Using Clown Presence to Deepen Audience Connection with Don Colliver.

Welcome to Public Speaking with Peter George. Do you want to be calm, confident, and credible every time you speak in public? Then stay tuned as Peter and his guests discuss public speaking tips, techniques, and tactics that help you increase your impact, influence, and income. Here's your host, the author of The Captivating Public Speaker, Peter George.

Have you ever wanted to be a clown? Better yet, as a speaker, do you want to use the essence of a clown to more deeply engage your audiences? My guest Don Colliver shows you how to better communicate through the power of authenticity, listening, and play — what he calls the secrets of clown. Don teaches popular public speaking courses internally at Google and speaks professionally for Fortune 500 companies including Adobe, Cisco, and Medtronic. He has performed with the Blue Man Group and toured internationally as a theatrical clown. He is the author of the number-one bestselling book Wink: Transforming Public Speaking with Clown Presence. Here's my conversation with Don Colliver.

What Clown Presence Actually Means

Peter: How did you decide to become a clown?

Don: Let me address the elephant in the room. I'm not talking about the creepy, white-faced Pennywise from It. I'm talking about clown presence — being in direct relationship and dialogue, even nonverbal, with your audience at all times. I'm a television producer by trade. Did it for 20 years in Los Angeles. Went through a rough patch with a divorce, took an improv comedy class purely for fun, and thought, where has this been all my life? I kept following the love, got booked by Blue Man Group, toured as a host clown for Spiegel World — they have a show at Caesars Palace called Absinthe. I fell in love with engaging large audiences, 800 people a night, having to constantly adjust to what the audience was doing while still delivering what I had to deliver.

That's the classic purpose of a clown. In an old circus, if something happens to the acrobats, they play the clown music and the clowns come running out to save the show and keep the audience okay. That's your job as a public speaker too — always on your toes, aware of where the audience is, ready to adjust.

Three Ways to Engage Your Audience

Peter: What are some of the most effective ways speakers can engage their audiences?

Don: Research from 2010 — done in large college lecture halls with hundreds of students — found that one tactic increased engagement with the entire audience one hundred percent of the time. That tactic was the instructor simply acknowledging something a specific person in the audience was doing. Not punitively — more like, "Peter, you're nodding your head. I think we're on the same page here." Just acknowledging the moment and being present.

Second, tell a personal story. When you take a sidetrack into something personal, the audience leans in thinking, I don't think he was planning to say this. It feels live and present. Third, do some kind of activity — a poll on Zoom, a breakout, or even asking virtual attendees to look out their window and type what the weather is like. It snaps people out of passive watching and puts them back in their bodies. There's a human here and I'm a human here and we're in dialogue.

Using Imperfection to Connect

Peter: How can a speaker utilize imperfection to connect with people?

Don: In a classic clown bit, the clown enters full of optimism, takes a risk, fails, and rather than pretending the failure didn't happen, looks at the audience and shares it: "I really just blew it right there. I'm going to try again." The failure builds and builds until the clown accidentally stumbles into some kind of sublime success. I don't encourage failure, but if something goes awry — your deck crashes, the mic acts up, a car alarm goes off — be confident enough to acknowledge it, and then move on.

I like the acronym ATM: acknowledge what's going on, take responsibility even if it's not your fault, and move on. You don't need to blame the tech team. Just say, "We're having an issue with the PowerPoint. My problem. We'll take care of it." And for the pro level — ATC: acknowledge, take responsibility, and later connect that error into your message. If you can tie the mistake to your theme, that's the ninja move.

Reducing Nervousness

Peter: How do you suggest speakers get over nervousness?

Don: Three things. First, find low-stakes, regular speaking opportunities. Toastmasters is great — in most meetings, almost everyone gets up and talks for a minute or two. Simply getting up and delivering some bit of business starts to reduce general anxiety over time. Second, basic improv classes. What improv did for me was teach me to trust my first impulse. The smartest people I teach at Google often freeze because their answer goes through so many filters. Improv trains you to trust your instinct — and that first impulse is often better than anything you could have written. Third, some kind of meditation practice. It sounds woo-woo, but what it gives you is the ability to observe yourself as a dispassionate observer. You can catch yourself mid-speech thinking, "I'm anxious right now," take a breath, and correct before it affects your message.

How to Add Humor Without Being a Comedian

Peter: How can listeners add humor to a presentation?

Don: First ask yourself, what do we all have in common? At trade shows, we're all sharing travel challenges, a delayed lunch, the chaos of an expo floor. Something we all experience is instantly funny and relatable. You can also play with acronyms — change what a jargon acronym stands for to something absurd. NSA in a cybersecurity talk? "Never Solve Algorithms." It's a low bar, but it gets a smile. The other shortcut is the rule of three: start a pattern with two normal items, then make the third wildly exaggerated. It won't put people on the floor, but it shows you're trying — and trying earns goodwill.

Practicing to Seem Spontaneous

Peter: How can listeners practice so they seem spontaneous and have greater connection with their audiences?

Don: I rehearse four to five times through with my deck. Three of those times, I do something specific. Once, I go through with extremely exaggerated non-verbals — close the doors, wave your arms, get on the couch. What's left after you stop exaggerating is very appropriate gesture. Another time, I do the same with vocal variety — move your voice all around. Nobody talks like that in real life, but it leaves you with a little residual extra range. For the third approach: put in some AirPods, go to an outdoor mall or busy space, and deliver your presentation with distractions all around you. Someone interacts with you — respond, then continue. It trains you to hold both your content and your audience at the same time. I have a free exercise for this at doncolliver.com/engage.

Peter: Don, thanks so much. Where can listeners learn more?

Don: Hit me up on LinkedIn — Don Colliver. And you can get my book at Amazon: Wink: Transforming Public Speaking with Clown Presence.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Public Speaking with Peter George. Are you ready to be calm, confident, and credible every time you speak in public? Then visit petergeorgepublicspeaking.com and let's make it happen. I'll see you next time.