The task of any speaker is to attract and maintain the attention of the audience throughout his speech. In addition to a competent and logical presentation of thoughts, a good speaker must have charisma and an interesting, “catchy” style. This can be learned by practicing reliable ways to attract and hold your audience's attention.

Methods and techniques

Always remember: within the first 7 seconds that you speak, the audience decides whether they will get into trouble with you or not. This is the most important point. For the next 30 seconds, the audience evaluates your speech: whether it is interesting, informative or not. Conclusion: the whole performance depends on the first minute. If you didn’t manage to conquer the audience right away, it will be difficult to “shake it up” later.

1. Start with an intriguing, “awakening” introduction. This could be a story, a parable, a new joke (a bearded joke reveals a boring storyteller), related to the general topic or revealing the essence of the report. Then move on to the initial (introductory) part of the speech itself.
2. Tell us about your speech plan. The listener must know what exactly will be discussed. There is something distracting the person, he can join the performance at any moment. It would be good if you prepared programs for each listener with a thesis plan for the report.
3. Remind them to take notes. This goes without saying, but this will help you highlight and emphasize important points in your speech.
4. Ask questions. These could be:
   • rhetorical questions to all listeners;
   • rhetorical questions to a specific person (it’s good if at this moment you address him by name).

   Allow the audience to discuss the issue for some time (10-15 seconds). This will stir up the listener and get them involved. Make the audience active participants in the process more often.

5. Use visual aids. Didactic (brochures, booklets, handouts), photo and video series. This should not be the main part of the speech. Use these tools as auxiliary techniques. Watching the video – no more than 5-7 minutes. The video material should be interesting, with moderate sound, without technical problems. This requires additional preparation.
6. Dilute the monologue with interesting digressions close to the topic. Objective: to arouse interest and curiosity. Listeners should have a mixed, paradoxical feeling. For example, “There is no greater disappointment than a dream come true. How do you understand this statement?
7. Share examples from your personal experience. This will bring you closer to your audience and relive their own memories.
8. Add quotes from famous people to your monologue. Try to include in your speech statements that not everyone has heard of, not particularly well-known words of well-known people.
9. While communicating with listeners, try to move. Walk here and there, move closer to the hall. Infuse your speech with gestures. This will keep the audience's attention on your personality. When addressing someone specifically, take a couple of steps in their direction and come closer.
10. Color your speech emotionally. Make sudden pauses (1-2 seconds), raise and lower the tone of your voice, add gestures. This technique works well because the audience’s curiosity, interest, and attention increase.

Mistakes during performance

1. Too many jokes. 1-2 funny stories are enough.
2. If you have a monotonous, quiet voice, take rhetoric lessons. Practice lively eloquent speech.
3. Express your thoughts clearly, simply, understandably, concisely. Read the speech outline several times. Check whether the structure of the report is logical. It’s good if you first “perform” in front of your friends and family, rehearse.
4. Do not allow non-specific constructions in the report. Abstraction in judgments is understandable and interesting to few people. All data is in numbers, facts are substantiated.
5. If you are noticeably nervous, try to imagine your speech several times in private before going out in public. This technique of experiencing stress in a calm environment acts on the emotional state as relaxation. Remember:

Every day, countless speeches and presentations take place around the world. But, unfortunately, the vast majority of them do not arouse much interest among the audience. Only a few lecturers manage to truly win over their listeners and establish contact with them. This is not surprising, because for a presentation to be truly successful, it is not enough that it be carefully prepared. Your presentation should also be bright enough, because even a very useful but boring lecture will lead to the audience yawning.

It’s not for nothing that the art of oratory is called that way. In order to become a successful lecturer, you need not only to have talent for this, but also to devote a lot of time to special training and attend trainings. But we can still give you some general advice that will help you attract the interest of your audience, and ideally win it over.

Prepare properly for your presentation

Experienced speakers always think about what kind of audience they will have to speak to, because this determines how and what exactly should be said. In order to win over the audience and keep them for most of the lecture or presentation, you should speak the same language with them. Therefore, it is necessary to take into account the age and gender composition of the listeners and, of course, social affiliation. If you are going to speak in front of children, then as an illustration you should take, for example, cartoon characters or the Harry Potter saga, but if you have a female audience, then examples from films will be more appropriate.

