How to create a captive audience (Pt. I)
For anyone who’s ever stared out into a sea of solemn faces, here’s Part 1 of your tool kit for winning them over, inspired by our community of users on our public speaking training platform, Speechless Plus.
The 1st rule of audience engagement: tell the audience how to support you
If you’ve been to a comedy club, you’ve probably seen the “host” take on this role — telling you to “make some noise” for the next performer. They might even tell a few jokes to help you practice some of that supportive behavior, AKA “warming up the crowd.”
So how does this apply to the rest of us?
Most meetings don’t come with an emcee…
Instead, you have to be your own hype-person. Essentially, that means telling your audience (whether that’s your family, your coworkers, or your friends), how they can support you before you even start speaking.
Of course, if you’re going to tell the audience what you want, you have to know what you want, AKA, what a supportive audience looks like to you. Some people might prefer an audience that participates verbally throughout the talk and asks questions during the presentation. Some people prefer non-verbal support (e.g. nods or thumbs-ups) and to save questions until the end.
You might want people to provide feedback or brainstorm solutions to a problem, or you might just want people to listen and let you know that they understand. Either way, it’s important to be explicit. The clearer you make your expectations, the more likely people are to meet them.
Your homework this week: Think about how your ideal audience behaves
This can, and probably will, differ depending on the scenario. Here are 5 basic characteristics of a supportive audience sourced from our Speechless Plus community to get you started:
We’ll dig into this more next week, plus talk about how you can make intentional space throughout your talk or presentation to encourage those supportive behaviors.
