{"id":320,"date":"2014-09-29T09:57:28","date_gmt":"2014-09-29T15:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/goldenbeardrama.com\/speech\/?p=320"},"modified":"2014-09-29T09:57:28","modified_gmt":"2014-09-29T15:57:28","slug":"rock-your-talk-performance-tips-for-speaking-to-large-audiences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rockridgedrama.com\/speech\/uncategorized\/rock-your-talk-performance-tips-for-speaking-to-large-audiences\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock Your Talk! \u2014 Performance Tips for Speaking to Large Audiences"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Sep 28th, 2014 by Gary Genard<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Imagine speaking to 500 people. Or 1,000. Or 10,000. Or ten million.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t, so don\u2019t even try.<\/p>\n

Can you speak to one person whose opinion you value, for whom you want to do right in their eyes, someone who will say to you after your presentation: \u201cThat\u2019s the kind of speech I know you\u2019re capable of. Well done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course you can. In fact, that\u2019s the only person you can speak to when addressing the filled-up seats of a large auditorium, or thousands listening to you on the radio, or millions watching you on TV. (Got an important speech coming up? Find out about The Genard Method’s short-term and powerful Presentation Coaching.)<\/p>\n

For Effective Public Speaking, You Need to Personalize Your Listeners<\/p>\n

For most people, large audiences bring on self-consciousness, anxiety and nervousness where none existed before. Like every speech coach, I\u2019ve heard this sentence hundreds or even thousands of times: \u201cI\u2019m fine in front of a small group, but getting in front of a large audience terrifies me.\u201d<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter that this isn\u2019t logical\u2014after all, these are the very same individuals you feel perfectly comfortable around chatting in a caf\u00e9 or sharing comments with in a meeting. But something about the aggregate of a large grouping of these same people makes speakers break out in hives.<\/p>\n

Solving this problem is relatively simple, since it means going in the opposite direction from where your fear is taking you. Leave the many behind, so you end up with the one. Literally. No one can stare into a television camera or even 2,000 people in their seats and come up with a way of talking to all of them!<\/p>\n

So select that one person whose opinion you cherish and speak to him or her. Personalize your talk. You\u2019re at your best when you\u2019re talking to another person about something that matters to both of you (a good definition of speaker and audience!). Call up that feeling, and just . . . talk. You\u2019ll come across as your authentic best, and you\u2019ll be whittling down that AUDIENCE MONSTER to a manageable and even enjoyable size.<\/p>\n

Four More Tips to Speak with Presence to Large Audiences<\/p>\n

Get close to them. If your audience is set up to be too far away from you, find ways to close the distance. Once, at a conference, I scouted the venue the night before and discovered I was expected to speak in a cavernous auditorium (to 75 people at this breakout) with a nearly postage-stamped-size stage at one end. Enough of that! I thought. I delivered my entire talk in the aisles and never got up on the stage once. If handlers are present, politely but firmly point out that you\u2019re the speaker, and you\u2019d like to improve the set up. It\u2019s painful for me as an actor to say this, but traditional theater seating with row upon row of seats is a terrible configuration for a speech. Find ways around that if you can!
\nMake your greeting longer. Your greeting is an essential part of your speech because it opens the channel of communication between you and your listeners. Too many speakers rush into their Introduction and leave any kind of greeting behind. Here’s how to start a speech powerfully instead\u2014with twelve foolproof ways to grab your audience! Remember: audiences need a relationship with you! At a medical conference, a video was shown that was heartbreaking. The next speaker told the audience that he wanted everyone present to absorb for a moment what they had all just watched. Then he asked their permission to start his speech. He understand that everyone needed that moment to share the experience.
\nMeet people beforehand. Will there be opportunities for you to meet some audience members before you\u2019ll speak? If there are, take advantage of them. Introduce yourself, say that you hope they\u2019ll enjoy your talk, and tell them you welcome the opportunity to chat afterwards. It\u2019s a great way to “lower the \u201cstranger quotient.\u201d More than once, I\u2019ve done this and have heard a comment I was able to use in the opening of my talk. It\u2019s amazing how your audience can seem smaller if it\u2019s sprinkled with familiar faces!
\n\u201cTouch them.\u201d The big reason we feel anxious in front of a large audience is because we feel isolated from them. Often that\u2019s physically true; but it\u2019s that psychological distance that\u2019s worse. It can feel like a lonely monologue. So work to create a dialogue instead. Here are two ways you can do that: (1) Ask questions\u2014actual questions if your audience is small, rhetorical questions if it\u2019s large. People who are asked questions respond mentally. And (2) Find ways to phrase what you\u2019re saying in terms of their world, not yours. In other words, always bring them into the conversation. \u201cTouching\u201d an audience this way will dissipate the feeling of isolation, replacing it with a sense of community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Sep 28th, 2014 by Gary Genard) Imagine speaking to 500 people. Or 1,000. Or 10,000. Or ten million. You can\u2019t, so don\u2019t even try. Can you speak to one person…Continue readingRock Your Talk! \u2014 Performance Tips for Speaking to Large Audiences<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rockridgedrama.com\/speech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rockridgedrama.com\/speech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rockridgedrama.com\/speech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockridgedrama.com\/speech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockridgedrama.com\/speech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockridgedrama.com\/speech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rockridgedrama.com\/speech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockridgedrama.com\/speech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockridgedrama.com\/speech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}