“You did such a good job!” I used to think when I heard that after a talk it meant that I'd said brilliant things, maybe looked and acted professional (whew!) and delivered a polished performance. These days, I know better.

It’s like Maya Angelou said,

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

That's why I only remember the feeling I got from an expert speaker this winter.

Her opening was theatrical. She could have been a Shakespearean actor as she quoted the opening lines from her own book, then paused (and posed) dramatically…

After a pregnant silence, she dropped the pose and pronounced, “The most important thing to remember is that you are in a relationship with your audience.”
Her job that day was to teach us how to speak to audiences so that they would buy our books (I wasn't the only one who didn't have a book yet, in case you're wondering). She was a psychologist, author and long-time Toastmaster who coaches writers how to be better speakers in hopes of better sales. Her appearance, like her resume, was impeccable.

She told us that her dramatic entrance had opened the door for us to be in relationship with her, but I was too intimidated by the flawless costume, pedigree and delivery to be ready to cozy up to her. In fact, I was getting more cautious by the minute because my own experience didn't match what she told me it should be. If I could have changed the channel or stopped the video, I would have.

This woman knew enough to say that the key was all about the relationship, and yet it was pretty obvious from the blank expressions, fidgeting and awkward silences in response to her questions that most of us were not feeling a connection with her.

How did somebody like her miss with us like that?

I think she missed three fundamental keys that can make or break any talk for you and your audience or group. The same things apply for leading a group discussion or any front-of-the-room role you’re called to play. Let's see what she missed.

Key #1: Prepare your self
Her presentation was well-prepared. Her performance was flawless. But that’s all we got. The performance. The presentation. Not the person. She did not seem to have prepared her self to be with us.

When it's your turn to be up front, get your sweet self ready to be with people! Do what you need to do to be able to connect with the human beings in front of you in a real and natural way. That may mean handling your fears and nervousness or shedding the “professional” mask you tend to hide behind. The expert at the writer’s conference was hidden behind her performance, so we hid from her.

Key #2: Connect!
Whatever else happens in your presentation, make a genuine connection with your audience. There are lots of ways to facilitate connection, but none of them will work without you showing up as you. (See Key #1!)

Our expert miscalculated her audience. Until the moment she stepped up to speak, we writers and would-be writers had been treated as if we were professional colleagues of every speaker at the conference. We were primed to think of ourselves as capable at the moment. On the other hand, the way she used “techniques” on us to show us how we could wrangle attention and sales from our own audiences felt manipulative and came across as talking down to us.

Know who your audience is. Try putting yourself in their place as you plan. What would get your attention? When would you need time to reflect? When is a natural time for a break? Where are you likely to feel resistance? What would invite you to engage more? What would turn you off?
If you can’t imagine what your group or audience might need or want, find out! Ask someone in the group or someone who fits the general demographic ahead of time. If you have to, read about their concerns and challenges.

And no one likes to be talked down to and to need a dictionary to understand you. Use language that is easily understood by your group and be prepared to define words and ideas that might be unfamiliar to them.

Key #3: Be true to the context
I'm sure that her talk might have been received better in another setting, but she missed a big theme of the conference about encouraging people to find their own voice. One by one the other speakers echoed the refrain that to be a good writer, we must be true to our own unique perspective and expression, and they did a credible job of speaking from their own voices even if their presentations weren’t exactly polished. Her content wasn’t that bad, really, but she just didn’t have the ring of authenticity. Instead, a gong went off in my head.
.
Your group will always have more in their heads, hearts and lives than what you’re going to be talking about. Something comes before and after your part. To be with your group well, you need to think bigger. What's the lay of the land? How does your part fit with the rest of the day or event? Do your content, plans and way of being mesh with the theme of the day, the mission and values of the group? How can you take your listeners’ whole lives into account, not just the narrow slice of focus for the moment?
When you take the context to heart and stay true to the highest vision of it that you can, you give people a chance to connect with their own vision and to clarify how the group’s vision fits (or doesn’t fit) for them. Your time with them becomes even more worthwhile.

See what happens when you use these keys
Will you try these three keys and see what happens? Yes, you may have skills to learn, but just approaching your listeners with these three keys can make your meetings better. People will participate when they are engaged. And who knows what magical, unknown possibilities might open up for you, for those you serve and for the world around you.

Every opportunity to speak or lead people in a group is an opportunity to invoke this kind of magic. And the world needs all that magic it can get, don't you think?