Why respect the audience? A cautionary tale for speakers

No matter how rich your content is, or how much time you put into creating it, never assume that a member of the audience will be able or willing to give you the 100 percent attention you think you deserve. In this excerpt from his new book, "How to Become a Super Speaker: The 7 Principles for Speaking with Confidence and Connecting with Audiences," bestselling author and speaking coach Michael Barris invites readers to reflect on the travails of a misguided presenter that illustrate why speakers must never take the attention of an audience for granted.

Meet Alice.

She is to give a talk at a public library on landmark movies. Drawing on her deep knowledge of cinematic history as a graduate student of film, she has pulled together clips from classic movies to share with her group. However, Alice has little experience giving talks; she got the nod from the library to do this presentation on the strength of her exuberant proposal.

Her husband, an experienced lecturer, cautions her to keep the presentation as light and as entertaining as possible for this audience. Owing to the venue — a public library — and the broad appeal of her topic, she can expect her talk to attract a mixed crowd of high school kids, college students, middle-aged movie fans, and seniors. Her husband emphasizes that while many will be coming to learn something, others will be looking simply for a diversion for a couple of hours — and Alice has to tailor her delivery and her program accordingly.

“You should probably also go to the library ahead of time to make sure there won’t be any problems with the equipment when you get there,” he adds. “You want things to go smoothly, especially since this is new to you.”

Audiences are fussy as well as needy. They aren’t going to listen to you just because you’re standing in front of them. They need a reason to buy into your story, to motivate them to join your exclusive club.

But Alice never gets around to checking to make sure everything will be in order for her talk, which relies heavily on showing clips of films. Nor does she spend much time thinking of ways to simplify big ideas that underlie academic film books for a talk to a non-academic crowd. She’s confident her intelligence and knowledge of the topic alone will carry the day.

She is about to become an example of the pitfalls of failing to do the work to engage an audience and of taking for granted their willingness to bond with a speaker. After you read the rest of her story, consider the questions that come at the end of it.

LEARNING A HARD LESSON

On presentation day, Alice discovers that the projector — which is connected to a laptop that is plugged into wall outlets in the library meeting room — is more complicated to turn on and operate than she realized. She calls for technical help. As the technician gives her a quick lesson in setting up and running the projector, the people she has left sitting in their seats are getting annoyed.

When she is finally able to get the projector going, 40 minutes have gone by. Some audience members now look exasperated, which unnerves her. The rocky beginning sets the tone for the rest of her session. By the time she has introduced her third clip, Alice has learned that coming up with a motivating activity or questions that will spark interest in each film is more work than she realized; the movie’s fame or notoriety by itself is not enough — and she is underprepared.

The body language and facial expressions of her audience tell her they are not engaged. She also has to rethink the steps for turning on the projector each time she changes a film clip. Soon, surrendering to rising panic, she stops trying to connect with her audience and just starts showing film clips.

AUDIENCE ATTENTION MUST BE EARNED

The comments the patrons make to the librarian afterward are brutal. “The teacher could have done more to try to keep us interested,” one complains. “I took a shower, changed my clothes, and drove 10 miles for this?” another asks.

When the librarian relays these remarks to Alice, she feels hurt and humiliated. By failing to engage her audience, she let them down. She also let the library down. But most of all, she let herself down.

• What’s your reaction to this story?
• How could Alice have avoided having her talk turn into a debacle?
• What was Alice’s biggest mistake?

The bottom line is: audiences need help. If you want their attention, they need you, the performer, to pull them into the world of your presentation. But they are fussy as well as needy. They aren’t going to listen to you just because you’re standing in front of them. They need a reason to buy into your story, to motivate them to join your exclusive club.

If you don't give them that, they will make you pay.

Content is great, but it isn’t enough to win over the crowd.

Michael Barris is a transformational coach who has helped speakers at every level of ability achieve goals through the principles that drive the dynamic between speakers and audiences. The major ideas in "How to Become a Super Speaker: The 7 Principles for Speaking with Confidence and Connecting with Audiences" come out of his diverse background as a speaking champion, professional musician, award-winning journalist, and university instructor.