{"id":902,"date":"2019-05-21T11:44:44","date_gmt":"2019-05-21T11:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.twentytwo.digital\/ukbodytalk\/5-questions-every-public-speaker-needs-to-ask-themselves\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T16:44:49","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T15:44:49","slug":"5-questions-every-public-speaker-needs-to-ask-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.twentytwo.digital\/ukbodytalk\/resources\/blogs\/5-questions-every-public-speaker-needs-to-ask-themselves\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Questions Every Public Speaker Needs To Ask Themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Once you know why you\u2019re talking to people, consider their needs”<\/span><\/p>\n

5 Questions Every Public Speaker Needs To Ask Themselves<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

It\u2019s not often that you get an hour of someone\u2019s undivided attention.<\/p>\n

If you speak to 50 people for an hour at a conference you are effectively speaking for 50 human hours. If you don\u2019t make the most of this opportunity it can be wasteful for your company, disrespectful to your audience and damaging for your career.<\/p>\n

So when the opportunity arises, it\u2019s crucial that you\u2019re making the best of it. You can ensure you do this by asking yourself a few simple questions.<\/p>\n

These aren\u2019t questions about preparedness or presentation materials. They\u2019re prompted to ensure that you\u2019re speaking with intention.<\/p>\n

Your intention needs to match your audience\u2019s needs. When you\u2019ve created your content and slides, you should reflect back to see if you\u2019re\u00a0accomplishing that goal<\/a><\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

These questions will help you\u00a0prepare in the most effective way<\/span><\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

1. Why are you doing this?<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n

First and foremost, when you\u2019re preparing for an event, you need to be asking yourself why you\u2019re really there.<\/p>\n

Think about the content you\u2019re presenting and be sure you\u2019ve gathered all of your information based on questions your audience may have. Know what keeps them up at night, and then ask how your presentation can inspire action that soothes that anxiety.<\/p>\n

In short: What is the greatest gift you could possibly give people during that session?<\/p>\n

Gather all of the information and then decide what it is you\u2019re asking people to do with the information after the talk. Is there a key headline that brings everything together that you can use? How does that message hinge your entire talk?<\/p>\n

Once you know that, you can strip out everything that doesn\u2019t serve the headline and doesn\u2019t serve the action that you want people to take so that everything you say is focused on one clear intention.<\/p>\n

2. Who is your audience?<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Once you know why you\u2019re talking to people, consider their needs.<\/p>\n

What do they care about? What do they want from the grand scheme of things? These questions will help you build a bigger picture of what they\u2019re trying to achieve in their life and how you can help them.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t just apply to hopes, dreams, and desires \u2014 you also have to know the culture.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll be able to match your tone, message, and outfit to what feels appropriate to them so you can show you understand them and lead them while speaking.<\/p>\n

3. What went well?<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

After presenting, you need to focus on reflection and taking ownership of what happened. Don\u2019t blame the audience if it went badly. Consider what you did to create the result because that\u2019s the only thing you can change.<\/p>\n

After every single speaking event, I ask myself what went really well. I start focusing on the positives because I want to remember what resonated so that I can continue to gain even better reactions from people.<\/p>\n

I try to be as specific as possible with myself. I don\u2019t just say, \u201cthat was good,\u201d but I try to focus on particular moments of positive emotional reactions and then think about how I created that. Then I use that same process to see if it gains a good response from others. It won\u2019t always work, but either way, it will help you learn by focusing on something that you can control.<\/p>\n

4. What went wrong?<\/span><\/h2>\n

The second part of reflection is to get\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0specific about what didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to be objective about it. People tend to feel vulnerable when a presentation doesn\u2019t go well and they want to blame the venue, the technology, occasionally even the audience.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t do this.<\/p>\n

I once saw a comedian get booed off stage because he was saying offensive things. And he said to the audience as he left the stage, \u201cMy jokes are funny, it\u2019s your problem you\u2019re just a bad audience. They loved it last week when I did the same stuff in Poland.\u201d<\/p>\n

He chose not to learn from the reaction he was getting. Instead, he blamed other people.<\/p>\n

Always<\/em>\u00a0take ownership. Look at what you\u2019re doing, saying, anything in your behavior that is getting a negative reaction. And then, before the next event that you do, think of things you can do differently.<\/p>\n

5. Would a child understand?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Finally, give yourself the nine-year-old test. Would a nine-year-old understand everything that you\u2019re suggesting? If they don\u2019t, then you might be over-complicating things. And so I always suggest that people use the simplest possible terms to describe their ideas. After all, you don\u2019t need big words to explain big ideas.<\/p>\n

Shorter words are effective for engaging people simply because we don\u2019t have to intellectualize them. So, if you use a shorter word it tends to be the word that gets more of an emotional, immediate instinctive reaction from our\u00a0mind<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. And therefore it\u2019s much more powerful to use.<\/p>\n

With longer words, there\u2019s a delay where we have to process it. We have to try and figure out what it really means in the grand scheme of things.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t want a distance between the emotionality of your message and your audience \u2014 you want them as close to you, your purpose, and your speech, as possible.<\/p>\n

To learn more about how we can help you please\u00a0contact our team<\/span><\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you speak to 50 people for an hour at a conference you are effectively speaking for 50 human hours. If you don\u2019t make the most of this opportunity it can be wasteful for your company, disrespectful to your audience and damaging for your career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":903,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n5 Questions Every Public Speaker Needs To Ask Themselves - Body Talk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Your intention needs to match your audience's needs. 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