Keeping an audience engaged can feel like an uphill battle some days, but it's of the utmost importance when it comes to being an effective communicator.

In this episode, we'll discuss our top 5 tips for keeping your audience engaged. We recommend:

1. Make the talk about your audience
2. Ask questions
3. Give them something to do
4. Change up your delivery at times
5. Shorten sections

Focusing on these five things will help keep your audience focused, interested, and most importantly, engaged with you and the content.

Have you ever wondered what evidence to bring to the table in your meeting?

Evidence, or forms of influence (FOI), are necessary to engage and persuade your audience. We spend a lot of time talking about the physical and vocal skillset, which are extremely important in how you show up. But FOIs are equally important. As soon as you're done making those first impressions, the evidence and knowledge we provide is what keep people coming back for more.

This month we'll talk about:

1. What we label as evidence or FOIs
2. How to consider the audience when choosing which FOIs are most effective
3. Ways to think about blending stories and data to be impactful and memorable

Skillset and knowledge are necessary to be a successful speaker!

Digital communication is all around us. In our world today, it's very hard, if not impossible, to avoid it. Whether you want to or not, you're a part of it, so we need to understand how to be effective with this medium.

We want to help your digital communication get noticed, read, and engaged with in some way. There are a few ways you can do that:

1. Consider the look of your digital communication: Does it look easy to read? Would you read it? If the answer is no, it's not ready to be shared.
2. Put your key message at the beginning: No one wants to read an entire article or email to find out the purpose at the end.
3. Determine what needs to be shared: Not every detail is important. This ties back to #1, if it's too long or detailed, chances are your reading audience will skim or skip it altogether.

This topic will be in constant movement as it continues to evolve and be used in different ways. We'll continue to talk about digital communication as more recommendations come to light.

At some point in your career, you will disagree with someone.

It probably happens quite often already. Sometimes, it's just a different opinion on an approach, and sometimes, it's a stark disagreement with what's being shared.

The size of the disagreement isn't as important as knowing how to approach these situations with professionalism, an open mind, and an appropriate way to move the conversation forward.

This month, we'll discuss two areas:

1. Responding when you disagree. How to consider the right questions to ask, ways to keep emotions in check, and focusing on the issue, not the individual.
2. Internal work to avoid disagreements hijacking your ability to listen and keep an open mind.

Everyone should be prepared for disagreements at work and have a process in place to preserve the relationships you have.

This month we're discussing notes and other techniques for when a PPT deck doesn't seem the most appropriate or right fit.

Repeat after me, PPT is not the enemy, but there are other options for you to use like an organized note template, a whiteboard, a flipchart, or some form of brainstorming technique.

If you're not going with a PPT, you have to decide 3 things:

1. What are you going with? Choose your medium.
2. What do I need to share? Create a plan before the meeting itself.
3. Who am I speaking to and how long do I have? Know your audience and timing.

From there, our biggest suggestion is to avoid scripting. You don't want to get stuck dropping your head and reading from your notes. This episode will provide some suggestions for how to organize effectively for this type of setting.

Practicing a new skill is vital. But knowing we should practice and actually taking the step to practice are very different things.

Listen in to hear us discuss these recommended techniques for setting yourself up for success:

1. Do a self-assessment. Understand where you're starting point is.
2. Practice the new skill anywhere and everywhere you can, not just in the setting it needs to be used.
3. Set realistic, manageable goals.
4. Expect an implementation dip (things feeling harder/seeming worse before they feel better) and keep pushing through!
5. Make it fun and give yourself small 'wins' to keep it up.

Putting a successful process in place for practice is just as crucial as following through on the practice itself.

Welcome back to the Speak As Well As You Think Podcast!

To kick off the year, we're discussing feedback. We want everyone to have an effective process in place if they're asked to provide feedback.

A few things we'll discuss are:

1. How might the person want feedback? Have you asked them? Do they prefer an "Oreo cookie sandwich", tough love, positives and negatives together?
2. What framework will you use to organize your thoughts? We don't recommend winging much communication, but especially not when it comes to providing feedback. Organize your thoughts ahead of time clearly and succinctly.
3. How can we decide on a path forward, together? What does the close to our conversation look like and is it collaborative?

Keep in mind, feedback isn't just for when things go south! Offer positive, specific feedback just as often. You'll likely have better outcomes when feedback is critical because you've created a baseline of trust and support.

We're closing out 2024 reflecting on the purpose of having a plan.

Most people fail without a plan. When it comes to communication, we don't want to fail. We want our messages to be clear, informative, and helpful. If we wing it, these things are harder to accomplish.

We'll discuss preparation with the following:

• Knowing your audience (a favorite of ours)
• Understanding how to show up as a listener
• Knowing the message you need to deliver within an appropriate time frame
• Making adjustments when necessary (you might go over or under)
• Having a purposeful close

Know the audience. Know what you need to share. Know how to end.