The Audience for Your Next Presentation will be Rooting for You.

Audiences don’t like being disappointed. They will quickly turn on any speaker who’s not building a connection. Therefore, the task ahead is daunting, but clear. When the spotlight is on you, never let the audience down and you’ll be golden. It’s a good goal—one you can reach.

I can say, after years of sitting in them and talking to them, that audiences are not unfair. But they are quick to judge.

Once you understand how to connect with the audience members, you’ll find you can please them every time. Audiences will keep buying what you’re selling as long as they think they want and need your ideas, your insights, and your thoughts. They are the ultimate conspicuous consumers; right out of Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class (a shout out to my Dad in Corrales, MN: "See, Dad, five years of college did pay off!")

They will cheer you and keep buying your thoughts as long as you please them. Keep pleasing them, and you’ll keep the boo birds at bay, forever. That’s a good ambition because a disparaging audience won’t actually boo you to your face if you bore them. Boos might be easier to take than what really happens because instead, they’ll do worse. They will cruelly mock you behind your back if you fail to connect with them.

For the next fifteen to thirty minutes of your presentation, they want you to rock their world. And they expect you to know how to do it. After all, there you are, in front of everybody, commanding all the attention.

So your fears are well placed. I guarantee they will not “love you for just being you,” as your mom told you while wiping away your tears on the way to the first day at a new elementary school. The audience is filled with professional adults who will only “love you” if you connect with them, inform them, and help them. Follow the right steps and you can do all three every time.