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Other Added - Speaking Success - Does Your Audience Care?
Sorry, there's not really a free tee here, but isn't it amazing how those 3 little words really grab your attention.You may have designed your web site to express yourself on the web, or like most of us, you are hoping to earn a little extra cash; but how do you get your new baby site out there and get it noticed? you do after all want to get some visitors,... don't you?The first thing to do is choose your keywords very carefully, it is by now a well know fact that targeting an audience with the keywords that have less competition will result in a better search engine position for those keywords so you should end up with more visitors.The best resource around is still giving a technology presentation trying to convince management to invest in a new software package, then make sure at some point you say, “you should agree to invest in the software package for the reasons I have outlined.” Sounds too simple too even mention, but people leave this out all the time. Take a look at all of your points (the main point of your speech as well as each supporting point) and make sure each one is phrased as a call to action – you will automatically include the audience this way.
3) Tie everything to your point – All too often a speaker will start to ramble or go off on a tangent. As an audience member, I can recall many speeches I have seen where I have thought to myself, “why is he telling us this now?” As a speaker, y
With all franchise opportunities there are a few questions that all potential franchisees should ask of the franchisor. Bear in mind that this relationship could last many years and your business potential and your future happiness rests on the answer received. Money whilst important in the decision making process is by no means the only important consideration in business.First and foremost it is important to ask about the franchisors background. Their experience in business and their knowledge of the field that you are about to enter in should be comprehensive. Not only will this give you a chance to inquire about their knowledge but will also help you understand the people behind the bu
Sound cynical? It really isn’t. Why should the audience care about you? Unless they all happen to be related to you, they have no reason to care about you. Think about times when you have been in the audience. Do you really care about the speaker? Aren’t you mostly interested in how what they are saying will impact your own life?
This is true whether you are a professional speaker addressing an audience of thousands or giving a presentation to 5 people at work. This is also unfortunately where most presentations fall short.
If you have ever been listening to a speaker who bores the tar out of you, chances are that they haven’t set up the speech to make it clear why you should care. To ensure that you don’t fall into the category of boring speakers, you must make sure that the audience cares.
Getting your audience to care is not that hard, but it may take a shift in perspective. Here are a few simple ways to connect, engage, and interest your audience.
1) Explicitly state the “what’s in it for me” – Take a look at your presentation and ask yourself, “why should the people in my audience care about this?” The answer to that question must be explicitly stated in your speech. State it in the introduction and re-state it at the end. If appropriate, and especially for longer speeches, repeat the benefit throughout the speech.
If you have trouble answering the question, then chances are you have designed a weak speech. Re-work it until you can answer it.
If you still struggle, ask yourself, “why am I giving this speech?” You were most likely hired, forced, or asked to speak by someone. Why did they ask you, and what did they ask you to do?
In the working world, you may be asked to give an update or status report. These may be harder at first to connect to the audience, and you will be tempted to just regurgitate information. Resist that urge, do your best to tie it the audience’s needs and wants, and your presentation will be much more effective.
2) Show them how they can apply it When you are very comfortable and familiar with your material (as you should be) you may take for granted why it is important and exactly how your audience can use it. However, your audience members are not experts on your topic. For many of them, this will be the first time they have ever heard the information you are imparting. Make it easy for them by explicitly stating what they should do. Give examples and stories to make it easy for them to understand how they can immediately apply your information.
One easy way to do this is to think in terms of “call to action” statements. A call to action is simply a statement that tells your audience to do something. When you create an outline for your presentation, re-state each point so that it is phrased as a call to action instead of a summary.
For example, if you are giving a technology presentation trying to convince management to invest in a new software package, then make sure at some point you say, “you should agree to invest in the software package for the reasons I have outlined.” Sounds too simple too even mention, but people leave this out all the time. Take a look at all of your points (the main point of your speech as well as each supporting point) and make sure each one is phrased as a call to action – you will automatically include the audience this way.
