Improving eye contact when public speaking
Creating an effective agenda slide
A coffee break is a great way to increase audience energy if you feel them switching off. But it isn't always possible. What else can we do?
Today's top tip and technique is a great one if you have to deliver a very long speech, presentation, or lecture and want to keep your audience energised and engaged.
In an ideal world, if you feel the audience energy levels dropping during your presentation you would say to the audience,
"Hey, I can feel the energy dropping in the room. Let's take a break, get some caffeine, some sugar, and return refreshed in a few minutes time."
However, that's not always possible.So today’s tip is all about what we call ‘soft breaks’.
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Soft breaks are things that you can change within your presentation, or the room, that give you the opportunity to renew and refresh the audience energy levels and increase the engagement of your audience. They’re different to traditional break (or ‘hard breaks’) which involve leaving the room and a lot of lost time.
So what could you change up if you feel those energy levels dropping? What soft breaks could you use within your presentation?
- You could look at changing your position on the stage, giving your audience a refreshed visual stimulus.
- You could alter your voice slightly, increasing your intonation, your pace, your power or the use of pauses. This change in aural input will give the minds of your audience a little jolt. The tone has changed slightly, and so their brains will re engage to assess this new sound!
- You could change the light in the room by blacking out your slides, switching to a single black slide and letting your audience just listen to your voice for a bit. Be careful not to hold this one for too long, as in a darkened room, they could enter a dreamlike state and fall asleep!
- You could change the format of the message, using an audio clip or a video clip or maybe a prop to change how your message is conveyed.
- You can maybe change the pace at which you are presenting; covering topics in slightly lesser depth, to hold the attention of your audience. Anyone who is particularly interested in exploring any areas in more depth could then be offered the chance to speak with you more afterwards (perhaps after a hard break!).
- If you're feeling really confident, you can acknowledge that the energy has dropped in the room and ask your audience how they would like to proceed. Would they like a hard break? You may find that they are perfectly happy to accept a delay to the finishing time in return for some sustenance!
Whatever you do, remember that all of these techniques are designed to put the power back into your hands, to make sure that your audience enjoy and engage with your presentation and ultimately give you the tools to become a successful speaker.
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All of our recent blog posts are recorded as videos too. Click the video to watch this blog post narrated by Rich Watts, public speaking expert and 2x national public speaking champion.
To watch all our public speaking tips videos, visit the Rich Public Speaking Youtube channel here.
