Let’s play a game.
In seconds, I will connect you to every human on planet Earth. They’re all eager to hear from you. It’s the biggest stage there is. Everyone will see you and hear you.
Ready?
3 – 2 – 1. You’re on.
All eyes are on you.
What do you say?
More importantly, what do you do?
I’ll let you simmer in the discomfort for a second.
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Was that enough? Let’s get on with it. I know exactly what you should do. It’s three things.
1. Resonate
2. Elevate
3. Articulate
I could write a book about these three. But I’ll keep it short for this post.
The Root of the Fear of Public Speaking
Have you ever gotten sweaty palms in a meeting or on stage? If you have, I want to share the simplest strategy to neutralize any fear of speaking. Dive into this article to discover the transformative power of audience-centric communication and unlock the secrets to being heard and truly understood.
Most of you fear the stage because you’re obsessing about your performance. You’re stuck in your heads.
There is a magic word that is guaranteed to stop your fear of speaking in public: You.
In this case, “you” refers to your audience.
If you stopped worrying about yourself and deliberately made your audience happy, your fear would disappear.
You wouldn’t worry about your performance if you trusted that you had a message they needed to hear.
The Audience is on Your Side
Remember, your audience typically doesn’t want you to fail. They’re rooting for you. By shifting your focus from yourself to them, you can alleviate much of the anxiety associated with public speaking.
You already have permission
Have you ever felt stuck or unsure about speaking up, sharing your thoughts, or being your true self?
We often blame the outside world for not making us feel seen, included, and valued. But at times, the key to getting unstuck could be in ourselves.
According to two of my favorite authors, we must take two fundamental steps:
- Make peace with an authority figure
- Grant ourselves permission to speak up.
The two authors I love are Joseph Campbell and Seth Godin.
First, let’s talk about Campbell’s fascinating concept: the “atonement with the father” (or mother, of course!). It’s about making peace with an influential figure in our lives – this could be a parent or even an internal voice that keeps us from reaching our full potential.
But we’re grownups. Why would we need to make peace with an authority figure?
Oftentimes we attribute this authority to the person we are speaking with. We ask our conversation partner to provide this permission. We even go as far as to give them power over our emotions. If they frown, we stutter. If they look distracted, we freeze. If they disapprove, we feel devastated.
The process of becoming fearless communicators starts with taking control of our emotions.
How? If we give ourselves permission. And stop asking others for confirmation.
That could help us make peace.
Now, enter Seth Godin with his empowering message: “You already have permission.”
Here’s his blog post from March 2013
Just saying.
You have permission to create, to speak up, and stand up.
You have permission to be generous, to fail, and to be vulnerable.
You have permission to own your words, to matter and to help.
No need to wait.
He encourages us to realize that we don’t need external approval to express ourselves, be brave, or lend a helping hand. We can dive in and make things happen!
First, recognize that the “father” or “mother” figure might be an inner voice holding you back, whispering doubts like, “You can’t do that!” or “You’re not good enough.”
But guess what? You can stand up to that voice and declare, “I have permission to be amazing!”
People who speak up are more often seen, considered and eventually invited to speak to larger audiences. If your purpose is influencing others, giving yourself permission is the first and fundamental step.
The Magic of Starting with “You”
The Overuse of “I”
“I have something very important to say.”
I’m joking. Nothing important for you can ever start with I.
“I am excited to be writing these words.”
“I am glad to have such an amazing readership.”
“I am so glad I get to share my value with you.”
I, I, I, I. Who cares what I think and feel?
The Dark Side of “I”
“I have to impress the audience.”
“I have to win them over.”
“I have to make a sale.”
Have you ever started a meeting with these thoughts in your head? And has the meeting gone well or badly?
If you focus on your own performance expectations, you will never impress, win over, or make a sale.
The Misleading “We”
“We are a great community”
No, we’re not!
As one of my workshop participants once said, “There’s a lot of me in we.”
Be careful using “we” too much.
Sometimes, people use “we” to make others feel included where they don’t belong.
People use “we” to push people into things.
“What” is often more interesting than “I” or “we”
“Newsletters offer a great way to stay connected with your industry”
Well put!
When I focus on the topic and not just on me or grouping you, I can explain… the actual thing. What is it? What does it do? Why is it helpful?
Ditch the “I”, avoid the “we”
Good communication starts where your ego stops, and you get into the topic.
“I” is a great way to start a personal story. But before I can involve my audience in my personal point of view, I need to establish clearly the message’s core value.
Making Your Audience the Protagonist
We already ditched I, and we. Discovered that “what” has potential. Now it’s time to reveal the magic word that leads to great outcomes in meetings, talks, and interviews: you.
You.
Your audience wants to feel seen.
They want to get value.
They are the protagonist.
They want to go on a journey.
The Universal Language of Self-Interest
Have you ever spoken to a distracted person, room or auditorium?