3) Tie everything to your point – All too often a speaker will start to ramble or go off on a tangent. As an audience member, I can recall many speeches I have seen where I have thought to myself, “why is he telling us this now?” As a speaker, yo
If you are a webmaster, you will see this everyday if you are searching for a profit in the online world. Now I am not speaking of opening up a store or selling something. I am speaking of affiliate programs, banner exchanges, paid surveys, paid e-mails, paid to surf, and paid to click. These programs promise much profit, but do they really mean what they say? Can you earn a decent living off taking surveys?The answer is yes and no. First off, you will be able to earn this kind of money if you have no job, no hobbies besides online, and have nothing better to do. I have signed up with numerous survey sites and have received around fifty dollars within a year (I don’t take many as you can t
Getting your audience to care is not that hard, but it may take a shift in perspective. Here are a few simple ways to connect, engage, and interest your audience.
1) Explicitly state the “what’s in it for me” – Take a look at your presentation and ask yourself, “why should the people in my audience care about this?” The answer to that question must be explicitly stated in your speech. State it in the introduction and re-state it at the end. If appropriate, and especially for longer speeches, repeat the benefit throughout the speech.
If you have trouble answering the question, then chances are you have designed a weak speech. Re-work it until you can answer it.
If you still struggle, ask yourself, “why am I giving this speech?” You were most likely hired, forced, or asked to speak by someone. Why did they ask you, and what did they ask you to do?
In the working world, you may be asked to give an update or status report. These may be harder at first to connect to the audience, and you will be tempted to just regurgitate information. Resist that urge, do your best to tie it the audience’s needs and wants, and your presentation will be much more effective.
2) Show them how they can apply it When you are very comfortable and familiar with your material (as you should be) you may take for granted why it is important and exactly how your audience can use it. However, your audience members are not experts on your topic. For many of them, this will be the first time they have ever heard the information you are imparting. Make it easy for them by explicitly stating what they should do. Give examples and stories to make it easy for them to understand how they can immediately apply your information.
One easy way to do this is to think in terms of “call to action” statements. A call to action is simply a statement that tells your audience to do something. When you create an outline for your presentation, re-state each point so that it is phrased as a call to action instead of a summary.
For example, if you are giving a technology presentation trying to convince management to invest in a new software package, then make sure at some point you say, “you should agree to invest in the software package for the reasons I have outlined.” Sounds too simple too even mention, but people leave this out all the time. Take a look at all of your points (the main point of your speech as well as each supporting point) and make sure each one is phrased as a call to action – you will automatically include the audience this way.
3) Tie everything to your point – All too often a speaker will start to ramble or go off on a tangent. As an audience member, I can recall many speeches I have seen where I have thought to myself, “why is he telling us this now?” As a speaker, y
In the limited time an interviewer has with you, their mission is to know you and assess your worth, especially in relationship to the other candidates interviewed. Asking you questions is the way they accomplish that mission.You’ll be asked to tell the interviewer about yourself, your qualifications (especially as they pertain to the specific opening), your professional background, your likes and dislikes, your strengths and weaknesses, and your goals. So the first step is to know yourself. Be prepared to talk about your skills, competencies, qualifications and accomplishments. Understand your strengths and weaknesses. Explore the goals you have for yourself – both current and future
If you have trouble answering the question, then chances are you have designed a weak speech. Re-work it until you can answer it.
If you still struggle, ask yourself, “why am I giving this speech?” You were most likely hired, forced, or asked to speak by someone. Why did they ask you, and what did they ask you to do?
In the working world, you may be asked to give an update or status report. These may be harder at first to connect to the audience, and you will be tempted to just regurgitate information. Resist that urge, do your best to tie it the audience’s needs and wants, and your presentation will be much more effective.
2) Show them how they can apply it When you are very comfortable and familiar with your material (as you should be) you may take for granted why it is important and exactly how your audience can use it. However, your audience members are not experts on your topic. For many of them, this will be the first time they have ever heard the information you are imparting. Make it easy for them by explicitly stating what they should do. Give examples and stories to make it easy for them to understand how they can immediately apply your information.
One easy way to do this is to think in terms of “call to action” statements. A call to action is simply a statement that tells your audience to do something. When you create an outline for your presentation, re-state each point so that it is phrased as a call to action instead of a summary.
