00:00 Welcome to Steal the Show with Michael Port, Iâm Michael. And, this episode is about top tips for amazing audience interaction. Now remember, this entire show is based on the book, âSteal the Show,â itâs out and you can buy it anywhere books are sold. If you want a whole bunch of bonuses, like free templates for creating your speeches, developing your content, crafting stories, to tickets to live events around the country, free public speaking training videos and much more, then go to stealtheshow.com, thatâs stealtheshow.com, and then you can get all those bonuses right there.
00:41 Look, my goal in life is to delight and entertain you, and help you see just how fantastic you are, and sometimes I think we question that when weâre working on putting together any kind of presentation, because we get lost. We get lost when weâre trying to figure out what to do to create some cool audience interaction. We get stuck. We donât wanna do an imitation of Tony Robbins, which is great, but we donât wanna do an imitation of somebody else, we get stuck up there. So what we do is we just put up a PowerPoint, we click it a few times, we speak to our notes, we stand in one spot or we wander aimlessly around the stage, but we donât engage with the audience in the way that we want to, because we donât know how to. So Iâm gonna give you some tips for amazing audience interaction.
01:29 This episode will be short, and I hope, hard-hitting, because when you interact with your audience and you connect with them, well then you can deliver emotional and structural contrast, which helps you break through that⊠I guess Iâd call it the outer armor of indifference that people often bring to a presentation. And the result is a much richer, more memorable experience, and itâs designed to support your big idea and then, then it can change lives, if you go about it effectively, you donât force it.
02:10 Write this down, if youâre driving, donât write this down, just remember it, you can write it down later. But, if you have a pen and a piece of paper, or youâre at your computer, write this down; I believe that audience interaction techniques must be directly proportional to the amount of trust that youâve earned. Iâll say it again; Audience interaction techniques must be directly proportionate to the amount of trust that youâve earned. Because think about it, if you walk out, lets say youâre giving a speech on debt, and you walk out to an audience that doesnât really know you and they donât really know each other, and you say, âRaise your hand if youâre in debt!â Whoâs gonna raise their hand? They donât wanna be embarrassed in front of everybody else.
02:56 Or if you say, if youâre doing a speech on raising children and you just happen to talk about alcoholism for some reason, it comes into the speech, and you say, âRaise your hand if youâre an alcoholic!â You donât have enough trust to ask that question, but if youâve been working with these people for some time, and they trust you, and they trust each other, well you can ask more personal questions because you have earned the trust to do so.
03:21 So make sure that any interaction you have with an audience is directly proportionate to the amount of trust that youâve earned, because your audience will trust you more as they experience the quality of your presentation, and the passion you have for your topic. And then, you can ask more from your audience as you progress through your performance.
03:46 And know the baseline of trust governed by your particular situation. Are you a known manager? Maybe youâre relatively unfamiliar to an audience of your co-workers. Or, are you well known within your organization? Are you well respected already? Or maybe somewhere in between? Are you a paid speaker, already known to an audience? Or a paid speaker, relatively unfamiliar? Maybe youâre speaking to members of your local community, who have a general familiarity with you, for whatever reason, or, are you dropping in to address an unknown audience, in a new place, with new circumstances?
04:29 Now, various forms of audience interaction can require a progression of intimacy. Now this progression could start, it doesnât have to, but it could start by asking questions and getting a show of hands, and then move on to asking audience members to introduce themselves to one another, progressing to you going down into the audience to engage individuals, or even having people join you on stage to more advanced highly interactive exercises. So, youâll improve with experience in reading a room and assessing how engaged they are, and whether you need to draw them in with more interaction.
05:13 If the room or a theater is dark and you canât see the audience, which sometimes happens when the lights are in your face, you listen to hear if your jokes are landing, and even ask for more audible response. You might say, âOkay, guys, I canât see all of you in the back, so let me know, say, âyes,â if you agree.â Now, if you can see the audience, you can check them out as you go through early parts of your performance. Remember, sometimes folks are really engaged, but they donât show it for any number of reasons. But if your audience looks alert and engaged and responsive, trust me, theyâre digging your performance.
