Engage your audience with these 5 tips

March 14th, 2015

Ever wonder about the best ways to engage your audience when you speak? Having trouble keeping them from falling asleep or checking their phones or slipping out the back door before you’ve even gotten to the good stuff?

Here are 5 things to try next time you get out there and share your message with the world.

1. (not to be a broken record, but yes…) Tell a story.

Do you get the heeby jeebies when you have to sell? You have a heart-centered business. A mission you’re passionate about. You want to serve. You want to make a difference. You never thought you’d have to become a salesperson when you decided to do this own-your-own-business thing, right?

But now you get it. You’re a salesperson.

When you want to engage your audience, you have to convince them to trade their current thinking for yours.

You have to show them it’s worth it. That you are offering something–even if it’s just a new way of thinking–that will be worthy of the 15 or 25 or 40 minutes they’re about to give you.

Let me tell you a story:

I used to take care of a couple of kids. Ezra was 2 when I started hanging out with him, and his sister was just born. Part of my job was to give Ezra a bath before bed, which he hated. He would hide under the kitchen table and I’d have to entice him out from under the table and into the bathtub.

One fateful night, I crawled under there with him, and started telling him a story of the Bubble Queen. I told him of this magical place upstairs in the bathroom where the Bubble Queen lived. She could make crowns and beards and horns and wings that would give you the power to fly and run fast and float.

He bought it. The story worked. It became a tradition. Whenever I was there we would meet under the kitchen table and tell stories of the Bubble Queen, then we would tiptoe up to the bathroom to see if we could find her there.

It worked every time. I told a story. He bought.

It’s the same for grown-ups. If there’s a grown-up in your audience who is “hiding under the table” and refusing to come out, tell a story and they will very likely peer out from under the table and hear what you have to say.

The story you tell will engage your audience and win their hearts. If you tell a good one, they’ll go anywhere with you.

Try it, and report back in the comments below. How’d it go?

2. Stay in the room

Who would want to engage with you if you’re not even in the room?

By that I mean, in the words of brilliant Colorado performance artist, Michelle Ellsworth, if you find yourself smoking crack in the neighbor’s backyard, have yourself a little “Come To Jesus” moment and get back in the room.

How? you ask, when your head is going a mile a minute down the path to, in the words of NYC acting coach Josh Païs, “I suck.”

Come back to your body, back to your breath. It’s OK to pause. Feel your feet on the ground. Bring your attention to your breath. Look at the people you’re talking to. Come back to the room.

This room. This moment. This here and now.

If you’re fully in the room, your audience will be there with you, engaged and wanting to hear more.

If you’re, say…smoking crack in the neighbor’s backyard, they’re likely gonna be chilling in their own backyard, or thinking about dinner, or texting their kids, or wondering why in the world they came to this talk anyway cuz what happened to the speaker? Where’d  she go?

If you’re in the room, they’re in the room, engaged, so start there if you ever feel like it’s gonna take a marathon to engage your audience.

2. Start with “YOU”

I was recently at a theater event when a man in the back row collapsed. There was a rumble among audience members, while people turned around to figure out what was going on.

The woman sitting next to the man did exactly the thing we learn in “What-to-do-in-a-crisis-101.” She said, “YOU turn on the lights. YOU call 911. YOU tell everyone to stay in their seats.”

It’s kinda the same thing when you’re giving a talk.

Say the word YOU.

As in: I’m talking to YOU and there’s something in here that is going to make YOUR life better.

“What’s in it for me?” is what they’re asking, so don’t beat around the bush. Tell them. Right off the bat: Here’s what’s in it for you.

You will engage your audience. Their ears will perk up.

They will want to hear what YOU have to say.

4. Ask a question

OK I admit it. I’ve done my fair share of internet dating. You could say I have a PhD in internet dating. I wrote a play about it, and have told countless stories about dates gone bad. (and good, too. There have been a few dates that have gone good…)

One of the most amazing phenomenons is that there happen to be a bunch of guys out there who like doing all the talking.

I’m really good at asking questions. I ask them because I sincerely want to know the answers. I like finding out what makes people tick. I like going for the good stuff. I do my best to get underneath the surface sooner rather than later. It’s way more interesting that way.

But what amazes me so much of the time is that guys often don’t ask questions back. “How ’bout you? What makes you tick?” Hmph.

But let me tell you:

There’s nothing like a good question to scare up some engagement.

So ask your audience a question. And I mean REALLY ASK. Give a moment of pause to let them answer it–even if they’re just thinking the answer.

If you really want to engage your audience, have them answer it with the person next to them. You might get one or two grumbles, but I believe people are pretty happy to connect with other people, even if they might roll their eyes first.

As long as you’re asking a good question, they’re sure to engage.

5. Talk to actual people

I remember when one of my clients gave her first talk. She’d worked so hard preparing it. She was terrified. Like hang-your-head-over-the-toilet terrified.

She’d practiced in her house with plants and chairs and wall hangings as her audience. She’d practiced in the office with me as her audience. She’d practiced in front of the group of other speakers in the group training–which was as close as she ever got to an actual audience.

Even with all that practice, she reports that when she got in front of the room and noticed that there were ACTUAL PEOPLE in the audience, and they were all paying attention to her, everything changed.

There was a moment when she wanted to leave, jump out of her body and go smoke some crack in her neighbor’s backyard while her body performed everything she’d practiced.

But she didn’t leave. She stayed in the room. After that first moment, she saw they were people. She took a pause to take a breath.

She SAW them. People. Real people. She felt herself: a real person.

She saw their faces, their smiles, their eagerness to engage.

They WANT to engage. And she wanted to engage too. So that’s what she did. She engaged. With her whole body and heart and voice. She engaged.

That’s ultimately what will invite the audience in: YOUR OWN engagement.

Engagement is a two-way street.

When her talk ended, she said “Oh! That’s what engagement feels like.” Apparently her audience felt engaged too, because many of them wanted to stay engaged, and signed up to work with her.

Got any secrets on how to engage your audience?

Tell us about it in the comments below.