Getting engaged and engaging your audience when speaking are really quite similar. Both require passion, a desire to shout to the world your intentions and a commitment to fearlessly jumping in with both feet.
Take a look at my latest blog and see what not to do when presenting. The speaker didn’t ‘put a ring on it’ in this case.
Some of you who know me that I can be fairly opinionated, I can be fairly passionate, I’m really, really a passionate person! I get way excited about beautiful, exciting, wonderful things and I get really angry and annoyed at injustices in the world and things that irritate me. One of those things that irritates me people who do not engage their audience when they get up to speak…
So deep breathes because I had to endure a presenter who did pretty much everything that you could possibly do wrong. I need to share this in the hope that you, yourself don’t do these things. That you can acknowledge and recognize and go “Oh yes, ok right, I’m not going to do that and I am doing the right thing…”
So what this guy did…
The presentation started off, there was a voice and us thinking “well okay dramatic effect, he’s going to start at the back of the room and walk to the front and dazzle us all…” But no! He started at the back of the room and he stayed at the back of the room! So there was just this voice coming, and after a while a few of us where looking around trying to find where the voice was coming from the back of the room.
When I located him, not only was he standing at the back of the room, he was standing at the back of the room looking at his laptop the whole time. What this meant was that he was actually looking down to his laptop so his voice was projected down it wasn’t projected out towards us.
What happens sometimes when you project your voice down into your laptop, and this can happen from the front of room also, if you’re looking down the sound bounces back to you and you can actually drop your volume. If you’re not experienced then you drop your volume because you sound come weirdly loud to yourself. So not only are you not looking out and projecting out your voice to your audience. You’re looking down and you drop your volume. It becomes a harder person to hear. He’s at the back of the room, he’s looking down, he’s muted his volume and he spoke with virtually no personality it just drawn on and on and on. He had a monotone voice, as slide after slide, after slide and these were horrible slides – which is another act for another time but these where slides that just had so many lines and bullet points and details and little matching things that came on and *deep breath*.
There was no eye contact, there was no connection with the audience, there was no feeling and passion to what he was saying. We didn’t get that he loved what he was talking about, that he wanted to share that with us, and no matter how knowledgeable he was if I don’t get that you love what you’re talking about that you’re interested and you want me to know about it then I feel like I’m wasting my time and you can feel like you’re wasting your time listening to people and I’m sure you’ve had that experience where you had been listening to someone and it feels like “they can’t be bothered so why should I?”
I encourage, *sunshine and sparkles*, I encourage you to engage your audience. Connect with them, show them that you love what you’re talking about. Show them that you know what you’re talking about, make eye contact, and smile! Actually be aware of who they are, what they need, and speak to them with information and stories and case studies that actually relate to them.
If you do these, then you will engage your audience – beautifully!
Now I know I know this has been a big all rant but I’d still love to hear your comments.
So what do you think? Have you had to sit through a presentation that has been similar to that? When have you felt engaged as an audience member? I’d love to hear your comments. Please share with us in the comments box below or like us on facebook and share your comments there too.