Hi there, be within a minute. Just texting. Guess what, if you're a speaker, and you're talking to more than five people, there is a real danger that they're going to beat people texting in your audience. And hey, we've all done it. I confess, I've done this. But when you're the speaker, it's wildly distracting.
And it's insulting. And there's a very real danger that if several people in your audience feel it's okay to text and they're texting, it can spread, it can be contagious. So I recommend that you not simply ignore it. Now, you don't want to run around pulling phones out of people's hands or yelling at them, or being confrontational because people really don't like that that will make you detested by the audience, certainly the people you've picked on. But I also think if you just ignore it, you're sending a message to everyone else in the audience. Hey, folks, what I'm saying really really isn't particularly important or interesting.
So that what Jim's doing over here text multitask, do your grocery list, I don't care. I'm not really saying anything. You don't want to send that message. So what I do, and I typically when I'm speaking to smaller groups, I have them in a semi circle where everyone's in the front row so I can see people. So I use several strategies. Number one, I'll just walk right over to that person out, talk to the person on the other side of the room.
So I don't look like I'm being confrontational, but simply getting close to that person quite often. We'll make them embarrassed, and we'll put their phone away. Another technique is, if I see that Sam over here is on his, his cell phone texting, I'll go to the other side of the room and say, yeah, as Sam was saying to me during the break, he has this experience where so now I'll reference him by name. I'm not calling him out. I'm not chest guiding him. I'm not in any way being rude, but I'm mentioning him by name.
And quite often that will be enough. Oh, they're talking about Yeah, better pay attention. They'll put their phone away. So there are a number of techniques, there are times when I will simply call on them. How many of this? How many of you have had this happen to you, Sam?
Has that ever happened to you? So now they're having to look up answer the question. You want to condition your audience to pay attention to you. I believe great speakers are jealous. They are jealous of their audience's attention. And you should want people focused on what you're saying, not sending text but you can't act angry or annoyed or it's going to make you look petty and mean you don't want that either.