It’s tiring for the average person to listen to anyone speak, continuously, for 45 minutes. Let’s visualize it…you sitting down.. and focusing all of your attention on someone that you may or may not even have heard of for the next 45 minutes. For some, this is practically impossible. Even at 10 minutes, it’s still challenging. We have so many distractions at our disposal. The main one, being our cell phones. Whenever I’m talking at middle and high schools, it’s the number one thing that I battle against. Some kids are listening. Some kids are totally glued to their phones. And then some are in between. It’s a challenging environment for me because I’m dealing with pre-teens and teenagers who don’t want to be at school and have a lot going on outside of school in their personal lives. That’s something that I always know I have to deal with. So in any environment in which your audience may face prominent distractions, how can you keep them engaged?

Before we get into how you can keep your audience engaged, let me first say that it doesn’t take a lot to get your audience engaged. For the most part, it doesn’t matter about the size as well. Many think that when we say getting the audience engaged, we mean get each audience member talking and contributing in some way. But in all honesty, you only need to engage directly with a couple of people in order for the rest of your audience to jump onboard. Now, don’t get me wrong… the more people you can get engaged… the better. But if for whatever reason you are having a hard time with a lot of people, try to focus on one or two people at a time.

So exactly how can you interact with your audience? One way that I implement all of the time consists of asking questions. You can do this by simple asking a question and then asking your audience to raise their hand if they agree or not. So for example, I may ask students “How many of you want to be a millionaire when you are older?” That’s a question I know that will garner a response plus spark interest with my target group. Remember, you also want to ask questions that will help keep your audience’s attention. The type of crowd you are talking to along with what you are talking about will shape the questions you ask. You can also ask rhetorical questions and give your audience a couple of seconds to think to themselves about the answer.

If you feel you’re funny… or extremely confident… you can try telling a joke. Now, this can go one or two ways. You can succeed or bomb. What’s even more interesting is that you honestly don’t know which way it will go until you tell it. It literally leaves you as the speaker on the edge until you deliver the joke. It’s all about set up and delivery. But in general, a joke will get you feedback.. rather it be negative or positive. If you don’t feel you are good at telling intentional jokes, then just be yourself. You never know what you may say that will receive a laugh or two.

These are some of the ways you can interact with your audience during your next talk. I’ve also given a few more ways in the description that allow you to be interactive with your audience. It doesn’t have to be complicated and if you’re not use to interacting, it doesn’t have to be perfect your first bat out the gate. But you have to try. You have to figure out what method you are most comfortable with and constantly try it. You will see improvement each time and on top of that, I guarantee you it will make yourself and talk more memorable!

Make your next presentation, your best presentation!

Sincerely,

Julian A. Leonard
(Founder of The JLeonard Group LLC)

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