Many speakers understand one of the great truths of public speaking:  the audience is on your side.  At least, to begin with.  The audience wants you to succeed.  That’s the good news.  They’ve voted with their feet, sat down in uncomfortable chairs, and are waiting for you to wow them.  They want success, because it means they won’t have wasted their time.  To begin with, an audience is yours to please.  Only if you let it down repeatedly will it start to get ornery. 

 

But what about those rare audiences that really do want you to fail?  From the start?  The opposing camps, the hostile factions, the competitive parts of your universe?  How do you survive a hostile audience?

 

Following are some tips for getting through when the audience is nasty.

 

1.  Talk to the positive people in the room

 

This is counter-intuitive, but important, because if you can establish a positive relationship with a few people in the room, that positive feeling will ripple across the crowd.  We have these things called mirror neurons in our brains that give us essentially the same experience as we see the people around us having.  So if we see someone reacting positively, we will too.

 

2.  Confront the negative ideas in the room

 

If there are some obvious and big objections to what you’re saying, respectfully and thoughtfully talk them through, first presenting the opposing idea fairly and then saying why you disagree.  Most often, people with opposing points of view are disarmed simply by being recognized – fairly.

 

3.  Disarm the hostility with humor

 

The trick is not to be defensive.  Self-deprecating humor works well when you don’t overdo it and when you have some authority to deprecate.  Don’t take yourself and the situation too seriously; allow the humor of the situation to bubble to the surface.  If you're not good with humor, come armed with a slide of a cartoon or comic that comments on the situation. 

 

4.  Align yourself physically with the dissenters

 

This is the most counter-intuitive advice I give.  Sometimes, when you have a heckler, or a faction that is not supportive, and not giving up, the best way to handle the person or persons is to go into the crowd and stand alongside them.  This technique is disarming because it shows great confidence and openness to move toward people who are not your supporters.  Any discomfort you feel will be more than outweighed by the kudos you get from the crowd.

 

5.  Open the floor to Q and A – but save the last 5 minutes for your closing

 

A common mistake speakers make is to take Q and A at the end, closing on the last audience question.  But doing so means that you’re at the mercy of the last question and questioner.  Instead, save 5 minutes and hold your best rhetoric for the end.  People tend to remember the last words they hear, so make them your own. 

 

I talk more about all these techniques in my new book, Trust Me:  Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma, published in January.