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Occasionally in your speaking experience you may find that you have done everything you are supposed to do in terms of tailoring your presentation to your expected audience, only to arrive at the venue to discover that the audience you are facing is not quite the audience you expected. At other times you may notice that the audience does not seem to be following along while you are delivering a message, or that listeners seem to disagree strongly with your main points. The following suggestions will help you analyze the audience in the moment—a skill known as situational audience analysis.

If the audience ends up being different from the one you expected, avoid communicating your surprise—audience members will likely interpret your comments as a signal that you are not prepared. Take a quick look at your outline and check whether the examples you have chosen make sense with this new audience. If the audience is smaller than you expected, consider jettisoning a portion of your outline and making time for questions and answers. Also, quickly consider whether your assumptions about common ground, prior exposure, or disposition of audience still apply. If not, you may need to verbally add more background or explanation than you had expected. Finally, consider your presentation aids. Do they make sense for the new audience configuration? Because it would be difficult to create new visual aids at this point, you may decide to get rid of some if the new audience is already informed about the topic. Or you may want to provide more explanation for certain aids if the new audience is less informed.

And because communication is a transaction between you and your audience, your audience will be sending you messages during your delivery as well. What if you are delivering your speech and your audience seems confused, lost, or hostile? Try to read the mood of your audience members and adjust your delivery appropriately. If listeners seem confused, slow down, leave out some of the specifics or technical concepts, and instead explain a few of your points in more detail. Humor might also lighten the mood and get listeners on your side. If listeners seem bored or unengaged, consider inviting audience questions or spicing up your delivery by adding enthusiasm and varying your tone of voice—either approach will allow you to increase audience interest.

You may notice from your listeners’ body language, gestures, or even voices that they are opposed to your position. In this situation, you can always flash a sincere smile or use a comforting tone of voice. You may want to reconsider common ground with the audience and your audience’s prior exposure to your message. If you can see another element of common ground you share with audience members, you may wish to incorporate that into your speech. Likewise, if the new audience seems to have less prior exposure to your message than you anticipated, you may want to discard some of the points from your outline. If there is more prior exposure—coupled with a slightly more hostile disposition—emphasize points of common ground even more strongly.