People ask me how I could speak to so many kinds of audiences and ship from one to another from technical people to salespeople, from corporations to students from clerical people to support people, from associations to churches and governmental agencies.
Well, I've learned how to read audiences and you will too.
One of the first things you want to do, don't wait until it's time for you to be introduced to walk into the room.
I want you to go down there early and walk around and shake hands with people and I listen to stories and ask questions and develop a level of rapport.
Sometimes I get names, and I incorporate those names and stories that I've heard in conversations from questions that I've asked in my presentation, and audiences find that very impressive.
The other thing is when you come into a room, you can get a feel for that room. It will tell you whether or not you can come in at a certain level of energy.
And when I did Amway events, let me tell you something, come into that room, you know, I had to start out where they left off with the last group because they are very, very energetic music blasting people -- high energy, they have long endurance, they can set for hours on end, and listen to speaker after speaker after speaker.
So you've got to go in with a lot of passion and a lot of energy.
And there's some groups and if you're speaking to small numbers, that kind of energy, that type of projection would be inappropriate. You would blast people out of the room. So it's good to come into the room, get a feel for the room, get a feel for the people listen to the kind of PA system they have.
Don't take anything for granted with audiences.
Do your research on them.
But most people don't take time to get to know their audience… some audiences are low energy.
Some audiences are high energy.
How to Read an audience.
One… Do your homework.
Do research on the audience that you know with your needs assessment of them to send you information about them.
Remember, if you're talking to people in the South, they have a different energy level than people in the North.
Talking to people in Detroit is different than talking to people in Chicago or talking to people in New York. White-collar towns and blue-collar towns have different energy levels.
The listening is different.
You have got to think of demographics and psychographics.
You want to stand your feet out and flat as you stand behind a microphone.
You're not giving a lecture, so your voice is the only instrument you have, and some body movements and your facial expressions.
Your energy, your passion, your intensity, all the things that can improve your presentation.
I remember hearing a man speak and he said, “if one person was touched then my trip here has not been in vain.”
You will become an expert at reading audiences.
You can take a cold audience and warm them up or take a warm audience and take them through the roof.
I remember I had to speak for an organization and one of the individuals who met me said, “Mr. Brown, I just want to alert you to some things… and I don't want to hurt your feelings
and I don't want to challenge your level of professionalism or how good you are, but people are just low energy they just don't respond well to speakers,”
“Is that right?”
That if they don't respond to you. It's nothing personal. It's nothing against you. So thank you
very much. That's it.
But guess what? I said what? I said I don't buy that.
I don't think that there are bad audiences.
I take responsibility for the response.
I say that you really have got to work on yourself.
You got to be grounded and rooted within yourself.
You've got to do your research.
Once you do your homework, what you got to do is tell yourself, “I'm going to give them the experience of their lives.”
I'm going to come up here and I'm going to be free.
I'm going to have fun -- I’m going to have a good time.
You see when you're having fun, you come up smiling, you're speaking with confidence.
You're letting loose… you're putting some energy and PASSION and what you're saying you're speaking from the heart.
You're experiencing what you're talking about.
They're going to feel you – you can't ignore a body that starts moving around and shifting.
You'll see heads nodding when you do your work and you know that ideas, quotes, things will come out of the blue and you'll say, where did that come from? I'd be amazed when you start working if the magic will come.
Everything you need will come into play as you work toward mastery.
When you do this, they respond by giving you a standing ovation, saying you were fantastic you know within yourself.
You have only just begun -- you’re only scraping the tip of the iceberg of the greatness
that is within you.
You have not given your best speech yet.
Work with audiences of all types under all kinds of circumstances.
Sometimes you can be speaking and there's a band next door and the sound is blaring through the walls, and you've got to handle it.
You've got to focus you've got to get them to listen to you because you have something of value for them.
See you next week
