Fables and parables are fictional stories used to focus on a core value, a moral, or an extended metaphor to help the audience understand a situation better. Once they are able to see the truth or the core value in the fictional story, they can also see how their approach to a current business issue should be no different.

Fables are Powerful

Even with the simplest of short stories, we always look for the “why” in it. In other words, why is this important? What is the lesson to be learned here? When our minds are taken to a fictional place, we lower our inhibitions. We lower our guard.

When a leader speaks in actual stories from the workplace, it can be too close to the audience. In other words, everyone has an opinion on the event being described. If you’re in the accounting department and the story is about the sales team closing a big deal, you may feel disconnected from the importance of it, the sales team loves the story, and the marketing department feels like they should be getting some of the credit fo the win!

The power of the fable lies in the simplicity and the escape from the everyday reality. That escape allows the listener to forget the whirlwind of the real world for a moment and just focus on the deeper meaning, the moral, or the lesson to be applied.

Fables are Easy to Find

Anyone can find a fable. Why is that? Because they’re everywhere! For those people who tell us in our workshops, “But, I don’t have any stories to tell!”… there are no more excuses!

Fables can be mined from the internet with ease. Just google Aesop’s Fables and you’ll find a complete listing.

Fables are Easy to Deliver

Fables are extremely short, which is what most audiences want! There’s not much to them and they are easy to commit to memory. Fables don’t need to be memorized word for word. In fact, when told with your own words, they can be more engaging to your audience because you sound more natural.

Since they are so short and easy to imagine, they’re hard for the presenter to forget! You’ll find them easy to commit to memory and even easier to give away.

Fables are Fun

They’re fun because they give the audience permission to escape briefly from reality. It gives the audience permission to enter a world where a mouse can have a conversation with a lion. While we know this is impossible, it unleashes our creativity when we get to imagine this.

One of the keys to being an engaging speaker is to engage 3 areas of the mind, the intellect, the emotion, and the imagination. Choose the right fable and it will give you a short-cut to all three of these.

Fables Provide Truth in Simplicity

The true power of the fable lies in the truth of the message. Regardless of the animal solving the problem in the story, we can see the truth in the message. Truth transcends all.

There is something so powerful about realizing the message of the story is not simply an interesting story, a learning lesson, or an opinion… it’s a truth.

Now tie it back to the lesson…

After the fable is delivered, the leader needs to tie it back to the current business situation and what it means to the organization. If it reinforces the culture, point that out. If it provides a gentle reminder of another time when the ethics were stronger, show it. If it gives the hope of a new direction based on a strong core value, give it.

I challenge you to bring a truth into an upcoming presentation with either a parable or a fable. Engage your audience, give them permission to imagine, and bring them back to truth.

See you next week,

Russ

Let’s connect…

on Twitter if we haven’t already?

OR Let’s connect on LinkedIn.

OR Let’s connect via my Facebook page!

iSpeak teaches workshops on Professional Selling to help sales leaders gather the most important data and then use that information to create the right message. Are your sales presentations closing eyelids or deals?

Russ Peterson Jr. is the co-founder and Managing Director of iSpeak, Inc. – An award-winning professional development training company. Russ is a speaker, international trainer, and published author on Professional Sales Communication and Business Communication. He delivers workshops, keynotes, and personal communication coaching services to business professionals in the US and around the world. His leadership blog assists leaders in giving voice to their vision. You can connect with Russ directly through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you’ve heard this story then you already know the outcome. If you haven’t heard this story, you can probably still guess how it turned out. Our shepherd boy, armed with only a few stones and a sling, was the champion of the day when he defeated the heavily armored and weaponized giant.

According to Malcolm Gladwell, in his book David and Goliath: Underdogs, misfits, and the art of battling giants, the best way to pull off the upset is to play by a different set of rules. In other words, be unconventional.

Do we truly love underdogs?

We love any story that fits the template of this classic tale. The underdog defeats the heavily favored champion! In a 2007 study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the researchers asked 71 participants to imagine two teams.

One was described as a strong champion, most likely to win. The other was described as the underdog. With only knowing the information of who was most favored to win, participants in the study were asked who they would rather see win. The underdog was chosen in every instance.

