Image Credit:
Steven Lilley
What’s the best way to judge if a speech that you’ve given was a success? I think that we could all agree that you’d have to talk to your audience. What you are going to want to find out from them is how they feel about you after your speech is over. Were you able to connect with them? Did you communicate the importance of public speaking? Do they like you? In order for your message to be both heard and accepted, this liking thing is going to be very important.
How Can We Get An Audience To “Like” Us?
If you want to have any hope of getting your next audience to like you, then you are going to have to take the time to analyze them. Just exactly who is sitting in your audience? You are going to need to get answers to questions such as why the audience would be willing to listen to you and just exactly what are they expecting to get out of your speech?
You need to start things off by taking the time to analyze your audience. An important person to talk to is the event organizer. You want to ask them find out who will be in your audience. You are going to want to discover what your audience’s interests and priorities are and so you’ll need to do some online homework as you search for what current issues they are talking about.
In order to get your audience to like you, you are going to have to be able to provide them with valuable information. This means that you are going to need to discover what they want to learn from your speech. When you provide them with information, what do they think that they can do with it? When you have collected this information, you can then use it to create a speech that you’ve been able to customize to meet this audience’s unique set of needs.
What Do We Have To Do In Our Speech To Make An Audience Like
Us?
If we can all agree that we’d like to be liked by our audience, then we get to the tricky question of just exactly how we can go about making this happen. One of the easiest things that we can do is to use what are called inclusive pronouns. What this simply means is that during our speech we need to use the words “we”, “our”, and “us”. What we want to avoid using are words like “you” and “your”. The reason that we want to do this is because when we use inclusive words, we let our audience know that’re we’re all in this together. We are not telling them what they should do, instead we are telling them what we can accomplish together.
One of the things that we often overlook as speakers is that our audience lives in the here and now. We may be talking about things that have happened in the past or things that we want to have happen in the future, but we need to understand that our audience is living very much in the present. What that means for us as speakers is that we need to understand that our audience will be trying to link our speech to their current issues and challenges. We need to spend as much time as possible during our speech in the present and address the issues that our audience are currently facing.
It seems like a silly thing to say, but we all know that our audience is going to benefit from listening to what we are going to be telling them. However, do they know that? The answer is probably not. What this means for us as speakers is that we need to take the time and tell them that they will benefit from listing to what we have to tell them. You need to understand that your audience will start out asking themselves why they should listen to you. If you can answer this question, then they’ll move on and start to ask themselves how they can implement what you are telling them about.
What All Of This Means For You
The quality of the next speech that you give will not be determined by you. Instead, it will be determined by your audience. You are going to want to be able to use the benefits of public speaking to make an impact on their lives. In order to make this happen, you are going to have to find a way to get them to like you.
If you want your next audience to like you, then you’re going to have to take the time to analyze them. You need to know why they are there and what they’d like to be able to get out of your speech. When you are creating your speech you’ll need to use inclusive pronouns such as we, our, and us. You’ll want to make the audience understand that everyone is in this together. We also have to be careful to make sure that during our speech we talk about things that are happening in the present. Our audience wants to know how they can use what we are telling them to change things. Finally, it’s our responsibility to tell our audience how they will benefit from listening to what we have to tell them.
The great thing about knowing that we want our audience to like us is that it’s easy to make happen. We have to take the time and understand how they are seeing the world and then craft a speech that is going to meet their needs. If we’re willing to spend the time to make this happen, then our next audience will end up liking us a lot.
– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™
Question For You: What the best way to make sure that you keep your speech in the present instead of the past or the future?
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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
Let’s face it, giving a speech is hard work. You decide what message you want to convey to your audience, you write out a speech, you practice it, and then on the big day you summon up your courage and, because you realize the importance of public speaking, you deliver it as best you can. This is all fine and good as long as you are going to be talking to an audience of people who are just like you. However, if you find yourself in a cross cultural situation where your audience is not like you, what is a speaker to do then?