05:51 I like to group audience interaction methods into five types; ice-breakers and trust builders, reminders and reinforcers, role players, creative high contrast exercises, and Q&A tips and traps. Now, Iâm gonna dedicate an entire episode to Q&A tips and traps, so you listen to that one for more on Q&A. However, letâs focus on the first four different types: Ice breakers and trust builders is one, reminders and reinforcer is two, role players is three, and creative high contrast exercises is four. So ice breakers and trust builders, it helps significantly to meet an audience before your presentation in the lobby or wherever appropriate. So you shake hands, you introduce yourself, you ask for names, you find out where people are from, you can even take photos with them and then use those photos during your presentation, thatâs a little more advanced âcause you have to insert them into your decks, but it can be done, Iâve seen it done, Iâve recommended it; itâs pretty cool.
06:57 Now, people sometimes stay away from the audience before their presentations, âcause theyâre nervous, but one of the best ways to reduce your anxiety is to get to know the people beforehand. I wouldnât engage in conversations for too long. I certainly wouldnât talk about your material, so people will often say, what are you gonna talk about? And you can say, âOh, youâll see, itâs gonna be great.â And thatâs it and then move on, because you donât wanna engage in a conversation about because someone may push back and then all of a sudden, youâre in this weird conversation with somebody whoâs not crazy about the way that you presented it and then you start questioning yourself, and then you just get more and more anxious. So you donât get into the material when youâre meeting people, rather youâre just getting to know them so you feel like youâve connected, look at them in the eye, you shake their hand, you know their name, and you move on, and then this way, they feel like they already know you even before you stand on stage or in front of the room, wherever you are, a conference room, a hotel room, et cetera.
08:02 You can also break the ice by having your audience move, stand, stretch their toes, do jumping jacks, move around the room the room if feasible. Physical exercise, it improves alertness, itâs one of those things that you might think, âOh, I donât know, thatâs cheesy. I donât wanna get people stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down.â I always say this: People will often ask the same thing about sales and say, âHow do I sell, or how do I get people in the audience to do these exercises without being cheesy?â So I ask, âWell, are you cheesy?â And they say, âNo, of course not!â Theyâre almost a little bit offended. I said, âWell, then you wonât be cheesy, youâre fine.â You wonât be slimy if youâre not slimy, it doesnât work that way. So, just do your work with authenticity and make your decisions based on what the audience needs to get a better result, so you choose and you make your decisions based on what you know your audience needs and this way, it helps you produce the results that you are there to produce.
09:17 You can also build trust by phrasing audience questions to get the desired response, which you can then tie into your next point. For example, if Iâm doing my bit on whatâs wrong with elevator speeches, instead of asking, âHow do you like giving an elevator speech?â Is it because if I say, âHow do you like giving an elevator speech?â People may raise their hand. Instead of that, I may say, âRaise your hand if you love, just love, and when I say love, I mean love, love, love giving an elevator speech.â And if youâre not familiar with an elevator speech, thatâs a 32nd pitch, how you describe yourself. The idea is in 30 seconds, so Iâm almost supposed to take out their wallet, give you their money, it makes no sense.
10:02 If you have an idea, you donât wanna raise money for a business, for a venture capitalist, thatâs a little bit different, but itâs generally not the way that relationships develop between two human beings outside of that particular space. So I say, âForget about it,â but the point is, some people may raise their hands if I use just one love, however even in a room filled with 5,000 people, when I use three loves or four loves and I stretch them out, no hands go up, because I have yet to meet someone who loves, loves, loves, loves, loves, just loves giving their elevator speech. So Iâm setting up the room to get the answer that I want, and then it allows me to move into the next segment. Now, itâs good to have a backup plan as well, if they donât respond as you anticipate such as, âGood, Iâm glad that you love your elevator speech and youâre gonna love it even more when youâve heard this.â
11:04 Now the second category is reminders and reinforcers, so you can increase engagement by asking your audience to respond to a recurring routine or a question over the course of your presentation. You can have a prop that you keep returning that stands for a key idea in the presentation, for example. Say the first iPod for a speech about continuous improvement and innovation, or one of my clients, Beth Allen, thereâs a speech called âPotty Talkâ. Itâs really quite clever and very funny; she teaches DIY for women for home improvement. And she uses the tools to illustrate different concepts around self-improvement and she teaches home improvement at the same time, itâs quite clever. So sheâll use a level and sheâll use a hammer, she even brings an actual toilet on stage. And she has people throw crumpled up toilet paper into the toilet as an exercise, so sheâs using these props for audience interaction, and she keeps coming back to them throughout.
