Using humor in your public speaking can be a great way to break the ice. There are several good ways to do this. You just want to make sure this technique does not backfire for you. Here are some things you will want to think about before you use humor when speaking to a group:
- Make sure you find out something about the people in the group before you get to the event. You can do this by contacting the company in advance or by sitting in the audience and listening to speakers who speak before you do. If you can get the names of some of the audience members that is even better.
- It will make a difference if the audience is all men, all women, or both. Some humor will not go over well if it is gender based.
- Find out the education and income level of the audience members. For some strange reason, this is important to know. People of different income and education levels do not laugh at the same things.
- Be extremely careful with religious, political, or racial humor of any kind. Unless you know your audience well and have quite a bit of experience in public speaking, it may be best to stay away from these areas altogether.
- Try your speaking points out on people you know well before speaking in front of your group. This will help you with your timing, which is very important when trying to be funny, and also with your delivery.
Humor will make you a very popular speaker, as long as you pay close attention to the above mentioned points. It is a good idea to get some professional advice before speaking to audiences. This will increase your chances of success.
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