Or, do we just despise the most likely winners?

There’s seems to be something deep inside us that makes us want to see the underdog win. Or, according to one study by the Baylor College of Medicine, maybe we like to see winners lose because we’re envious of the teams that always win. This phenomena is called schadenfreude. Homer Simpson is a great example of someone who expresses this often.

Regardless of whether it’s a love for the unlikely hero or a joy for seeing the champions struggle, you can’t deny there’s something that attracts us all to the underdog stories. Maybe it’s that we can see ourselves as the underdog in these stories?

When to use this template in business

This type of story is used by leaders to inspire. When the team has to overcome tremendous odds to be successful, they need encouragement to press on. Leaders can use a David-and-Goliath story to give them hope and inspiration. If it’s been done in the past, we can do it now!

I’m not suggesting you tell the actual David-and-Goliath story, but instead, use it as a template to show your audience that nothing is impossible. Show them how their current situation is not impossible. It can be overcome!

How do I pick a story?

The closer your story is in relation to the actual situation they’re facing, the more impact it will have on the audience. In other words, just sharing a college basketball comeback story from March Madness may be exciting, but the audience can easily dismiss the story by saying, “Yeah, but that’s basketball! This is managed IT services we’re talking about here! It’s not the same thing.”

Try to find an underdog victory story that aligns closely with the current situation your team is facing. If it’s a tough business situation where you’d like to use the story, try to find another business story similar in scope. I recommend you use Paul Smith’s book on storytelling if your looking for stories you can use.

How do I structure the story?

The key to any David-and-Goliath story is to make sure your audience can see themselves as David. The audience needs to be invited into the story if you want to generate the feeling of encouragement and inspiration.

1. Give the landscape and characters for the story and do this quickly! This should also include the obvious problem (Goliath) that seems impossible to overcome.
2. Provide the thoughts of the underdog (David) by showcasing two things:
   1. The underdog’s awareness of the challenge and the insurmountable odds he/she is facing.
   2. The hope and faith to try anyway. This should point directly to the reason why it is still worth pursuing.
3. Describe the approach used to solve the problem. What did the underdog do to approach the problem? Remember, history has proven when the underdog wins, they tend to use unconventional methods. What is the unique approach they took? It’s important that this element be something within his/her control. Do NOT let this be a product of pure luck. If it is just a lucky break, your team can easily dismiss this as a fluke which is unlikely to occur again for them.
4. Describe the feeling of victory and what it meant to the team. This is the part of the story that gives the audience the deep sense of satisfaction. It should generate the feeling of a tough victory earned by fighting unconventionally to overcome amazing odds.

It’s time for you to go slay that giant and inspire your team.

Until next time,

Russ

Let’s connect…

on Twitter if we haven’t already?

OR Let’s connect on LinkedIn.

OR Let’s connect via my Facebook page!

iSpeak teaches workshops on Professional Selling to help sales leaders gather the most important data and then use that information to create the right message. Are your sales presentations closing eyelids or deals?

Russ Peterson Jr. is the co-founder and Managing Director of iSpeak, Inc. – An award-winning professional development training company. Russ is a speaker, international trainer, and published author on Professional Sales Communication and Business Communication. He delivers workshops, keynotes, and personal communication coaching services to business professionals in the US and around the world. His leadership blog assists leaders in giving voice to their vision. You can connect with Russ directly through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

I’m also making an announcement this week…

My blog will be moving in 2019. Our iSpeak.com website is getting a refresh to be launched in the first quarter of 2019. When we launch that refreshed iSpeak website, my blog will then be hosted at iSpeak.com instead of RussPetersonJr.com 

I’ll give you more information and plenty of notice time once we know the final move date.

THANK YOU ALL for reading, sending me messages of encouragement, and for your topic suggestions. I appreciate every one of you and my hope is that you found something helpful here over the past 3 years.

Now… here’s the list of the Top 5 Most Read/Helpful Blog Posts in 2018 according you… the readers!

Number 1 – Better Conversations

Number 2 – Overcoming Fear

Number 3 – Ending Strong

Number 4 – Tell them about you

Number 5 – Engage your Audience

Until next year,
Russ

Let’s connect…

on Twitter if we haven’t already?

