January 28, 2008

One of the best ways to connect with your audience as a speaker is by storytelling. If your presentation’s purpose is to be informative, you may find this challenging, but any set of facts and figures can be wrapped around a story.

An easy place to start brainstorming to develop a story is to consider why this presentation is important to either you or your audience.

A while ago, a presenter came to me with a rough draft of a speech outlining what you should do after a multiple car crash to minimize legal hassles.
He discussed the exciting process of exchanging insurance cards, phone numbers, Driver’s licenses and the importance of filling out a police report.

When I asked him why he wanted to speak on this topic, he said it was because he wanted to educate others so they could avoid the nightmare experience he went through a couple of years ago.

BINGO!

In rewriting the speech, I had him open by verbally painting a vivid picture of that car accident. He had learned to drive in another country, and this was his first car accident. Therefore, he was unfamiliar with what to do, according to American laws. To compound matters, the other driver was an intimidating, large, angry dude, who we will call Biff.

When he delivered the speech, he immediately hooked his audience by setting a familiar dramatic car crash scene, one to which the audience could relate. And then, instead of outlining the DMV step-by-step rulebook process in bullet point fashion, the speaker continued in storytelling fashion to explain how they exchanged legal papers, and the mistakes he made, such as failing to fill out his own police report to counter Biff’s version of the story.

January 14, 2008

Motivating and inspiring speeches start with a powerful introductory statement. One that connects with the audience and leads them to believe what they are about to hear is very important to them.

You do this by answering two fundamental questions they are all thinking. One: Why am I listening to this? Two: How can I use this information?

If you are keynoting a small conference or leading a sales seminar, a common misstep is to open by reintroducing yourself following the MC’s introduction of you.

The MC’s introduction should not only introduce your name and title to the audience, but also establish you as a credible expert in this field or on your topic. For example:

Our next speaker made headlines when he was hired by XYZ Corp. to revitalize its corporate sales department. Within three years under his leadership, XYZ went from the world’s eighth largest automaker to third. Here to share his secrets, please help me welcome, XYZ’s VP of Sales, John Smith.

An MC introduction like that allows John Smith to go right into the speech with an introduction that would paint a vivid picture in the audience’s mind of a common problem sales team’s struggle with and how he inspired his sales team to work together to overcome those problems.

If John’s introduction fails to grab the audience’s attention, he loses most of them for good.

Therefore, whatever powerful points he may have in the body of his speech or in the conclusion will have little impact on them if any at all.

While the introduction aims to grab their attention and inspire them to listen, the body of the speech aims to keep them engaged all the way through to the conclusion. The conclusion reinforces the main point and inspires them with a call to action.