Don’t let your audience or hosts “capture” you and ruin your presentation.
Great speaking starts with moving from the all too common mindset of Here I Am – my ideas, my thoughts, my goals, my objectives – to coming from a place of There You Are, where you can focus on the audience’s ideas, thoughts, goals and objectives. Yet, like most good things, you can take it too far and become so focused on your host or the audience that you lose your point of view.
We call it Audience Captureand it’s similar to Regulatory Capture. That’s where regulators like the Federal Reserve Board become so close to those they are supposed to regulate that they fail to do their jobs completely. Something similar happens when speakers become so focused on what their host or audience wants that they lose their energy, passion and message.
This is risky business for speakers. Your job is deliver a compelling talk to the audience in a way that creates action. While you should begin with an attitude of There You Are, shifting 100% of your attention to what others want risks the dilution of your message. The end result will likely not be as persuasive.
It can also happen in one-to-one conversations. Think about it. Have you ever had a one-to-one conversation where you set aside or modified your opinion or belief so that you could be more relatable to the person with whom you were speaking? Let’s call this Conversation Capture. Three of the reasons this happens are that we want the other person to:
1. Like us.
2. Agree with us.
3. Support us or sign an agreement.
If we do this consciously, it’s one thing. Oftentimes, however, we do it unconsciously and that’s risky business.
By setting your opinion or belief aside, you may not be perceived as someone with valuable thoughts and ideas. You will have entered the desert of wishy-washiness.
Now, take that one-to-one conversation and change it to one-to-many. That’s you giving a presentation to an audience of more than one person. If you fall victims to audience capture, you’ve more than entered that desert. You’re alone riding a dusty camel in the hot sun seeking an oasis.
So how do you avoid audience capture? Find the sweet spot between there you are and here I am. Acknowledge that there may be aspects of your talk that not everyone can relate to or agree with. Use stories and other techniques to overcome those deltas. The audience will respect you for paying attention to their needs and, even better, be more likely to buy into what you are selling.
The difference between winning and losing the deal often comes down to how information is presented. Do more than just wing it! Join The Speaking Intensive to learn more proven techniques from my career raising capital and as a Hall of Fame speaker.
“Transformational. A professional breakthrough.”
“Fantastic!! Ultimately a straight route to improve my impact and influence.”
“As much a Leadership Development experience as a Public Speaking course.”
“Thank you for pushing me to tap into “tools” I didn’t know I had.”
“The Ray Rice video for the financial sector has arrived” – or so says Michael Lewis in Bloomberg.
On NPR’s “This American Life” this past weekend, the inner workings of the Federal Reserve Bank were revealed in embarrassing ways.
The overriding concern is “regulatory capture.” That’s where regulators assigned to oversee an institution get so caught up in that organization’s culture they fail to regulate.
In this case Carmen Segarra, a newly hired regulator, was so shocked by what she heard that she started secretly recording conversations.
In one recording. the head of the Fed’s team at Goldman said that credibility at the Fed “is about subtleties and perceptions as opposed to reality.” To a regulator or a compliance officer, this is an absolute absurdity. What matters is facts and substance – real reality.
Regulations aside – what about when a speaker presents to an audience? What’s more important: form or substance? Content or delivery?
Obviously, both is best: stellar substance and dynamic delivery. But who would be more likely to get their message across? A speaker with a strong, authentic presence or one focused on facts and figures?
Don’t let “subtleties and perceptions” bury your message. Come to The Speaking Intensive, and learn how to bring out the strong authentic presenter in you.
Join the last open to the public program in 2014 on November 6 & 7. Presenters from Pacific Life, The Chicago Bulls, Merrill Lynch, LPL, Rockwell Collins and 40 other firms already have. Now it’s your turn. Catch the early registration discount before it ends on Friday!
“Transformational. A professional breakthrough.”
“Fantastic!! Ultimately a straight route to improve my impact and influence.”
“As much a Leadership Development experience as a Public Speaking course.”
“Thank you for pushing me to tap into “tools” I didn’t know I had.”
Questions Great Financial Advisors Ask … and Investors Need to Know really is little … by design. After all, we know where most of our most productive reading takes place, right?
While it may be little in size, this book is heavy in content. David and I compiled the essential questions the industry’s top advisors ask. The ones that lead to the probing and personal conversations necessary to diagnose and understand their clients – and potential clients – deep-seated feelings about money. By wringing out the emotion of investing, these successful advisors set clients on the rational road to achieving their financial goals. There’s even a chapter of “great questions to ask” organized by topic.
Preparing for a presentation on leadership to doctors who manage group practices, I was warned that doctors tend to solve management problems based on their medical specialty.
