Public Speaking for Action Oriented Audiences
Motivational Speaker Tips for Performance-Driven Target Audiences
Jul 20, 2009
When a speaker targets a speech towards an audience that is action oriented, the goal needs to more than just effective persuasive speaking. Rather, the goal is motivational speaking that is specifically designed to maximize the enthusiasm, participation, and potential of an audience. Here are some public speaking tips to help speakers work effectively with action oriented audiences.
What is an Action Oriented Audience?
An action oriented audience is one that is driven to perform, succeed, and take action. This type of target audience might consist of marketing professionals who are eager to improve sales performance, or a group of motivated new employees who are especially excited about new opportunities. Any group of target audience members with an optimistic "can-do" attitude can be described as an action oriented audience.
Motivational Speaking Tips for Action Oriented Audience Members
Motivating performance-driven audience members is all about building upon an existing resource: individuals who are eager and willing to perform. This is a resource that should not be wasted. Here's how to use public speaking to maximize the potential of action driven audience members.
Maximize Audience Interaction and Audience Participation
Individuals who are eager to act may not respond well to a speaker who talks "at" them. Rather, they want to listen to speakers who ask them to participate actively as audience members. In this type of situation, speakers should concentrate less on trying to sound polished and professional, and instead should focus on getting the audience involved in the presentation. Some tricks to keep in mind:
- Maintain good eye contact.
- Avoid extensive use of PowerPoint or other visual aids that physically distance the speaker from the audience.
- Ask frequent questions that are directly relevant to the audience.
- Focus the presentation on activities the audience has already completed.
- Address audience members by name and with hand gestures.
- Consider pausing the presentation for hands-on activities that get audience members directly involved.
- Ask for feedback before the presentation, and incorporate that feedback into the presentation.
Recognize the Achievements of Audience Members
Action oriented individuals respond favorably to positive reinforcement. Whenever possible, speakers hoping to motivate performance-driven target audiences should vocally praise individual achievements. In addition to motivating those who have already been successful, this kind of praise provides examples to others of how to succeed in similar ways.
Similarly, a useful strategy for motivating an action oriented audience is to focus on group successes. Statistics and other evidence of group success serves as recognition and motivation for everyone. This can build both teamwork and individual achievements.
Help Audiences Set Realistic Goals
Performance-driven individuals may or may not have a good sense of how to channel their drive into realistic goals. Failure to meet goals can be demotivating, so it's important to provide action oriented audiences with solid information on how to create realistic goals. If possible, speakers can provide concrete ways for audience members to measure their success, and propose concrete and realistic numbers that signify where audience members should aim to achieve.
Maximizing the Potential of an Action Oriented Audience
In some ways, an action oriented audience is an easy one, as these individuals are likely to be eager and enthusiastic about the speaker. At the same time, performance-driven audiences can be a challenge because it is so important to maximize the potential of this valuable resource. Speakers can meet this challenge effectively by encouraging audience interaction and participation, by recognizing the achievements of individuals and the group, and by helping individuals and group create realistic goals.
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