Today we’re tackling a question that I get All. The. Time. This question from Sandy is on a lot of people’s minds: Hi Lauren – you’re a very energetic presenter, and I’m hoping you can help me inject some energy into my presentations. I’m an civil engineer and need make lots of technical presentations. The…
It’s a presenter’s nightmare: some jerk in the audience decides to give you a hard time, asking impossible questions, challenging everything you say, making snarky comments, and trying to make you look like an idiot. Congratulations – you’ve got a heckler. Hecklers can really throw you off your game, and it happened to Laura who…
Here are some questions you need to ask yourself when working with an audience: Do you listen? I mean it – do you really listen to what your audience is telling you? Have you turned of the internal chatter? Are you taking in what they are telling you, or are you trying to think of…
Don’t be intimidated by the level of prestige of your audience members. Just because a room is filled with C-level execs doesn’t mean they are collectively CEO of Everything. Speaking to a crowd of academics and researchers? Don’t cower before their gigantic brains. I’ve met plenty of PhDs that couldn’t find their backsides with both…
I remember when the Gap clothing store opened its first shop in my city. There was a lot of excitement about this place. People told a lot of stories about the experience of shopping there. They’re obsessed with customer service! The clerks wore headsets and radios so they could talk to each other! They’ve got…
Charisma comes in different flavours and styles, and absolutely experiences fluctuation in fashion. Like most kind of fashions, the “fashionable” characteristics that make us consider one person or another charismatic are both a reflection and creation of our current culture. Different social cultures – and I apply the term “culture” to both small groups, self-selected…
The funny thing about establishing intimacy with an audience is that it doesn’t necessarily matter whether you, the speaker, feel that an intimate moment has been shared. Like just about any desired emotion, what really matters is that your audience feels it. They, quite frankly, don’t give a damn about what’s going on in your own…
A major goal that I assign to all my clients as well as to myself is that of creating intimacy with your audience. I’ve had people react to this instruction with everything from nervous eagerness to fear and apprehension. The difficulty with intimacy – aside from the fact that it increases our own vulnerability, which…
Have you ever wondered how to tell when it’s time to shut your gob? Causing a child to cry is a pretty good indication: Dear Little Girl: Sorry We Made You Cry About ‘Bronco Bamma’ and Mitt Romney. Poor thing. I’ve felt that way during truly atrocious presentations. Incidentally, Canadian news gets…
I’m on the fence about this one. In several online groups I belong to, issues surrounding social media communications strategies abound. There are endless LinkedIn discussions about how to improve your corporate Facebook or Twitter presence, how to humanize your company with Instagram, how to develop a social brand, and how to attract “real” followers…
