Has it ever happened to you that you make a speech to a small audience and it works well, but when you repeat it in front of a larger crowd, it fails to ignite that spark? I experienced this scenario (or its reverse) a couple of times in my early speaking career, and the explanation is simple. It’s largely a question of energy.

A small intimate group is easy for most speakers to talk to. Your personal passion for your subject will probably bring your energy to sufficient levels to get through to your audience in a smaller setting. But what about that bigger room and larger audience? Will the quieter, more intimate contact which may work for a small group be sufficient to reach your listeners there?

Many less experienced speakers do not understand that the dynamic and energy required to fill a large room and reach a large audience is not the same as for a small audience, and vice versa. If a speaker plays things too large and loud in front of a small group, he/she will come across as theatrical and unbelievable. If the same speaker’s performance in front of a larger crowd is too intimate, he won’t reach the crowd. I found this out through Toastmasters contests. I would sometimes make a speech at club level which didn’t really work, but do much better at later levels where the room and the audience had increased in size. And then sometimes I experienced the reverse. This taught me that I needed to bring up or play down the dynamic and energy level of my performnce depending on the size of the audience, and this has been an invaluable lesson.

As I usually speak to larger audiences, this question of energy is an important one for me. I am a fairly quiet and reflective person in my off-stage life, so I often need to consciously increase my energy level and dynamic. Here’s how I do it. If I feel that my energy tanks are a bit low before a performance, I use one or two of three tools – depending on the situation. Some time before the performance, I will do some sport of some kind because this stabilizes my blood pressure and energizes me. Not too much, though: you don’t want to fight physical fatigue on stage! Sport also reduces stage-fright/ stress symptoms as it allows the chemicals created by stress and fear to be worked out of the body. Then, closer to the time of the performance – sometimes just a short time before – I may listen to uplifting, bright music with a good beat to really energize my mind and body.

Then there’s a third tip which came from a professional speaking colleague in New Zealand. If you have a speech for a large audience, and you don’t know where you can or need to raise your energy and dynamic levels, there’s a great way to find out. But this requires you to have a large free space in which there is no audience (try a park or forest, or the stage in your company’s lecture room). Run – I mean really run – around the stage and deliver your speech as loudly as you can. I know, I know – sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But the thing is that most of us really don’t know what we can risk in terms of dynamics or high passion until we’ve tried it out. When you do this, it will become instantly clear where you can give more, and where you should quieten down. You need to go to the extreme to get this information.

I’ve used this last technique for two speeches to larger audiences, and it really helped. You’ll have to throw off your scepticism for this one, but you’ll be amazed at the results.