Try to engage an audience in a presentation

There are times when your audience is not interested in listening to you. As a public speaker, you need to learn how to engage an audience.

Once, I had a presentation in an organization. I was sure that most of the participants are there by force. They thought I am going to waste their time with my nonsense advice. It was apparent that they are waiting to leave the hall and go for lunch.
It means I start the class with 30 people and leave it with at least 5. And it means the worst thing a speaker can feel. This event can cause a fear of public speaking.

When you can’t engage an audience, the fear of public speaking comes to you.

I thought about an idea:

When your audience is not interested, show that you understand their feeling to engage an audience in your presentation.

When I started my speech, I said: “can someone tell me why we are here? Why should we waste our time here for four hours?”

When the audience heard that, their feelings changed. They looked at me differently! Then I listened to some common answers which they said while they felt shy:
– The skill is beneficial for us.
– Education makes us grow.
– We can improve ourselves by learning.

After I heard the third answer, I interrupted the audience and laughed: “these answers are all correct, but I think if your manager hadn’t forced you to come, these reasons wouldn’t matter so much, would they?”
Everyone started laughing.

Next, I said: “but I intend to share some information that has changed my own life. I guarantee that these subjects won’t be like some routine speeches. you see at the end of my speech that you haven’t wasted your time at the end of this session because I believe your time is precious, and I truly respect that”.

Engage an audience and grab their attention to have them with you until the end of the speech.

I said something to engage the audience, and it worked. They became all ears to listen to me, and I could pass the falling spot of the attention-grabbing graph in the presentation.

Then it was time to make a connection between the audience and speech, which I used some techniques in “how to be an attractive talker?”

At the end of the class, there were 29 people still sitting and listening to me. Only one person left who had an important video conference and had to go soon.

I hope you use this method to engage an audience in your public speaking because I am sure it will work.