OR Let’s connect on LinkedIn.

OR Let’s connect via my Facebook page!

iSpeak teaches workshops on Professional Selling to help sales leaders gather the most important data and then use that information to create the right message. Are your sales presentations closing eyelids or deals?

Russ Peterson Jr. is the co-founder and Managing Director of iSpeak, Inc. – An award-winning professional development training company. Russ is a speaker, international trainer, and published author on Professional Sales Communication and Business Communication. He delivers workshops, keynotes, and personal communication coaching services to business professionals in the US and around the world. His leadership blog assists leaders in giving voice to their vision. You can connect with Russ directly through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

The audience was loud and boisterous as they funneled out of the convention center. Their final speaker for the day left them all inspired and chattering about possibilities. “We could start by talking to our customers and ask them!” Then someone else responded, “I think we should figure out how we could scale this beyond North America!” They were all working on building a new future.

This moment of inspiration and collaboration was created by an average speaker using a powerful tool. She didn’t deliver her story with the sights and sounds of an entertainer, nor did she use eloquent words like Hemingway. Instead, she used an often overlooked, but powerful tool for creating inspired audiences.

This tool is part of the Corporate Storytelling arsenal and it can be used by anyone. It involves three main elements: The Setup, The Failure, The Possibility.

The Setup

This first phase introduces the audience to a success from the past. While I wasn’t there when Steve Jobs asked the engineers at Apple to start working on the iPod, we can use the technology as an example since I’m sure you’re all familiar with the iPod. I can picture his setup going something like this…

The problem for music lovers has always been twofold, portability and choice. We all want to take our music selections with us. Portability was first solved with the 8-track tape in cars and the cassette tape in a walkman. But the choice was limited with either program buttons or a linear rewind to get to the song you wanted. The CD was invented and solved both issues. Now you had portability and direct access to the exact song you wanted.

The Failure

At this point in the story, the audience is tracking with the speaker. They’re actually waiting for the fork in the road. There’s been nothing but a description of a landscape so far. This feels like a simple history lesson. What’s the issue here? In the example we’re using with the iPod, the audience of Apple engineers is waiting for the problem. If we have portability and direct access… then what’s the big deal?

This is when the speaker drops the problem on the audience. It’s a moment when the audience will choose to either get on board or discount the issue completely. Back to our fictitious Steve Jobs springboard message, it may have gone something like this…

But now there’s a new problem… the music lover wants more. One minute I’m in the mood for Van Halen, but the next I want to hear Neil Diamond or Katy Perry. I never know what music my mood will request so now my challenge is the quantity of CDs I need to carry. The solution can’t be more suitcases for holding 100 CDs. Why can’t this quantity issue be solved with technology? 

Boom. The failure (problem or opportunity) has been identified. Now the audience is thinking something like “It shouldn’t be that way.” or “We could fix that.” or “Why haven’t we already started working on this already?”

The Possibility

Without overdramatizing the delivery, I’d recommend the speaker gives the audience a healthy pause right here. Now there’s only one step left for the speaker. Give the audience the prompt they need to get started on the issue.

The verbal prompt will tap into the audience’s imagination. This is the fertile playground in the brain for taking action. All humans love games and puzzles. We like to work on creating something. This third step doesn’t need to be lengthy or dramatic. It’s just the prompt to get started. Back to Steve Jobs…

Isn’t that what we do? We improve life with technology. We can solve this. Just imagine a day when a jogger can carry over 10,000 songs in her hand while running and still be able to call up the exact song she wants to close out the race strong. I can’t wait to meet you there on that day.

While some may feel the speaker should provide the answer, the vision, the ending to the story… that won’t always be the most effective with the audience if the goal is to move them into action. When the speaker leaves the possibility hanging in the air without a solid path to get there, the audience will take ownership and begin to build that bridge.

And when the audience builds the bridge to that possible future, they are much more likely to buy into the overall strategy and vision. They are co-creating the strategic plan as they leave.

