Monthly Archives: August 2013

Your Audience Will Leave You-Six Ways to Bring Them Back

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Studies vary on the length of our attention spans, but one study recently concluded that the average attention span is eight seconds. Whatever the actual time might be, people have trouble paying attention, especially when listening to a speaker. Inattention is even more likely if it’s a technically-oriented presentation.

Recently, in coaching several insurance executives in presentation skills, I was reminded of this challenge for every speaker. You know the audience is going to leave you several times in a 30-minute presentation. In essence, one of the major goals of the speaker is to bring the audience member back to pay attention to his or her speech. No matter how effective the message is, the human mind cannot focus for very long. Here are some ways of combating that consistent challenge.

  1. Let the audience know early in the speech that you have only two or three points to make. When you begin by saying, “I plan to cover seven different ideas,” your audience will be quick to shut down mentally.
  2. Include an example every few minutes. The listener responds quickly to “Let me give you an example… “ We remember what it was like when we were young for an adult to start reading a story that began with “Once upon a time…” The example hook is the adult version of this technique.
  3. Include at least one transition that encourages the audience to come back to you and your speech. The best one is probably, “You may forget everything else I say today, but remember this one idea.” Be sure this transition does lead to the most important idea; don’t use it as a gimmick to make them listen again. Be reminded that you can only use this once in a presentation. Another is “This may be something you know but have not been putting into use.” (Mental response: Me? Do I already know this?)

    An audience where the speaker had no WOW factor, poor organization, too many points, and no stimulating transitions.

  4. Include a “wow” factor every eight to ten minutes. This is simply a phrase, statistic, comparison, picture, or quotation that makes the audience member respond with “Wow! I did not know that.”
  5. Change your delivery style. Soften your voice if you have been pretty loud. Move a step or two with purpose when making an important point. Movement attracts attention. Speed up or slow down your rate of speech.
  6. Finally, tighten the organization of your presentation. If the audience feels that you are disorganized and finds it difficult to follow you, they will soon leave you—and may never come back. In preparation, check to see that each point relates to the other main points and that each piece of supporting material connects back to the point. Early in your presentation, preview your main points and stick to that structure.

Even the most effective speaker will lose his or her audience occasionally. These techniques, however, will at least make it less likely for the audience member to leave you for the duration.

The Ideal Speech in Three Minutes

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I’ve listened to thousands of speeches in my career as a university professor, presentation skills coach, and consultant. I recently watched on YouTube a young man give a striking speech that includes all of the essential ingredients of the ideal speech-and he did it all in three minutes.

Purdue University annually conducts a contest among Ph.D. candidates to deliver a short presentation summarizing the research from his or her dissertation. This spring 80 individuals competed, and the winner was Theon Hill, a graduate student in the Communication Department. His dissertation topic was “The Exodus and American Culture.”

Watch the video and see if you can identify the essential components in delivering an effective presentation.

Thelon’s delivery style is dynamic but not too dramatic. He uses his hands and arms to reinforce and describe his ideas. He takes a step when changing direction in his presentation. He has variety in his rate of speech and punches out proper nouns and key phrases. His pauses help the listener realize the emotional impact of what he is saying.

His content includes the necessary parts of an effective speech. He opens with a quotation from Martin Luther King, Jr., that leads easily into his main thoughts and gets the attention of the audience. We cannot resist listening to him after that beginning. He states his thesis shortly afterwards when he says, “The story of the Exodus in the Bible is the most influential story in American Culture. “

The rest of the speech underscores this point with specific instances in history, comic book applications, and even a powerful example of the impact of the Exodus story in the design of the Statue of Liberty. His ending is succinct and reinforces the main thought in his presentation.

For a quick reminder of what you can do to have a complete and effective presentation, review Theon Hill’s winning speech.

Using Humor in a Difficult Situation

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As speakers, one of the challenges of speaking is having to speak to a sparse crowd. Just the visual aspects of seeing perhaps hundreds of empty seats and the audience sprinkled throughout the auditorium is demoralizing to both the speaker and the listeners. What can you do to turn this around to your advantage?

As a member of such an audience recently, I was impressed with how the speaker handled the small audience by using humor. Here are some of his one-liners that got us laughing and released the tension caused by the small crowd.

Within the first 30 seconds, he said, “Did all of you come on the same elevator?” He referred to us as a “cabaret crowd.” He finished his introduction of himself by saying, “This is great for me. I hate crowds.”

Once the crowd realized the empty seats did not faze him, they began to applaud. When this occurred, his response was, “Thank you. Those of you clapping, could you run around to room to give the effect of more people?”

Our speaker used humor to diffuse an awkward beginning to his speech. I’m sure he had these lines prepared just in case, and he was able to fit them in perfectly to bring the audience to him.

As speakers, one of the ways we can prepare for what may be the unexpected is to have some “ad libs” prepared whether it is for a sparse crowd, a squeaky microphone, or dessert being served as you start to speak.

The success of a speaker may depend not on great content (although that is always important), but on his or her ability to adapt to a difficult situation.