Presenters … meet your audience at the door

Last week I wrote about the imperative that presenters arrive early to their appointed venue (5 reasons presenters MUST arrive early).

Those reasons really should have gone without saying. They should be blatantly obvious to any presenter. Who doesn’t know that showing up late will:

1. Make your host nervous
2. Make you harried
3. Make you look irresponsible
4. Leave you with inadequate time to set up and test your equipment
5. And with zero time to get comfortable with the room

But experience has taught me far too many presenters either can’t seem to get it together or don’t understand the import of my personal motto: “If you’re not early you’re late.”

I ended that post by saying there is yet another key reason to get to your destination early that I would write about in this post. And key is: To personally greet your audience members as they arrive.

This is important for several reasons – and it’s a practical technique whether you’re speaking to several thousand people in a convention hall or a dozen people in a board room.

Greet people as they arrive. Introduce yourself. Thank them for attending. Ask questions. Gain insights.

Several benefits come from this:

• It reduces speaker anxiety. Sitting and waiting for the formal introduction to speak to an audience you haven’t even begun to engage with simply isn’t a good idea. Tension builds during the waiting game. Interact and the anxiety quickly subsides.
• It humanizes you to your audience and demystifies the audience to you. People value opportunities to have personal contact with the person who they’ve come to see speak. The people you connect with relate the conversation to others, and those people to others. So make your conversations count.
• You learn about the nature of your audience – their backgrounds, their interests, concerns, expectations. You could even make minor on-the-fly adjustments to your presentation based on some of the information you glean.
• The feedback gained from audience members during these informational pre-presentation discussions can easily become reference points or anecdotes added to your presentation.

Come prepared with questions. Where appropriate you might ask:

• Why did you decide to attend my presentation?
• What do you want to get out of this session?
• What is your biggest professional or personal challenge at this time?
• What has been the key to your success?
• How about the biggest impediment?
• What lesson learned do you most often share with others?
• Can I count on a question from you during Q&A?

The opportunities for meaningful questions are endless.

Be cautious about spending too much time with one audience member. Make your conversations brief but not curt, or you might offend someone by creating the impression they aren’t worthy of your time. Make sure you give something and get something. Then move on to another person so you can get multiple perspectives before starting.

But none of this is possible if you don’t show up early for your own presentation.

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