In this video, I talk about the common missing link in presentations: listening. Often when preparing and delivering presentations, people get so focused on content that they forget about the importance of building a rapport with their audience, and that happens through listening.
In normal conversation, even when you are the only person talking, you are always listening. We listen by tuning into the body language and verbal cues of the people we’re talking to: are they with me? did they get what I just said? Do they disagree? Do I need to explain in a different way? We are tuning into these cues and we are adapting our responses based on these cues, which is what helps us build a rapport.
Building this rapport is just as important in more formal presentations. Your audience wants to feel like they’ve been invited into the conversation of your presentation— not that you are just talking at them or reciting your prepared material without consideration for how they are responding.
I give a couple of concrete examples for how you can start to do this, and I will include some links to other YouTube videos I’ve made below that go into more detail on these points. The thing to note here is— this kind of rapport building with your audience means you have to have even more preparation with your content, not less. To feel comfortable inviting the audience in and what kind of improv that may mean on your part, you’ll have to be rock solid on your content. Here are some videos that will help:
On Eye Contact when Public Speaking
Let me know how it goes, and if you find these videos useful, please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel.