Last week, I was at the National Speakers Association Influence 2024 conference in Denver, Colorado, wondering how Hurricane Debby coming up the United States East Coast would affect me and my family on our vacation in Charleston, South Carolina, this week.

I thought about how we speakers have to deal with disruptions in our speaking.

Below are three disruptions in your speaking and how you can deal with them

Technical Issues

Problems with microphones, projectors, or other audio-visual equipment can interrupt the flow of your presentation.

Test all electronic hardware and software before the presentation starts and have backup plans in case of a problem.

For example, bring extra batteries for wireless devices and have your presentation on a USB drive in multiple formats. If issues arise, stay calm and use your presentation materials as a fallback, such as printed handouts or speaking without slides.

If possible, go to your venue and check out the electronics a few days before your presentation.

Connect your laptop to the audio-visual system and confirm you can advance your slides.

Do you have to use the Internet for your presentation? Ensure the Internet WIFI is stable and you can connect it to your laptop at the venue.

Ask someone at the venue to go to the back of the room and ensure the sound coming from your computer can be heard in the back of the room.

Check out the sound coming from the microphone. Can someone in the back of the room hear you?

Ensure you know if the microphone is a lapel mike, a remote one, or one with a wire. If the microphone is one with a wire, see if the wire is long enough so you can walk around the stage.

If your presentation is virtual, ensure your Internet connection is stable. Don’t depend on your WIFI connection. If possible, wire your Internet through an Ethernet cable directly from the Internet modem/router where you are presenting.

Also, ensure you can share your slides if your presentation is virtual.

So technical issues can cause disruptions in your speaking. Have backup plans if they do happen.

Another disruption to your speaking of a different nature is audience disruptions.

Audience Distractions

Attendees talking, using their phones, or being inattentive can be distracting.

Engage your audience with an exciting opening or question to capture their attention early. Maintain eye contact and move around the stage to connect with different sections of the audience.

If distractions occur, address them diplomatically by incorporating them into your presentation or pausing briefly to regain focus.

If you find attendees talking, pausing your presentation will usually stop the talking. You may ask why this is so. Audience members talking hear the drone from your speaking. They don’t hear the words you’re saying, but they know you are talking. When you stop talking, you stop the drone, and you will get their attention.

Audience members using their phones happens a lot these days. So, how can you stop audience members from using their phones during your presentation?

The first “line of defense” to audience members using their phones is to ask people upfront to silence their phones or turn them off. However, sometimes, this does not prevent audience members from using their phones.

If you have an in-person presentation, seeing someone using their phone is easy. Like the remedy for audience members talking to each other, you can try to stop talking. This probably will “jog” the offending audience member to end their phone call.

If stopping the presentation doesn’t work, you may have to ask the individual to stop talking on the phone politely.

If your presentation is virtual, it may not be possible to see if someone is talking on their phone with the phone’s speaker function.

In this case, you may want to go to breakout groups to stop the audience member’s phone conversation.

Lastly, If someone in your virtual audience is inattentive, you may try calling on them and asking a question about your topic. This is the last resort because the last thing you want to do is embarrass an audience member.

So technical issues and audience members can cause disruptions in your speaking.

Another disruption to your speaking is internal to you—your nerves.

Personal Nerves

Nervousness or anxiety can affect your delivery, causing shaky hands, a shaky voice, or forgetfulness.

The best advice for this is to practice thoroughly to build confidence. There is no better way to develop expertise and lower anxiety at an activity than to practice it repeatedly. Public speaking is no exception.

You should take the following steps to practice for your presentations:

• Deliver your presentation by yourself, sitting down

• Deliver your presentation by yourself, standing

• Deliver your presentation by yourself in front of a mirror, recording your audio

• Video record your presentation in front of a mirror

• Video record yourself delivering to a live practice audience

When you practice in front of the live practice audience, tell them what you want them to concentrate on in your presentation. Ask them to ask you every possible question the eventual audience can ask you. Make sure you have answers to these questions.

Ask someone in the practice audience to record these questions and your answers. This ensures you will not hear a question from the eventual audience you have not heard before.

Use relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing or visualization, before stepping on stage.

When I present, I always delay my presentation five (5) to ten (10) seconds and look at the audience while taking a deep breath. This does two things. It will familiarize you with the faces of audience members, and it will have a calming effect on you.

Focus on the message you want to convey rather than on yourself and remember that most audiences are forgiving and supportive of minor mistakes.

Have you ever attended a presentation and wished the presenter to fail? Of course not. Your audience wants you to succeed.

Focus on your message and genuinely try to convey the message to your audience. You will be surprised how much this will help alleviate your nervousness.

By anticipating technical issues, audience distractions, and your nerves and preparing strategies to address them, you can improve your ability to handle unexpected disruptions and deliver a more effective presentation.

Even the best batters in baseball only get a hit three (3) out of ten (10) times they bat.

Follow the advice in this article, and you will become a successful speaker!

Call to Action

• Ensure the technical parts of your presentation work ahead of your actual presentation.

• Practice the techniques in this article to diffuse audience distractions.

• Prevent shaky hands, a shaky voice, or forgetfulness by thoroughly practicing your presentation using the five (5) steps outlined in this article.

Being a confident, engaging, and effective technical speaker is a vital personal and professional asset. With more than 40 years of engineering experience and more than 30 years of award-winning public speaking experience, I can help you reduce your presentation preparatory time by 50%, overcome your fear of public speaking and be completely at ease, deliver your presentations effectively, develop your personal presence with your audience; and apply an innovative way to handle audience questions deftly.

Working closely with you, I provide a customized protocol employing the critical skills and tools you need to create, practice, and deliver excellent technical speeches and presentations. Let’s connect and explore how I can help you become the exceptional speaker you were meant to be. Please reach out to me at frank@speakleadandsucceed.com or 703-509-4424 for a complimentary consultation. Schedule a meeting with me at calendly.com/frankdibartolomeospeaks.