There be with you in a minute just texting guess what if you're a speaker and you're talking to more
than five people there is a real danger that they're going to be people texting in your audience and
hey we've all done it.
I confess I've done this but when you're the speaker it's wildly distracting and it's insulting.
And there is a very real danger that if several people in your audience feel it's OK to text and they're
texting it can spread it can be contagious.
So I recommend that you not simply ignore it.
Now you don't want to run around pulling phones out of people's hands or yelling at them or being confrontational
because people really don't like that that will make you detested by the audience certainly the people
you picked on.
But I also think if you just ignore it you're sending a message to everyone else in the audience.
Hey folks what I'm saying really isn't particularly important or interesting so do what gyms do it over
here.
TEXT multitask do your grocery list.
I don't care I'm not really saying anything.
You don't want to send that message.
So what I do and I typically when I'm speaking to smaller groups I have them in a semicircle where everyone's
in the front row so I can see people.
So I use several strategies.
Number one I'll just walk right over to that person out talk to the person on the other side of the
room so I don't look like I'm being confrontational but simply getting close to that person quite often
will make them embarrassed and will put their phone away.
Another technique is if I see that Sam over here is on his his cell phone texting I'll go to the other
side of the room and say yeah I Sam was saying to me during the break he has this experience where.
So now I'll reference him by name.
I'm not calling him out.
I'm not chastising him.
I'm not in any way being rude by mentioning him by name and quite often that will be enough.
They're talking to me I better pay attention.
They'll put their phone away.
So there are a number of techniques.
There are times when I will simply call on them.
How many of this how many of you have had this happen to you same as that ever happened to you.
So now they're having to look up.
Answer the question.
You want to condition your audience to pay attention to you.
I believe great speakers are jealous.
They are jealous of their audience's attention and you should want people focused on what you're saying
not sending text but you can't act angry or annoyed or it's going to make you look petty and mean you
don't want that either.