In a previous article, I shared a personal story of the event that helped me overcome my fear of public speaking. At the end of the article, I promised to share some useful tips that anyone and everyone could use. Today’s tip is a simple one but many people have a great challenge doing it. Done correctly, the information in this article will allow you to gain an immense amount of authority when engaging with other people. It will enable you to create a rapport with your audience that only experienced speakers have been able to achieve.
Imagine, walking onto a stage with an audience of 100 people and now you are faced with the daunting task of presenting. You begin your presentation with a short introduction of yourself and try to convey why your presence is going to impact the audience in a certain way. As you are in the middle of your presentation you realize that some people are losing interest in what you are saying. You know that your content is excellent but there are people around who start picking up their phones and begin texting, they might even start talking amongst themselves about a totally unrelated topic that has nothing to do with your presentation.
Unfortunately, this scenario occurs to many speakers because they have not been able to hold their audience’s attention. There are many reasons why this may happen but the reality is that not many people maximize the surroundings they are in. The following technique is something I used in order to keep people attentive to what I am presenting whether they are sitting in the front or back of the room.
Audience Segmentation
Before going on stage try to get a feel for the room and surroundings. Observe the seating arrangements and see how you can divide your audience into different segments. If you look at the below above, you will see that I have divided an audience into 6 different parts.
Note: This is just an example, the actual size or the number of segments you will have will vary depending on the crowd and the shape of the seating arrangement.
The reason why you should do this is that help you recognize the landscape you are in and when you segment your audience you have the ability to systematically address different parts of your audience. People are less likely to do things that are considered to be “rude” like talking during a presentation when you are directly facing them. Just remember to move around the stage, as pointed out by the arrows, in order to make eye contact with the other segments. This is going to make it look more natural and thus gives the impression that you are confident on stage.
What is important to note that after your presentation is done, you should have looked at all segments of your audience at least once so that you don’t alienate a certain segment. I would suggest finding the right rhythm or time between changing which segment you are looking at. This will make sure you do not spend most of the presentation only engaging with one part of the audience.
You might notice that in segment 3 of the picture above, I have added what looks like a red zero on the top right. This represents an audience member. If you want to influence specific people, you should use them as an anchor to place your attention when addressing a particular segment. The anchor will help you narrow down your vision to creating something called tunnel vision.
Tunnel Vision
Tunnel vision is the tendency to focus exclusively on a single or limited objective or view, in this case, it’s an audience member. If used correctly you can create a deeper connection with certain members making them more receptive to what you are saying. In addition, the key to choosing the right anchors are the people you already know or have some sort of relationship with. This will make a bit easier as it could be awkward sometimes to look at people whom you have never met for long periods of time. However, as your confidence grows I suggest you start placing your attention at people you have not met, which will help you practice for situations where you might be speaking in front of an audience where you know absolutely nobody.
Summary
Segment your audience so that you maximize your ability to gauge almost everyone in your presentation. Then use tunnel vision to produce a more ‘personal’ connection with specific audience members, you will see why this is important in a future article.
With these tips, you should be able to improve the way you display yourself on stage and look like a professional speaker. If you would like to check out my previous article where I discuss how I overcame my fear of public speaking, click the link below.