“ … the question becomes: how is a CEO to make effective use of storytelling? —STEPHEN DENNING

Steve Jobs was known by many as a great presenter, speaker and storyteller. While my Steve Jobs iPod example above is purely fictional, I certainly hope it does his memory justice. We all know a great storyteller in our life. Let’s all learn from them and inspire the world to imagine a better future.

As we wrap up this blog post, I just have one question for you…

What kind of future could you help create by inspiring your team with story?

See you next week,
Russ

What is the most exciting part of any story? What’s the one thing that creates movement in a story? How do Hollywood directors like Spielberg and Howard make it impossible to look away? They do it by creating a sense of flow in the storyline. This sense of flow can be created with many techniques, but it’s most often done with this one simple tool…

Decisions! Remember… “No Decisions = No Movement.” If there is nothing for the main character to consider or decide, then we’re really just looking at a landscape. It’s like looking at a picture or a painting of a lake with some trees. There’s no decision to be made. There’s no movement. It’s still. It could be beautiful, but there is no movement. If your goal is to create movement in the audience, then you’ve got to present more than just a beautiful landscape.

We Love the Fork In the Road

Think about it… when someone is giving you information, you’re waiting for the decision moment. If someone were to say, “I left my house around 8:30 and started driving toward town. I passed several busses, a few trucks, and some cars on my way. There had to be at least 5 stoplights I had to sit through. It was fairly cloudy too. The sun wasn’t shining at all.”

I think your eyes would be glazing over as you’re wondering, “Exactly where is this tale is going anyway?” If he stopped talking right there you’d probably respond by saying, “…and then what?” You’re waiting for something else in the story, but what is it? You’re waiting for the fork in the road! That’s the moment. That’s the catalyst you need to move this story along!

A fork in the road is the one critical moment when something unexpected happens and the main character is forced to make a decision. Stories don’t get exciting until the main character is forced to make a decision.

For us to connect with a story, we need to place ourselves in the story. As audience members, one of the most common ways we do this is by focusing on the decisions a main character is faced with. Then, we immediately start thinking, “What would I do in that situation?” NOW you’ve engaged your audience.

Make it a Tough Choice

As a speaker, you can’t just present any fork in the road and expect your audience to stay engaged. The decision to be made must be something out of the ordinary. The choice needs to be difficult. If it’s an easy answer to select, it won’t compel the audience to engage. But when it’s a tough choice, we’ll start to think, “Now… what would I do?”

Think about your next presentation. Do you want your data to tell a story? Then paint the scene with the data but take the audience to the fork in the road. This is where the decision needs to be made. What is the data telling you? Does the data present options to choose from? Which direction should we go in? What makes the most sense for our next step? What are the decisions you and the audience need to make? Why these choices? Why now? Why us?

The tougher the decision, the more compelling and engaging the message. When we have no idea what we would do and we’re waiting to see what our speaker suggests, we’re engaged!

Don’t Forget the Risk

Some of your friends are great storytellers and you love to hear them spin a yarn. Others… maybe not so much. While there are many techniques for telling better stories, presenting decisions (forks in the road) is one of the most fundamental tools and also one of the most effective. If you want to make your decisions even more compelling, make sure you expose the risk in either choice.

In other words, show the potential consequences if either of the decisions doesn’t turn out well. What is at stake here? What is the risk and what is the consequence if this choice goes South on us?

“ Choices with consequences create movement in stories.

This is what we love about movies like Die Hard, Star Wars, or Raiders of the Lost Ark. Our heroes are placed in impossible situations and they need to make a choice. What is your next move? How will you play this? What is at risk if you choose wrong? I’m reminded of C3-PO in the Star Wars movies constantly offering the odds of survival in every dire situation.

How risky is the choice to Han Solo? 34 million to 1 (nearly impossible)

What is the consequence if you choose wrong? Death

Talk about making the audience aware of the risk in a decision! We’re drawn to watch the “high-risk, high-consequence” forks in the road.

How can you apply this in business?

I’m not asking you to overdramatize your business presentations, but if you want your data to tell a story, take a lesson from Spielberg. You need to create forks in the road. What are the tough decisions in your message? Tell the audience what you decided on and where that decision took you next.

