How to Deal with Interruptions in Public Speaking

Video Transcript

"DON VARNEY: Hi, I'm Don Varney, founder of Varney Speaks, and I'm here on behalf of Expert Village. I think we need to talk about this just a moment. What happened here is really a nightmare to most speakers, and that is that you have someone in the audience that, for whatever reason, doesn't realize their voice is carrying across the room. And they're trying--they're not trying to be rude, they're really not. They're just interested in where you're going to go to lunch or what you're going to do after this is over. Maybe they've heard all about you that they want to hear and now they're just kind of checking out. The thing that you have to do is understand. You're there for the people that want to hear you. And maybe not everybody wants to. You can embarrass 'em. You can try to overpower them. But I found in the past that if I just take a few moments, bring them in to what it is I'm saying. Let them know that I know they're being talkative and loud. Let 'em know that people around 'em are aware that they're being talkative and loud. You'll find most cases, most, and there are a few where I've had to use other tactics but the reality of it is once you do that, most people do just what happened in this particular scenario of--once I got involved with 'em, they quieted. I let 'em know that in a few minutes I'm done and we're off and running and away we go without trying to embarrass them in front of their peers."