Can you talk the talk? Part 2 (Saturated Market)

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Can you talk the talk? Part 2

Strategy Yesterday, I touched on presenting; how to deliver a presentation in a way that will be less likely to bore your audience and give you an anxiety attack. Today we're going to turn it around, and look at the proper way to attend a presentation.

Been there, done that
What I find to be a key factor in being an effective listener is to put yourself in the speaker's shoes. We've all done public speaking before, so we know what it's like. This helps us to forgive some of the little things, like wavering speech, a note-shuffling or two, or any of the other things I told you to be wary of yesterday. Humanizing the speaker is a good way to feed the connection they ought to be trying to create with you; this brings the two of you closer which helps their presentation, and hopefully makes it more interesting and helpful for you.

Ask 'em if you got 'em
We all know that many people dread the question and answer portion of presentations; this is part where they have the least control of what happens. But I encourage you to ask anyway. First of all, this will obviously help you understand the topic better since you'll be able to directly approach the part of the subject matter that you want to understand better. And second, it will show the speaker that you've been paying attention, and that you're interested in what they have to say. This is a bit of an ego boost.

Just a little bit
I can't stress enough, in order to be a good audience, you need to demonstrate a little known attitude called respect. Keep your eyes on the speaker, while noting their visuals. Turn OFF the Blackberrys and cellphones; not just vibrate, but off. And cut the chatter. It's hard enough to do public speaking without having to compete with other people's voices, ring tones, and an incessant buzz coming from all the cellphones. Remember that unlike television, the speaker can see and hear you. And if they know you're not paying attention, you can expect the quality of their presentation to go down, and their patience to become much shorter.

So you can see, sitting through a presentation doesn't take nearly as much as giving one. But I think a lot of people have a long way to go before they can master either of these skills. And let's face it, you're going to need at least a basic grasp if you're going to be able to master the next topic, where we put them both together: conversation.

Until next time,