Every fork in the road… every decision to be made… when tied to the level of risk and the consequence if you’re wrong, will create movement in your stories.

Now go let your data tell a story!

Until next week…

Russ

I asked my workshop students what they wanted to gain from the class. The first student responded with,  “I want to be a more engaging speaker!” My initial response was delivered with a smile and a wink, “Don’t we all!” Of course, we certainly covered that topic in our class. To many peoples’ surprise, it’s not as difficult as you might think… but it does take some planning.

Here are three simple ways you can engage any audience with your messages.

Engage with Solid Arguments

Whatever you propose to your audience needs to make sense. If your recommendation is not backed by experience or research, the audience may find your proposal illogical. If it doesn’t make sense, they won’t agree to it.

Creating solid arguments just means you provide the answer first (executives love this) and then the supporting data; or you provide your thought process which logically leads to your conclusion (answer last.) Either way, there needs to be agreement with you on how you came to your conclusion and your proposed solution.

One simple tool used by speakers is the “What-Why-How” tool to construct the body of their message.

WHAT – is the situation you’re currently facing. Make certain you can paint this picture as less than ideal.

WHY – should we make a change? This should include the costs of not doing anything. Just leaving things as the status quo is going to be unacceptable. What is there to gain by changing the current situation? It’s important to get their emotional buy in here.

HOW – can we get it done? This is where you need to offer the logical solution to the situation.

Engage their Imagination

You know this is true, you love when a speaker paints pictures in your mind. It’s so attractive to an audience we will sometimes get caught up in the imagery and time seems to slip by. Building a tapestry of elements attractive to the mind’s eye can take a skilled orator and years of practice… or you can use this one short cut:

Just tell your audience to “Imagine if…” or “picture this for me…” and you are on your way. I know it sounds to simple, but it actually works. When you tell someone to picture something or imagine something, they will.

We relate to ideas and concepts we can picture. If we can’t picture the concept of your proposal itself, get us to picture the outcomes of your proposal. What would it look like if we succeeded? Help them create a future in their minds and you just became more engaging!

Engage their feelings

It’s true you’ll remember how someone made you feel even more than what someone said to you. Feelings are always a part of any decision we make. In fact, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio made an interesting discovery while working with people who had damaged brains. The area of their brain which was damaged controlled emotions. They could not feel any emotions. Here is something interesting about the group. They were unable to make decisions.

If you want to move your audience toward a decision, you will need to engage their feelings! One of the best ways to do that is with a story. You’ve seen plenty of speakers use stories to entertain and engage audiences. Stories are one fo the best ways we engage feelings because we can all relate to the story being told. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that stories require us to use our imaginations too!

Just do this one thing…

You can really boil down all of this advice into one simple tip. If you want to be an engaging speaker, just give the audience what they came for! When the audience gets what they want, they will love you. It will require a little more work on your part, but it will pay huge dividends in results and your audience will love you for your preparation!

Always give the audience what they came for!

See you next week,
Russ

You’ve heard it plenty of times, “It’s not WHAT you say that’s most important, it’s HOW you say it.” I disagree with that statement. I don’t think the WHAT or the HOW is most important. What’s most important is “what they HEAR!”

Too often I feel like the emphasis we put on speaking skills is on the speaker without putting too much thought into the WHY behind everything we coach into a speaker. Why would we coach a speaker to do the following:

• slow down when you say this line
• give a pause immediately after you ask this question
• make sure your eye contact lands on other eyeballs
• step toward the audience when you transition to this content

Why should we care?

As a coach, why do I care if the speaker does any of these things? Why is it important? Why do I think it would be good for the speaker to implement some of these things? Why…??

If we can’t answer the why question then we shouldn’t be coaching these things into people. I think sometimes we all lose sight of this “why” and it starts to hurt our own coaching and communication. There is an answer to the why question and it’s extremely important. But we may have to ask the why question several times to get to the real answer.

Why do you want the speaker to pause after that question?

Because… it will go the audience time to think about it.

Why do you want them to think about it?

Because… it will be more engaging to the audience.

Why do you want it to be engaging to the audience?

Because… I want them to really listen to the message.

Why do you want them to listen to the message?

