Tips
for Presenting To Young Audiences
It
was my first year in business and I was 20-minutes into
delivering a one-hour presentation
skills seminar when it was becoming painfully clear
that I was losing my audience fast. With this particular
group, the early warning signs were all there. It started
with some subtle multi-tasking activity followed by
a pronounced loss of eye contact by a few individuals
at first and then half the group. If you’ve ever
had that experience you know that you only have a couple
of options at that point. You can try to pump
up the energy level and occasionally re-energize
an audience; but, let’s face it, the odds are
pretty slim. Or you can always start summarizing, cut
your loses and go for a well-scripted close. At least
there’s some hope that your audience will, at
a minimum, hear a few crisp closing points and an interesting
story to tie it all together. On that particular day,
I didn’t have a chance to do either. The bell
rang at precisely 11:22 and Cheryl Bailey’s PowerPoint
class darted for the door and I was left standing there
(unplugging my projector and laptop) wondering what
the heck just happened. It was my first time
presenting to a group of kids and since then I’ve
had to revise my technique considerably for this unique
audience.
Lest
you think these opportunities are pretty rare, you’d
be surprised. Recently a client of mine was asked to
be a keynote speaker for an audience of 300 high-achiever
type high school kids. He had a track history of turning
around troubled companies and had spent the last three
years creating a nationally recognized direct marketing
powerhouse from a once struggling east coast printing
company. As we scripted his one-hour address, we came
across the writings of Dr. Kenneth McFarland, an International
Speaker’s Hall of Fame Award recipient and a strong
advocate for the importance of sharing
our very best thoughts with the youth of America.
R.S Warn captured some of them in a paper called, When
Asked to Speak. If you ever think you may be speaking
to a group of kids (or perhaps are just wondering how
to get through to your own), you will find these insights
helpful as you attempt to communicate with today’s
toughest audience.
Have
the Right Frame of Mind
Speakers
should approach a young audience with one very important
understanding – young people are genuine. Young
audiences openly express feelings where adults often
pretend. When young people don’t like what’s
being said, they will never act like they do. They are
not naturally rude: they just refuse to pretend. This
instant and honest feedback is a sterling quality in
young
audiences, a quality that some speakers avoid like
the plague.
Ignore Their Masks
Shallowness,
insincerity and callousness are masks young people wear,
but rarely indicate who they really are. Our youth will
appear untouched on the surface while deeply stirred
by stories with human and emotional elements. They will
also rally around basic ideals faster than the average
adult audience. They do want to build a better world
and are grateful for any relevant
insights you may provide.
Make
It Come Alive
A
common error made by business
speakers is the attempt to breathe life into a dead
script (theirs or someone else’s). Unless your
heartfelt feelings are involved, it is impossible to
bring life to the words of another. Young people are
not concerned with factual details of a letter-perfect
manuscript, what they need to know is that the person
standing before them is real. Hiding behind a script
is a very fast way to lose them. The more of yourself
you weave into the fabric of your speech the more “alive”
it will become for them. When looking for ways to drive
home a point, look for what you thought, what you found,
what you felt, what you did and how you now feel. Inexperienced
speakers, breaking every known rule of speech, have
touched young people deeply by speaking
from their heart.
Know
You’re On Stage
This
audience is sizing you up from the moment you arrive.
When required to sit on stage or at a head table, know
that everything you do either “adds to”
or “detracts from” the value of the program.
Pay full attention to the other speakers on the program
as well. When this is not done, it tends to discredit
the value of what’s being said. Kids can spot
disrespect quickly and it will only impact
their perception of you.
The
True Power is in Simplicity
True
power from the platform lies in using simple
language to express meaningful ideas. Words are
mental brush strokes we use to paint pictures in the
minds of others. Uncommon and difficult words tend to
leave people, especially youth, confused and insulted.
A speaker overly impressed with a large vocabulary and
insistent on demonstrating six syllable words is not
a speaker at all, only a person who fills a room with
confusing noise. (Noise that young people will always
add to in very short order.)
Audience
Participation
Audience
participation helps hold the attention of young people.
The younger the audience, the more important this device
becomes. It can be as simple as a show of hands and
as involved as your time, talent and ability contributed
before and after the event. A participation device needs
to tie directly with a major point in your message,
however. Where this is not done, your audience becomes
sidetracked. When asking group questions from youth,
you can expect questions that adults would never ask.
(How much do you make? How many hours do you work? Have
you ever fired anyone?) Whatever the question, they
must be handled as an important question and treated
with respect.
Never
Talk Down
They
may lack wisdom that comes with maturity, but the average
high school audience of today is better informed than
they’ve ever been before. Young people watch the
evening news and are often more in tune with worldwide
problems than some adults. Any speaker who stands before
them with an attitude of being all wise will lose this
audience in the first 60-seconds. Our young people encounter
so much condescending speech in their daily lives that
they naturally assume any adult who steps before them
will deliver the same. You need to break that perception
quickly.
Never
Attempt to Be One of Them
The
only way you can become like a child again is to become
senile and these young people know it. When you earn
their respect, they will accept you as an adult, but
they will never accept you as one of them. Any attempt
to be one of them, just one of the gang, will backfire
in your face. Everything you do, your dress, actions
and words should aim to project an image of an adult,
the type of adult they may want to become.
I’ve
only hit the highlights from Dr.McFarland’s insights
and I’ve thrown in a few of my own. From these
pearls of wisdom, one thing is clear, the need to be
genuine is never as important as it is with youthful
audiences. What kids are looking for is often very different
than what we may think. As the father of some great
kids, I found some basic wisdom here as well. We rarely
understand at the time how our words impact young hearts
and minds. And as indifferent as they may seem at times,
they desperately want to find adults in their lives
who they can look up to and model.
Young
people may be one of today’s toughest audiences,
but there will never be any more important
By
Jim Endicott
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