Last year, we went through a major change and moved everything online.
Face to face events turned into online events and helped us to connect with people from all over the globe. And as a professional speaker, one of the most common questions I get asked is:
How can you connect with your audience when you are speaking online?
How can you engage with them?
Whether it be through a small workshop, Facebook, Instagram, or in any way you're connecting with an audience through the medium of video, you can become a great public speaker online. Every conversation counts, it's one of the most important skills of your life.
1. MAKE EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM
The first thing is making everything about them instead of making everything about you when engaging with an audience.
One mistake most people make is that they let their ego get the better of them, they talk about themselves and what they think, more than they should.
As a speaker, it is important to know what the audience is thinking.
A code that every audience member has that I keep at the back of my mind when I’m on stage, whether it's a virtual audience, through a recorded video or a live event, is:
What's this got to do with me?
Why should I care?
Imagine everyone's got a sign on top of their forehead that says, "Make me feel special."
Don't overwhelm the audience with content and information. Let your audience become part of your workshops.
Give people an opportunity to speak.
Have them share their stories.
Know what they think.
Get their names and where they're from.
Engage the audience.
Here at The Coaching Institute, we make the events all about our audience members. If you have an opportunity to make someone feel good, to light them up, to give them significance. Do it.
2. FIND YOUR PASSION ZONE
Passion is one of the most important things to bring as a speaker.
Generally, the audience's energy is going to be 10% to 20% less than the energy you bring as a speaker.
If you don't give a sense of enthusiasm in your speaking, why would your audience give that same level of intensity?
A lot of people misunderstand passion. One myth is that speakers have to be really excited or overly loud and turn everything into hype. However, you can be softly spoken, but still be passionate.
Everyone is different. You want to find what passion is for you.
3. WARM TONALITY
We communicate in three ways:
Tonality makes up half of how we communicate. So, practice your warmth as you speak.
There's been a lot of research done on how we all respond to warmth. Shrill and loud tones can sound stressful. Speak to your audience like how you'd speak to children. You have to give them access to warmth for them to respond in a calming way. It doesn't have to be the other side where everything is very soft all the time either.
Play with your tonality to find something that's passionate.
These are ideas that I use as a speaker. You can use these three tips right away when speaking online to connect, give value, and inspire your audience.
MATT LAVARS
One of Australia's leading coaches, trainers and speakers, and head facilitator at The Coaching Institute. In between mentoring thousands of coaches and leaders all around Australasia and helping others build incredible culture, Matt is passionate about fitness and music. His healthy office lunches whipped up in five minutes are the stuff of legend
I finally love what I do
