“Public speaking is the number-one fear… even over death!” said Emily Deschanel, an American actress. She portrayed Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan in the Fox crime procedural series Bones.
When you present your speech in front of a large crowd then it’s important to make sure that you are able to connect with your audience through your speech. You present your speech so that you can connect with your audience and make them inspired and motivated through your speech.
But sometimes due to a lack of confidence and focus you are unable to present an effective speech that makes the audience lose their interest and become bored. Karen McCleave is one of the successful public speakers who are very active in helping people to develop essential skills needed for effective public speaking. Karen McCleave Lawyer received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Western Ontario, where she studied in an Honors program. She received her LL.B. from the University of Windsor and was called to the Ontario Bar.
Well, to tackle such situations here are five public speaking tactics to help connect with your audience.
Know your audience:
The first and the most important thing to keep in mind before you present your speech is to find out who your audience will be. You need to understand who your audience is so that you can make them relate to your speech. Also, find out that your audience knows anything about your topic, what new things you can help them understand. Try to engage them through your speech to offer them a better perspective.
Get there early:
Try to be in the venue a few minutes earlier to understand the surroundings and to get some time to practice your speech. Try to practice your speech in front of the people who have already arrived at the place earlier, this will help you to find out the issues and challenges you are going to face during your actual speech.
Smile:
Showing friendly behavior during your speech helps the audience to connect with you more easily. Also, you need to have a complete understanding and knowledge about the topic you are going to present your speech because if you don’t understand the topic how will you be able to make your audience understand. You need to focus on how to convince your audience through your speech.
Maintain good eye contact:
You need to understand this thing, if you want your audience to stay along with your speech then try to maintain eye contact with your audience. If you make eye contact then the audience will be able to connect with your cause and will get inspired.
The best thing is to make eye contact with some of the members of the audience to make your point and then shift to another person when you move to the next point.
Be yourself:
Do not try to be someone else when you are presenting a speech in front of a huge crowd, this will distract the audience and they will lose interest. Try to be yourself this will help you to connect your audience with your speech and engage them with the cause to make them inspired and motivated.