Without attention, your ideas disappear. The Romans used to say “Verba volant,” words fly.
Attention. Is the main currency of the information age.
It all starts with something as simple as self-interest.
I can read your mind. When you’re driving a car, anyone slower than you is an idiot. Anyone quicker a maniac.
When you’re walking, you feel bicycles around you are dangerously fast. When you’re cycling, pedestrians are always in the way.
Each of us is the center of our universe. Billions of universes on this earth.
You stop and like and comment each time you see YOU in the content, image, or mood in front of you. Not just your photo but something that represents you.
If I can mirror your values, you will give me your attention.
That’s what great communicators shorten in WII FM, everyone’s favorite radio station.
This acronym stands for “what’s in it for me?” and every sane, self-centered person is asking themselves this question all the time.
Except.
Except when they are presenting. Then they forget that the audience asks them “what’s in it for me?”
When they fail to answer this question, their presentation falls flat.
Why is so hard to answer this simple question?
“What’s in it for me?”
You can’t answer from your point of view. But from the vantage point of the audience.
What does your audience want?
This step gets in your head. If your presentation is about quantum physics you will say “my audience wants to know about quantum physics.” WRONG!
Did you wake up thinking “I hope to learn more about INSERT SUBJECT today?”
Noooooo! We go about our day thinking about mundane and personal stuff. And you know it.
So next time you start writing content, start by putting yourself in your audience’s shoes.
The five concepts that are guaranteed to persuade any audience
Rich Litvin says:
“People only buy four things. Time, money, status and peace of mind.
If you try to sell something other than those four things, you will fail. When you sell all four, you will thrive.
If you want to be successful make sure you let people know how working with you will lead them to more time, money, status and peace of mind.”
I’ve heard it said in different ways over the years. The most memorable was:
“People want only three things. To get paid. Get laid. Live forever.”
These lists do not give us the full picture of human desires and needs. But they are not so far off.
Let’s try and answer this question: “What’s in it for me?”
Time: Do I save time? Do I gain time?
Status: Do I increase my status? Can I grow my career? Can I show myself in a new light?
Money: Do I save more? Do I get more?
Peace of mind: do I sleep better? Is my life easier? Can I quiet a worry?
Belonging: Do I get more connected to my peers? Do I get to know new people and extend my circle? Do I make my peers safer and better cared for? Do I join a new club?
And if you think you also have altruistic goals like fighting climate change, being engaged in politics, doing voluntary work. Please be honest: Do you do it for status, relationships, or peace of mind? Probably, it’s a combination of the three.
Let me spell it out: Communicating with humans is the easiest thing ever. You just need to encounter their basic needs:
- time
- status
- money
- peace of mind
- belonging
How to change the perspective and answer WIIFM correctly
One of the few universal communication principles is that you always start with your audience.
I want to take a step further. At the start of each of my workshops, I ask my participants to draw a persona of their audience.
There are a gazillion frameworks to map a persona. What I want you to do is tell me:
📍 Who they are, how old, where do they live.
🏡 Who they are at home: family, hobbies, pets, passions, free time.
💼 Who they are at work: role, attitude, strengths and weaknesses, relationship with the team
🙀 What they fear: situation, context, downsides.
✅ What they hope: goal, direction, upsides.
❤️ What core values do they hold: what keeps them on track and motivated.
This process is guaranteed to get you out of your head. And gets you on track to become a great communicator.
I ask my participants to draw their persona by adding some sticky notes to this shape
Mapping your audience forces you out of your head. And it gets you in their heads.
Resonate, Elevate, Articulate
“I liked her from the first moment I saw her.”
“I never felt like I could trust him.”
“First impressions matter.”
“I had a gut feeling.”
When the broadcast begins, all that matters is how you move on stage, how you smile, how you use your whole body, your hands, the sound of your voice, and your mood.
For many moments, it doesn’t matter what you say but how you say it. It doesn’t matter what you talk about, but who you are.
You can’t fake it. The whole world will tune out if they think you’re a phony.
Your job is to resonate, to tune into a specific frequency (imagine rotating the dial of an old radio), and make your audience “vibrate” in a similar way an opera singer can make a glass vibrate (and eventually shatter).
I do this by being very intentional and open with how I move on stage. I smile to them until they smile with me. I usually joke around in the first few minutes of a presentation. I ask questions that help the audience learn something about themselves. I show my empathy and my humanity in every way I can. If I stumble, I will own it. I will show courage. I will show myself. I will be naked.
That’s what I call resonating.
“Just a lot of mansplaining.”
“I already knew everything about it, but she brilliantly connected the dots.”
“He stated the obvious.”
“What she said just felt right.”
Your audience is not dumb. They don’t need you to state the obvious. All they crave is for you to elevate them to a higher level. If they resonate with you, they are ready to follow you to think more deeply, reflect on higher concepts, and grow.
