Engage Your Audience In 7 Steps
1. Know you material and practice!
We cannot stress enough the importance of knowing what you are talking about. No one wants to listen to someone who seems to discover the slides with his audience.
2. Don’t read your slides
Again, your slides are simply there to illustrate what you are discussing. Your audience is not capable of both reading and listening at the same time. So if your slides say the same thing as your voice, chances are no one will listen to you.
3. Keep your slides simple and focused
This part is the most important and we’ve made it our mission to eradicate text heavy / boring slides. As I mentioned, people are unable to read and listen at the same time and that is why your slides should focus on illustrating your ideas or emphasizing your key points.
4. Know your audience
As a speaker, your job is to connect with your audience, in order to communicate your message. The only way to connect with your audience is by knowing them. Knowing what they like, what they’re interested in, how they’ll react to your jokes. So please do your research and I guarantee that you’ll feel much more at ease when presenting.
5. Interact with your audience
A presentation should be more of a conversation than a one way stream. People do not answer to lectures or long speeches anymore, they want to feel involved in a message, they want to be heard. Try to make your presentation as engaging as possible by adding slides specifically asking the audience to interact.
6. Don’t speak too fast
If you are talking about something interesting, and chances are, your audience will want to savor your content. As a speaker there is nothing greater than to interest your audience. You simply have to learn to slow you pace when you hit the stepping stones of your presentation. Once you feel you information has sunk in you can go back to a normal pace.
7. Be passionate and share your energy
Your audience is listening to you because you know something they don’t but also because they want to learn it in a entertaining manner. Make sure you share you enthusiasm about whatever it is you are presenting in order to engage you audience. Make them feel like your topic is pumping steroids into your blood and that listening to you will benefit them greatly.
In conclusion, we can help you create the best presentation in the world, but you will still need to do the majority of the work.