Ask a surgeon what to do about a difficult employee and chances are their response will be surgical: remove the offender.
Those in the more cerebral specialties – such as endocrinology – think it through ad nauseam.
Psychiatrists want to talk about it.
Doctors are not alone. Most people see and solve problems based on their education, area of expertise, interests and beliefs.
Marketing and sales professionals are highly likely to relate differently to you and your content than those from accounting or legal. The former will tend to respond to intangibles such as stories, humor and anecdotal evidence, while legal and accounting will react to facts, figures and tangible evidence.
LAB – Use it to reach your diverse audience.
L – LEARN
Learn as much as you can about the audience ahead of time. Get a strong sense of how they think, how they go about evaluating and solving problems and where their biases and beliefs lie.
A – ARRAY OF APPROACHES
If you have a diverse audience, use an array of approaches. Offer just the right mix of stories and substance, humor and facts, and encouragement and evidence.
B – BIASES
Evaluate your own mindset and biases. If you love humor, chances are you are erring in that direction. If you think technicalities are critical, you’re probably losing a good chunk of your audience. If you’re impatient and like to get to the point quickly, some are being left in your dust.
While you may not be able to please all the people, all the time, LAB will increase the percentage of your audience that will understand, accept and act on your message.
Join us at The Speaking Intensive. Presenters from The Chicago Bulls, Merrill Lynch, Rockwell Collins and 40 other firms already have. Now it’s your turn. Catch the early registration discount for September!
Hall of Fame speaker Alan Parisse has been coaching presenters and delivering keynotes for over 25 years. Named “One of the Top 21 Speakers for the 21st Century” by Successful Meetings Magazine, he is a keynote speaker for a wide variety of industries and organizations. Alan is a passionate presentation coach to executives, financial advisors, sports stars and sales presenters.
Lisa Casden has been coaching presenters for 10 years. A former professional figure skater, coach and choreographer, Lisa leverages her unique background and point of view to help speakers organize their physicality in ways that best support their message.
Have you seen the movie The Chef? Fandango describes it: “An out-of-work L.A. chef who opens a food truck in a bid to realize his culinary potential …” While this is an accurate description, we saw more.
In the movie, an established restaurant is going to be reviewed by a renowned food blogger. The chef knew the current menu was downright dowdy – better suited to the country club set than today’s foodies. So he created a gastronomic wonder of a menu – one that would amaze and delight both blogger and customers.
Then the owner stepped in: “We are being reviewed by the most important critic in the city. Now suddenly you are going to be an artist. Be an artist on your own time! Cook my menu!”
The chef knew better, but grudgingly cooked as commanded. As you can imagine, the food blogger crucified courses and chef – setting the movie off on an interesting direction.
Moving to real life, ever have this happen?
You have a great idea – creative, effective and targeted at current audiences. This one is the one. You feel it in your bones and see it in your colleagues. It’s exactly what people want to hear right now.
But senior management insists you stick with the tried and true. “This presentation has helped us grow for the past 5 years. We are not changing it now, when the stakes are high.”
So you do it the boss’s way … and it’s an epic fail.
Whose fault was it?
The boss’? Sure.
Compliance? Well … you know compliance!
Where do you land in the blame game?
What might you have done to create or at least compound the failure? Did you deliver that stock presentation with the same passion as you would have your new idea? What could you have done differently?
There are the high risk approaches – good ideas that might have you looking for a new job:
Move forward with your new idea and hope it is so successful that management will forgive your transgression as they focus on the result.
Slip in some of the new material without being too obvious.
Shut off the LCD projector and tell your compelling story.
Here’s a no risk approach: SHIFT SUBTEXT.
Move the subtext from something about which you are passionate under your words.
What is subtext? Text is the words. Subtext is everything else: how you say it, how it looks, and how it feels. In a movie, subtext is the action, the music, the visuals. In life, it’s the emotions and feelings that drive the way you deliver the text.
The trick is to replace the subtext you feel about the stock presentation with subtext from somewhere else. It may come from your feelings about family, a favorite sports team or the idea the bosses squelched. Shift the enthusiasm you have for that under the text of that past it’s prime presentation.
Go ahead … test drive it. Deliver Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address with all of the fervor, tenacity and zeal displayed when watching your favorite team in the World Cup of Anything. I’m serious. Find an empty room, close the door and do it. Full volume. Feels oddly strange and fun at the same time, right?
Now dial it back a notch or two and deliver your boss’ presentation. It may feel a bit “big” but it’s better, isn’t it?
As we write this blog post, Lisa and I are preparing for next week’s Speaking Intensive. Thankfully, we don’t have someone looming over us saying: “The program works the way it is. Always. Every single time. Why change it?”
