When I walked into my training room, one student was already there. He looked up and asked, “Are we gonna cover smartphones? You know when you’re up there speaking and the audience is on their smartphone. Isn’t that just rude? I mean… how do I handle that when I’m the speaker?” I’m waiting for him to stop so I can respond with the simple answer…

“Give them what they want!”

If you think about it, there’s only one reason why an audience member would get on their smartphone while you’re speaking. It’s because something on the phone is higher priority than what you’re giving them! In other words, what they’re getting from you right now is not nearly as important as what they’re getting on their phone.

Audiences stop listening, walk out, or pull out their phones when they’re forced to work too hard or if they see no value in your message. They become tired, bored, or frustrated because of the speaker. So the answer is pretty easy… give them what they came for!

Here are 4 mistakes to avoid if you want maximum audience engagement.

Mistake #1 – Too much information on each slide

This is common knowledge. Each of you reading this blog post know that it’s true because you’ve all been there. The speaker puts tons of text and data on every slide they show. You find yourself actually exhaling like a punch to the gut when you see it. Even if the speaker doesn’t commit the ultimate sin of turning his/her back to the audience and reading the slides, the tedious slides still invite the audience to quit on you and pull out their smartphones.

You want to know why it’s so painful for them? Because it’s work! Interpretation of all those text symbols is hard work. The harder you make them work, the more likely they’ll quit. Different audience members may have different tolerances for pain, but slowly… one by one… the phones will come out.

Mistake #2 – Body language is completely random

Have you ever seen the caged lion on stage? The speaker who constantly walks back and forth. There’s lots of movement that has nothing to do with the message. When I coach the lion, I usually get a response like, “That’s just me! Thats how I am! I gotta be moving. Everyone knows that about me. So they expect it. Besides, no audience wants to look at a statue!”  While the statue comment is true, the lion makes hard work for the audience too.

Our brains naturally combine body language and the words to interpret the meaning of a message.  When the body language has nothing to do with the actual meaning, the audience is either confused or forced to work even harder to interpret the message. This is why people say, “He was hard to follow.” or “Her pacing on stage was very distracting. I just had to tune it out.” It takes a full-brain effort to keep the movements disconnected from the words.

What should the speaker be doing with body language? Keep your body language natural, controlled and in alignment with the meaning you want to convey. Make it easy for the audience to follow you!

Mistake #3 – Everything sounds the same

Every class I teach they tell me they can’t stand speakers who are monotone. Then I ask the entire class if they agree. They always do.  Then I ask, “Why don’t you like monotone?” Typical responses are “It’s boring.” or “It puts me to sleep.” or “The speaker doesn’t have any passion.”  While all of those may be true, I would argue the most annoying part of monotone is that it’s harder to interpret the true meaning.

Think of it like this. If every document you read was courier 12 point, no bold, no italics, no extra formatting, justified alignment, all one paragraph, and single spaced, it would be very difficult to figure out what’ more important and what’s less important. If something is important then we use bold, italics, underline, change color, change font, change point size, highlight it, etc.

When you speak, you can make it easier for them to follow if you will be the word processor for them. Give them more than just courier 12 point when you speak! If they’re pulling out their smartphones, you might be giving them too much courier 12 point.

Mistake #4 – The message has no flow to it

I get students in my workshop who don’t think they need to be there, but their boss is making them take the class. They are prisoners for the day. These students have the impression that if they have no fear of public speaking or if they are subject matter experts then they don’t need communication help.

Most of the time, the problem with these people is they forget about the audience. The number one key to being a great presenter is being able to give the audience what they came for. That means it’s all about the message. If the message is delivered by just “winging it” then the audience is at the mercy of the speaker’s ability to recall information. How the data is recalled by the speaker is not necessarily the right flow for the audience to understand it.

How do you create flow? Put thought into how you can construct a structured flow for the information. For example, tell them WHAT the new direction is, WHY it’s important we pursue it, and HOW we plan to get it done. That’s an engaging flow that provides both logic and emotion to create movement.

If you make it difficult for the audience to follow and interpret your message, they’ll quit.

So, if you want to be a great speaker, you only have to do one thing… give the audience what they came for!  Audiences show up for a reason. Sure, I know… as the speaker you showed up for a reason too. You have a goal.  That’s great. I’m here to tell you that if you don’t help the audience achieve their goal, you’re much less likely to achieve yours.

Make the audiences’ goal your first priority by avoiding these four classic mistakes.

Still trying to serve my audience better,
Russ

Can I ask a favor? If you like these messages, please invite others to join us! They can sign up here to get my weekly posts via email.

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Books that can help:

Presentation Zen, by Garr Reynolds

Slideology, by Nancy Duarte

Made to Stick: Why some ideas survive and others die, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Corporate Ovations: Your Roadmap to More Effective Presentations, by Russ Peterson Jr. and Kevin Karschnik

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Russ Peterson Jr. is the co-founder and Managing Director of iSpeak, Inc. – An award-winning professional development training company. Russ is a published author on Professional Sales Communication and Business Communication. He delivers workshops, keynotes, and personal communication coaching services to business professionals in the US and around the world. You can connect with Russ directly through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.