When a speaker loses an audience, too often it is a mystery to him. But for the audience, it is not a mystery. The simple fact is that many speeches we listen to spend a lot of time in some theory or idea. And we as humans have trouble focusing on an abstract idea for very long before losing interest. This is one of many reasons one of the central rules of public speaking is to use lots of stories and illustrations to make sure you hold the audience’s attention.

Some speakers look down on the need of audiences to connect to the speaker via concrete illustrations. But this is a basic form of human communication. In fact, some of the most brilliant speakers in the world have acknowledged that if a speaker cannot express his ideas in concrete illustrations, then that speaker does not have a grasp on those idea yet.

The use of stories and humor should get started as soon as the talk begins. One of the problems that public speaking encounters has to do with the speed of processing. Science has shown us that the human mind can think at least 10 times faster than it can hear. That means that for 90% of the time you are talking to a group, their minds have time on their hands. If you give them a concrete story to work with, the details of that story give that excess brain power something to do.

By opening with a light hearted illustration, you capture the minds of your audience quickly. The best kind of opening story is a humorous one particularly if it is an anecdote from your past. This method not only is a wonderful way to get your talk off with a enjoyable story, it connects them to you and opens up the speaker to the audience which causes bonding. When selecting the perfect opening humorous story, use two criteria to select just the right illustration. First select a story that links to the problem to be solved by the presentation. If the problem is an abstract tone such as spiritual hunger or political theory, that can be tricky. But try to get close with the illustration, at least close enough that you can have a transition ready to take the audience from the story to the concept you wish to discuss first.

Secondly, connect your opening story and every illustration in your talk to your theme. In this way every step of the way, the illustrations reach out to the audience, rescue them from drifting and gently bring them back to the talk and what you want them to be thinking about at this part of your presentation.

You can tell if your audience is drifting. Any public speaker has looked out and seen the audience begin to lose interest in what is being said. The eyes begin to look away from the speaker. Often they will take interest in something in their lap or on their person. You might see them writing but its probably not notes from your talk. Or their heads bob or you just see them go to sleep entirely. So when you see that happen, your presentation has spent too much time on theoretical ideas and you need to go back and think through a different mix of ideas and illustrations.

A good illustration at least will keep the audience involved in the discussion. But a great illustration will actually become part of the presentation so you can tell the story and then proceed to use elements of the story as part of your next points in your conceptual talk. When that works well, you will stop losing the audience because the concrete story serves to anchor the rest of the presentation perfectly.

So learn the art of telling a good story. Any long time story teller will teach us that the heart of a good story is detail. But in a public speaking setting, a story should be brief but easy to understand. If it has humor, that’s the best story of them all but above all, it should have personality. And it should help to compel the audience to connect to the talk and understand the ideas you want them to grasp. And if that happens and you have a stronger talk as a result, you will be glad you followed the advice of experts in public speaking to illustrate, illustrate, illustrate.

A public speaking situation can be intimidating for even the most seasoned of public speaking professionals. That is because when speaking to a live audience, you really never know what is going to happen. Never mind the freak occurrences of problems with the audience and the room, you as a human being could be subject to momentary memory halts that often come as the result of nervousness or just looking up and seeing all those eyes looking at you.

So much of the discipline of giving a public presentation is to establish an internal structure to your talk that helps you stay on task and maintain the focus of your subject for the entire time you are speaking. That structure can also be of huge value in helping you gauge your time and make adjustments so you get the most crucial parts of your talk presented within the allocated time frame even if that means leaving out less important parts of your presentation.

There is a simple directive many public speakers live by that gives you a fine guideline for that structure. It goes like this…

. Tell them what you are going to do.
. Do what you said you were going to do
. Tell them you did it.

This simple outline may be overly simplistic but it is the heart of what makes a good presentation work. And the simplicity also helps you stay focused under the pressure of a public speaking situation. So any tool that can do that is a good one.

You tell the audience what to expect during your opening comments. Those comments also contact giving your personal information, a greeting to the audience and perhaps some humor to set the tone of the talk. After you have gotten the speech underway, it is common to establish what is the topic of your talk. But to do that, the most effective device is to make a statement of the problem. By phrasing the subject matter as a compelling and very real problem to your audience, that creates interest as the audience says mentally, “Yes I have that problem. Tell me how you will help me fix it.”