Why indeed. Don’t worry. We aren’t re-making the entire “menu” but we are spicing up a recipe or two.
Join us at The Speaking Intensive. Presenters from The Chicago Bulls, Merrill Lynch, Rockwell Collins and 40 other firms already have. Now it’s your turn. May sold out. Just 1 seat left in the July session. Catch the early registration discount for September!
Hall of Fame speaker Alan Parisse has been coaching presenters and delivering keynotes for over 25 years. Named “One of the Top 21 Speakers for the 21st Century” by Successful Meetings Magazine, he is a keynote speaker for a wide variety of industries and organizations. Alan is a passionate presentation coach to executives, financial advisors, sports stars and sales presenters.
Lisa Casden has been coaching presenters for 10 years. A former professional figure skater, coach and choreographer, Lisa leverages her unique background and point of view to help speakers organize their physicality in ways that best support their message.
This 4th of July weekend take a few minutes to watch a balloon twister at work. You know, those street performers who expand, twist and tie balloons turning them into some pretty impressive sculptures.
Why would a business presenter want to watch a street artist twist balloons? Because the best of them have a lot to teach us about grabbing, keeping and inspiring audiences.
LESSON #1: START STRONG
Here in Boulder, CO, we see balloon twisters almost every weekend. Most people marvel at the sculptures they create but we are even more impressed by the crowds they capture and delight. These artists attract their audiences as they walk by distracted – texting, talking, window shopping and chasing after kids.
In a sense, business and professional audiences are walking by, too. They are not seated waiting patiently for the speaker to get to the point. Instead they are multi-tasking in their head and on their personal technology.
So take a clue from balloon twisters: start with strength.
Balloon twisters begin with a “bang”. Not that they pop the balloon, but they start hard and fast to get people’s attention. They take a breath and push that air forcefully and confidently into the balloon.
They begin with a big move and so should you. Use your opening words to get the audience’s attention and to set the tone for the rest of the presentation. Starting off with the standard “Thank you for taking the time to hear what I have to say today. It is great to be here in your wonderful city” will likely result in repointing the audience back to their smart phones or worse … the door.
Instead, do what balloon twisters do: attract attention and get the audience interested by creating a curiosity gap: “What are they going to create with those balloons?”
Presenters: create a gap between what the audience already knows – or think they know – and what you are going to tell them.
Here’s one option: open with a question. Start out with “Do you know what you should do?” and watch as the audience mentally – and sometimes verbally – responds with “What?” or “About what?”
Answer with the main point of your speech and you’re on your way. You will have demonstrated without words that, just like balloon twisters, you are competently in control of the subject matter and yourself.
LESSON #2: CREATE A SOUND STRUCTURE
Once balloon twisters create their curiosity gap, they gradually build suspense, intensity and drama as they shape their sculpture one step at a time – tying off each balloon as they do – completing it so everything links together.
When they get a sense that the audience is drifting, twisters do something quick and unexpected to get them back. One we saw even burst a balloon and joked about it.
LESSON #3: TIE A KNOT AT THE CLOSE
All of the balloon twister’s efforts lead to a dramatic close – a work of art – and a memory people can take away.
Just like they do, you want to build to a dramatic close where the audience can leave being or doing something differently.
Fizzle out at the end and you’ll let some or all of the air out of the balloon. Try to do too much with an over the top close and you’ll burst the balloon leaving the audience with nothing to take away.
Don’t let the air out at the end. Position your audience to walk away with a stunning multi-colored balloon sculpture.
Summing up from the business presenter lens:
Grab attention and create a curiosity gap.
Gradually build intensity, suspense and drama.
Pay attention to the audience and get them back if they drift away.
As you make different points, tie them down securely.
Lead toward a compelling close the audience can take away.
Do you build your talks that way?
Join us at The Speaking Intensive. Presenters from The Chicago Bulls, Merrill Lynch, Rockwell Collins and 40 other firms already have. Now it’s your turn. May sold out. Just 2 seats left in the July session. Catch the early registration discount for the September session!
Hall of Fame speaker Alan Parisse has been coaching presenters and delivering keynotes for over 25 years. Named “One of the Top 21 Speakers for the 21st Century” by Successful Meetings Magazine, he is a keynote speaker for a wide variety of industries and organizations. Alan is a passionate presentation coach to executives, financial advisors, sports stars and sales presenters.
Lisa Casden has been coaching presenters for 10 years. A former professional figure skater, coach and choreographer, Lisa leverages her unique background and point of view to help speakers organize their physicality in ways that best support their message.
Don’t let your audience or hosts “capture” you and ruin your presentation.
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