Choosing the right speaker.
Guest speaker? Motivational speaker? Inspirational speaker?
Or a speaker who asks questions? Who shares the space with the audience? Who listens? Who promotes a conversation rather than a convention?
When engaging an external influence (speaker) to work with your students,staff or workers the choice is yours.And like all choices there are questions that should be asked and answered-but they aren’t always.
Questions like-
- Who is going to interest my audience?
- Who is going to connect with my audience?
- Who is going to be able to ‘hold’ my audience?
Whilst these 3 questions might look similar they are distinctly different.
Being of interest to an audience is critical.And the game of ‘interest’ is won or lost in the first 2 minutes (max) of meeting said audience.
Being able to connect with an audience cleverly dovetails once you have their interest-only occurring when elements such as atmosphere and style are favorably received by the audience.
At which point the focus can shift to ‘holding’ the audience-which is a highly challenging focus (particularly) given school-aged students.
Thus the need to present a style of speaking that involves subtle nuances in movement,tone and language-which challenges the audience (And has them wondering what’s next)
Speaking publicly is not an easy job.
And neither is selecting a public speaker.
Asking the right questions is a critical first step-your audience will be glad you did.