by Beth Levine | Mar 14, 2011 | Just Mouthing Off
Your Opening … !
With just a couple of extra minutes to spare in the airport last week, I ran into the bookstore to see if I could find Frank Luntz’s new book on communicating. Frank Luntz is the author of Words that Work and is perhaps most famous for his contributions to conservative political jargon … terms like “energy exploration” vs “oil drilling” and “death tax” vs “estate tax” and “climate change” vs “global warming” are his creations. Putting politics aside (and perhaps behind him?), his new book focuses on how business people should communicate in order to WIN, also the name of the book. I grabbed it.
As I began reading, I came to discover that many of our philosophies about good communications are similar, but one caught my eye in particular, because it’s a drum I beat very often. And if you’re a client or a participant in one of my workshops, you have heard me say this quite recently …
Luntz says, “Your first words are more important than your last. You only get one shot to make a good impression, and what you say first colors everything that follows. It doesn’t only color it, but depending on how you frame the context, the initial impression you make will either cast a shadow over your purpose or provide a foundation under it.”
Set the tone and the context, condition expectations and emotions, use your first seconds wisely. It may be both the first and last moments that you capture your audience’s attention!
by Beth Levine | Mar 8, 2011 | Just Mouthing Off
Either intuitively, or because you read my blog faithfully (ha!), you know the various parts and pieces that go into preparing for a talk. Whether it’s to make one simple point to one person, or to deliver a keynote speech to hundreds, you know to think about your audience, your message(s), and your desired outcome.
But then what? How do those pieces come together, and where do they fit? What’s the ideal structure? Here are three checklist items that will give you a super simple guideline for preparation:
1. Focal Point
If you have a specific desired outcome – e.g. to ask your audience to act on something, or to leave your audience with one thought – you will want to spell it out. And you’ll want to do that in the opening and then reinforce it again in the closing. I call this the “focal point” … it is, after all, the focal point of your talk and what you want your audience to remember. Your focal point can be woven into your opening and closing remarks, or it can stand alone as its own opening and closing.
2. Message Points
These are the key thematic statements that are the backbone of the body of your talk. They are bigger picture statements that accomplish your “job” – or your communications task – which might be persuading, informing, or motivating, just to name a few. If your “job” is to persuade, then your message points should be persuasive statements. You can have one message point, which is ideal for audience retention, or you can have more, but be aware that audience retention is a huge challenge. Please, no more than 3 message points to a talk!
3. Information
Information backs up a message point. It is the data, statistics, examples, anecdotes, and background that support each message point. How you determine which information and how much to share will depend on your audience … their level of knowledge and understanding of your topic, whether they’re in the room by choice or not, what their biases and expectations are. Be careful to choose and prioritize your information based on what will jazz your audience, not on what jazzes you, about your topic!
Very simply, when you put the engine back together, this is what you have:
- Opening, including a Focal Point
- Message 1, with supporting Information
- Message 2, with supporting Information
- Message 3, with supporting Information
- Closing, reinforcing the Focal Point
You’re ready to go … !
by Beth Levine | Feb 22, 2011 | Just Mouthing Off
So, let me guess what you’ve been doing when you prepare to speak: You crack open your laptop, create a new Word document, and you begin writing a magnum opus. You choose every word carefully, spending quite a bit of time creating pages of brilliant, gorgeous prose that will become your talk. Am I close? Probably. Is there a problem with that? Typically, yes.
All too often, what writes and reads as perfection to your eyes isn’t equally speakable as perfection for your mouth. All too often, well-written talks will sound like what they are … essays. And all too often, you, the speaker, will find yourself so committed to your beautiful words, sentences and paragraphs that you either 1) read from the paper, eyes down, and lose connection with your audience; or 2) you try to balance reading with audience connection and you end up flustered because you lose your place or leave something out when you look up.
What to do then when you prepare to speak? Crack open that laptop, but talk while you type. Test yourself by reading out loud what you wrote to make sure the sentences are deliverable versus just readable. Hint: if they’re deliverable, they’re usually short and crisp, without a lot of clauses and punctuation. Try bullet points, and trust yourself to fill in around those well-chosen points while you’re speaking.
