In-House Counsel

4 Things Not To Say To An Audience

If you actually belong in front of an audience, don't kill time with irrelevancies.

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dartboard pen inside straightYou’ve got a lectern and 100 people in front of you.

You’ve got about thirty seconds before they stop listening.

So what do you do?

Waste the opportunity.

You could start with something good: A joke, a compelling thesis, a heart-warming anecdote.

And instead you start with:

“Does this work?” (Tap the microphone. Hear some reverberations.)

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“Oh, good. Well, good morning. Glad you all made it in on a rainy day.”

The ship has sailed, and you weren’t on it.

So that’s number 1: You have only one chance to give your introduction. Don’t blow it.

Number 2: The audience doesn’t care about what you and the guy in the corner were talking about before you began your presentation.

For some reason, speakers think it’s a good idea to mention private conversations during their time at the lectern: “Before the talk, Fred and I were just saying . . . . ” Or: “Good question. Susan mentioned to me before I came on stage . . . . ”

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You have a big audience out there. It’s your time to say something that justifies you taking the stage. The hundred of us are not interested in what you and somebody else were chatting about this morning.

Really.

Number 3: If you’re speaking to 100 people, do not address your comments to just one person in the audience.

“The case is Astill. That’s A-s-t-i-l-l for George, because I know the air conditioner is pretty loud over there in the corner.”

Nope.

One hundred of us aren’t having a problem with the air conditioner. If you want to chat with George about the air conditioner, do it after the talk. Now’s your time in the spotlight; save the conversation with one person for after the talk.

Finally: Don’t recite case citations.

“In the Smith case, which you can find at 123 F.3d 321, . . . ”

Are you handing out course materials? Is the cite provided in the course materials? If so, there’s no reason to provide the cite now.

Even if you’re not handing out course materials, there’s just about nobody in the audience taking notes, and even those who are taking notes aren’t scribbling down case citations.

You have just a very few minutes to make your point. Don’t waste time giving case citations.

I realize that my cause is hopeless, because most people asked to speak for an hour don’t give the speech any thought until the night before the event. They pick up a yellow pad and jot down some notes and hope that will get them through the hour. They really don’t have anything to say.

With that kind of preparation, who cares if the introduction is silly, or you’re regaling your audience with what you and Fred said before the talk, or if you’re telling George about the air conditioner, or if you’re reading out case cites?

There was really no reason to listen to your talk anyway. You agreed to speak because someone solicited you, and you don’t have anything to say.

But if you actually belong in front of an audience, with a thesis to defend or a point to make, please don’t kill time with irrelevancies. Eliminate the usual throat-clearing, and prove to your audience that there’s a reason to listen.

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now responsible for litigation and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Inside Straight: Advice About Lawyering, In-House And Out, That Only The Internet Could Provide (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at [email protected].

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