Make Them Listen! Performance Tips for Speakers

Speaker performance tips to help make your audience listen!

Have you spent hours preparing for an important speech only to have it fail to connect with your audience? Raise your public speaking game by incorporating my performance tips to help engage your audience and leave a lasting impression. 

The worst review any speaker can receive is to be called boring. Creating engaging speech content is the first step to engagement. 

The second step is to bring life to your presentation through performance. What you say is often less important than the way you say it.  

Seven Cs For Success

1. Confidence – preparation, presentation, owning the stage
2. Credibility – being seen as the expert
3. Content – relevant, resonating
4. Connecting – read the room to engage
5. Context – know the room's physical properties
6. Control – microphones, music, slide show, video
7. Communication – putting it all together

Connecting – Reading the Room

Reading the room helps understand the mood of the audience. Non-verbal cues signal whether their emotional level is high or low. When people nap, it's time to adjust your delivery style. 

Other Posts in This Series

How to Write Speeches That Move People!

Speech Presentation Options for Successful Speakers

Tech Check Tips For Public Speakers, MCs, Comics, and Funeral Eulagizers

Position Your Body on Video Calls and Look like a Pro

How you position yourself on video calls directly affects engagement. 

Written by Robyn T. Braley

How you look on screen is determined by lighting, camera position, and what you wear. Conference speakers and tutorial presenters may even require light facial makeup in some situations (Note shiny bald spots). But, it's how you position yourself that makes the greatest impact. 

We have now spent 18 months locked in a virtual world. While COVID protocols may soon be further relaxed, video calls will be with us forever! That means we must constantly strive to look and sound better in the virtual world. 

Why? Let me repeat. First impressions are everything in Virtual Land.

In my last post about lighting, I stated the obvious. People who see you on a zoom call consciously or unconsciously compare you to TV Anchors.

That’s not a bad thing. Television professionals spend many hours refining every element of their look and performance so that viewers will only think about what they are saying. 

Side screen, off-screen, floating heads, and nose hairs don't cut it. 

Onscreen body positioning involves trial and error to find what is right for you in your space. In my previous 2 posts, I talked about lighting and sound. But, getting those elements right doesn't matter if you're too close or too far away from your webcam.

Body positioning is the secret sauce that will make you look like a pro. In the virtual world, perception is reality!

How to Build Resilient Relationships in a World of Toxic Negativity

Forming relationships should be based on character, personality and common
interests. Not on skin colour, country, age, gender, wealth or level of education. 

Written by Robyn T. Braley

Did your relationships languish during COVID-19? Me too! Maintaining friendships by Zoom or Facetime only went so far.

We learned that forming relationships is one thing. Maintaining and developing them is another.

It takes thoughtful action guided by genuine caring to form life-long friendships. One of the greatest challenges to maintaining strong relationships during the pandemic was the mental state you were in. 

Being confined to your house and not allowed to go out took a toll. Addictions soared and the dark cloud of depression settled on many. Some gave up.  

Meeting together in Zoomland didn't cut it. It was better than nothing but not by much. We heard the term Zoom fatigue as video conferences became boring and predictable. 

Radically Improve Your Video Call Performances

Network Your Way to Success

A solid handshake can be the first step towards forming a relationship. 

Written by Robyn T. Braley


I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m a habitual networker. I just can’t stop. I network everywhere I go.

Why? Because I have made business connections that resulted in signing contracts at every kind of event you can name.

The purpose of networking is not to collect a pocket full of business cards. It is to connect and begin a conversation that will lead to forming some level of meaningful relationship.

The biggest reason I love networking is that I love people. The synergy created by the buzz in a room full of people at a conference is energizing. 

As we learned through COVID, engaging online is totally different than engaging with others live and in-person. 

Networking is an inexpensive but highly effective marketing tool. It is a great way to build your personal or company brand.

Tips to Help You Survive the Calgary Stampede Networking Marathon

For some, networking is natural and easy. For others, it is one of the most frightening exercises you can imagine.

Trade Show Marketing - 10 Tips for Sales Success

Trade Show Selling Strategies

Tips for Success! Making the Main Thing the Main Thing

Written by Robyn T. Braley

The energy, passion and excitement of a great trade show make the medium a unique selling experience. They can be hot, cold, humid, dry and everything in between.

Some are loud while others are quiet. They can be a frenzy of selling and networking or … the alternative! Just the thought of empty aisles sends shivers of dread running up and down the spines of trade show veterans. 

Trade show selling can be fun. Exhausting, but fun! My clients have exhibited in Louisville, Moscow, Las Vegas, Chicago, Calgary, Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, and points in between. Whether the show is large or small, the basic sales strategies are the same.

Goal Setting

Success begins by setting realistic goals. We say ‘realistic’ because every show is different and requires a thorough assessment. Goals may include;

1. Communicating brand relevance and meaning 
2. Positioning your company with the competition
3. Shaping market attitudes and opinions about your brand
4. Scouting the competition
5. Profiling or demonstrating a product or service