Because… they will need to understand this to get their work done effectively.

There it is!

There is the real benefit to the audience. The speaker speaks for the audience… always! I know the speaker showed up that day for a reason. The speaker has a goal to accomplish by speaking. But sometimes we forget the audience showed up for a reason too. Sometimes they have their own goals for attending the session.

Even if the audience doesn’t know why they showed up, they will assume they will gain something by being there. There is a benefit to them attending and you (the speaker) needs to make sure they get it. Do you want to know the secret to being one of the greatest communicators ever? It’s actually quite simple. Always give the audience what they came for!

“ Always give the audience what they came for!

You see it’s not WHAT you say that’s most important, and it’s not HOW you say it that’s most important. What’s most important is what the audience HEARS. The audience shows up for a reason.

So when it comes to you coaching yourself or others, it doesn’t take a masters degree in Neuro-Linguistic Programming to offer the best coaching. You just need to make sure you’ve answered the one question everyone in the audience has… “Why should I listen?”

Still trying to give them what they came for…

See you next week,
Russ

“Our executives don’t want us to tell stories.” After the student made the comment another jumped in, “No way! He’s right! You don’t ever want to tell a story to our executives. They hate stories.” I found the response a little sad and the worst part… this wasn’t the first time I’d heard something like this.

These types of comments tell me something about the company and the executives. It tells me they’re creating a culture of mis-led communicators and unfortunately, it’s only going to get worse for the executives.

The Demands of an Executive

I’ve sold to executives and I’ve coached them. I’ve had the distinct honor and privilege to meat some amazing ones! Why do I think they’re amazing? Because they understand how to change a situation permanently by fixing a problem instead of a symptom.

When you’re presenting to your executives, have they put rules in place? You know what I mean. Have the executives outlawed certain types of presentations or certain tools? I’ve heard plenty of these rules from students over the past 20 years.

• Never tell stories to the executives when presenting. It’s a waste of their time.
• Never use animations in a powerpoint presentation. It’s childish and demeaning to executives.
• Never use more than 4 slides for your presentation. You’ll end up taking too much time.
• Put everything you want to say on one slide. This will prevent you from wasting executive time.
• Always give the executive summary at the start. This way the executive can drill down on their personal areas of interest.

I guess what bothers me with wet-blanket rules like this is two-fold:  Number one, they’re just solving a symptom at best. Number two, the executives actually think they’re solving the problem but they’re actually perpetuating the problem by creating an army of presentation foot-soldiers who only know how to present a message one way.  They’re not being taught to think for themselves on how best to construct a message for any audience in any situation for any reason!

The Problem with the Quick-Fix

In reality, when executives are dissatisfied with the presentations being given to them, instead of focusing on how to develop the communication skills of the presenters, they go for the quick fix based on what they personally like and don’t like.

If the executives get burned a few times by presenters using too many animations for the wrong reasons, they will ban all animations.

If the executives get burned by someone using 47 jam-packed slides full of text for a 10-minute presentation, they ban anything more than 3 slides for a 10-minute presentation.

If they’ve been burned by one presenter telling a funny story to kick off a presentation because he read somewhere you should start with a joke, they ban all stories from future presentations.

These all fix a symptom, not the problem.

Let me ask you something…

If a chef puts way too much salt in your food and it tastes awful, would you ban the chef from ever using salt again when cooking for you?

Or would you tell the chef they can only use one teaspoon of salt no matter what he’s cooking?

Or would you tell the chef she could only put the salt in first, but never again after that?

Or…

The Proper Solution

Would you train up the chef to know the best times to use salt in a recipe and how much salt to use depending on the meal being prepared?

If you really care about fixing the issue then… solve the problem not the symptom!

Have a great week,
Russ

The audience began to shift in their seats at the 5 minute mark of the presentation. So far the presenter had successfully bored the audience with 6 slides of solid text and a mouthful of insincere pleasantries. After 10 more minutes of words on slides and a presenter reading the slides, two people walked out and several others were jumping on their phones checking email or facebook!

Have you been in this presentation before? The sad truth is that we can all relate because we’ve all been there. And… if we’re all willing to admit it… we’ve probably all been this presenter at some point in our career too.

