Episode #151: Don't Be Dull And Dusty

Sometimes you see a confident presenter really bomb. It doesn’t happen all that often, but when it does, the contrast is vast. If they are totally hopeless as their default mode as a speaker and they bomb, well that is understandable. But a competent presenter bombing shouldn’t occur. It did and I was wondering what did I just see? Where did our speaker go wrong?

Comedians have this same problem – no one laughs at their jokes and there is not much camouflage for them to hide behind, when all they have is a microphone stand on a stage. Being in the limelight, at the podium, on stage, up on the dais is a high pressure location. When you are revealed to everyone as a flop, all your desperate attempts to refloat the Titanic make the whole thing seem even more preposterous, pointless and pathetic.

In this case, there wasn’t even a good recognition that things were rapidly going south. It was only at the end, when it was too late to do anything about it, that the speaker realised he had bombed completely. The tepid applause reaction at the end was a give away. The stunning lack of questions a more immediate one. The whole apparatus of the talk collapsed in on itself, under the weight of its own immense ineptitude.

The key issues were a misreading of the audience and an astounding arrogance. The audience had been lured to the venue with bold promises of goodness and light. The content just wasn’t good enough to back up the advertising and the audience spotted the gaping gap straight away. They were there for answers. There weren’t any and they knew it.

The arrogance was an assumption about the speaker’s credibility being sufficient to justify the content of the presentation. When we emphasise our many years in business, we are aiming for increased credibility, linked back to our stupendous track record. We have stood the test of time etc. Our speaker had not properly prepared the presentation. He gave it a “once over lightly” treatment, because of his supreme confidence in his ability to deliver any talk. He was a very good speaker and a highly competent presenter. He thought his previous track record stood for itself. The only problem was the content of this talk was rubbish.

We all tread a fine line with the longevity thing. Track record, sustained over many, many years is a credible thing for the audience. The main concern is that the whole affair may be perceived as dusty and dated. We are always being fed the new and greatest, latest best thing. Business fad books come and come and come. The old ones are taken out the back and quietly disappeared, shredded in fact.

When we talk about the good olde days, we like it because we were there, but the audience only cares about what is relevant for them. We have to be skilled to make it feel fresh again, new and connected to their current business reality. Plato is olde but still gets quoted all of the time, so olde doesn’t have to be irrelevant.

Our speaker failed in that regard. I said arrogance and this is the bit that hurts. Our pride in our track record can make us blind to the fact that people don’t really care all that much. We like strolling down memory lane, but so what? We arrogantly assume that what we did was important. Wrong. Where is the direct and useful link to the audience’s current problem right now? We have to keep building that vibrant connection. Our successes in the past help us to prepare for our future. Our failures in the past, help us to prepare for our future. We can draw from both to create content that resonates with our audience.

This is the skillset needed in a business presentation. Getting the audience need properly understood, suspending what we like to talk about and instead focusing on what the audience is keen to know about is our task. If we fail to get that balance right, we can come across as dated and dull. This is what happened to our speaker. He delivered a brilliant, heartfelt rendition of his past glories and achievements, without effectively connecting to the audience’s concerns of today.

I am getting older too, so I took copious notes from this speech on what not to do, if I am ever tempted to talk at length about my good olde days. I think we should all avoid that temptation too. Concentrate on your audience and you can’t go wrong.