to discover more about the audience:

·         “What can you tell me about the participants?”

·         “How has the event been promoted? How did you advertise the event?”

·         “Is this an established group where the participants know each other or a new group?”

Such questions can provide valuable information as part of the process of developing your presentation. I would always suggest that despite all preparation for your presentation that you retain a degree of flexibility and if possible arrive at the event prior to your presentation and take the opportunity to speak to several audience participants.

While asking the organisers what they would us to speak about is a standard question, we always maintain an awareness that what the organisers think the audience needs to hear and what the audience actually are interested in hearing about maybe two quite separate things. Part of the art of presenting is in creating a presentation that meets both needs.

Reaching out to your audience through building on common experiences is a very effective way to build rapport and enthusiasm and is easy to achieve when deliberate effort is applied.

Tips for taking telling to a true transfer of ideas

·         Ask questions of event organisers to get to know your audience

·         Ask yourself what do your audience share in common?

·         Think about what things you and your audience share

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