Whether you’re pumped or dreading your presentation, you, the speaker, must answer these 3 questions in order to engage your audience.
🎯 Question #1 to create buy-in ➜
Do you know what you’re talking about?
You answer, “Of course!” But, does your audience know that you know?
Tip: Share your credibility through stories. We call this “credibility sprinkles”.
Ex: “When I spoke to 900 home inspectors in California at their annual association meeting I asked them what ‘BS’ stood for and they shouted out ‘better service!’”
🎯 Question #2 to maintain buy-in ➜
Do you care about what you’re talking about?
You do not need to be a raging extrovert. In fact, introverts make great speakers.
Tip: Show your interest in your subject through your nonverbal actions.
Do: Smile, have good posture, exhibit effective eye contact.
🎯 Question #3 to go beyond buy-in ➜
Do you really know who you’re talking to?
Tip: Gather your intel.
Find out: Where is their pain? What are they good at? Who competes with them? Where can they improve? What defines success for them? How knowledgeable are they about your topic? Experience range?
🎯 Hit the bullseye.
Your audiences are distracted, tired or deadline driven. AKA: Overwhelmed. Do them a favor. Nail these answers in order to share your value.
Last week one of my mastery clients asked, “Karen, how do you give crummy news? My customer called me wondering why I could not honor a past agreement and the conversation turned south pretty quickly. And, this guy called me at 9pm with his young kids screaming in the background!”
We worked through these 10 tips, titled “Switch Shoes”.
He said, “I see your next blog happening right here!”
We both agreed that this list is helpful for both professional AND personal settings. As life goes, we met on Valentine’s Day… The Day Of Love yada… and we laughed that, “This list is a better gift than a bunch 🌹 of roses.”
What do you think?
Switch Shoes
Picture this scenario: Before you handle difficult conversations imagine that you are switching shoes with your adversary, whether that’s your colleague, client, partner, parent or kid. Try to see your issues from their point of view.
Your Top Ten List 👠
👠 ➜ Prepare. Strategize what you want & what you’re willing to let go.
👠➜ Chose right setting and timing. Timing is everything. Hint, it’s not 9pm with screaming kids in the background. (My client agreed that he could’ve said that 9pm was not a good time to talk and then schedule a time the next day.) Also, pick a setting that’s conducive. Do you want privacy? Do you want to be in a coffee shop? Do you need support people around?
👠➜ Be direct, honest and timely. IF you are not timely your adversaries will fill in the blanks with exaggerated fears. When Catherine, Princess of Wales announced her illness last year, the Royals went radio silence. The internet went wild filling the void with death rumors.
👠➜ Use empathetic language. Say, “I hear what you’re saying”. Validate the other person’s feelings.
👠➜ Adopt the “AND” stance. Replace the word “BUT” with “AND”. You can say the same things without creating defensive posturing.
👠➜ Avoid the Blame Game. Pretend everyone has on mittens so that you cannot point fingers.
👠➜ Stay calm and professional. Avoid verbal ping pong.
👠➜ Listen actively. Summarize and paraphrase. “So what you’re saying is…”
👠➜ Offer solutions (if possible) and next steps. Have ideas of where you want this conversation to go.
You talk in boardrooms, on stages, in high-stakes moments. You can’t afford to speak unconsciously – unaware of the cost of wasted time speaking to people who can’t walk out!
You are surrounded by people who depend on your voice – and terrified to critique it. That’s how you might become blind to your own speaking.
Abide by my minimalist and maybe even offensive quotes in order to be heard, respected, and trusted.
🎤 “Shut up!” ➤ This idea offends because you believe leadership lives in talking. Often, it lives in stopping. Said in a kinder way, “Be quiet and/or pause more.” If you learn to speak less, you’ll discover you’re heard more – not because you shortened your monologue, but because you widened the room for processing and meaning.
🎤 “A compelling presentation is never just about your data.” ➤ Your numbers make your team informed, but context makes you memorable. You do need to share your data, but if you don’t add in your stories, examples, anecdotes, digestible stats, and maybe even props and visuals… your info will not be retained.
🎤 “Don’t wing it!” ➤ This quote is my indictment to our busy-executive culture. Do not assume (assume is my least favorite word) that your brilliance compensates for your audience’s time! Please do some prep. Know whom you’re talking to and what will bring value to them. By doing your homework you will design messages that inform, provoke, and more than anything else, mobilize.
So be offended.
Good! I hope this is a wake-up call with a twist.
These quotes aren’t insults.
They are reminders on how to be transformative communicators.
Meet our hot tub sales person, Erik, standing on top of the hot tub’s hard cover
You’re walking through the exhibits at a convention center and you see hot tubs. Along with the 4 hot tubs are several sales people… and one of them spots you.
You stop.
Let’s unpack what Erik did that made Jimmy and me put “Let’s buy a hot tub” in our brains!
