audience connection - Improve Your Public Speaking Presentation and Influence Skills Training Coaching Melbourne Australia

07Jan

For Influence and Confidence, Question Lazy Labels

For influence, question lazy labels

We label and put people and ideas into boxes all the time: and we need to. These short-cuts for our brain are vital to let us get on with our day without stopping to second-guess ourselves. And it's much faster to label than to try to understand. However, by their very nature these labels stop us from thinking more deeply and being curious. And if you follow me regularly you'll know that I believe curiosity to be a major super-power for successful communication. The good news is that avoiding or questioning these label shortcuts can be a major...

By Sarah Denholmbusiness meetings, Content, Mindset, Persuasionaudience connection, curiosity, engaging with audience, groupthink, Listening, presence and gravitas, self-talk public speaking, shared meaning, Socrates on written language, speaking belief system, speaking comfort zone, superficial labels0 CommentsRead more...

11Jun

How to Show Warmth to Any Audience

How can we deliberately show warmth to any audience?

Or to a person we're about to communicate with 1:1? No matter what sort of a mood we're in before we speak, or how we feel about that audience? And fast? I've been working with a client this week on exactly this concept. I asked him how he believed he came across in meetings with his team when he opened the conversation - was there any specific process that he followed at the start? His reply was basically "No process...and how do I come across? It depends on how I'm feeling". This is...

By Sarah DenholmAudience Management, Body Language, Delivery, Mindsetaudience connection, authentic public speaking, emotional contagion leaders, emotional leakage, extend goodwill to audience, high audience engagement0 CommentsRead more...

16Apr

Audience Connection: Your Truth or Universal Truth

Audience Connection - Your Truth or Universal Truth As audience members in a presentation or event of any kind, something we look for is a connection with the speaker. And one of the things that impacts that connection is when the presenter throws out a generalisation about a topic, and confidently asserts something that isn't true for us: either literally, or that doesn't fit with our values or beliefs. You could think of it like this, seen through the lens of audience connection: 'your truth' or 'universal truth'. Whether the speaker's assertion is a 'literal' or 'beliefs' trigger for us, it can cause...

By Sarah DenholmContent, Persuasion, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blogaudience connection, audience values and beliefs, Cuban proverb Every Head is a World, eye contact public speaking, high audience engagement, Lifehack.org, Mandy Kloppers1 CommentRead more...

20Nov

When your Negative Voice Gatecrashes your Presentation

Negative inner voice during presentation - typical audience listening face Have you ever had the experience while presenting of looking out at the audience and seeing only a sea of blank faces? You look at them and immediately get discouraged; the negative self-talk kicks in: "John looks bored, this must be really bad" or "that woman's just looked at her watch again...I'd better speed up!" (which is usually a bad move, as we tend to accelerate when nervous anyway). I Hearing my negative inner critic voice during my presentation used to be an issue for me, especially when I...

By Sarah DenholmAudience Management, business meetings, Delivery, Mindset, Overcoming Nerves, Rehearsalaudience attention, audience connection, audience cues, bored looking audience, inner critic public speaking, negative voice while presenting0 CommentsRead more...

12Aug

Is Presenting a Conversation or a Performance?

Dialogue Bubble - digitalart What's your take on presenting: conversation or performance? Let me tell you about an experience I had recently. I went to a networking breakfast in the city, on a dark, wintry Monday morning: it was hard to get out of bed, but I was looking forward to the event because I enjoy meeting new people, and the guest speaker sounded good. He was someone who'd pushed himself to the limits in adventure travel, even seen death. A man whose tales of leadership would surely be inspiring and interesting. Yet from the moment he came onto the stage...

By Sarah DenholmDelivery, Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Blog, Rehearsalaudience connection, audience disconnection, conversational presenting, memorizing speech, performance presentation style, presenting style2 CommentsRead more...

Tag - audience connection

For influence, question lazy labels

How can we deliberately show warmth to any audience?