The Problem

Most presenters claim they don’t have time to create effective presentations so they just do a brain dump of data and information on each slide, never construct an appropriate message, and proceed to read the slides to the audience because there was no rehearsal either.

Audiences check out very quickly and they have every right because it’s obvious the presenter does not respect their time. Our most precious resource is our time. When a speaker delivers a poor presentation like this it becomes obvious she invested none of her own time to make the message more engaging or succinct. She’s too busy and didn’t want to waste her own time, so instead she’s going to waste ours. Nothing could be more rude.

Three-Step Solution

Now maybe the presenter has the time but just doesn’t know what to do. That is fair. Let’s take care of that right now by giving you three simple steps you can implement to create more engaging presentations for your audience.

Audience’s know when the speaker is unprepared. It sends a strong signal to each person in the audience, and most of the time it’s not a good one. Here are three simple tasks you can do to improve your messages.

1. Engage them from the Start

“Hi, my name is Claude Miller. I’m your ABC Sales Rep and today I’m going to tell you about our firm’s history and our service capabilities.” While I’m not going to say this opening to a presentation is absolutely wrong, I will say it could be much improved! This opening gave the audience two things (but not very well). The two items the speaker just offered is a credibility statement (he’s a sales rep) and a preview of the tour he’s about to deliver (history and capabilities.)

The two pieces most business presenters leave out are the two pieces the audience most wants. We call them the Attention and the Audience Benefit.

Attention

There are many ways to gain attention. In a sales presentation you could ask a thought-provoking question you know is on their minds or quote someone in the audience.

“If you had to scale up your distribution in 3 months without increasing costs, where would you start?”

“I was speaking to Jeremy before we started today and he told me…”

Audience Benefit

Deep down we all know our time is our most valuable resource. So when a speaker expects us to sit and listen, we are investing our time. We all want to know what our return on this investment is going to be. As a presenter, offer the benefit (“What’s In It For Me” WIIFM) at the start of your presentation.

“Today you’ll learn more about the finance tools we offer so the next time you need to scale your production lines, you can implement faster.” 

2. Build a Structured Message

When the audience cannot follow your message they will get annoyed (because you’re wasting their time) and they will get tired or bored. Either way, each person will begin to check out and focus on something else. The message must have a structure and a flow to it. While there are many ways of structuring different types of messages, one of the most powerful and widely used structures we have found is called What-Why-How.

WHAT – Is the issue? What is the Problem? What is the focus? What is the situation?

WHY – Why did this happen? Why is it happening? Why is it important? Why do we need action now?

HOW – How are we going to move forward? How are we going to correct? How are we going to implement?

3. Build Graphical Slides

The use of pictures is more than just dropping a photo of a smiling customer on a slide with 8 bullets of text. Pictures and graphics with animations can create both focus and simplicity for the audience. The problem with so many slides is the sheer amount of information placed on each slide. The first thing the audience does when they see a new slide is they begin to explore with their eyes.

They are trying to make a discovery. In other words, what am I supposed to look at here and what am I supposed to see? If we cannot get to our first discovery within 3 seconds, we start to get frustrated. You may have been in an audience with a  senior executive who felt this frustration and she just shouts out to the presenter, “What am I looking at here?” or “Where am I supposed to be looking?”

Creating a visual representation of your message does not have to be Hollywood production. It doesn’t have to take 3 weeks to create either. There are simple techniques you can implement using builds and animations to guide the audiences focus through the storyline.

You can also engage a company like BrightCarbon to assist in the development of your slide deck or to teach you better design techniques you can do yourself in PowerPoint. I’ve had the pleasure of working with this company before and they are absolutely amazing at what they can create and teach to you.

Don’t let your audience down and don’t waste their time!

Thinking about my next storyline…

Have a great week,
Russ

After the conference one of your friends poses the question, “Which keynote speaker did you like the best?” As soon as one person answers everyone else immediately jumps in and says, “YES! Me too! She was so good. Why do you suppose we all loved her so much more than the others?”

I can tell you one thing she probably did… She engaged your brain!

