Presentation Skills | How To Create Instant Rapport With Your Audience With These 6 Easy Ways!

The spotlights flood the stage. The chattering from the audience dissipates. The kind and eager audience members sit up straight with ears perked and eyes widened; the apathetic ones sink into the seats with eyes squinting and arms folded. All heads turned to you with varying expressions. Ready? Speak. Keep them engaged. Impress them. How does that sound?

Making an emotional connection with the audience is more important than simply communicating your factual points or a lot of information in a speech or presentation – because we know this – “Facts tell, emotions sell”. The information you are about to share could have likely been found on the Internet or by reading a report you have made. Although reading is really the best way to learn new things, people still go to speeches, seminars, presentations, webinars, and public speaking contests. The response? Human-to-human interaction and engaging the senses of your audience (what they see, hear, and feel) will win them over.

Here are 6 easy ways to establish genuine & instant rapport with your audience:

1. Pre-speech: Make Your Presence Felt

Allowing your audience to see you in person as they enter the speaking location can help you build connection with them before you ever take the stage (be it a boardroom, classroom, auditorium or convention hall). Be at the entrance to welcome your audience, and if time allows, mingle with some of them to learn their names and reasons for being there (you may be able to modify your speech to better meet your audience’s underlying needs!). This will be helpful if there is a segment later that requires audience participation. This may also give off the idea that you are approachable and kind, which could aid you in “Speak WITH your audience” instead of “Speak TO them”.

2. Use storytelling to your advantage!

Storytelling is one of the best methods to engage your audience. Since ancient times, people have been telling stories to one another as a natural means of communication and understanding. Try to tell stories during your presentation to help explain your points or to make your message more relatable. Your audience will feel more connected to your message if you do this, increasing the likelihood that they will remember it and act on it. Including a tale in your presentation never hurts. There is a temptation to concentrate on facts, figures, and content that lends credibility, but we believe that every presentation has room for a narrative, from a high-stakes business presentation to a straightforward informational speech (like a briefing/ boardroom sharing).

Carmine Gallo, author of Talk Like TED (Macmillan, 2014) (page 50) referred to experiments by Uri Hasson, an assistant professor of psychology at Princeton University, in highlighting the phenomenon of “brain-to-brain coupling”, or as Carmine succinctly puts it, “sync up” between the storyteller’s and listeners’ brains. Stories are accordingly a powerful tool in incepting ideas, emotions and concepts into your audience’s mind.

Do it in two steps!

Step #1: Create Compelling Scenes and Characters

Create a rich and textured landscape as your initial strategy for capturing the attention of your viewers. Don’t worry about cutting corners or saving money on your speech’s specifics. Even something as simple as “I got up late this morning” might be developed into a multi-layered story about how you battled ten alarms and the allure of your bed! Start by deciding who the main characters are in your novel and what scenario they are in. Start incorporating more information about the characters and the scene after that. The five Ws and one H (Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How) of interrogative pronouns are a useful tool for eliciting more specific information about your topic.

Start exploring your characters’ emotions and mental processes beyond the basic depiction. Take your audience on a voyage into your characters’ heads and help them go through the same emotional upheavals that your characters will. You may entice your audience to join you in this captivating environment you are constructing by using signposting expressions like “put yourself in my shoes” or “imagine this with me.”

Step #2: Enhance Your Struggle

Your audience members are unlikely to be engaged by a story that is linear and continuously favorable (up and up, and on and on). Strong storytellers are skilled at incorporating tension into their narratives. This approach serves as a setup for the key takeaway or message that the audience can learn from the resolution of the conflict. Before your story’s uplifting or joyous conclusion, your characters must conquer a transforming struggle known as a conflict. By including a conflict, you can raise the stakes between your characters and the satisfying resolution that your audience is hoping for.

Don’t just say “challenging” when creating a dispute. Expand on the specifics of the challenge and the thoughts your character has as they attempt to overcome it, similar to how you would when constructing a scenario. Carmine, for instance, is referring to a storyteller’s capacity to inspire empathy. By highlighting and accentuating the specifics of the difficulty the characters had to endure, you should try to elicit sympathy from your audience.

Click for more tips on “Creating Value With Stories – The Art of Storytelling in Modern Presentations”

3. “Hey! That happened to me too!” – I feel you…

In fact, giving speeches and presentations isn’t only about disseminating knowledge. In fact, I think the emphasis should be on humanizing your sleep-inducing data, theories, and facts; sharing shared experiences to evoke the feeling that “We’re in this together.” I’m confident that we have all had the experience of, instance, being squeezed between two lanes of apparently endless traffic while listening to the “melodious” sounds of horns blaring. Or even having a bad task assigned to you. Everyone is curious. Your audience will find your speech far more relatable and likely to warm up to you if there are several points of connection throughout it. Use this technique to transform those wary and uneasy facial expressions into beautiful smiles!

Here are two ways that you can achieve those rapport-building moments:

1. Using Rhetorical Questions To Jolt Your Audience’s Minds Open

Allow me to illustrate this concept. I was once invited to be a keynote speaker for a banking institution’s gala dinner which was attended by employees of all ranks (both managerial and executives). Of course, before the event, I had managed to glean attendees’ opinions and comments through my questionnaires (my usual practice) and from which I got to understand their underlying needs. The general vibe that I felt was that, despite the company’s stellar performance for that year, the employees felt that the workload was substantial (something that I can endear myself to). During my speech, I touched on the topic of stress management and I used a rhetorical question: “Nowadays, we have to collate mountains of data, file tons of paperwork, churn out scores of reports, attend countless meetings and still have to squeeze time out for networking events…Who do we think we are, six-legged and three-headed robots?!”. Now put aside the laughter elicited, I realised that such short-and-sweet rhetoric can jolt your audience into a momentary yet focused reflection of the meaning behind it. If consensus can be developed around the message, an instant rapport can be established which usually manifests itself in the form of heads nodding or the upward curving of one side of the lips.

2. Turn Age Into Your Advantage

This is a component that many of my fellow keynote speakers are wary and sensitive about. Their concerns are not baseless or impertinent – revealing yourself as too young may bring about skepticism about the quality of your training abilities; too old and you may lose interest from the younger audience members due to misconceptions about the relevance of your teachings (generation gap). My approach is not to fight it. Not to resist it. Reveal it albeit in a tactful and strategic way. I’ve tried this in both scenarios: To an older crowd of Small-Medium-Enterprises (SME) leaders, I said “I’m twenty-seven and with the business challenges that I’m facing right now, I wish I’ve the wealth of experience that you guys have accumulated”. To a younger and doe-eyed crowd of senior high school students, I said “I’m twenty-seven and I wish I had grabbed hold of the opportunities and precious time that your youth provides for you right now!”. Now, to them respectively, the “Ah-ha” moments emerge – “He/ She is younger/ older, but he understands what is ahead of him/ what is in for us, and on the side note, (age) is pretty cool!”. This may seem self-deprecating, but it brings your audience closer to you, adding that human touch to your on-stage presence therefore enhancing your audience’s receptivity towards your messages.

Understanding and fulfilling the underlying needs of your audience is make or break for your speaking engagement, presentation, investment pitch, interview, interpersonal conversation etc. Your audience wants to be inspired and motivated, and the only way that to do so is to establish a connection between the speaker and the audience, almost tangible. Only when a strategic trust has been established – in other words, your audience go “Ah-ha, he/ she knows what I’m going through, experienced my existing issues before, I believe that I can trust what he/ she has to offer” – then your speech messages can be effectively conveyed and readily accepted.

4. Humanize your presence on stage

In contrast to being a know-it-all and parading around with the “Listen-to-me!” stage presence, even if you are actually the expert in a given field, I believe in remaining grounded and meeting the needs of my audience. Inappropriate and arrogant hand gestures and body language can give the impression that a speaker is powerful, although this is not necessarily the case. Share some relatable details of your life with the audience to make your speech more human. We all have fears, including those related to public speaking, commitment, mediocrity, failure, loneliness, heights, and spiders. Some would contend that disclosing one’s own fears exposes weaknesses or signals weakness. Why not approach it from a positive angle? These are moments to participate in human-to-human stimulations and press emotional triggers to help your message stick. In the end, acceptance of your speech by your audience matters much more than the perfection of your performance.