12:14 Now of course thereâs always simple call and response with the audience, and that is fun, but you got to be comfortable with it, practice it, because if you do audience interaction you need to be able to control the audience. Thatâs very, very important. You always decide exactly whatâs gonna happen in that moment, and if something else occurs then you need to be ready to handle it using improv, but one of the biggest mistakes people make when theyâre doing audience interaction, and listen carefully âcause this is a gem, one of the biggest mistakes people make when theyâre trying to do audience interaction is they donât set up the end of whatever audience interaction they have just done.
12:55 For example, if I ask you to do an exercise or play a game like in the Think Big Revolution keynote that I do, you can see a 16-minute excerpt of that at michaelport.com. And in that show, one of the things that I do is I get people to take pictures of each other in pretty intimate poses, not romantically intimate, but their arms around each other or sitting on each othersâ lap, not in a romantic way again, or hugging each other. Because I show a video from 60 minutes where they profiled a photographer who in New York City, finds people who do not know each other, gets them into intimate poses and takes pictures and theyâre absolutely remarkable. And the people say that they make such a connection with that person, the person they didnât know, the person who is completely, or at least seemingly different than they are. So I show them the video and I come out and say, âHey guys. Listen up. Weâre gonna do it.â And usually I hear, âWhat? What?â
14:02 I hear a little gasps of surprise. And not only do I tell them exactly what is going to happen and how long itâs gonna take place, but I tell them how itâs gonna end before it starts. Because if you donât, you can lose control of the room. One of my colleagues did a TEDx talk and he sent me the video, and he said, âI had a lot of trouble in the beginning. I almost lost the whole audience. What should I have done next time?â And what Iâm teaching you now, is exactly what he should have done. He had this great little exercise at the beginning and it helped people meet each other, but he didnât tell them how itâs gonna end and he had about 450 people in the room. And a few minutes in he said, âOkay guys, come on back.â Nobody came back. All you heard was talking, talking, talking, talking, talking. He said, âAlright guys, come on back.â Nobody came back. All you heard was talking, talking, talking, talking, talking. He said, âGuys come on back. I only have 18 minutes.â and he got frustrated.
15:08 He eventually recovered, but it was a kind of an uneasy feeling in that moment. He panicked a little bit and the audience felt it. They did come back, but they felt that panic, so he had to recover from that moment, and fortunately he did, but you donât want that to happen to you. So before you start whatever exercise youâre doing, you set up the ending and hereâs what you can do. I tell them exactly how itâs gonna go and then I tell them hereâs how itâs gonna end. At the end of these, say three minutes if this is what weâre doing, at the end of these three minutes, youâre gonna hear the music go off, youâre gonna see me standing right here in this exact spot on the stage with my hand raised, my hand will be up in the air. Thatâs the signal for you to raise your hand, stop moving, stop talking, and then immediately sit down. And so if you see someone elseâs hand raised, same thing. You immediately raise your hand, stop moving, stop talking, and immediately sit down.
16:11 Iâve done this with thousands and thousands and thousands of people in huge convention centers, and it works every single time. In fact, it works better when I have 5000 people than when I have 50. Because the noise quiets down so quickly in the large space with so many people that they recognize exactly whatâs happening. Itâs not a slow reduction of noise. Itâs an immediate reduction of noise. And then everybody sits down and that is power, because youâve just sat down everyone in the room without opening your mouth, because if you have to call them back, you have to shout at them, then you are not strong. You are not in a strong position. You are in a weak position. So you wanna use silence to be powerful.
