***The Secret to Connecting with Your Audience

One of the secrets of dynamic presentation skills is the ability to connect with your audience. In that sense, the idea is to make each person think you are talking directly to him/her. How is this possible if you have an audience of 50, 150 or 500 people? There are several things you can do to achieve the connection.

1. Make eye contact with your listeners. Admittedly, you cannot make direct eye contact with every single individual; however, if you take your time and scan the room from one side to the other as you speak, everyone will think you are directing your presentation just to them. [By the way, target your smilers. Every audience has them and they bolster your confidence.]

2. Ask questions relevant to your topic that will have an effect on your listeners. As an example, when I begin my presentation, I ask my audience if they have heard themselves on some form of recording equipment. Almost everyone raises their hand. I then ask them if they like what they hear on the recording. For the 2nd question, most people do not raise their hand. Because I have just hit a nerve, what I have achieved with those two questions is a connection between them and me.

3. Use anecdotes throughout your delivery that your audience can relate to. During my presentation on breathing with the support of the diaphragm, for example, I talk about the many and varied benefits my clients have gained by learning to breathe with this support. I also show a video of a newbo
baby who is noticeably taking his air all way down to his diaphragm as he breathes.

4. Smile. Speakers who look happy to be addressing an audience are a lot more believable than those who look like they are dying a thousand deaths!

5. Be yourself. A true connection can only be achieved if you are yourself, first and foremost. Your audience did not come to hear someone else speak, they came to hear you.

6. Treat your audience like you were having a conversation with them in your living room. The intimacy you can achieve by speaking in this manner locks in the connection and is much more effective than spitting out a pile of words with the desire to get it over with as quickly as possible. Your audience will feel like they know you better if you can make use of this advice.

Whatever your goal in public speaking, you must first sell yourself which can only happen when you make the connection with those in your audience.