JoshSundquist

Last week I gave a keynote speech at Lead21, a conference of about fifty attendees. It got me thinking about the modifications you have to make in your presentation style if you’re speaking to a smaller audience:

1. More interaction

The smaller the audience, the more your speech needs to feel like a normal conversation. In a normal conversation, it would be annoying if someone talked to you for forty-five minutes straight without you saying a single word, right?

Of course it would. (In fact, this is one of the primary reasons I don’t want a girlfriend.) So when you are in front of a smaller group, you need to include frequent audience interaction.

(For more on this subject, read my post about audience interaction.)

2. Less intensity

In front of a smaller crowd, my normal jumping-around, waving-my-arms, kind-of-yelling-but-not-in-an-angry way style can be a bit overwhelming. So with an audience of this size, I start off at a lower energy level (not low, just lower), and then gradually turn up the intensity to full motivational speaker mode over the course of the presentation.

It’s like that thing about boiling a frog. If you throw a frog in boiling water, it will jump out. But if you put it in tepid water and slowly turn up the heat, the frog will just sit there and eventually, well, croak. (This metaphor breaks down on multiple levels, most notably in the implication that my objective is to boil the audience alive, which is rarely the case.)

3. More eye contact

Speaking of near death experiences, when you give a keynote speech at a large convention, all you can see is an incredibly bright spotlight shining in your eyes. A conference of just fifty people, though, tends not to be a large production with those sorts of stage lights, so not only can you see everyone in the room, you can feasibly make eye contact with each individual audience member several times during your presentation.

Eye contact is powerful. It gives audience members direct access to the emotion behind your words. When you’re in front of a small audience, it’s one of your biggest assets.

Testimonial

Now for some self-promotion.

Here’s what Jennifer Carter, Lead21’s meeting planner, had to say about my keynote speech: