Here is a belief that holds a lot of speakers back: I could never be entertaining. I’m just not funny.
I understand why people think this.
We watch a great speaker hold a room, we hear the laughter, and we assume comedy is the secret. So if we are not a natural jokester, we quietly decide that entertaining is off the table for us.
The truth is that being funny and entertaining are two different skills. You only need one of them to engage an audience when speaking.
Over the past 15 years, I have delivered hundreds of speeches, including seven years competing in the Toastmasters International Speech Contest, all the way to the World Championships.
Here is what I noticed through all this time practicing and observing others speak: the engaging speakers who win the crowd were almost never the ones who relied on laughs.
In this article, we will look at how to be a more entertaining speaker without depending on being funny or telling a single joke.
What Does “Entertaining Speaker” Actually Mean?
Being an entertaining or engaging speaker does not mean just being funny. Don’t get me wrong, humor is a huge bonus, but it’s not the only tool you have to engage an audience.
That is the whole game. When people are leaning in, ignoring their phones, and following you sentence to sentence, you are entertaining them. Comedy is one way to get there. It is also the hardest and riskiest way, because a joke that misses can cost you the room in a single second.
The good news is that the other tools are more reliable, easier to learn, and they work even if you have never made a stranger laugh in your life. Let’s look at seven of them.
1) Use the element of surprise
Attention drifts when everything sounds the same. Same volume, same pace, same energy for ten minutes, and the brain quietly clocks out.
A moment of surprise snaps it right back.
This could be a sudden pause after a run of fast sentences. A line dropped almost to a whisper. A stat nobody saw coming, or a story that turns in a direction they did not predict. Entertainment is contrast, and contrast costs you nothing.
Pick one moment in your talk and do the opposite of whatever came before it. Go quiet after loud, still after movement, fast after slow, and watch the room look up.
2) Be a little cheeky
Cheeky is not funny, it is a wink. A bit of playful sass that tells the room you are comfortable and enjoying yourself up there.
A knowing aside, a mock complaint, a gentle tease aimed at yourself or the situation. It gives the audience permission to loosen up, because you look like you are having fun.
The whole thing runs on warmth. Cheeky lands when the room can tell you like them. The second it tips into superior or mean, you lose them.
Find one line where you can add a playful aside, and deliver it with a small smile instead of a punchline.
3) Have an honest moment
One of the fastest ways to win a room is to say the true thing everyone is thinking and nobody has said out loud.
Admit the nerves. Name the awkward silence. Confess the mistake you made on the way to the stage. Honesty creates an instant bond, because it tells the audience you are a real person and not a polished performance.
This is where a little vulnerability beats a lot of polish. A speaker who says “I bombed the first time I tried this” earns more trust than one who pretends they never struggled.
Plan one honest moment where you say something true and slightly uncomfortable, then let it sit for a second before you move on.
4) Enjoy yourself, because charm is infectious
Here is a quiet secret about charm. Most of it is simply visibly enjoying yourself.
Audiences catch your emotion like a cold. If you look nervous, they feel nervous. If you look like you are genuinely glad to be up there, they relax and enjoy it with you.
That is your own energy doing the work for you.
You do not have to fake big stage energy. You just have to find the parts of your talk you actually love, and let yourself enjoy them in front of people.
Before you go on, pick one part of your talk you are genuinely excited to share, and let yourself smile when you get to it.
5) Own your presence and status
Entertaining speakers command the room before they say anything clever. It comes down to presence.
Presence is how you stand, how you hold a pause, and how comfortable you are taking up space and time. Audiences relax when the speaker looks in control, because it tells them they are in safe hands. When you rush, fidget, or apologize for being there, you hand your status away.
Slow down. Plant your feet. Hold eye contact a beat longer than feels natural. Silence, held with confidence, reads as power.
Walk to the center, plant your feet, take one slow breath, and hold the room for two seconds before your first word.
6) Give them a memorable phrase
The line people repeat in the parking lot afterward is rarely an accident. It was built.
A short, punchy phrase that captures your big idea gives the audience a handle to carry your message out the door. Even better, you can call back to it later in the talk.
A callback rewards the people who were paying attention, and it makes the whole talk feel designed instead of rambled.
Keep it short. The best memorable phrases are five or six words you could fit on a t-shirt.
Write one short phrase that sums up your core message, say it early, then call back to it near the end.
7) Tell a relatable story and hold the tension
Everything above comes together in a story. A relatable scenario the audience recognizes from their own life, told with real tension, is the most entertaining thing you can do on a stage without a single joke.
The relatable part matters. “A dog” gives them nothing to picture. “My neighbor’s arthritic beagle named Winston” puts an image in their head. Specifics make the story theirs.
Then hold the tension. Every good story is really a question the audience wants answered. “I had ten seconds to decide.” Open the loop, make them wait, then pay it off at the very end. Guess what that does? It pulls people forward in their seats.
Take one story from your talk, make the details specific and personal, and move the outcome to the very last line so they have to wait for it.
You Do Not Have to Be a Comedian
Here is the freeing part. Every tool on this list is a skill you can practice, not a personality you were born with.
I am working on this myself right now, refining how I hold a room without leaning on the easy laugh.
The truth is that the most entertaining speakers are usually just the most intentional ones. They decided in advance where the room would lean in, and then they made it happen.
So pick one of these seven for your next talk. Just one. Get good at it, then add the next. That is how you become a more entertaining speaker, one deliberate choice at a time.
Let’s get better together.
Speaker Skills is dedicated to real-world public speaking skills to grow your influence and impact. Everything we share on this site is tested and used on stage by us.
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