Your job, in general, is to transform your audience into somebody new. This phase sets the altitude of that change.
I do this by asking a thought-provoking question. I hold my answers and conclusions, letting the audience connect the dots on their own. I share quotations that may be difficult to comprehend. And I intentionally avoid helping the audience understand them. They will absorb them. At this point, in a workshop, I would let my audience state their goals: not just tell me who they are but who they want to become.
That’s what I call elevating.
“That story she shared was so memorable.”
“All that data was very confusing.”
“What stuck with me is this one idea.”
“The whole talk didn’t gel with me.”
At this point, what you actually say becomes important. You can introduce your ideas and use words to articulate them. Your storytelling didn’t matter at all in the resonate and elevate phase. Now, telling stories is your most powerful tool. You can take your audience on an adventure.
They are resonant and elevated: they can access your ideas.
You’re in their heads. If you feel that they are disconnecting their hearts you can always go back to resonating by pausing, showing vulnerability or asking a question.
And if they seem to have trouble keeping up with the altitude you can always elevate them by telling them something surprising or profound (or both).
Then articulate.
I do it by reconnecting all the concepts I introduced at the start. Still, now they assume a new meaning because the audience is connecting the dots differently. I might even show the same slides I displayed initially.
That’s what I call articulating.
Your final address looks like this. Isn’t it beautiful?
The world audience is an impatient bunch. Your slot is almost over, but you managed to resonate, elevate, articulate, and eventually transform them into someone new. Well done!
Take your audience on a journey
We want to go places with you. We’re looking for leaders who will open our eyes and help our imagination. Do that for your audience. Set a starting point and a destination. And take your audience on a journey.
Now that you know the principle to get their attention, let’s look at all the tactics you can apply to engage your audience consistently.
Tell your audience how you’re going to use their time
At the start of the presentation, tell them how you will use the time. “We’ll have 30 minutes together. I will tell you two stories, 10 minutes each. And then we’ll have 10 minutes for q&a.”
Audiences love to be in control. And if you give them a clear idea of how you use time, they will feel more at ease. Plus, we all need toilet breaks.
Speak their language
SEO, KPI, CRO. Funnel hacking, workshop facilitation, account management.
When you speak to an audience, make sure your jargon makes sense to them. It takes a second to tell me if by CRO you mean Chief Revenue Officer, Chief Risk Officer or Conversion Rate Optimization. Account manager means something in one industry and the opposite in another.
Focus on why and how
Tell me what you’re talking about. But immediately after please tell me why you’re taking about it and how does it work.
Make ideas clear by telling related stories
“I help people go from zero to professional speakers. Like that time I helped E. talk for the first time on stage. To a 1.000 people. And E. went from zero to 1.000 in 6 weeks of work with me. Want to try it for yourself?”
If you deconstruct this, you will see that I make a claim, tell a story around that claim, and then call you to action.
Don’t cram too much information
Your imposter syndrome dictates you dump 100% of your knowledge on your audience.
My advice is to be selective. Distill your content to the 1 to 5 essential bits of information that are most likely to move your audience. Deliver these essential bits of information, tell me why and how they work, and provide examples and stories.
Use little text on your slides. Show compelling visuals
Never have more than one concept per slide. Slides are free. Never make a list. Always give space to your ideas.
If you have your next 5 talking points on your slide, your audience will be reading point number 5 while you’re blabbering about points 1 and 2. This means that they are ahead and you’re behind. You never want to be behind. Abolish lists.
Pause. For drama
On stage, you need time to breathe. And the audience, too. Following your thoughts is a lot of work. When you pause, you give a gift to your audience.
Ask questions, interact, and let your audience talk
Your audience has all the answers. You, not so much. Interact with them. Ask questions. Get their opinion. Don’t limit yourself to a show of hands. Be one with them.
Look them in the eye
Acknowledge each part of the room by making eye contact with both the people in the front and the ones in the back. The people in the middle, in the left, and in the right.
Always hold your eye contact for an entire sentence. Move to another section of the audience only in between sentences.
Occupy space on stage
If you’re on a stage, yours is a performance. Use the space. Don’t hide behind a lectern. Don’t make yourself small. Don’t move around aimlessly. But use space intentionally. Use gestures. Your body is the best slide there is.
Dress to impress
If you’re talking on the stage your clothes are a costume.
Make them feel like a group
Your audience is going through a shared experience: your talk gives them that experience. They are in on your secrets. They are part of your inner circle. Make them feel like a group.
Find your communication style
Most of you dress sharp. Care for your appearance. Want to make a good impression. How about your communication style? Is it developing in the right direction?
Do you know what you’re doing right and where you should correct it?
You must find and sharpen your communication style. It’s the essence of authenticity, allowing you to connect deeply with your audience. By being self-aware and continuously refining your style, you ensure your message is heard and felt.
I have a free training where I introduce you to my process to find your own personal communication style. I would love for you to watch it.
