Image Credit: Terry Shuck
So just exactly why do you go to the effort of giving speeches? It may be because you truly enjoy hearing yourself speak; however, I’m going to guess that the real answer is that you want to convince your audience to take action. You want your words to reach out to them and convince them that once you are done, they need to stand up and go do something that you convinced them needed to be done. Knowing that this is the effect that you want to have is one thing, getting people to do it is something else…
Motivating An Audience
When you are getting ready to deliver your next speech, one of the greatest complements that you can get is something like “You really ought to give that presentation as a TED talk.” There’s good and bad news in this observation. The good news is TED presentations have a reputation for being very good. The bad news is if you were to give a TED presentation, the expectations will be very high. You need to step up your game if you hope to keep your audience’s attention and make your message go viral like those TED speakers do.
In order for your next presentation to become as successful as a TED talk, you must obey the following four rules of public speaking. They start off by allowing yourself to unleash the master within you. You need to dig deep inside in order to identify your unique and meaningful connection to your presentation topic. The secret is that your passion can lead to mastery, and your passion lays the foundation of an extraordinary presentation. Could your deliver your next speech without using any slides? You would have to be able to command the attention of your audience through the passionate expression that you would bring to your topic. Understand that you cannot inspire others unless you are inspired yourself. You stand a much greater chance of persuading and inspiring your audience if you express your ideas enthusiastically and passionately in order to make meaningful connections with your audience.
To connect with your next audience you should tell stories to reach people’s hearts and minds. Brain scans have revealed that stories both stimulate and engage the human brain, helping you to connect with the audience and making it much more likely that your audience will agree with your point of view. Facts and data are must-have elements in any presentation that is intended to inspire action but remember that you cannot reach a person’s head until you touch their heart. Stories are what connects us.
The Best Speeches Grab Attention
Your audience will show up with an expectation that you are going to be teaching them something new. Our human brain loves novelty. An unfamiliar, unusual or unexpected element in your presentation will jolt your listeners out of their preconceived notions, and quickly gives them a new way of looking at their world. During your speech you should reveal information that is either completely new to your audience, packaged differently, or fresh and novel in how it solves an old problem. The goal of your speech should be to give your audience a new way of looking at the world in which they live.
Finally, if you want your next speech to be successful you will need to find a way to deliver jaw-dropping moments The jaw-dropping moment in your presentation is when you deliver a shocking, impressive or surprising moment that is so moving and memorable that it grabs the audience member’s attention and is remembered long after your presentation is over. Jaw-dropping moments create what neuroscientists call “an emotionally charged event”. This is a heightened state of emotion that makes it more likely your audience will remember your message and then act on it.
What All Of This Means For You
If we want to be able to grab and hold on to our next audience’s attention, we need to be able to write speeches that will be memorable. The speech that we create has to be able to cause our audience to understand what we are trying to share with them. Our ultimate goal is to motivate them to take action. We need to make sure that we can create speeches that will get our audience to take action. When you give a speech, you need to make sure that you are talking about something that you really care about. This is critical to enabling you to inject passion into your message. When you are creating your speech, you will want to find ways to work stories into it. Stories are how we can connect with our audience. Audiences want to learn something new by listening to your speech. Make sure that you include new or novel information for them. To make sure that your audience will remember your speech you need to make sure that it contains jaw-dropping moments that will be remembered long after you are done
speaking.In order to motivate your audience to take action you are going to have to first create a speech that will connect with them. Use the tips that we have covered to make your next speech a powerful tool for causing your audience to become engaged with your message. Using these techniques you can transform your audience into a group of people who are committed to the same things that you are committed to. Learn to write great speeches and then you will be able to do great things.
– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™
Question For You: How many stories do you think should be placed into a single speech?
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Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!
What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time
The reason that we give speeches is because we want to be able to connect with our audience. It is our hope that they will hear the message that we have for them and they will be motivated to take action. However, this is easier to say than it is to do. Even before we get in front of our next audience, we have to have taken steps to make this happen by creating a speech that will move our audience. We need to discover how we can write a great speech.