3 Quick Moves for Audience Engagement...Regardless of Content

You're working like crazy to present your amazing message. . . . Is there any audience engagement?

The thing is, telling is not selling.

But you say, "Wait.  I'm the Director of All Fine Things or the  Data Analyst Extraordinaire, not a mere sales rep."

Actually, you are a sales pro. Everyone is selling....ideas, raises, business cases, new hires, promotions, projects....

To get your message across, your audience has to engage in what you're saying. This is beyond crafting a compelling message or delivery (which are BOTH critical!). It's about audience involvement in what you're saying.

What I did recently.

What made my recent talk about Managing Energy in Distributed Teams at the Charleston Digital Corridor, was not so much what I was telling them (as fascinating as that was). We had a highly-charged conversation with lots of questions answered and people in the audience sharing their experience with the topic. Everyone in the room was engaged.

Your audience today is much LESS patient (or more distracted) than it used to be. And while they may have a lot of general knowledge, they still need to digest the information you are giving them so they can easily implement it. If they do not, everyone has just wasted his time and energy.

Audience engagement means connection to you.

“Audience engagement means connection to you.”

Specifically the more you can get your audience engrossed (mentally, emotionally and physically) in your presentation, the stronger your connection with them. This is especially important the first time you present to a group.

One change I've made recently is to share very little information about myself in the intro. Basically 1 sentence. If they want to know more about you, they will google you. So in introducing yourself, share something they won't find on Google. 

You can read about this shift in more detail: The Google Effect here.

One excellent professional speaker I know, Bea Wray, has introduced herself and her panel by naming their "top failures". That certainly got everyone's attention.

No doubt the most important rule for energizing the audience, is to resist the temptation to run on and on about Your Thing in your excitement. Trust me, this is hard because, hey, it IS a Big Deal.

Three quick ideas for audience engagement

1. Mental engagement:  Ask (many) questions.

Get them to raise their hands. Ask rhetorical questions. Ask how they're feeling. Ask them questions to check their learning, or listening.

Ask them what they think of the conversation thus far.

Ask them to contribute their experience. If your presentation evolves into a multilateral conversation....that is excellent audience engagement.

A common mistake is presenting TOO MUCH information. My colleague and award-winning coach, Liz Guthridge, compares this common practice to force feeding a goose. Probably not what you were going for.

2. Emotional engagement:  

Give them an exercise. It could be a creativity-builder, even if your talk is about financing a Caribbean resort. There are all sorts of brain exercises, but one that's super easy is a page full of circles. Ask the participants to draw things on the circles to make them into different objects (faces, soccer ball, globe, etc.) Make it a contest with a time limit.

Depending on the situation, you may want to ask your audience to do an exercise in pairs or small groups, depending on the size of your audience. Design the activity to reinforce your message.

If you're not sure how to do that, ask them to discuss the content in small groups and then share their more relevant insight. If your audience is small, simply ask them to share their thoughts on your message.

3. Physical engagement:  

Get everyone's body moving. Ask everyone to stand up and stretch. You certainly don't want your audience to feel sleepy.

Play some music for a dance break. Teach them a salsa move. Practice a power pose with your audience.

Be the thought leader your audience wants or needs today.

Your presentation is a tool to build community among the members of your audience and you. Engagement happens mentally, emotionally and physically. If you're presenting simply to share information, send an email instead. That takes less time.

To download my FREE No More Boring Presentation guide, click here.

Photo by William Stitt on Unsplash