What is the best question you could ever ask your audience? [Speak on the Shoulders of Giants]
“Where is your money now?”
Our CEO asked this in one of the past financial literacy classes that he conducted.
This caught the attention of the audience because it made them evaluate their current financial state.
He explained that answering this question was the first step to figuring out what they could do to make their wealth grow.
It was exactly the reason why people attended the class.
He grabbed the audience’s attention with a question that they often ask themselves when they think about their finances.
The audience were all ears and then, he taught them and imparted knowledge on how to put their money at work through investing.
Wonder how this one, simple question was so effective?
According to Forbes Magazine, the number one fear for the average person is public speaking—even higher than their fear of death, which came second.
Public speaking is one of the hardest ways to communicate to a bigger audience.
Whenever you’re faced with a large audience, it becomes even harder to capture their attention.
You’ll need creativity and patience in honing your skills to achieve your speaking goals—whether it’s to educate your audience, to convince them of your point, or to make them buy a product.
One of the ways to effectively get the attention of the crowd is by using a POWER QUESTION.
James C. Humes’ book “Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln” contains powerful secrets from the greatest speakers in history, and one of those secrets is the Power Question.
“Sometimes the rightly phrased question packs the electric brightness and power of a lightning strike.”
What makes a question a Power Question is being able to summarize the thrust of your point or argument into one question that matters most to your target audience and the message you want to get across.
This is a thought-provoking strategy that can be used in any part of a presentation.
This gives you the power to:
– talk about what’s important to your audience;
– lead the conversation to where you want it to go; and
– express your thoughts more clearly than ever before.
You can phrase the question any way appropriate to your presentation and the momentum of your speech—beginning, middle, or end. It’s up to you.
To give you an idea of how to form power questions, you can try different approaches by:
– emphasizing a witty remark
– asking a rhetorical question
– using a series of questions to arrive at the point you want to make, for dramatic effect
– motivating the audience to act or get involved
– asking a simple or blunt question that sets the tone on what your presentation is about (much like what our CEO did during the financial literacy class)
Many of the world’s best speakers delivered power questions, together with power gestures and power openers, to great effect. (Read about our past weeks’ public speaking tips here.)
It was one of the many keys they used to make sure that listeners would react, be engaged, and think.
You can use a power question to wake your listeners up too!
Try using a power question on your next presentation! We’re sure it’ll grab your audience’s attention.
About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Wednesdays: Speak on the Shoulders of Giants”
In a meeting with one person
…a boardroom with five people
…or a huge venue with hundreds of people
—whatever the situation or setting, it’s very important to learn and eventually master the art of public speaking.
No matter what, you always need to effectively get your message across.
What good is a presentation with awesome content if you don’t deliver it properly?
Every Wednesday, we publish different tips, insights, and secrets on how you can improve your presentation skills to captivate your audience and lead interesting discussions.
The need for great presentation skills applies EVERYWHERE.
(Small meetings with your team, big meetings with your boss, an important marketing pitch, speaking engagements for events with a big audience, etc.)
Learning these skills is not just for the corporate world. Being in other industries such as the Arts, Information Technology, Medicine, and Education while knowing how to present well will definitely give you an edge.
Have that advantage.
Hope you’ve found this week’s public speaking tip interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next Wednesday’s Speak on the Shoulders of Giants!
Cheers,
Kyle Yu
Head of Marketing
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities
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