From TJ Walker’s upcoming book, “The Wisdom of your Audience.”

Should I tell my audience that I am very happy to be speaking to them today?

Your Speech Writer: “It is important to set the mood of you being gracious, so tell people you are happy to be there.”

You: “I want to be sincere and real, so I want to tell people that I am genuinely happy to have the honor of speaking to them today.”

***

Your Audience: “Boring! We don’t care if you are happy. Why don’t you spend your time making us happy by actually telling us something interesting? We are especially unimpressed when you read from a script with your head down and tell us that you are happy to be speaking to us in a wooden tone of voice. First tings first–tell us interesting stuff, create a shared experience for all of us, then we can all be happy together.”

Tags: how you feel, presenting, public speaking

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 9th, 2008 at 10:24 am and is filed under PowerPoint, Presentation Skills Training, Professional Speakers, Public Speaking Skills, Speaking, keynote speaking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.