7 ways to connect with your audience during a speech

Know what your audience wants, season your talk with humor, play the contrarian, and offer a tangible takeaway.

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If you have ever delivered a speech and failed to connect with your audience members, I have good news. You don’t have to be the world’s most captivating speaker to deliver a dynamic, entertaining speech.

At its core, a speech is just a conversation. Like any conversation, your job is to communicate certain information to the people listening, whether it’s one person or one thousand.

The problem is that we are all subject to such an onslaught of information today that it’s very difficult to break through the noise.

Your job as a speaker is to make a connection with your audience so they will accept and retain your message.

Let me put a finer point on it: If you don’t grab your audience’s attention, you will lose their interest in a heartbeat, and your speech will just be a giant waste of time.

In that spirit, here are seven excellent ways to connect with your audience during a speech:

1. Talk about what your audience wants you to talk about.

This may seem basic, but how do you know you’re even talking about the things your audience wants you to talk about?

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