🔥 1️⃣ Start with your unique VPS – Value Proposition Statement
When I say “start” that means the first words out of your mouth. Do not begin with pleasantries – you’ll lose the sale before you begin. Remember that the prospect’s Attention Real Estate is a tiny nanosecond.
Erik began with, “There are a lot of hot tubs out there. Here’s what makes ours unique and better than the rest …” I’m hooked.
🔥 2️⃣ Overcome any and all obstacles
Know what the drawbacks are for your product or service.
Know how to overcome these obstacles.
Share these problem-solving techniques with the prospect in an easy to understand manner.
Erik was ready!
“But you don’t use a hot tub in Texas during the summer.” “We use our hot tub all 12 months of the year and we live in south Texas. It’s refreshing in hot weather because your body is in the water. In fact it’s harder to get out of the tub in the winter when it’s cold!”
“I don’t like all of the chemicals like chlorine.” “Our hot tubs are ecofriendly – we use no chemicals.”
🔥 3️⃣ Believe in your product/service
Don’t rely on our 6th intuitive sense to transmit your passion for your service or gizmo. Go ahead and tell us!
Erik said, “I love this product. It’s easy for me to sell this because it’s the best and I have one in my backyard.”
🔥 Bonus: Show me the money
Well, there’s that. Refer to Tip #2 about overcoming obstacles. Either your product/service is competitively priced or you know you’re the most expensive item in that space and you know how to embrace that sticking point.
I’m getting a hot 🔥 tub to celebrate my next birthday.
🎤 The Truth: It’s not hard to give a speech. It’s hard to start and it’s hard to shut up!
If you are speaking about what you know about and have earned the right to talk about… you will be able to give that speech with ease. At Speak For Yourself® we spend the majority of our time with clients working on the bookends of their presentations – how to begin and how to conclude.
Communication Myth #2: Getting rid of nervousness is your goal.
🎤 The Truth: You will never eradicate your nerves… and you don’t want to. Nervousness equals adrenaline equals energy.
The goal is to channel your nerves in a positive direction. Again, we’ve worked with many leaders, and blogged about how to embrace stage fright. Trying to delete all traces of nervousness creates one more layer of unnecessary aggravation.
Communication Myth #3: Sharing data gets your point across.
🎤 The Truth: A compelling presentation is never just about the data.
Your info comes alive when your data is paired with examples, stories, humor, visuals and metaphors/analogies. Watch football, soccer, basketball? Two announcers “call” the game. One shares the play-by-play and the other gives color commentary. Your challenge is to “call” your game using both of these voices. Data + color = retention of info.
How do we know that you believe these myths?
Given the years of experience working with our clients across many industries these myths persist.
You’re told to sip five different wines with price tags of $5, $10, $35, $45, and $90 per bottle. You report that the $90 bottle tastes better than the $10, and the $45 bottle better than the $35 bottle. Except you’ve been fooled. The $10 bottle and the $90 bottle are the same wine!*
Museum or Fridge? (Find answer below!)
Fridge or Museum? (Find answer below!)
🎨 You’re at an art museum
You see a picture in a gallery. You think to yourself, “This looks just like my kid’s artwork on my fridge. But it must be good or it wouldn’t be framed and here.”
You’re conditioned. Your reaction to the piece of art and the wine is based more on context – the environment – than content – the substance.
🎻 You’re at a concert
I saw GRAMMY® Award-winner and world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell perform with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and it reminded me of The Washington Post’s experiment for what would become a Pulitzer Prize winning article by Gene Weingarten. Gene asked Joshua to wear a baseball cap and pose as a street performer. Would people stop to hear stunning music played on a $3 million dollar Stradivarius in a subway station during rush hour? **
1,097 people passed by.
27 people stopped.
Three days before his subway debut, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats averaged $100.
🎤 You’re speaking to your team
As leaders, how are you sharing content in regard to context? Are you creating a Total Experience to gain “all in” traction to your presentations, your brand, your value?
Your content is a given. It better be good or you would not be the leader of your business.
Communication alert: Don’t forget about your context. Set the stage exactly how you want to be perceived by your particular audience. Don’t leave this to chance or we’ll walk right by.
🍷 PS: “In a follow-up experiment, the subjects again tasted all five wine samples, but without any price information; this time, they rated the cheapest wine as their most preferred.”
🎻 ** The Washington Post, “Pearls Before Breakfast” by Gene Weingarten
🎨 Art by Audrey, my neice… displayed on the Fridge! If framed this could be in an art museum… my unbiased Aunt Opinion
🎨 Art by Zoey, my neice… displayed on the Fridge! If framed this could be in an art museum… my unbiased Aunt Opinion
Whether you’re pumped or dreading your presentation, you, the speaker, must answer these 3 questions in order to engage your audience.
👠➜ Use empathetic language.
🔥 3️⃣ Believe in your product/service
