Know Your Audience, know the news.
There is nothing like sharing a personal story in your speech that ties in with something hot in the news. It accomplishes several things. It makes you human in the eyes of your audience which helps them connect with you. It let’s them know you are hip and current with your topic, and it insures that your speeches stay fresh and new for you and them.
Having said that you need to be careful of who is in your audience when your share your story.
Recently I have been sharing a story about the effect of the dog food recall on my wonder dog Bo. A few weeks ago I checked the attendee roster of my public speaking seminar and found two attendees were from a company that makes several products including dog food. I went out in the audience and asked them their experience and discovered they were grateful not to be on the list. I asked permission to share their story along with mine with the group and we ended up in this great discussion. What if they had been on the list and I had brashly shared my story?
Because Bo’s special sensitive stomach dog food has been recalled for “reformulating†(I assume that means they are taking the poison out from now on) I took the vet’s advice and I have been feeding him Gerber’s baby food. Yep, you guessed it. What is on the recall list today?, Gerber’s baby food! Guess I will have another story for my next speech.
