How to Engage Your Audience during a Meeting

A meeting only becomes fruitful when you have an attentive audience. With attention spans becoming shorter and shorter by the day, audience engagement has become a bigger challenge than it perhaps was. Every time you address a group, irrespective of whether it is small or large, you are actually competing with several distractions! Right from the time you rent training room, you need to have a plan in place for ensuring rapt attention. Here are some tips on how to get unflinching attention from your audience.

Have a goal

Have a goal for your address. What is it that you want from your audience? What kind of reaction do you wish to extract? Once you know this, your intention will also fall in line with your goal. Now, with the goal and intention in alignment, your actions including the voice, actions and gestures will be tuned to support it. And this is how establishing connect with your audience will become easier.

Show them the benefit

Every time a group attends a training program or a meeting, the most common question floating around in their mind would be “what will it do for me?” So, sensitizing them towards the tangible benefits of the address is a simple way to keep them hooked to your address. Don’t be embarrassed to state the benefits loud and clear.

Have a perfect start

If the audience connects with you in the first 30 seconds of your address, they are likely to remain connected throughout. So, plan a great start that will hook the audience almost immediately. You can use a popular saying, a great anecdote, or just throw in an interesting question for the audience to sit up and take note!

Being authentic helps

Adopting a high handed approach can be misconstrued as arrogance. Remember, it is important to be humble and authentic. No audience in the world can connect with loud and pompous statements. So, share your successes and achievements humbly. Success is never synonymous with superiority. Do not make false claims and allow your actions to speak louder than words.

Simple communication is the key

Words are meant to communicate your thoughts and ideas. If they are way too complicated and lofty, their essence is lost. Remember, an address is not for showing off your vocabulary. It is for getting the point across and maintaining connect with those listening to you. So, make sure you choose simple yet effective words and terms that are easier to understand.

Create a dialogue

A monologue can hardly hold the attention of listeners. A dialogue is better. So, when you are preparing the material for address, sprinkle in questions that can be placed before the audience. It can be ones seeking opinions or simply for asking their feedback. When you strike a dialogue with your audience every now and then, they automatically pay attention to what you are saying and choose to remain engaged at all times.

Planning a meeting impeccably is what will see u through. You will need to sift through seminar room rental for the ideal venue. The matter to be delivered should be prepared after much deliberation as well. A meeting where the audience engagement fails is a gross wastage of time, effort and resources.

 

To read our previous article, please click here.