17:06 Role players. Now thatâs our next one, role players. When you have cultivated more trust in your audience, you can organize small groups or teams. Now itâs easy when itâs done with people seated at tables. You give each one a role relating to a major topic in your presentation and this can certainly work with individuals but itâs great way to get people connected. You can also have people vote by moving to one corner of the room and then have each group explain their vote. Letâs say I was giving a speech on audio production, Iâm looking at a microphone right now so letâs use that as an example, then itâs all audio files, professionals in the industry. Then I say, âWell here are three different examples of a particular technique. Which ones do you think are best? If you believe technique A is best go to that corner. If you believe B is best go to that corner. If you believe C is best go to that corner.â
18:01 Now Iâve got everybody grouped, and then I say, âOkay, now youâre gonna choose one representative from this group to give a two minute presentation on why your particular technique is the right technique, and then after that happens, then we can discuss it.â So, these are great ways of getting people involved, rather than just calling on one person in the audience. Everybodyâs moving, you get that physical engagement, theyâre talking to each other, you get that kind of intellectual and emotional engagement, and itâs fun. It also produces contrast, and contrast is king. Contrast is so important because the sameness is boring. Different is often interesting. When you move from stillness to moving around the room, well, thatâs more interesting than just sitting the whole time. So, just an example of contrast.
18:53 You can also recruit someone from the audience to role play a short scene with you on stage. You assign her a part, right? So, you can move down with the house, and you can pick someone out for a role play or a Q&A, just right there on the spot. And again, this creates great contrast and puts you on the side of audience. It might take a little getting used to, I guess like a magician looking for a volunteer, and you need to pay attention to the social signals youâre getting from the folks in your audience. Whoâs following you with their eyes? Whoâs looking down or away from you? Whoâs leaning forward, whoâs not? You can pick up pretty clearly who wants to be up there. Now sometimes, you donât wanna pick the most eager person, because often, that most eager person will try to take over the room, they wanna be the speaker.
19:41 Interestingly, when I was 24 and I was in graduate school, I went to see a play on Broadway called âFool Moon,â thatâs Fool Moon, F-O-O-L, and it was with two clowns. It was absolutely beautiful, beautiful play. They donât speak at all during the show. And I was with my girlfriend at the time, and my really close friend Daniel Dae Kim, you probably know him from Lost and Hawaii Five-0, a wonderful actor, and his wife. And weâre in the second row. And when they were looking for audience volunteers, I wasnât hiding, but I wasnât eager, and they picked me. And then, we were up on stage, they had us do something, and afterwards when we were in a line, one of the clowns turned to me with his back towards the audience and goes, âYouâre a (beep) actor, arenât you?â And it was hysterical. He broke character for me completely and said that heâs like⊠And I said, âYeah.â He goes, (Beep)! Thatâs never happened to me before! I picked the wrong person.â Because obviously I knew what to do up there, and they didnât want people who knew what to do up on stage who were very comfortable on stage, so that in fact was my Broadway debut, the first and only time I was on Broadway, but thatâs another story altogether. So thatâs role players.
21:03 Now, number four, creative high-contrast exercises. When you believe that your audience is ready for more involved exercises that take a larger role in your presentation, this, this is where you can go for it. You are only limited by your imagination and your common sense. We often use that expression, âYouâre only limited by your imagination.â But if your imagination runs away with you and loses sight of common sense, then you might get yourself in trouble. So make sure common sense, plus imagination, that will produce really creative high-contrast exercises.
21:39 So, hereâs a few examples to get you started. You can give out prizes for the first correct answer, written or spoken, to one of your questions. And by the way, try to stay away from leading the audience negatively. Meaning, sometimes youâll ask a question, and youâre looking for a particular answer, and you will go person, by person, by person, of course theyâve raised their hands, and sometimes they donât, you call them anyway, which is even worse. Youâll go through them and they donât give you exactly what youâre looking for, so you go, âNo, next?â So for example, âWhatâs the best color in the world?â Someone says, âBlue.â âNot so much, next?â And they go, âRed?â âOoh, no, next?â And then youâre going through saying, âNo, no, no, no, no.â One of the things youâll learn in Steal the Show, is how to say, âYes, and?â And thatâs in the second part of the book, because one of the performerâs principals is about saying, âYes.â So if you say, âWhatâs the best color in the world?â And someone says, âBlue?â âYes, and what other color?â âYes, and what other color?â And now theyâre involved and engaged, and youâre supporting them. Because if you are gonna ask something of somebody, you better reward them for doing what you asked them.
