Knowing your Audience in Public Speaking
Californian entrepreneurs vs Colombian farmers.
What do they have in common?
At first sight not much, right?
If you agree with me.
Would you use the same speech for these two different groups of people?
Most likely no.
You wouldn’t use the same words for John who is a savvy techie in a startup in Silicon Valley than to Osvaldo who plants coffee in Medellin and barely knows how to read.
To make a successful presentation it is essential to know WHO we are going to speak to,
WHAT message we want to communicate,
WHAT action we want them to take or
HOW we are going to communicate such message.
To find the answer to all these questions, we must analyze the audience in front of whom.
Because the answer to all these variables will vary depending on it. A poor prior analysis of the audience can mean LOSING the game BEFORE playing it.
In this post you are going to learn what you should consider before delivering that oral masterpiece you have been preparing.
Or at least, avoid seeing people’s mouths opening like a bunch of African hippos yawning.
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Interest
People belong to groups for specific reasons and interests. It is your duty to have information about your audience.
Thus, you can tailor your message, examples, illustrations and advice to them.
Profile
Who are they?
What do they care about?
Every speech contains two messages.
The one sent by the speaker.
And the one received by the listener.
People want to hear about stuff that matters to them.
This will let you adapt the Opening, Hook and Closing to them.
Don’t you what are those?
The first step in understanding your audience involves recognizing demographic characteristics like
age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, group affiliations, as well as racial, ethnic, or cultural backgrounds.
The second one involves identifying factors such as amount of people, attitudes influenced by the environment,
and their predisposition toward the subject, your role as a speaker, and the event.
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Intention
I remember when I was at university and passing a course was conditioned to our “willful” attendance to a lecture.
You could easily see tens of students using their phones, laughing at the end of the room, or simply sleeping.
Knowing beforehand if people are attending by choice or because
it is part of their job will save you from painful disappointments when
you see people not giving a s*** about what you are telling them.
It is quite probable you will face this situation at some point in your life.
Especially in work environments, this will be the situation 99% of the time.
If they are required, you need to work extra hard to catch their attention and keep them engaged.
In this case, it takes a bit more time to explain the value to get them more interested.
I want to make this clear.
It is not your moment to shine.
Your audience is there for their own benefit.
People are trading their time for what you have to say, make sure your message speaks to them personally.
Make a small act of empathy and take an audience-centered approach.
Your job here is to make your audience choose to pay attention.
Why should I care?
What’s in it for me?
What do I get out of this?
Knowledge
What do they already know about the subject?
What do they need to know?
What you know about a thing is closely related to how much you care about it.
When people have some knowledge on a topic, they’re more likely to be curious about it.
Thereby, their interest is higher, and you can use more technical words.
On the contrary, if your audience doesn’t know much about what you’re talking about,
you may need to keep it simple and start from the ABC of the topic.
You risk losing attention either if you use complicated concepts for newbies or basic knowledge for experts.
Engagement
What is their likely mood?
Having an audience-centered approach means aligning all the steps of the process oriented towards the audience.
How your audience feels about the topic can really impact how you approach the content of your speech.
Do they have any preconceptions or biases?
What would they disagree on?
If you already know what most of the members of the audience think,
you can anticipate their concerns and eventual objections and try to answer them in advance.
Put yourself in their shoes and think if they will have questions, doubts, or
if they will dislike some part of your message.
PRO TIP: Ask the person who invited you to speak about the attitude of the audience.
This person will provide you with useful information you can use.
Remember you were invited. So, they also have interest in the success of you presentation.
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Motivation
This is the last but, in my opinion, it is the most important part of this post.
Keeping interest and engaging your audience must have a purpose.
Generally, it lies into these categories:
Inform or persuade.
If you’re trying to inform, you’re basically being a teacher.
Your job is to make things clear and not boring,
and make sure people really get what you’re saying.
If you’re trying to persuade,
you’re trying to make people think or do things in a different way.
You should be able to sum up what you’re trying to do in one sentence.
To inform my audience about….
To persuade my audience to ….
For example:
The purpose of this post is to persuade my readers to leave their email below
as we are offering huge value in our emails
so they can learn how to master their communication skills.
If this this your case,