5 Ways to Connect Better With Your Audience

Think about your favorite people in your life--your inner circle. Your best friends, your family, your colleagues. 

Did you have to try to make a connection with them when you first met? Did you have to go out of your way to appear better than you were to draw them in? Did you have to meticulously plan your words or manage your feelings? 

When I met my best friend in 2004, we sat next to each other for the first day of class and were immediately partnered off for introductions.

Despite being forced to work together and use a second language that we only had a beginner's command of, we were endlessly fascinated with each other from the get-go.

When all we could say to each other in that conversation were things like, “I like soup” or “I want to be a diplomat,” it didn’t matter.

That summer we became inseparable, and to this day, he’s the first person I want to call when I need to celebrate, cry, get advice or laugh.

When we show up as ourselves, the people around us show up as their selves too. 

And everybody is more ready to connect with one another, without façades, without hang-ups and without pretending to be better than we are (because the foibles are what make us endlessly fascinating).

This is what magnetic speakers do to their audiences. 

Audiences come away feeling more alive, more proud of who they are and more connected to the speaker ready to move mountains. 

Connecting is the first level of what you need to create trust and be memorable. If you don’t connect with your audience, you might as well be practicing for yourself in front of a mirror. 

The problem is that we often change ourselves based on who the audience is.

We’re one person when we’re at home, one person when we’re with ourselves, one person when we’re with colleagues and then this totally self-conscious monster when we’re in front of an audience. That’s why more people are afraid of public speaking than death. And that fear drives us to total lunacy, when the reality is that it doesn’t need to be so hard. 

When we get in front of people, our brains get in the way of emotional resonance. We’re too worried about how our audience will see us. That worry prevents you from being fully yourself in front of your audience and creates a barrier to connection. 

If you forgo opportunities to speak and grow your profile, you’re only going to live out a fraction of your potential. There is no marketing that can grow yourself, your audience or your business with more impact than speaking in front of your ideal audience. 

You might be afraid in speaking that people won’t listen or understand what you say, or worse, that people won’t like them! Secretly we all want to be liked, so we water ourselves down to be attractive to the most common denominator, and in doing so, we repel the passionate love of our lives who would never settle for ordinary. This is the same thing for attracting your ideal clients--you have to be yourself to attract people who already like you. 

You deserve nothing less than your ideal audience, people with passion for you and your ideas. To attract them you need to be open to connecting with them wholly as yourself first. You don’t need to be a better version of yourself to attract a better audience, you just need to own who you are unapologetically. 

You have to speak with courage which means being ready to accept yourself & flaws and possibly repel some people while you attract those who will matter the most to you. 

Most leaders think bold messaging matters. That’s not new. But in this age of leadership transparency, you have to also find ways to be unapologetically yourself to be relatable and memorable. Mistakes make you human. Eliminating all the flaws from your presentation eliminates your personality. 

I present imperfectly all the time. Am I proud of it? No, of course not. But I know that the strength of my performance is in showing up and being present, not in being overly polished. Now I never recommend to be unprepared, but should you be unprepared, needing to speak in front of people shouldn’t be a recipe for disaster but instead an opportunity ripe for connecting with your audience and being wholly yourself.

Here are 5 ways you can connect better with your audience.

Understand what makes you different. How do you convey this in your messaging and in your performance? 

The brain doesn’t pay attention to things that are the same. So if you are too alike or aligned with what your audience already thinks, you won’t be memorable. At the same time, the brain also avoids things that are too out there or different--it senses danger and will protect you with avoidance.

You want to put things out there in the world that only you could have created. They’re full of your stories, your personality and your energy. For example, when I’ve worked with CEOs on their content, it’s not the stats or figures that attract attention (well, maybe in an accounting firm), but the CEO’s take on how we got here and the human impact of progress. That personal perspective makes all the difference between something that is forgettable and something that can spread.

Understand what keeps your audience up at night about your topic

We’re all driven by hidden worries, even if we’re adamant about getting rid of the fears that hold us back. You need to show your audience that you understand them by speaking in their language, using references from their worldviews, and  

What does your audience know already, and how can you show that AND build their learning foundation?

While not everything can be paradigm shifting, you need to be able to shift your audience’s understanding of their own worldview to start the transformation. 

Test your stories with a loved one

Do you get an emotional reaction from someone who already knows, likes and trusts you? If not, you can do better. 

I’ll tell you a story about how I learned this. I always got great marks and attention for my writing in school. My teachers regularly told my parents that I had a gift and to encourage my fullest self-expression. I had stories that got published locally, and I would win contests and had my first paid writing job at age 14 working for our town’s newspaper as a student reporter. 

It was around that time that I cracked the code for what would be “publishable” by instinctually writing everything for my mom. If I was going for heartfelt, I’d write it to make her cry. If I was going for inspiring, I’d write it to make her eyes well up (but not fully cry). If I was going for interesting, I’d write it for her to go “Hmmm.” When I gave her things to read and got the expected emotional reaction from her, I knew it passed the test. 

Practice being “you” when it feels uncomfortable. 

Let’s look at run of the mill interactions and how you can get more personal. For example, when you drop something off at the dry cleaner, be honest why you got that wine stain. Let the person get a full glimpse into who you are. Maybe they’re going to judge you--so what?! That’s the whole point. You don’t need to apologize for who you are, and it’s humbling to practice being the full you, irrespective of the other person. 

What’s next?

Starting to care about connecting your audience is only the first step, and I applaud you. 

A lot of non-professional presenters are just looking to give information without considering the audience’s perspective, so you’ve already set yourself apart.

If you take nothing else from this article, remember this:

You deserve to connect with your audience based on the real “you.” No fakery or over-polishing involved. No making videos of yourself and counting or cutting the umms. 

Be more “you” and your audience will help you grow into the fully self-expressed leader you were born to be. 

If this were easy, everyone would do it.

But that’s not you. You’re a proven leader who has a lot of value, vision and care to offer the world. So get going! And if you need guidance on what to do next, let’s see if we’re a fit.