22:56 So you can give out prizes for the correct answer, thatâs always fun, people love prizes. Ultimately weâre just monkeys who want a banana, we want a little candy, a little treat, thatâs great, and they donât have to be food, you can give other types of gifts away. You can also toss a squishy ball with audience members to emphasize a point. And for example, improv involves being ready to pitch back a response, just as youâd throw a ball back. So one of the things that I teach of course, is improv. Not to actors, but to non-actors of course, people like you. And one of the ways that I demonstrate this concept is with a ball. So, I will throw the ball, and then someone throws it back. But of course, I canât throw the ball til theyâre ready, and I need to make sure that they received what I threw, and they canât throw it back to me until Iâm ready.
23:49 Because often, when weâre communicating with people, we will just communicate when weâre ready, regardless of whether they are ready or theyâre absorbing it, and then theyâll throw something back at us, regardless of whether weâre ready or absorbing it. So the ball demonstrates this activity, and people get it pretty quickly. You can put balloons on a conference table and have the audience blow them up at the beginning of your presentation, and then you can tell them to pop a balloon with a pen when something resonates with them. And itâs really fun, you get these popping sounds all throughout your presentation. I really like that. Some people may not want the noise, but the noise demonstrates that theyâre getting it, that theyâre with you, and that is a very, very effective technique to demonstrate, to get social proof that what youâre teaching is resonating with people.
24:34 Hereâs another one: You can place an easy button, remember Staples easy button? You would press it and it says, âThat was easy.â So you place an easy button on every table and you tell the audience members, âAny time I share something that makes you think, âWow, that was easyâ, reach out and hit the button.â I use this very effectively a number of times, and what I did was put the easy button right at the front of the stage. And so what I would tell them is that any time I say something that resonates with you, that makes sense to you, you run up, no matter what Iâm doing, and you hit the easy button. So if I say something and you go, âOh, wow, thatâs kind of easy, itâs much easier than I thought it would beâ, just run up, hit the easy button, and sit down. And throughout the whole presentation, people are running up, hitting the button, sitting down, running up, hitting the button, sitting down. And because I can control the timing in the room, I can control my own timing because Iâm well-rehearsed and I know what Iâm doing, well, then I can manage the people coming up to the easy button and going back to the seat and I can incorporate them into what Iâm presenting. So thatâs really, really fun. Again, social proof is very effective, very helpful anytime youâre giving a presentation.
25:46 Similarly, if you have access to a large whiteboard on stage or wherever it might work for that specific room, it could be a conference room, have each person in the room write one, two, or three of their vital questions on the board at the beginning of the presentation. And then, you get the audience fully engaged by daring them to run up and mark a line, and you cross it out, right through the question that youâve just answered. And Iâve done this with as many as 50 people, and each person wrote their top three questions about the topic on the board, and by the end of the presentation, every single question was crossed off. So do the math for a second: Thatâs as many as 150 questions answered in six minutes. The visual is very, very powerful by the end of the session. And then they also notice that theyâre not alone because many of the questions that were asked or issues that were raised are the same. So one answer might have 10 people running onto the stage to cross out their individual questions.
26:52 And there you go, thereâs your start for amazing audience interaction. You never know âtil you try it, gotta take some risks. Remember, one of the performance principles youâll learn in part two of âSteal the Showâ is raise the stakes. If you wanna do anything in a big way, anything in your life that has meaning, youâve gotta have high stakes. You gotta take risks, and these risks will not put you in jail if they donât work. You will not get arrested if they donât work. But if your desire is stronger than your fear, well, then youâll probably come out ahead.
27:25 Thank you very much, this is Michael Port for Steal the Show. If you want a copy of the book, go to stealtheshow.com. Get there, get there fast because Iâve got a lot of bonuses for you, giveaways for you. So live events around the country, buy a couple books, come for free. You want free templates to create your content, to tell your stories, craft them? Buy a book, youâll get it. You want free public speaking coaching videos? Buy a couple books, youâll get it. My goal in life, besides to sell a lot of books, is to delight and entertain you, and I want you to think big about who you are and what you offer the world. Go subscribe, write a review, share this podcast with other people so that they too can shine during the spotlight moments of their life. Thatâs it for now, this is Michael Port signing off.
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