This is where you tell them what you are going to do. The body of your speech is usually a three to five point discussion of the solution to the problem. Don’t give them the entire heart of your speech but let them know the ground you are about to cover. Not only does this give the audience a road map of what to expect, it lets them know that you know what you are doing and you know when you will get done. This gets rid of a secret fear of an out of control speaker that a lot of people who sit in on presentations dread.

Once you establish this roadmap for the rest of your speech, this gives the audience a good feel for where you will be going. By giving them this information early on, that actually reduces the impulse to interrupt you because they know you have a path to go on and they don’t want to take you off that path. Now it is just a matter of stepping through each of the outlined areas to do for this audience what you said you would do which is to offer a solution to the problem statement. Naturally your detailed discussion will have more content than your brief preview. But if you continue to broadcast to the audience where you are on the outline and that you are on track to reach the goal, that keeps them interested and assured that this is an organized program they are a part of.

It is always good to let the audience know then when you are entering your closing statements. Many speakers use a simple clue like “Let me point out, and I am closing with this…” to give the audience the signal that the presentation is almost done. This is common courtesy and a professional way to conduct a presentation. And if you treat the audience with respect like this by telling them what you are going to do, do it and then tell them you did it, you will be a speaker that will get good reviews and invited back for more presentations frequently.

Many times local civic organizations look for experts from various businesses to come and give a presentation about your area of skill. The Elks, Rotary and Kiwanis are just a few who are always on the look for good public speakers to address their groups. So if you get a chance to speak to these groups, its easy to see these as tremendous business opportunities for marketing.

The problem is that these groups restrict you to only address your field of expertise and do not allow marketing of any kind when you come to speak to their membership. This could be a pretty frustrating situation. Many times these men’s groups are fraternities of the most successful business people in your area. And because these groups meet monthly they are always on the look out for good public speakers like you. If you are confident in your public speaking ability, you can easily see yourself getting return invitations to address these groups.

But maybe by looking at these speaking opportunities differently, you can leave that frustration behind and find a way to market to these people by not marketing. You can use the natural functions of the public speaking forum to advertise your business in a way that never has a marketing feel to it at all. And these methods are not forbidden and your sponsors will applaud your presentation as you quietly milk these speaking engagements for all the marketing value you can get.

First of all, you are allowed to introduce yourself and talk about your specialized training and experience. Let’s face it, while that is a section of your presentation to help your audience understand your area of expertise, it is also nothing short of a job interview. By discussing your training and talents in the context of background, you cement in the mind of that audience why you would be a good person to think about when they need your kind of talent as part of what they do.

But the introduction is not the only way you can market by not marketing. By speaking with energy and passion about your work, that excitement sends a message about who you are to those potential customers out there. The one thing a client wants to see is that are always on a quest to increase your knowledge of your field. This is especially true if you are in an industry that goes through a lot of changes every year. Your clients want a partner who can keep up on those changes so they don’t have to. By demonstrating that this is a big part of who you are as a subject matter expert in your area, you will become a very attractive prospect as a business partner for those future.

You will want to make sure your presentation is packed with very useful information to your clients. But don’t tell them so much that they can live without you. A good approach is to discuss the problem area in business that your specialization is very good at addressing. By using your time to detail the problem, you create need in your audience. The solution section of your talk simply describes the perfect solution in enough detail so your future clients know you know what you are doing but not enough so they can take on the problem themselves. Once again, this creates the desire in the members of that fraternal organization to come to you when that very well described need comes up in their businesses.

Be sure to use the time before and after your presentation for networking. You may be invited to join the group for a meal and if you have already had a chance to speak, this is an ideal time to make some personal connections, answer questions about your talk and even make appointments to come and speak to individual business owners about how you can be of help to them. You are usually allowed to have your business card with you and for members of the club to take them after your talk. So if you done a good job of marketing by not marketing, those business cards will fly into the hands of those interested audience members and you will see a nice return on your investment of time just using public speaking to harvest contacts that can turn into more business for you.

The difference between a public speaking presentation that bores you to tears and one that leaves you with a smile on your face and thinking about that presentation is often not the content but the style of the speaker. You can take the same exact written talk and give it to two speakers and one will turn that script into an exciting live event for his audience and the other will leave that crowd cold.

Obviously your goal as to be that speaker that can really make any presentation come alive. The first “myth” to get out of your head then is that how well you do at creating excitement has anything whatsoever to do with your subject matter. While it always helps for you to be excited about the topic itself, you can develop the skills to take any text and turn it into a genuinely exciting public speaking event for any crowd and to do it every time. Its just a matter of knowing how.

