Ever experienced yawning a lot because of a boring speaker? You are fighting the urge to slip into dreamland, all the while nodding your head to feign attention.
Many of us won?t admit to it, but surely this has occurred to all of us at least once. But, do not let it happen if you are the speaker. The only way to keep your audience alive while you are delivering a speech is to get them involved. There are several ways to involve your audience:
* Ask them questions. It will make them work their brains and think of an answer. If you feel that the listeners are losing interest, simply raise a question and get someone from the audience to answer it. Whether the answer is correct or not, thank that person and proceed to the same question to somebody else in the audience. This keeps them both mentally and physically.
* Always finish the sentence. If you just begin a famous sentence and leave it midway, only those people familiar to that particular line will be able to respond to you. Always use a statement or quote that is easy for them to guess.
* Whenever you feel that the room is heavy with energy, change it using this simple technique: ask a simple question related to the topic, and then a follow-up question of ?Is this good stuff?? As the audience replies with a ?Yes?, tell them to look at the people on their either side and give them a high-five long with a remark ?this is good stuff?. It really gives them a good kick.
* There are other public speakers that believe that you should get your audience to do the work for you. In order to do this, group your audience into two or three and then hand over some exercises to them that is a relevant part to your presentation. In order to encourage your audience to remain active and participate, reward them for doing so. Ask them questions and then whoever gets the correct answers; reward them with a piece of candy or chocolate. People compete for it and thus, it becomes a game. Utilize this method only for a few minutes in the middle of your speech.
There are plenty of other ways to distance yourself from becoming known as a boring public speaker. You should come up with different techniques that you feel are appropriate for your audience and for the topic at hand.