Episode #154: Create Raving Fans When Presenting

We can speak to a group. Then there is another level, where we try to totally captivate our audience. What makes the difference? The content could even be the same, but in the hands of one person it is dry and delivered in a boring manner. Someone else can take the same basic materials and really bring it to life. We see this with music. The same lyrics, but with a different arrangement and something magical happens. This new version becomes a smash hit. Speeches are similar. A boring rendition is given a delivery make over and suddenly has the audience sitting on the edge of their seats fully enthralled. I am sure we would all vote for the enthralling version, so how to do we do that?

The quality of the argument we are going to present is important. We definitely need to design two powerful closes, one for the end of the speech and an extra one for after the Q&A. It sounds counterintuitive, but we should start from the close when designing the talk. We work hard to clearly define what is the most compelling message we want to leave with our audience. Only then do we start to work backwards, structuring the rest of the speech from that point.

Once we know what will really resonate with the audience, we begin gathering evidence to back that assertion up. We have to remember that broad statements are too easy to make. This is the Era of Cynicism, “fake news”, so the listener will need a lot of convincing.

We now do a rough sketch of the key points and attach the supporting evidence. In a thirty minute speech, there won’t be so much time, so we might get through three or four of these key points and that is it. We must make sure that the evidence is super, super strong. We need really compelling proof, in order to build solid credibility for our argument.

The next stage is vital, especially in this Age of Distraction. We have to wrangle a dynamite blockbuster opening. We have to compete with all the things running through the minds of our audience. The things they were doing before they got to the venue and all the things they have to do after this speech. The hand held device is a modern day siren call. It so silkily diverts their attention away from us, as they check email and social media.

We have to smash through all that obstruction. We sweep all before us and clear a path so that the audience will actually hear our message. The first words out of our mouth had better be super compelling. If not, we will lose the battle for people’s modern miniscule attention spans. We need to carefully design what that will be, because it won’t happen by itself.

We want our visuals on screen to be clear and instantly comprehendible within two seconds. It used to be ten seconds, but now we are down to just two, so really take a cold hard look at what you are putting up on screen. If it is taking the viewer longer than two seconds, then the slides are too dense.

Let’s keep the colours to an absolute maximum of three. Photos are great with maybe just one word of text added or just kept as they are. This intrigues our audience to learn more. We can then talk to the point we want to make. If we use graphs, we should have only one per screen wherever possible. If we are going to use video, it had better be short and really, really hot. The transition from slide deck to video, back to slide deck must be seamless, so none of that tech fail we often see on display.

Every five minutes we need to be switching the energy levels right up, to keep our audience going with us. This is key because they flag. Classical music has its lulls and crescendos and so should we. Naturally, we have tonal variety right throughout the talk, but we need to be hitting some key messages very hard, around that five minute interval. This should be synchronised with some powerful visuals on screen, to further drive home the point. This is not a result of chance, good fortune or fortuitous accident. We need to plan for this massive impact on the audience. We structure the presentation so that this brings all the vocal and visual elements together, in a powerful, distinct, one in a million way.

We are meticulously sprinkling stories throughout the speech to highlight the evidence for our key points. Data by itself is fundamentally dull, but stories fleshing out the data, should be scintillating. These will be full of visual stimulation, using word pictures to conjure mental pictures in the minds of our audience. We bring physical locations to life, describe vivid colours, talk about the season, mix in people they may know and importantly, explain the why of the story. In this way we take our listeners on a magical journey, where they see the scene playing out in their own mind’s eye. It is a bit like reading a novel, after having seen the movie. As you read it, you can mentally imagine the scenes you saw previously on screen. This is exactly the powerful effect we are going for.

Our final close, after the Q&A, has to go off with a real bang and not a whimper. We want a powerful strong call to action. The final few words must finish on an intense, uplifting upswing. Many speakers let that very last sentence just sputter and peter out. Remember, we want to muster the audience to our cause. We want them to leave dyed in the wool supporters. We want them getting a florid forehead tattoo with our name on it. Okay, I was getting a bit carried away there. That is probably too much, but you get the idea.

We need great structure, unassailable evidence, clear visuals, gripping stories, pacing, energy, passion and 100% belief in the value of our presentation. The delivery is going to rock because we make it rock through rehearsal after rehearsal. We keep going until we have refined the whole thing into a symphonic triumph. We need to be thinking to create raving fans in our audience, right from the start, when we construct our talk. Begin with captivation in mind.