Gaining an Audiences Attention

When you do public speaking, whether you are getting paid for it or not, you have to realise that an audience’s attention span is short.

I don’t mean to sound dull, but in this day-and-age with MTV-style editing on TV, thousands of channels, the internet people need to be able to flip from one piece of information to the next. I know, because I suffer from this myself.

I find it difficult to watch things on TV when I could be checking emails, blogging, reading a book and so on.

When I used to do stand-up I learned that you needed a string closing line and a strong opening. The rest would almost take care of itself. You need to “grab them by the lapels” to make sure they listen.

But what about during your speech?

I’ve talked elsewhere on this blog about watching dull speakers. Sometime you just need to find ways to wake ’em up!

Tom Antion talks about this very thing:

“After you have created your talk, go through it and make sure that every 2-4 minutes you use some kind of attention gaining device…”

Want to know some of the tips that he recommends? Sign up to his Membership site Amazing Public Speaking.