At the same time, you should not overdo it with animation effects, as they can distract listeners from the main topic of your conversation. And, of course, your video materials and slides must be prepared at the highest level.

Be sure to identify the main idea that should run like a red thread throughout your entire presentation and try not to go too far away from it.

Speaking about how to win over an audience, one cannot fail to mention the role played by good, and most importantly, well-timed jokes. Don’t count on your ability to improvise, even if in normal life you have no problems with this, when you speak in front of an audience, your resourcefulness may let you down. Therefore, be sure to prepare a few humorous examples that you will keep in reserve.

The most depressing impression on the audience is made by a speaker who reads his speech from a piece of paper. Therefore, under no circumstances write it down in its entirety, and if you are afraid of getting confused, then it is better to prepare several cards with brief abstracts that you can look at when the need arises.

What to wear for a performance

How you look and what you wear is also very important. If you have to speak to an informal audience of youth, it is better if you are not very different from them in appearance. A cowboy shirt, a pullover and jeans will get you into the good graces of your listeners, at least at first. If this is an official presentation of your company’s products at some forum, then a strict business suit is required. Women should avoid provocative necklines and slits on the skirt, since your appearance may be appreciated, but the topic of your speech is unlikely.

The first minutes are the most important

Whether you can win over an audience or not is essentially decided in the first few minutes. It is during this time that your listeners have time to form their opinion about you. If you can establish immediate rapport with a good joke or an impressive, bright opening, you can count on a friendly reception down the road.

Lecture tests: Public speaking

1. How can you win and retain the attention of your audience?

Visual contact.

Contrasting stimuli.

Change the volume and pace of speech.

Questions for the audience.

Controversial videos.

2. Which channel of perception is characterized by verbal means: “it’s clear that”, “look at this problem”, “put two facts side by side”, “you can draw a circle”:

auditory,

visual,

kinesthetic,

non-modal.

3. Which channel of perception is characterized by verbal means: “feel the difference”, “get the essence”, “grope for the solution”:

auditory,

visual,

kinesthetic,

non-modal.

4. Which channel of perception is characterized by verbal means: “listen”, “listen”, “the fact speaks about”:

auditory,

visual,

kinesthetic,

non-modal.

5. Which channel of perception is characterized by verbal means: “understand”, “analyze”, “realize”:

auditory,

visual,

kinesthetic,

non-modal.

Quests:

1. Write a short introduction to the topic “How does a person think?”

Just as a plant grows from a seed, every human action comes into being from the hidden seeds of thoughts. Without thinking, action is impossible. This applies equally to “spontaneous” and “unintentional” actions, as well as to conscious behavior.

2. Draw up an expected portrait of the audience to whom you would like to speak with the topic: “Profession - manager.”

An audience portrait is a comprehensive compilation of characteristics of the intended audience. The portrait of the audience, as a rule, consists of the following parameters:

socio-demographic (gender is not important, age is 18 and older, nationality is not important);

intellectual (level of education - secondary / higher / incomplete higher education, specialists);

quantitative (group, communication through the media);

status-role (subordinate, colleague, students);

emotional and psychological (interested).

Tests for the lecture: Business conversation

1. From the following, which two mistakes are often made in the process of preparing a conversation:

Unpreparedness for a meeting

Strict adherence to previously established dialogue plans

Strives to make the conversation friendly

Partners do not know the subject of the upcoming conversation

2. Is it possible to include the following among the features of business conversations:

treating partners,

exchange of souvenirs, business cards

handshake, kissing

3. Is it possible to give preference to one of the following three methods of starting a conversation:

Tension Relief Method

Hook method

Direct approach method

4. From the list below, exclude prohibited techniques during a business conversation:

Under no circumstances should you:

Interrupt your partner;

Negatively assess his personality;

Emphasize the difference between yourself and your partner;

Rapidly speed up the pace of conversation

Avoid spatial proximity and do not look at your partner

Try to discuss the issue rationally, not paying attention to the fact that the partner is excited

Not understanding or not wanting to understand his mental state

Smile

Give compliments

Empathize for your partner

Look him in the eye

Call by name

Laugh

Offer tea, coffee

TASKS: give a short answer (2-3 sentences) to the questions asked:

1. How does phatic communication differ from business conversation?

Phatic communication.

