Well, it means that you have to make allowances for early morning audiences and make some slight adjustments to your talk. You will rarely find an early a.m. audience to be a rowdy raucous bunch of lively participants. In fact, your wittiest one-liners may well fall flat and be met with blank stares from people who may think you odd rather than humorous or clever, simply because they are not quite awake yet. (Yes, I’ve been there.)
At another time of the day, this same audience could possibly think you’re the wittiest, funniest, wisest being on the planet… just not first thing in the morning.
Any time up to about 9 or 9.30 in the morning is not really the best time for humorous speakers to hit their mark and it has little to do with how clever a speaker they are, although that certainly is a major factor.
People are just not programmed for frivolity at that time of the day. These people are still in the process of waking up, and while inwardly some may smile and even appreciate your humor, it’s just too early in the day for them to be able to outwardly express it. In fact, if they were at home, they would probably thank you and ask you to come back later!
You’ve seen these people commuting to work in the morning, haven’t you? See many of them laughing with glee? One of the hardest jobs, apart from being the breakfast DJ whose job it is to wake you up and get you smiling, would have to be the early morning speaker.
If you’re opening a seminar or introducing another speaker and your timeslot is the first one in the morning and you’ve been asked to warm the audience up, don’t be disappointed if all you receive are polite smiles. This is not to say you will never find a lively audience early in the morning… you just aren’t likely to. In fact, you may go your entire career and never find one… (but I don’t want to go on record saying it will never happen.)
So, until you do, think about the types of things that make people smile, or even laugh, early in the morning. Listen to some breakfast DJ’s bantering for tips and ideas.
Chances are even though they may deliver some side-splitting, laugh-provoking commentary, even you are not awake yet to do more than appreciate it inwardly and maybe the corners of your mouth will turn up and that’s about it. Welcome to the world of the early morning audience!
The same material later in the day could well result in thigh slapping and loud guffaws. This also explains why many breakfast radio programs are outrageous and over the top – it takes that to get most people to laugh at that time of the day.
Knowing what is most likely to appeal to an early morning audience’s funny-bone will help you with your own early morning material.
You know that your audience are still in the process of waking up, and you know not to expect hearty laughs. But do you know how much humor you should waste on this bunch of sleepy-heads who wouldn’t know humor at this time of day if it sat on their heads and laid eggs?
Quite simple. Don’t waste any of your best stuff on them. At this time of the day you will be better off delivering more information and a little less humor. Save your best material for an audience who is in a better position to appreciate and remember it. You’ll find this audience from around 10.00 a.m. in the morning through to lunch.
In fact, many speakers will tell you the mid morning – lunch audiences are the most responsive and this is their preferred time of day for speaking.
Think about it… this makes sense. At this time of day your audience is more awake… they’ve had their breakfast and a morning snack and the caffeine has kicked in. Even those people who generally sleep later, maybe shift workers or those who don’t have to rise early in the morning are more awake by this time. They’re all awake and they’ve found their senses of humor.
Best of all, it is still early enough in the day for all of them to feel awake and not starting to get tired again, as people do mid afternoon… hence the concept of the power nap – and you don’t want any of your audiences taking any of those while you’re talking!
So, if you can organize a timeslot around late morning – midday, you can use your best material and can expect a rewarding response from an appreciative audience.
Don’t deliberately choose a mid to late afternoon timeslot if you can avoid it either. People get sleepy again in the afternoon. Grannies nap in the afternoon for a good reason. And harking back to the power nap, research has found that executives who take a 20 minute nap in the afternoon awake more refreshed and can work even more productively and for longer afterwards. Seems there is a sound scientific reason for this afternoon sleepiness…
Unfortunately, for speakers, we don’t have the luxury of being able to wait for our sleepy audience to nap for 20 minutes, so what do we do? Well, again, there is no need to waste your very best material on these sleepy heads, but unlike the very early morning crowd, you can use more humor – just don’t expect the same response as you’d have received from the lunchtime crowd.
Now, what about late afternoon and evening speakers? Well, if you are presenting at a special seminar that is an evening event and the audience is already wired up expecting a great evening, in fact, they’re attending expecting to enjoy themselves, you’re in a better position than a speaker who is the last presenter at a day long program of events facing a tired audience.
Think about people who go out to comedy clubs in the evening. Sure, it might be late, but they’re ready for a laugh – and if that’s your situation, great! However, if you are the last speaker of a long all day, afternoon or evening program, don’t expect much – your audience is tired and just wants to go home.
At this time of day, remember the KISS principle. Keep It Short and Simple. This late audience will love you for it.
Share with them that you realize how late it is and reassure them that you’re not going to keep them waiting around. You’ll have their full attention because they’re not expecting a long, dragged out presentation.
And don’t think this later audience doesn’t have a sense of humor – you can probably get a better laugh out of this tired lot than you could out of the early worms at breakfast. You may not have them rolling in the aisles if they’ve had a long day, but you may work up a good laugh among them and leave them with positive memories of your talk if you keep it short and punchy.
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Peter “The Reinvention Guy” Fogel has worked on many TV shows, including Married With Children, Hope and Faith, and Whoopi. He transitioned from a successful stand-up comic to an in-demand freelance advertising copywriter/problem solver. He’s the author of the critically acclaimed book If Not Now… Then When?, Stories and Strategies of People Over 40 Who Have Successfully Reinvented Themselves, and the soon-to-be-released Reboot Your Career: 27 Ways to Reinvent Yourself in the Workplace… If You Still Have a Job!
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