Much of how excited your audience will be has to do with your own level of energy, your sense of humor and how much you are enjoying yourself up there. This is one of the great secrets of the really great entertainers or public speakers. If you are having fun, your audience will have fun too. Fun is contagious. Think of the great late night host Johnnie Carson. He always seemed to be having a great time. And as a result the world wanted to join him and have a great time too. You can cultivate that personality and that attitude when you are on stage.

To have fun during your public speaking engagement, you have to learn to have some fun with the subject matter. This is not always easy if the subject matter is mundane and ho hum. But if you see that topic as boring, so will your crowd and your time talking to them will be a tedious trial on your soul and on theirs too. So have some fun even with how mundane the topic is. If you join the audience in their feelings about the topic, you and they become partners to find the excitement in this topic.

But along with finding excitement in the topic, learn to have fun with the audience. You can do that even before you begin to speak on the outline at hand. Take some time to step away from the podium and interact with the audience. Ask them questions and learn who the vocal members of the crowd are. Find out who the big jokers are and the ones who will have some wise cracks to add as you speak.

These connections and spontaneous friendships will pay off as the presentation begins. But you are doing something dangerous there too. By energizing the crowd, you are also giving them permission to jump in during your talk and “help you out”. As you begin to speak, put energy and excitement, humor and personality into that text. The excitement of the crowd that sprung into existence because you started your relationship with them with affection and humor will feed your presentation.

Yes, if you put this kind of snap and pop into your time in front of a crowd, you will see feedback come back from that audience, particularly from those wise crackers you took time to make friends with at the start. But as scary at having that kind of interruption is, it means your crowd is energized and you an actually used that for your advantage. You can actually develop the ability to “surf” these interruptions and use them to propel your prevention forward. By teasing the crowd, asking them questions, the funny remarks that come back will actually be pertinent to what you have to say next. You can take your cues from their comments and take them right back to your outline and take the presentation forward to its conclusion.

This kind of public speaking can be dangerous and more than a little scary to learn to do. But because you had fun and our audience had fun, that presentation is full of “snap” and is 100% more successful. And that makes it worth taking the risks to learn this kind of public speaking.

The wonderful dearly departed comic Chris Farley had a character that was a professional motivational speaker. That character was Matt Foley and he was an absolute mess. His speaking style was painful and destructive and he lived (say it with me) in a van down by the river. Well, as hilarious as that routine was, that characterization of professional speakers is obviously for comedy purposes only. If you have been given the gift of public speaking, there is every reason to believe that you can make a very good living doing it for a living.

One way to view making your living as a public speaker is to see it as a variation on the profession of professional author. When you think about it, a writer of informative books takes an area of expertise that they have excelled at and they used their skills in writing to lay that out for people who need that knowledge. And when people buy that knowledge, it’s a fair exchange to pay that person for that valuable knowledge and allow that author to continue writing.

You can also compare a professional public speaker to the noble calling of teacher. A teacher, after all, is someone who does public speaking every day for his or her students. And that public speaking has a vital function in our society. Without it, our children would not be educated and the way our culture functions would be in serious danger. So professional public speakers are important.

How to get your own career as a professional public speaker going is the challenge. You may be used to public speaking to help with your work or as part of your membership in a church or other organization. So it may not be a big leap to think of taking that skill to the next level and seek ways to get paid doing what you love to do, speaking to larger groups about your area of expertise.

As might happen if you took your area of skill that you have the most knowledge an put that in a book form, that focus is your meal ticket to be successful as a professional public speaker. So to get the ball rolling, the first step is to add to the level of notoriety you may have as a professional in your field of knowledge. The internet is a good starting place. By building a web site where you can showcase your knowledge and using the skills of internet marketers to get some traffic to that web site, it is there you can begin to build an audience for your knowledge area and to keep them informed on times and places where you will be speaking.

Once that web site is in place, it can be a foundation for your new public speaking career. You can send people to it after each talk you give where they can learn more about how to use your talents for their function and for their audience. But don’t just rest on the internet and expect it to do all the work. There are lots of organizations that you can speak at either for free or for a small gratuity (sometimes just lunch). But the value of these meetings is not the pay, its getting momentum and some buzz as a speaker.

From then on its just a matter of networking. As members of those groups carry your business card with them, they refer you and you get more and more “gigs” presenting your talk to bigger groups. Before long the gratuities turn into real pay. And when you are on your way and things start to click, you will never look back on your decision to become a professional public speaker.