Communication - Getting Your Audience's Attention Back

The main idea of the information is about a simple technique to regain the audience's attention when giving a presentation. The speaker emphasizes the importance of using energy and enthusiasm in delivery to keep the audience engaged. They suggest using words or phrases with more intonation, word stress, and volume to grab attention. The speaker also highlights the significance of monitoring and adjusting one's energy level during speaking, as well as reading the audience's energy. By doing so, the speaker believes that the audience can be brought back quickly. Today's communication technique is a simple one. It's a simple concept and it's a simple way to try to get your audience's attention back when you feel like you're losing it. Losing the audience's attention can happen for a number of reasons, but one of the main reasons that people stop listening is when they feel like the speaker is not presenting any energy in their delivery. Nice slides are helpful and interesting information is great, but really it comes down to the speaker's ability to present with energy and enthusiasm that can transmit to the audience. And when you lose that energy, they lose that energy. So what I want to share with you is a simple technique that I use when I'm doing this podcast, and of course there's always things I can do better. I'm not a perfect example, but the main idea is anytime I realize I've been talking for 10, 20, or even 30 seconds in a monotone sort of way, where my intonation has not really gone up or down very often, or where I haven't really paused, or when I haven't used any word stress or emphasis, that's when I decide I'm going to say something strongly. And that's when I can try to get the audience's attention back. So you notice I just emphasized the word that's a few seconds ago, but that's just one word, that's. There are many words that you can use or short phrases you can use to say with more volume and more intonation and emphasis to get the audience's attention back. So I'll give you another example and notice after 10, 15 seconds, I'm going to try to get your attention back with the way I say something. Many people think the most important thing about presentations are your slides or your information or creating a good introduction or a good conclusion, but actually it's the use of your voice. How you use your voice is the most important tool that you have in giving a presentation. So you'll notice in those last 10 seconds there, starting with the word actually, I made an effort to add more intonation and more word stress and a little bit more volume into my voice. So you can do this with words like actually, however, as a result, finally. Those are adverbs. Adverbs are great for this kind of thing, but it could also be an important noun like your voice, right? Or a verb like use your voice. But the key is recognize and monitor during your speaking what the energy level is like that's coming from. And that's, I know it's a difficult thing to do because you have a lot of other things to focus on, but try to pay attention to your energy. Also read the audience's energy and if you see it going down, bring it back with the way that you say your words. Slow down, add energy through your intonation, your volume, and emphasis on the right words. You'll be surprised how quickly you can get your audience back. I hope you enjoyed today's lesson. I'll see you for the next one.