Cultivate to Communicate
Sitting in the audience. I look around and see the glazed eyes, bored expressions, Blackberry’s blazing and some catching up on Facebook.
Doesn’t the speaker see us? We are dying here, and he isjust droning on and on. No regard for the audience.
Does this sound familiar? You can count yourself lucky ifyou have never sat through a presentation or even a meeting where the speaker was not at all concerned with you!
In order to communicate, speakers need to cultivate. Whetheryou are speaking to a group of 5 or to a room of 2500, the speaker’s job is to develop a relationship with the audience.
Recently, I was asked to give a talk about professionalpresentation skills. When I toldthe group that they should cultivate relationships with the audience. The seniorexecutive asked “How do you do that? There are so many of them!”
Cultivating to communicate takes careful preparation, anability to read your audience, and flexibility to change your presentation onthe fly.
In the next three blogs, I will give you tips aboutcultivating relationships with both large and small audiences that will help youconnect and build relationship with your audience. These tips focus on 3 key areas of relationship building.
Do your research:Speakers should be able to answers a few simple questions about theiraudiences. By answering these questions, you can customize your message so theaudience understands what’s in it for them. In week one, we will uncover the questions you need to ask before youstep on that stage.
Assess the reaction: Theaudience is continuously giving a speaker feedback, but how do you capitalizeon this? It’s much more than the obligatory eye contact. You need to connect inorder to build the relationship. In week 2, you’ll learn tips for recognizinghow your audience is receiving your message.
Adapting on the Fly: You look out at your audience and realizethat you have lost them. Now what? You can react or drone on. In week 3, there are several keys that canhelp you to be proactive in your reaction.
Understanding your audience is the key to cultivatingrelationships to communicate.
Next week, we will answer the question “Who are these peopleand why are they looking at me?”
In the meantime, please share your thoughts and comments. I would love to hear your thoughts about how to adapt to any audience.
