Chapter 87 Get the audience involved in what you're saying

Why is Russell Cornwell able to maintain a relaxed and pleasant relationship with the audience in one speech after another?Therein lies the secret of his success. When Russell Cornwell delivered his famous "Discovering Yourself" speech, he delivered it nearly 6,000 times.You may think that the speech repeated so many times may have been deeply ingrained in the speaker's mind, and the tone of the words and sentences will not change when he speaks, right?But it turned out not to be the case.Because Dr. Cornwell knows that his audience will come from a variety of levels of knowledge and backgrounds, it is imperative that the audience feel that his talk is relevant, something alive, made especially for them.

Dr. Cornwell is well aware that successful communication depends on the speaker making his speech a part of his audience and making the audience a part of his speech.Although "Finding Yourself" became the most popular speech, we cannot find a copy of it.Although he has spoken to some 6,000 audiences, the same speech is never given twice. From this example, maybe you should get a little insight: When preparing a speech, you should always have a specific audience in mind.Here are some simple and effective ways to help you create rapport and rapport with your audience. This method is also the effective method used by Dr. Cornwell.He is used to adding many things that local people often talk about and things they are familiar with in his speeches.Audiences are interested in him because what he talks about is about themselves, about their interests, about their problems.It is this inner connection with the audience and their interests that enables him to firmly grasp the audience's attention and ensure smooth communication between him and the audience.

Someone once asked Sir Northcliffe, a British newspaper tycoon, what can most arouse people's interest?He replied: "It is man himself." It is from this simple fact that he built his newspaper empire. James Harvey Robinson, in The Breeding of Thoughts, describes fantasy as "a natural and most popular thought."He went on to say, "In fantasy we allow our minds to go their own way, and its direction depends on people's hopes or fears, on their success or disillusionment, on their likes and dislikes. Anger, sorrow, joy, etc. There is nothing in the world that interests us more than ourselves."

When many people talk, they only talk about things that interest them, but the audience is so bored by these things that they cannot be a successful speaker.So, you might as well do it the other way around: Get people to talk about their own interests, their own careers, their own golf scores, their own accomplishments.That way, even if you don't talk much, you'll be seen as a good conversation partner. When you address your audience, if you ignore their natural tendency to be self-centered, you can find yourself dealing with a restless audience.They will squirm, show impatience, occasionally raise their hand to check their watch, and be eager to leave.

If you express your heartfelt admiration for something commendable they have done, you have won the key to their heart, but it also requires serious research.If your compliments are mere exaggerated, cheesy phrases, such as "You are the wisest audience I've ever met," most listeners will probably be offended by what they consider empty flattery.Here, I just want to quote the famous speaker Depp: "You have to tell them something about them, and something they didn't think you might know." praise technique. A man was recently to give a speech at the Kewanee Club in Baltimore, and although he could find nothing special about the club, he only knew the news that everyone knew: one of the club's members had served as international president, one as international director.However, he made everyone feel something different. How did he do it?

"The Baltimore Kewanee Club is 1 of 101,898 Kewanee Clubs!" The members were a little surprised: the speaker was dead wrong, because there are only 2,897 Kewanee Clubs in the world. The speaker then went on to say, "Even if you don't believe me, it's still true, at least in terms of math. Your club is really 1 in 101,898, not 1 in 100,000 or 200,000 . "How did I figure that out? Yes, there are only 2,897 clubs in the International Kewanee Organization. However, the Baltimore clubs have had international presidents and international directors in the past. Mathematically, any Kewanee club The probability of having an international president and director at the same time is 1:101898. I have a doctorate in mathematics from Jones Hopkins University, and I can prove the accuracy of the numbers I calculated.” So he attracted everyone’s attention. attention.

Of course, although his praise was ingenious, the main reason was that he had carefully planned and thought carefully, and it could be seen that he was sincere from the heart.So if you can't express genuine appreciation, it's best to say nothing at all. When speaking, point out early on that there is some kind of direct relationship between you and your audience.If you feel honored to be invited, you might as well say so. Another effective method is to mention the name of the audience. At a banquet before a speech, I sat next to the host.I was surprised that he was very curious about everyone, and kept asking the host of the banquet, such as who is the person in the blue suit, and what is the name of the lady with the flowers on the hat?I didn't understand why he was curious until he stood up to speak.He used the names he had just learned so skillfully that the faces of those he mentioned beamed with joy, and this simple trick won the speaker the friendship of the audience.

Just a word of caution though, if you use fancy names in your speech that you learn about by asking, you have to make sure you get it right and only mention them in a friendly way, of course There must be some restraint. Another way to keep the audience's attention throughout is to use the second-person pronoun "you" instead of the third-person pronoun "he, they" in your speech, which keeps the audience feeling personally involved . Have you ever thought about how to use a little acting skills to make the audience follow your train of thought?If you let the audience assist you in presenting a point or dramatize your point of view during your speech, the attention of the audience will be significantly improved.

In order to explain how far the car must go before it can stop after braking, a speaker specially invited an audience member in the front row to show him the difference in the sliding distance of the car at different speeds.This listener takes the end of a steel tape and stretches it down the aisle to 45 feet...while the listener demonstrates, the other listeners are engrossed.In addition to showing the speaker's argument vividly, the tape measure also became a communication bridge between the audience and the speaker. This approach works precisely because when one person in the audience is brought into the "performance" by the speaker, the rest of the audience are keenly aware of what happens.Many speakers believe that there is a wall between the people on stage and those off the stage, and that you can tear down that invisible wall by harnessing the participation of your audience.

Asking questions is also one of the most commonly used methods.I like to ask the audience to stand up, repeat a sentence after me, or raise their hand to answer my question.Remember the main point of this section: If you get your audience involved, you give them the rights of partnership. Sincerity is an essential element in all relationships between speaker and audience.Norman Vincent Peale once gave some advice on this to a minister.It turned out that when the pastor preached, he had no way of holding the audience's attention. In American television, the competition is brutal, and the actors who earn the highest ratings each season are locked into it.The only actor who can keep winning here is Ed Sullivan.He's a journalist, an amateur in the competitive television world.He was able to win the competition because he didn't think highly of himself, only that he was an amateur.

Although he has some unnatural behaviors in front of the camera, such as his hands on his chin, his shoulders arched, his tie pulled, his speech stuttering... others may think it is a mistake, these flaws do not hurt him. Even if someone criticizes him, he doesn't care.Every year he invites at least one imitator to imitate himself vividly on TV and exaggerate his shortcomings.He would laugh as much at these ridiculous gestures as anyone else.His attitude of welcoming criticism made the audience like it very much.Because audiences love humility and loathe pompous, boastful show-offs. This is just as Henry and Dana Lee Thomas commented on the Chinese sage Confucius in "The Biography of Modern Religious Leaders": "He never showed off his knowledge. He just used his benevolent heart to try to enlighten People." If we can have the tolerance of Confucius, we can hold the key to open the hearts of our audience.