It can take place between both acquaintances and strangers.

Contact making. The purpose of establishing contact prevails over the purpose of transmitting information.

Business conversation.

Business interlocutors may not be personally acquainted before the meeting.

Business communication proceeds in accordance with ethics and etiquette.

2. What would you classify as the specifics of conducting a business conversation in modern conditions?

Telephone conversations

Skype - negotiations

When we are suddenly informed that we have to speak a few words in front of an audience after some time, most of us find ourselves in the long-forgotten situation of an unlearned exam paper.

How? Are you going to perform tomorrow? I’m completely unprepared, I don’t know what to talk about, they won’t listen to me, I’ll disgrace myself... And so on and so forth. The fear of public speaking is almost tantamount to the fear of death and loss of a loved one (this is not a metaphor, but a statistically verified fact). Moreover, a similar feeling arises before a speech at a conference and before making a toast at a holiday table. The main thing is that all eyes are turned to us, everyone sees and evaluates us. The king is naked and society sees it.

However, the opportunity to speak in front of an audience is most often a new opportunity and a step forward in development, so let’s not panic, but let’s try to deal with the problem step by step and emerge victorious.

As soon as you hear about the opportunity to speak, you need to react positively. It's very simple, even the first time. We say to ourselves our favorite word, which means immeasurable joy from the upcoming event - “Excellent!”, “Super!”, “Cool!” and even “Wow!” will do. And in the future we approach the issue of speaking only with this emotional attitude.

Speech preparation- a separate question, and often there is simply no time for it. Therefore, we will not dwell in detail on the composition of the text; we will only note that speech, like any work of art, is subject to the laws of composition and must have an introduction, a main part and a ending. All parts must be clearly expressed and understandable to the listener.

Let's consider the issue of express preparation.

From the very beginning, the audience must be won over. Shock if the situation allows or break the usual pattern. An introductory joke, an anecdote (preferably on topic) or a compliment is suitable for this. If nothing comes to mind, the “When I was on my way to you here...” technique will do. You simply come up with a scene from life and say what thoughts it brought you to, then smoothly steer into the direction of your speech. The event can be anything: it was raining, a child was crying, an accident occurred. You can make your speech about an event by the ears, it will not confuse the listeners, the moment of connection to reality and attracting attention is important.

Example: “When I was coming here to you, I was very late, I was nervous. There was a major accident ahead, and I thought that if I had been in a hurry and more nervous, I might have been a participant in it, rather than a speaker in such a representative audience. Well, now let’s talk about what worries us all - the Large Hadron Collider.”

To ensure that your effective introduction does not go to waste, achieve silence. Use the old teacher trick - be silent for a minute. Believe me, a minute of silence will begin to weigh on the audience much sooner than on you; the majority will become silent, and they will even start shushing the chatterboxes. We can begin.

If you noticed, the techniques for starting a speech are a bit like the techniques for meeting a woman - to make an impression, to stand out. This is no coincidence. It is very useful for a speaker to perceive listeners as feminine and himself as masculine. Moreover, regardless of the real state of affairs. The audience expects to be taken somewhere, to be surprised, to be involved and to be complimented.

It might make you a little nervous, but in the end it will be pleasant. The speaker, on the contrary, is an active principle, the source of all expectations of the audience. Even if there are only bosses in the hall, and a subordinate is speaking, this is so during the speech.

Take advantage of this fact and bring the noble meeting to the climax that is so necessary for both. It is important to remember the purpose of the speech. She is always alone - to encourage action. The toast encourages you to drink and emotionally join in what is being said. The presentation aims to sell a product or service. A speech at a conference attracts potential partners and colleagues to you. Therefore, if a good speech eventually fades away and is drowned in the clinking of glasses or applause, you have hit your finger in the sky. You need to achieve the effect that the audience will look forward to the end of the event in order to learn more about what you so passionately voiced.

These recommendations are enough to quickly and successfully prepare for a speech. It remains to add that any task requires training. Give yourself them more often. If you go to a wedding, you have two toasts. - three. The round table is the ideal option for your workout; It's best if you are a moderator. And so on. Let your speeches change the world.