The default attitude for an audience before you begin might be said to be “show me.” They want to be entertained or informed or whatever. They expect you to do it. They might even be resistant to your first efforts to get them to respond.

But audiences love appropriate audience involvement — eventually. Start slow with a raised hand or a filed-in card or form. Then get them to interact with a neighbor. Then, when sufficiently warmed up, ask them to dance on the tables.

Audiences love to be involved even if they are reluctant to begin. Start slow and easy.

Thanks to Keith Schroeder, Master DJ for this idea.

Smiles are funny things (is that a pun?). They generally convey trust and happiness but in some cultures they can be seen as devious. In the Western world, however, a smile is usually a good thing.

As speakers, in our culture, our smile can be a most powerful tool to connect. A small genuine smile shows our audience we are comfortable with our message and the people we are speaking to. It can very effectively draw our audience into our words.

Many of us, myself included, don’t have a natural, casual smile when we speak. We default to serious. And that causes us to look like we are lecturing our listeners without any emotion. Add to that the very common effect that many of us have — we lose our smile when we begin to think or try to remember our material. It seems the smile is the first thing to go.

I have found two techniques to help remedy this:
1. Know your material cold. Don’t put yourself in the position of trying to search your brain for the next point. Your smile will evaporate if you start thinking.
2. Practice smiling. Get used to how it feels watching yourself in a mirror. Try different intensities. More genuine smiles also include the eyes. Video record your rehearsals and look for the appropriate smile at the appropriate time. Practice, as always, makes everything work better.

Even a serious presentation can benefit from a slight smile every now and then. It doesn’t necessarily mean you are taking your topic lightly. A small smile can covey your experience and familiarity while still showing respect with a weighty presentation.

For the naturally smile-challenged, a little experimentation and practice will go a long way.

It seems that the people who are successful in the speaking world have taken great advantage of coaches and mentors along the way. (I know this sounds self-serving, since I coach speakers, but I do believe it.)

There are no self-made men or women. We all have received help to get where we wanted to go.

This crazy business of speaking is almost an extreme example of this concept. There seems to be no road map to speaking success. For every piece of advice telling us to never do this thing there is an example of a very successful speaker who does exactly that. There seems to be a million gurus. The problem is maybe half of them are faking it.

But which half? And what advice is right for you? How do you find a coach for you?

Here’s my piece of advice: Keep looking. When you find a coach or mentor with your best interests at heart… who is not trying to first empty your pockets (especially online)… who wants to help you create your message and deliver it to your world… when you find one of them, it might be the right fit.

If not. Keep looking. Great coaches are out there waiting to help you become your very best. It’s worth the search.

An early question I had when I first became a speaker was trying to figure our how to present myself on stage. I am not an actor. I quickly learned that if I just stood up and spoke, it seemed lifeless and lecturing. And I knew that my speaker heroes had great energy and projected that energy to their audiences.

Then someone told me about the 110 Percent idea. It goes a little like this: You want to be yourself. You want to be genuine. But you want to amp yourself up a little — to about 110 percent of yourself.

I think what that really says is that we should push our comfort zone edges. Not a lot, but some. Don’t play small. Be who you are and test the margins at the same time. See if you can expand.

The stage or the front of the room can be intimidating and cause us to shrink back. We should compensate. Push your energy. Push your connections.

Try about 110 percent.

I saw it again at a Toastmaster’s meeting last night. A young, very talented speaker, who was very anxious to get all the techniques down and become a world-class speaker. I often mention, in a situation like this, that this speaking thing is a process. It is a lifelong education not a single AP Speaking course.

It is a marathon not a sprint.

But I think that is not nuanced enough. There are plenty of times we have to sprint in this business. We have deadlines. We have calendar commitments and actual gigs we have to practice for and deliver. Lots of time we have to run as fast as we can. We sprint.

But it is also a marathon. We have to keep the faith — in ourselves, our work, our long goals. We have to run this marathon every day when we get up, when things aren’t working right. We have to remind ourselves that this is also a long distance journey. If we want to get there we have to be in it for the long haul as well.

It’s a marathon of sprints.