One of the most important components of public speaking is understanding how to woo an audience. Certainly it took skill to woo your spouse or business partner, and so it takes skill to first woo an audience into attendance and then woo attendees into getting engaged in your company. Here are seven tells you can use to create more effective messages about your engagements and then motivate your attendees to become involved.
1. Address Concerns
Stop trying to change your audiences belief patterns and address their needs and concerns instead. You may believe that your product, services, or idea is the next big thing, but to win the heart of your audience you need to get them to formulate that idea on their own, not because you persuaded them to. So appeal to their concerns by asking questions and backing up your answers with research and not opinions.
2. Be a Story Teller
Storytelling is compelling. Think of all the history of mankind and fables that have been handed down through the centuries, those that endure are compelling stories. Everybody loves a story and if you look back on the most empowering leaders and motivating people of all time you will see a pattern of story tellers, not persuaders. Stories appeal to all the powers of influence you can think of without trying to change people’s opinions. Tell a narrative and motivate your audience’s engagement.
3. Be empathetic
Empathy is a powerful motivator. You need to first find out how your audience feels and then feel that with them. Understand where your audience is coming from and build a relatable story from your experiences in the business that puts yourself in their situation. Empathy fosters trust, build connections with your audience with honest and candid empathy.
4. Being Curious is Power
To fully persuade and engage your audience you need to develop a childlike curiosity and wonder about your business, about the world around you, and about your audience. Open engaged discussions that demonstrate a curious interest in your audience and their world is more persuasive than trying not engage them in your belief system. Get involved in their goals, dreams, desires, and interests and take an active interest in their past, present, and future.
5. Effective Listening
Effectively listening to your audience pulls them into your engagement. This works in person and on stage. Give the person you are speaking to your full attention, look them in the eye, use their name, let them finish their response before responding, even in your head, and moving on, and your attentiveness will send a clear message that appeals right to their hearts. Adapt this to the stage by getting to know some names before taking the podium, then engaging the audience members while up there.
First, at random and irregular intervals, catch people directly in the eye and look at them as though you were speaking to them and they were the only person in the room for about 15 seconds. Next, remember the names of people you met prior to the engagements and be sure to know where they are seated in the audience. Make eye contact and use their name in the story while you do. This part of your speech you will have to ad-lib, but it will tell that person and the rest of the audience that you are truly and deeply interested in them, and this fosters trust.
“Growing a reputation of being someone known, liked, and trusted will enable you to better influence the decisions of your audience after the engagement and when they need your services in the future.”
6. Exude Confidence
Confidence shows others how firmly you believe in what you say and do for a living. Exuding confidence inspires and empowers your audience. So, always be straightforward with what you say, display honest and guanine self-assurance, and validate what you say with factual information, not opinions.
If you don’t have all the facts, find confidence with a simple dialogue that starts with getting their name and number and saying you have run out of time but will get in touch with them with the answers they seek. It works wonders and puts you in a position of second and third contact without ever pushing your product
7. Honesty is Key
Your powers of persuasion are only as strong as you are honest. You do not need to depend heavily on your knowledge base or persuasiveness, let honesty speak for you instead. Your powers of persuasion are heavily dependent on your genuine honesty and candor.
Dishonesty will always lead to loss of sales and reputation, but honesty, even with a faulty product, can repair any professional reputation. Your well-crafted story should not only connect you and your audience, but should come from real-life examples that you experienced and tell the truth about, this will add credibility to your points as a public speaker.
Becoming an Effective Public Speaker
Lastly, in your quest to utilize public speaking as network marketing you can further add depth, interest, and effectiveness to your campaigns by learning to utilize your voice. If at first you fail, just remember you can always try again. So listen to your podcast and take notes on how you can improve and then use these to improve your effectiveness by how you speak and what you say.
1. Be confident
2. Don’t Stumble or pause for thought
3. Used pauses to add emphasis to key ideas you want remembered
4. Adjust your volume and use it to modulate the speech
5. Don’t inject fillers such as: like, um, you know, uh, etc.
6. Vary the speed and pitch of your voice to keep audience engagement
7. Use Honesty and relate your experience to your audiences’ needs
Remember to always find familiar ground with your audience. Effectively reaching their hearts and persuading them to join you or become involved in your company will only work as far as they know, like, and trust you. When you build familiarity on common grounds you foster the right relationship with your target market to build sales, trust, and branding. Get to know the individuals you meet before and after engagements, or strangers you run into. Remember their personality, what they do for work, and their chosen industry. Learn the why of your audience and they will persuade themselves because you are a public speaker who has achieved commonality of your audience.
Need Help with resources? Unsure where to Start? I’ve been professionally trained as a public speaker and have several years’ experience, feel free to pick my brain below in the comments. Learn more about “How Public Speaking Can Leverage Your Business.”
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