Episode #209: How To Sell Your Presentation To Pull An Audience

Whether we asking to give a talk or asked to present, we need an audience. The onus is on the meeting hosts to take care of the logistics of the venue and the associated tech needed to carry out the presentation. We cannot leave everything to them though, because our personal brand is tied up with the success of the event. Now “success” can be defined in many ways, but having a venue space for fifty people and having five people turn up, wouldn’t strike too many people as a triumph. This would be more like an embarrassment. We naturally want to get our message out to as many people as possible and so we want to maximise the audience size.

There are a couple of hooks for us to pull an audience for our talk. A key one is the title of the talk. This can sometimes be a talk title which must be approved by the organisers or you may be free to choose the one you prefer. If we look at newspaper, magazine or any media advertising headlines, there is a real skill in getting these titles to grab people’s attention. Most speakers are not trained copywriters. They never imagine they need to enlist the help of a copywriter to help with creating the presentation title. So we are all in the DIY school of speaker copywriting.

The best title selection will revolve around a number of factors, such as the content of the talk or the nature of the audience. Think of the title as a hook, to snag interest from potential attendees. What title would locate the sweet spot of both appealing to those interested in the topic and a compelling offer, to inspire the punters to turn up to the speech. The title cannot be too long, in the same way that headlines are kept brief. How can we get the explanation of the content and the hook, into as few words as possible.

Last week, I talked about how to use the Balloon Brainstorming Method to create your speech content. The construction of the talk I explained, starts with the punchline, crafted in as few words as possible, in order to drive clarity. I also went through how to create the base content sectors, which are the bones of the talk. Having done all of that, we then create the opening piece. This is there to smash through all the clutter in people’s minds, when they enter the venue, to hear our talk. The title is often best taken from that opening piece. We don’t use it word for word, but we look for the strongest hook therein, to finally create the talk title. We only have a few words available for that, so each word must really outperform for us.

I was recently asked to give a talk, but received no great guidance on the topic. The host wanted to pull an audience. So I thought about what is a common topic that would attract as many people as possible to attend. I chose “public speaking” because this freaks most people out fairly universally, across all cultures, ages and gender ranges.

I also have a lot of experience and am an expert on this topic, so I have supreme confidence to talk to an audience about it. This sounds like bragging, but we must have expertise and real confidence to stand up in front of others and pontificate. If you don’t have that, then please spare the rest of us the train wreck masquerading as your talk.

I used my Balloon Brainstorming methodology for the content creation. Finally I had to create the talk title. I had come up with 15 subtopics, which would be too many for the time allowed to cover, so I needed to trim that down.

I decided to go with twelve topics, because it is a substantial number, but doable in the time granted to me. So, I started writing out possible titles, to see if I could find one that would resonate. In the end, I came up with a title using alliteration as a means of grabbing attention. The hook was The “Terrible Twelve” Typical Errors That Presenters Make And How To Fix Them. I was pushing the boundaries on title length, but I liked the alliteration of “The Terrible Twelve Typical” components in the title. Key words were Typical, Twelve, Terrible, Presenters and Fix. Anyone reading that title would have a clear idea of the value of the talk. If they had an issue with presenting, they would feel this would be a talk providing substantial value, through its clear coverage of the topic.

The next step was to flesh out, in a few sentences, the content of the talk giving the audience a taste of what will be covered. This will be the text to accompany the title, when the hosts advertise the talk. Again, we only have a few sentences to work with, because there are always space limitations when advertising the talk. We should have some word count indication from the event sponsors, of how much we can say, when we are writing this piece. This overview has to reek with value to the audience and should cover the key pain points associated with the topic.

Finally, we need a customised Bio to go with the talk. It also will have a limitation on length, so only the highlights associated with your being an expert on this subject can be covered. It is not a job application, so don’t send in your modified CV. This has to be crafted by you as power text, not a shopping list of bullet points. We want to build our personal brand and establish our credentials to talk on this subject. Remember many more people will read about you, than will ever be able to attend the actual event. This is a free kick, advertising you to the world. So, what do you want people to know about what a legend you are?