However, if you are someone who absolutely has to have a full-text speech in front of them, then make sure you give yourself a hall pass if you end up deviating from your beautiful script; you are unlikely to deliver exactly what you wrote. Even folks with bullet points deviate. Deviating is okay, because it’s usually a sign that you are staying present with your audience. And the audience is, after all, what it’s all about!
by Beth Levine | Feb 16, 2011 | Just Mouthing Off
The best way to navigate around a tricky audience or tricky situation is to ask questions. For example …
Feeling awkward in one of those networking meetings or events? Ask questions.
Looking to fill the awkward silence on the elevator with the big boss? Ask questions.
Not sure who’s in charge of the meeting and what the expectations are? Ask questions.
Delivering a talk and not sure you’re connecting with the group? Ask questions.
Suffering with incredible nervousness at the start of a speech? Ask questions.
If it’s an audience of one or one hundred, you can and should ask questions. The larger the group, the more daunting it seems, but it’s actually not daunting at all. It’s doable and it’s really quite endearing to an audience. Try it!
by Beth Levine | Feb 7, 2011 | Just Mouthing Off
Audiences typically pay attention to and retain what a speaker says at the beginning and at the end of a talk. If you do it right, you have them at hello! The opening and closing count for a lot, so work it …
In the opening, you have the opportunity to condition or prepare your audience for what’s coming; you have a chance to grab their attention and set a filter in their brains for what you will be covering and how you hope they’ll receive it. Use that opportunity. Tell them exactly what you want them to pay attention to and why.
In the closing, you have a chance to reinforce, leave a lasting (positive!) impression, and even offer up a call to action. The closing is arguably even more memorable than the opening simply because it’s at the end. Don’t squander that chance either … and don’t, whatever you do, ask “Any questions?” for your closing (see last week’s blog post!).
The middle – the body of your talk, probably where the meat is – is where your audiences drift, space out, lose focus, check their mental to-do lists. Sad and kind of ironic, because that’s where your topic is covered, the very topic you were invited to address!
You will have them at hello and be more likely to hold their attention in the middle if you give some thought to bookending your talk with a powerful, here-it-is-in-a-nutshell opening and a nice clean finish of a closing that sums it all up so your audience doesn’t have to do all that mental work on their own.
So, here’s my advice … if you have no time to prepare, use your few seconds or minutes to decide how you’re going to open and close, and then wing the middle (ugh, did I just say that?)!
by Beth Levine | Jan 31, 2011 | Just Mouthing Off
Standard operating procedure is not usually standout. Especially when it comes to speaking or presenting. Take, for instance, the age-old closer: “Any questions?” Let’s be honest, “Any questions?” is quite simply the international “I’m-done-here-and-I-want-to-appear-to-be-open-to-it-but-please-don’t-ask-me-anything” signal.
Business people who have been through my training have had “Any questions?” purged from their repertoires. Not allowed. Why? Simple: It’s way too vague and open-ended, and it’s all too often insincere. A speaker will typically say it at the tail end of a meeting or presentation when everyone is ready to go. And so in any given audience there are people who are too intimidated to ask a question; they recognize the speaker is done, time has run out, and anyway they have 50 questions, not just one. A lot of audience members are thinking, “sheesh, where would I even begin?” And so they leave the room not entirely sure of what they are supposed to think or know or do. Another presentation is lost.
What, you ask, should replace “Any questions?”? Well, first off, it’s nice to reach into your audience (even, and especially, when it’s small) to ask for reflection back. As in, “tell me what you heard/remembered from my talk today?” Or, “is there anything about what I just covered that still leaves you puzzled?” And even better, “what else can I tell you or provide you with that will help complete your understanding?” These questions will give you incredible real-time feedback about how effective you were at getting your point(s) across.
And perhaps more importantly, these questions do not need to be saved until the very end. They can and should be sprinkled throughout a talk, especially when audience comprehension is critical … e.g. with clients! If you have to save questions for the very end, then please make every effort to leave ample time.
“Any questions?” is so very superficial, I fear it has become a throwaway line. Be better than that, connect, dig deeper, get real and get open about it. Ask something meatier and more specific.
So, with that, I won’t ask “Any questions?” Instead, I’ll ask if you would now feel comfortable switching it up and trying out something new, something more specific, the next time you speak to a group? And if not, how can I help you with that … ?
