Motivate and Influence an Audience
Ten tips towards becoming a more influential and motivational speaker.
Ten Ways to Motivate and Influence an Audience – Public Speaking Tips
Everyone encounters situations where they need to influence and motivate people, whether encouraging a customer to choose your product or inspiring a team to achieve an objective. Influence and motivation are particularly important if you need to influence people who are not under your direct authority.
Influence and motivation have a subtle distinction. Influence is getting other people to see your point of view, while motivation is compelling them to act. Learn and practice our ten Es to influence and motivate your audience simultaneously.
Ten Ways to Motivate and Influence an Audience
1. Educate
Give people enough information so they understand the need to act and feel confident about the action they need to take. People don’t tend to do things unless they see a personal benefit. Use in each business presentation you make try to convey every message in the context of what the audience will gain. The bigger the rewards, the easier it is to influence and motivate.
2. Expertise
Prove you know your stuff by speaking from personal experience as much as possible, or from your position as a subject-matter expert. Even if you don’t have any direct experience of the topic, carry out enough research so you can appear knowledgeable and answer questions.
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3. Entertain
You can more easily motivate and influence an audience when they are emotionally engaged, which is why successful public speakers often use stories to illustrate their points. Stories add an element of behavioural observation, so try to craft a strong story with emotional breadth.
4. Experience
In addition to storytelling, you can get your audience involved physically to help them understand your messages quicker and remember them for longer. Questions and answers, group exercises, and role-play are all valuable ways to influence and motivate people.
5. Enthusiasm
A disinterested speaker is unlikely to influence or motivate. Even if the topic is mundane, express passion for how it contributes to the overall objective of the team or organisation. Passion can be infectious so make sure you smile, vary your tone of voice, and use your body language to reflect your messages. Passion is one of the seven laws of presentation success.
6. Example
People often look to role models for guidance, so try to be one to motivate and influence your audience. If you need to influence and motivate people to adopt a behaviour, exhibit it yourself. If you need them to perform a task, perform it first. A business presentation speaker succeeds when people choose to be like them.
7. Encourage
Be supportive, particularly if asking people to do something outside their comfort zone. For example, help them to imagine themselves undertaking the task, or convey it as a series of achievable steps rather than an impossible leap. Being a role model will help as it says, ‘I did this and so can you’.
8. Eloquence
Eloquence means an ability to deliver strong and clear messages. That means speaking loudly enough for everyone to hear you, but also with energy and sincerity. Learn about other aspects of delivery that help to motivate and influence audiences with this research by Stamford Business School.
9. Excellence
Encourage the audience to perform the task to the best of their ability. Paint a picture of what excellence looks like to give them a bar to aspire to. This also establishes a group expectation that team members will feel compelled to achieve. As a role model, remember to hold yourself accountable for excellence too.
10. Energise
Leave your audience on a high by summarising how they will benefit personally from the task you want them to undertake, and suggest what else they could go on to achieve as a result. This is the optimal way to motivate and influence an audience and encourage them to deliver even greater success.
This article was originally contributed by Sandra Schrift.
