Have you thought enough about your audience?

One of the very first things you learn if you go on presentation skills course is that the audience are the most important element of the ‘show’. If the audience are really going to hear our message, we ouselves must know something about them. If we don’t take the time to research our audience, our content may not resonate as we intended.

And one of the things to be aware of is the ‘state’ of our audience – how the audience may be feeling about our presentation topic?

I’m currently devouring all the courses here on LinkedIn related to communication and presentation skills to find new perspectives and I came across a gem related to audiences in the course ‘Creating & Giving Business Presentations’. (Highly recommend this course to you.)

The trainer says that an audience is usually in one of the following states to listen to your message: ready, resistant or apathetic. So you need to tailor your approach them accordingly.

Here’s how you do that.

1) Audiences who are ready to hear your message:

Make sure you own your content - demonstratge conviction and confidence. Show your research. Identify next steps but be sure to welcome dialogue. There’s nothing like audience involvement.

2) Audiences who are apathetic towards your message:

This may be offputting but keep your energy up! Open your presentation with a strong hook to grap your audience’s attention. Ensure that you constantly communicate the value of your information by tuning into the ‘so what’ of your topic – why the audience should care.

3) Audiences who are resistant to your message:

Demonstrate empathy about what the audience may be thinking or feeling but never say that you know what they’re thinking/feeling because you can never be absolutely sure. This technique is called ‘pacing’. You need to pace an audience sufficiently enough to get them to listen to you before you can ‘lead’ them with your presentation message. Encourage early dialogue by using your talking points to answer questions and come from a place of curiosity about the audience’s stance as well.

Next time you have to give a presentation, think about the probable state of your audience. And if you’re not sure what it is, find out! A little bit of forward planning here is going to make you feel more prepared and inevitably more confident.