Top 10 E's to Motivate and Influence an Audience

by Sandra Schrift

Published on this site: August 19th, 2004

Speak with E's. Be a speaker of influence not control or guilt. With the privilege of the platform comes the awesome responsibility of motivating and influencing your audience to feel/think/act differently.

1. Educate provide your audience with extensive information on your topic. This will empower attendees to feel competent and knowledgeable. Support your points with stories. Stories help us see through the eyes of other people. Adults delineate their thoughts visually.
   
   
2. Entertain give them the facts laced with a good dose of humor. Adults learn better when they are lightening up! Here's the place for some magic tricks, handwriting analysis or a song.
   
   
3. Experience get the audience involved. When they interact, they get it better and retain it longer. Group exercises, simple questions and answers, role-plays.
   
   
4. Enthusiasm vary your tone of voice, smile often, and show passion for your subject matter. Make your body language reflect your comments.
   
   
5. Example be the speaker/person who motivates the audience to admire and respect you. You have succeeded when people say, I want to be like him/her.
   
   
6. Encourage be supportive to your audience believe in them. Acknowledge them Say, I did it and so can you
   
   
7. Excellence hold yourself accountable for excellence. And then help your audience be accountable and live up to its potential. Speakers need to give audiences what they need, not what they want.
   
   
8. Expertise demonstrate that you know your stuff. Speak about what you know from your business background, personal experiences and research. Be perceived as an expert on your topic.
   
   
9. Eloquence deliver your speech with high energy, sincerity, inspiration, and a sense of humor. Are you one of a kind? What makes you different from your competitors?
   
   
10. End result you want to energize your audience to take some risks, some action, go to the edge and execute . . . make their dreams come true, or get the job done. Your information should be useful and immediately applicable to their lives.

Sandra Schrift 13 year speaker bureau owner and now coach speakers to get clients and paid speaking engagements. I also work with business professionals and organizations who want to deliver masterful presentations. To find out HOW TO MAKE IT AS A PROFESSIONAL SPEAKER, go to http://www.schrift.com/success_resources.htm Join my free bi-weekly Monday Morning Mindfulness ezine http://www.schrift.com/monday.htm.