For example, if you are giving a technology presentation trying to convince management to invest in a new software package, then make sure at some point you say, “you should agree to invest in the software package for the reasons I have outlined.” Sounds too simple too even mention, but people leave this out all the time. Take a look at all of your points (the main point of your speech as well as each supporting point) and make sure each one is phrased as a call to action – you will automatically include the audience this way.
3) Tie everything to your point – All too often a speaker will start to ramble or go off on a tangent. As an audience member, I can recall many speeches I have seen where I have thought to myself, “why is he telling us this now?” As a speaker, y
Customer service is essential for the success of your business. Yet many small businesses or solo-shops crash and burn because they confuse customer service with customer tyranny. They imagine that serving customers means giving into endless demands.If you're troubled by customer service issues, try this exercise, an adaptation of Byron Katie's "Work" to business issues.Write down the statement, "I have to satisfy all my customers all the time, and that means..."EXAMPLE: "I have to satisfy all my customers, and that means that I need to accede to all of their requests. Since I can't possibly do that, I'll either go bankrupt or burn-out or get a reputation for bad service."should be) you may take for granted why it is important and exactly how your audience can use it. However, your audience members are not experts on your topic. For many of them, this will be the first time they have ever heard the information you are imparting. Make it easy for them by explicitly stating what they should do. Give examples and stories to make it easy for them to understand how they can immediately apply your information.
One easy way to do this is to think in terms of “call to action” statements. A call to action is simply a statement that tells your audience to do something. When you create an outline for your presentation, re-state each point so that it is phrased as a call to action instead of a summary.
For example, if you are giving a technology presentation trying to convince management to invest in a new software package, then make sure at some point you say, “you should agree to invest in the software package for the reasons I have outlined.” Sounds too simple too even mention, but people leave this out all the time. Take a look at all of your points (the main point of your speech as well as each supporting point) and make sure each one is phrased as a call to action – you will automatically include the audience this way.
3) Tie everything to your point – All too often a speaker will start to ramble or go off on a tangent. As an audience member, I can recall many speeches I have seen where I have thought to myself, “why is he telling us this now?” As a speaker, y
Would you like to earn an income by starting your own business from home?Many people decide that they like the thought of working from home for a lot of different reasons.These reasons can include wanting to spend more time at home with their families, needing an extra source of income, or just simply disliking their current job.A work from home business is a great chance to earn money and be your own boss. There are many opportunities available to internet marketers.When you start setting up your home-based business it is a good idea to develop a business plan and research your options thoroughly.By making informed decisions and sticking to your business plan,
3) Tie everything to your point – All too often a speaker will start to ramble or go off on a tangent. As an audience member, I can recall many speeches I have seen where I have thought to myself, “why is he telling us this now?” As a speaker, you may feel what you are saying is obviously relevant, but quite often your audience will be completely lost.
As in the points above, one of the best ways to make sure this doesn’t happen is to explicitly state what the point is of the story or tangent you are on. In longer speeches, you may throw in a relatively unrelated story (but be very very careful about doing this) that happens to be interesting or funny, but say to this audience, “this is kind of unrelated, but I want to share a funny story with you.”
4) Try using the word “you” instead of “I” – This is a more advanced technique, but when you are telling stories or examples from your own life, you will tend to tell it from the first person and repeatedly use the word “I.” Try to re-work sections of the presentation to replace the word “I” with “you.” For example, if you are telling a story about how you botched your first job interview, you can switch to using “you” by saying, “just imagine this: you really need to find a job and you finally land a great interview, and then you mess it up by repeatedly calling the interviewer the wrong name!” By switching to “you,” you get the audience to put themselves in your shoes. They become an almost active participant in your story. This is a simple way to engage and interest your audience and make it about them and not you.
To summarize, making the audience care often involves going against what you may think is obvious. “Of course the audience should care.” “Obviously this example ties to my point.” “It should be clear how they can apply this to their lives.” Don’t make those assumptions. Connect the dots for the audience, give them actions to take, make your points clear, and make it about them and not you and your audiences will truly start to care.
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