3 Key Public Speaking Touch Points

When speaking to an audience, consider the touch points. These are points when you touch their hearts. Even if you are sharing a highly technical subject, do not forget you are STILL talking to human beings. We ALL have hearts and emotions. In sales, we say they ‘justify’ with logic, but ‘buy’ with emotion. In public speaking, this rule applies too. They come for the data, but they remember the story. They remember the time you touched their hearts, their emotions. These are touch-points.

Public Speaking Touch Point #1: As our example, let’s say you are speaking to engineers, VERY data-intensive people. After 10 slides of data, they are tuned-out from your words and are thinking deeply about the data you have presented.

Instead of giving them another 10 slides of data, at the end of the first 2 slides, ask them a question requiring them to reflect on their past. Something like, “Do you remember the first time you were taught XXX? Was it in secondary school, poly or university?” The interactive question wakes them up and simultaneously gives them an emotional response to the current information. It also aids memory as it connects past, present and future to make a memory that lasts (We cover this in our courses in public speaking and training in great depth.) This touchpoint is an emotional connection to their past, usually a warm and pleasant feeling from their life.

Public Speaking Touch Point #2: Later, ask them to share their greatest frustration with the subject matter or some problem they have incurred with it. This brings out a very powerful emotion of anger or frustration. After recognizing their frustration or anger, either share the solution for them (ideal) or at least empathize with them and you win them over… another key touch-point.

Public Speaking

Public Speaking Touch Point #3: Finally, at your close, rather than just summarize your presentation, ask THEM what were the most important points of the talk. If you are afraid you will get silence, take a tip from our Facilitation Skills programme and ask them to write down the 3 most important take-aways from the speech. Ask them then to quickly share their 3 points with someone next to them in less than 1 minute. Then simply ask, “How many of you had a similar point to a partner, please raise your hand.” All the hands raised are ‘volunteers’ to share their points. The audience summarizes FOR you. They are engaged and they believe the message more as it comes from their colleagues. The touch-point is the BELIEF in what you shared, not just the data itself.

There are dozens of touch-points in a great presentation and literally HUNDREDS of ways to make them. These are just 3 key touch-points you should incorporate to make your next presentation not only memorable, but one where the information gets USED. Enjoy connecting with your audiences using touch-points.

Got comments or questions about public speaking touch points? Just leave your comments here.

Giving a presentation is scary for most people. We found the perfect way to make it EASYer for you. Just present with the ABCDs in mind. (ABCDs is our trademarked Presentamagic™ speaking system)

A stands for ATTENTION. Unless you gain their favourable attention, you will not have a successful speech. Do not waffle about at the opening. Get their attention with something that makes your point and sets the stage. Make it funny, profound, thought provoking or startling, but get their ATTENTION.

B stands for BLUEPRINT. People need a road map of where they are going to feel comfortable and to keep from getting lost. After you have their ATTENTION, tell them what they will hear during your talk so they get their minds in synch with your message.

C stands for COASTER or roller-COASTER. Riding a train on a flat, straight track after 2 minutes is not very exciting while EVERY moment on a good COASTER with its ups, downs, twists, surprises really gets us excited. A good speech is the same. You need highs of laugher and enthusiasm, lows of serious and profound thought and a few twists, turns and surprises along the way. Flat track is BORING.

D stands for DESTINATION. Hearing a speech is one thing but what do we do at the end? We need a clear destination, a goal to reach, a call to action; something that leaves us with a profound WOW or life changing thought.

`But Mike, I am only speaking to my team about the new waste cutting measures.` So what? If it is not important, do not waste people`s time with it. If it is worth sharing, it is worth sharing WELL. Tell them how cutting waste is saving the planet for their children, ensuring their rice bowl (job), being good stewards, produces profit and improves their quality of life.

Remember: Speaking is actually quite easy. You have been speaking since you were about 2-years-old. We just have to get back to the basics and relearn our ABCDs. Got comments or questions? Just leave your comments here.

3 Speaking, Training and Meetings Tips! Speaking, training and meetings need not be hard nor should they ever be dry or boring to the participants. Here are 3 quick tips to make each one easier for you to deliver and a LOT easier on your participants.

1) Speak to individuals, never to the group. Even if I have an audience of 2000+, I only speak to one person at a time. Mother Theresa once said, “One never cares for a crowd, only for an individual. If I visualized a crowd, I’d never get started. The important thing is, the individual.” People get nervous speaking to crowds but rarely to their closest friend…an individual. By the way, it is far easier to look at a face in the crowd smiling at you rather than a hostile face. The smile feeds you energy and confidence while the frown or scowl takes it away.

2) Training is more about influencing behaviour than conveying words. Remember that. Why give them 10,000 words if they change nothing? Instead share what you would like them to DO, get their buy in by having them say it makes sense. Then have them practice it, rewarding them (praise, monetary, feed them, etc.) for successful completion. Now you have ‘trained’ your people.

3) Meetings are for a ‘meeting of minds’, not for attendance. You attend a funeral. You should not simply ‘attend meetings.’ If you are not going to speak, share, challenge or participate, you should not be there. If the meeting is simply to give information, skip the meeting and post the information on a Web site. Everyone at EVERY meeting should be sharing. Design your meetings to be true meetings, not passive ‘information dumps’.

Amazingly simple yet so profound…speaking, training and meetings need to be geared to involved individuals who take action.

If you’d like to know simple techniques for getting people to Open – Up and share their ideas in a meeting or a training session? Check out my “Mining For Gold! Facilitation Skills to Unearth a Wealth of Ideas From Your Team” Package.

I wrote this “Mining For Gold!” to help managers on facilitating meetings; trainers on running coaching sessions and how to extract great ideas from your participants.

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“Wow! “Mining For Gold! is a must read if you are in business it makes child’s play of turning a meeting with your people into a meeting of minds… and, when minds meet, action is the result.”

- Winston Marsh
Australian Marketing Guru