Speaker 1: The first rule of public speaking, know your audience. But how do you go about knowing people you haven't met before? Well, in this video, I'll bring you a few questions to ask to know your audience before your speech or presentation so you can better connect with them. Our audience goes through a range of emotions throughout our speech. Ideally, we want them to be interested in the beginning, we want to leave them feeling motivated or inspired at the very end, and we want to keep them engaged throughout our speech or presentation. We are going to use these three emotions as our roadmap to craft questions for our audience analysis. To make them interested, first, let's begin with a quick audience profile. Who are they and what do they care about? Let's assume that you are speaking to a bunch of co-workers on a Monday morning versus speaking to a bunch of clients. By asking the question, what do they care about, you now better understand the priorities of your audience and so you can better structure the opening, the hook, and the introduction for your presentation. Next, we're going to ask the question, are they required to attend this presentation or are they attending by choice? This helps you understand the intentions of your audience. If they are required to attend, then you need to work extra hard in your opening to earn their attention. The next step to profiling your audience is to gauge the average knowledge in your audience. What do they already know? This question becomes important for how you draft your introduction. If you are speaking to a group of experts or leaders, but you have the fundamental basics in your introduction, then you risk losing them because they are no longer interested in that information. By asking the question, what do they already know, you are able to start off strong on a level that actually matches the knowledge of your audience. And now on the flip side, let's ask the question, what do they need to know? If you are presenting a new idea or a new concept, a new piece of data, how can you best educate your audience so they can better appreciate that idea or concept? Now that we know how to keep our audience interested, I've always believed to start with the end in mind, to leave our audience feeling motivated, inspired and pumped. Let's ask a few questions about what really motivates them. What are their challenges and frustrations? And what is their ideal solution? By answering these questions, you can now pick and choose which stories, which examples, which anecdotes to add in your presentation that directly reflect these challenges. You can then go on to offer up a solution that addresses or alleviates these frustrations. This brings us to the most challenging part of a speech or presentation. Even if you are off to a great start and have an amazing story to tell, it doesn't help if you are losing your audience in the middle of your presentation. So how can we keep our audience engaged? Let's look at a few reasons why we may lose our audience. Do they have a preconceived notion or a bias? What would they disagree on? It always helps to consider an opposing perspective. If there's a reason why someone may object or disagree with what you have to say, you are better off mentioning that upfront instead of having this thought lingering in the minds of your audience and distracting them. Another factor that affects audience engagement is their mood. What is the likely mood of your audience? At what time of the day are you speaking? We've all experienced that post-lunch slump where we've struggled to keep our eyes open. So if you feel like your audience may be tired or hungry or anxious, then you need to dial up that energy level, be more interactive to keep them engaged. With these questions, you now know your audience. You are better equipped to keep them interested, engaged, and inspired. I want to hear from you. Has there ever been a time when you felt like you just didn't connect with a speaker? If so, let me know why in the comments below. You never know if your comment might help one of us draft a better presentation. If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up and I'll see you in the next one.