5. Inject humour in your speech – self-deprecation

General rule of thumb: Laugh at Yourself First Before Laughing at Others – You need to feel at ease laughing at yourself on stage before you can start to make your audience laugh. Even if it is overused, the phrase holds up when broken down. This goes beyond just cracking slapstick or self-deprecating jokes. Being able to laugh at oneself comfortably demonstrates that you are at ease enough to show emotions on stage and expose yourself to the audience’s response. A key component of humour is displaying a vulnerable side of yourself while speaking. A good place to start when incorporating humour into your speech is by coming across as a real and open communicator.

(Psst…side-note, click for the remaining two tips on – How to be Funny)

Your audience can be subtly encouraged to examine their vulnerabilities and to take themselves less seriously by successful comedic stories or themes. They will feel more at ease listening to your lecture if you can point out universal human behaviors or features that you and your audience may laugh at (without being disrespectful or intimidating). For instance, I began one of my prior lectures on body positivity by sharing how I’ve had to toss out items because they didn’t fit. When the “dirty laundry” was aired, the audience felt more comfortable laughing as part of the shared experience. This was a common, unacknowledged experience that the audience (or most people) encounter. Of course, all of this must begin with you learning to laugh more at yourself.

6. No joke, the final tip is erm…move closer to your audience

I understand that this doesn’t sound like a breakthrough thought – but in the midst of the anxieties and stresses of a speaker/ presenter on stage, trying to perfect the delivery (“I don’t want to fluff my lines! Must be a perfect delivery!”), a lot of speakers forget to make their physical presence felt – get closer to them (ps: your audience won’t bite)!

Olivia Fox Cabane identified three characteristics of charisma: power, warmth, and presence in her book The Charisma Myth (Portfolio Penguin, 2012). The importance of presence cannot be overstated. In our opinion, the capacity to relate to your audience is crucial. This calls for both relationship and content connection. Infusing charisma into your speech or presentation can be done by balancing both parts of your connection with the audience.

Your speech or presentation should include new and pertinent information for your audience in order to establish a content connection. It is doubtful that you will be successful if you repeatedly emphasize the same ideas to your audience without taking into account their interests or learning goals. Instead, by learning about your audience’s history and unique requirements, you can better connect with them through the substance of your speech or presentation. Your delivery is important for relationship connection. Change your attention from the topic of your speech or presentation to the delivery style (extra: click for tips on hand gestures for greater impact!). Get near to your audience (both literally and figuratively!) to create a warm and fruitful connection. To make your speech/presentation more dynamic, play around with your stage positioning, inching closer to your audience to emphasise an important message but moving away from them to tease their attention.

Final thoughts!

In conclusion, it is crucial to establish a rapport with your audience when giving presentations. You may make an emotional connection with your audience by using storytelling, engaging them in conversation, and employing humour sensibly. This will increase the likelihood that they will remember your message and act upon it. To connect with your audience, always remember to be honest, authentic, and yourself. This will assist you in developing the trust and credibility necessary for giving effective presentations.

Key Takeaways on How to Connect with Your Audience

• 🤝 Build connection before you speak – Greet your audience as they enter and show you’re approachable even before taking the stage.
• 📖 Tell relatable stories – Storytelling taps into shared emotions and activates “brain-to-brain coupling,” making your message stick.
• 🤔 Ask rhetorical questions – These create moments of reflection and signal to your audience that you “get” their experience.
• 🧓👶 Use your age to bridge the gap – Frame your age strategically to resonate with both younger and older crowds.
• 🧍‍♂️ Be human, not perfect – Vulnerability is strength. Share relatable fears and experiences to foster emotional rapport.
• 😂 Add humor, especially self-deprecating – Laughing at yourself shows confidence, authenticity, and makes the audience more comfortable.
• 🚶‍♀️🚶 Get physically closer to your audience – Movement adds warmth and presence. Vary your positioning to keep things dynamic and engaging.
• ❤️ Above all, be authentic – Trust and connection come from being genuine. Speak with your audience, not at them.