What exactly does “engage their brains” mean? It simply means this… keep their minds working with things they love to do. Now there are different ways to keep their minds busy. Remember, there’s a reason why reading a dictionary vs. watching the next Mission Impossible movie feels different. One of these would be difficult to do for even 10 minutes while the other can be done for over 2 hours and it seemed like 10 minutes!

So there’s got to be more to it than just keeping their brains busy. We have to look at how you’re keeping their brains busy. What are you asking their brains to do? Pick the right tasks and you can be more engaging too!

How can we engage their brains?

The best way to do this is to make the entire experience engaging! We do this by engaging different regions of their brains. Remember, don’t make these into huge engagements like the grand finale of a fireworks show. Most of these techniques are extremely subtle, but they’re still quite effective.

Here are 5 techniques you can use to engage your audience’s brains throughout your message.

1. Say the words “imagine…” or “picture this…”

I know, I know… this one sounds too simple! It’s crazy how effective this technique is with an audience. But just picture this… a speaker is on the stage. You’re in the audience listening. She pauses for a moment of silence as she looks down and away. Then her gaze comes back up to the audience and she says, “Will you all do me a favor? I want you to imagine something. Think about…”

When someone tells us to imagine, we immediately warm up our imagination to picture whatever she is about to tell us to imagine. That creative, imaginative part of our brain is quickly put to work. Creating scenery in our minds is something we’re good at and it’s something we love to do. By the way… did you see how I started this explanation by asking you to picture the speaker on stage? Engaging right?  

2. Offer one line of dialogue

My manager popped his head in my office and asked me, “Hey Dave, would you have any additional headcount to support the Alpha project this quarter?”

This is an example of dialogue. When the speaker is actually quoting someone else, but they deliver it to the audience as if we’re all (audience included) hearing this line delivered for the very first time. It’s as if it’s being performed LIVE for us to relive the actual moment with the speaker. Our imaginations will create a scene in our minds as we watch the scene unfold. We construct that scene so quickly we don’t even know we’re doing it. It’s fun. It’s easy. We love doing it. It’s engaging!

3. Propose a tough question

But what happens if we invest in this upgrade and 18 months later, the software is obsolete? Is it worth the risk to save thousands next year?

Our brains love to solve problems. We love doing it on our own because we gain a sense of accomplishment, but if we can’t solve the problem on our own, we want someone to help solve it with us to remove the internal tension. Think about it. You know this is true. When someone proposes a really tough trivia question and you don’t know the answer, it can drive you crazy if you don’t know the answer. Luckily today we just turn to Google or Siri for the answer. Wa-LAH! Tension is gone! Give your audience a tough question to wrestle with to engage their problem-solving brain. Then lead them with your message to your proposed solution.

4. Generate a feeling

I’m sure you’ve heard it before. This quote is credited to Maya Angelou, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I can prove this is true. Think about the 5 most memorable experiences in your life. I certainly hope there were more than 5, but we don’t have all day. Just pick five. Now… can you recall a feeling from each one?

Sharing stories or experiences can help generate both positive and negative feelings in your audience. They will remember how they felt when you finish speaking. As you saw in last week’s blog, we use feelings from memorable moments to reconstruct each memory. Engage them with a feeling you want them to have walking away… excitement, anxiety, fear, pride, confidence.

5. Give them candy for their 5 senses

We don’t like to just hear a story… we want to experience it! The way we experience a story in our mind is with our mind’s senses. When we hear someone talk about a loud clang or a bright flash of light, we use our mind’s ear and our mind’s eye, respectively, to internally recreate the sound or the sight. The regions of our brain that handle actual sound and sight are stimulated even when we are just imagining them through a recreation in our mind!

If you want to engage the audience’s brain, then describe parts of your story with words that will stimulate their senses.

• The sandpaper feel of grandpa’s hands.
• The warm sweet aroma of apples and cinnamon.
• The loud tinging clash of the metal frame falling.
• The salty taste of the ocean.
• The yellow-orange haze of dawn over the meadow.

I’m not asking you to turn your next business presentation into story time, but I am challenging and encouraging you to stimulate their brains. The audience wants a logical presentation but they also want to love the journey.

Engage their brains!

Have a great week,
Russ