Should you customize all of your presentations?

In other words, do you need to make sure that each time you talk about one of your ‘power’ topics, does it need to be custom fit to that specific audience?

Well, yes and no.

In other words, it depends. I’ve seen speakers that go to great lengths to make sure that they are relating to a specific audience.

For instance, when I saw Tony Robbins address the audience at the Natural Products Expo West a couple of years ago, his presentation had a lot to do with that specific industry. But he had a lot invested in it – financially. One of his companies had an interest in new FDA rules that might affect them, so his knowledge of the industry was extremely high. And because of that, his presentation was specifically tailored to the audience – even though his core message could have been delivered to virtually any gathering.

I’ve also seen keynotes that were ‘cookie-cutter’ and could have been virtually cut-and-pasted to any group without changing a single word.

Both went over quite well.

So what’s the answer?

In those cases, the audience was large – a few thousand at least. The speakers were well known, and the audiences quite receptive.

If you’re speaking to a smaller audience, your payoff will be worth it if you can tailor your presentation.

Let’s say you’re speaking to a group of fitness trainers. Before the presentation if you take some time to chat with some of the audience (either in person or with one of the organizers ahead of time) and learn a bit about the group, you’ll have some good ammunition to add to your speech.

For example, perhaps you speak with Carol, who’s been training and helping clients who are recovering from auto accidents. You tell her that an acquaintance of yours was in an auto accident recently and is in need of some direction. In your conversation you may uncover a couple of tidbits that might help your friend. If you find a way to work a few elements of that conversation into your presentation it does a couple of things:

First, it shows that you took the time to talk to and learn a bit about your audience. It shows them that you care.

Second, when you mention Carol’s name, several members of the audience will perk up a bit more because they’re sure to know who Carol is. So you’ve got them paying closer attention.

Both of those elements will make you more attractive to the audience as a good speaker. It wouldn’t surprise me if a number of them took mental notes and remember to call you when a group they’re associated with needs a speaker.

So all the way around, customizing your presentation – whether a full-blown speech written specifically for the group, or adding some elegant personalization touches – makes a lot of sense.

Photo by Steve Jurvetson

Powerful communicating depends on high octane fuel.  The good news is the best stuff is near to hand…and it’s free.  What powers writing, you ask?  VERBS, I answer.  Yes, verbs, along with adjectives and adverbs, are the gasoline that makes your writing take off.

You never hear a sports caster tell his audience that the baseball player “hit a home run.”  No, the player “clubbed the ball into the bleachers, he belted it, he smacked it, he ripped it into the right field stands.  He spanked Mr. Spaulding, tore the cover off it, launched it into the Fenway stratosphere.”  See the difference?  Writers “tear the cover off it” when they understand the use of powerful verbs to energize their writing and their audience.

Adverbs, which modify verbs, and adjectives, which modify nouns, also add horsepower to your writing.  And, when you throw in a metaphor (or simile) or two, you truly have high octane writing.  A metaphor, in case you’re not a word geek like me, is when you say something is “like” something else.  A simile occurs when a writer says something is something else.

A novelist rarely tells her reader that her heroine has clear green eyes.  Nope, the ladies eyes are “emerald ice.”  Her lips are like rosebuds and her words touched lightly in his ears like the first warm breeze of spring.  Metaphors and similes make writing come alive…and they’ll do the same for your product or service.

I’m not saying you should turn every corporate E-mail or press conference into a romance novel or the Superbowl.  I am saying a well placed power verb, metaphor or simile, makes writing stand out; and, more importantly makes it stick in the listeners or readers memory.

That’s what we’re after:  communication that hangs around, that the audience remembers.  When the occasion arises, make it memorable with communication jet fuel.

Personally, I collect them.  While I’m reading, or listening, or, heck, doing almost anything, I’ll make a note of a powerful verb, a good metaphor, or a well placed descriptive adjective or adverb.

Then, as the need arises, I’ll mine the collection for the gold nugget of communication I’ll need to power my writing.  Every good writer I know does the same.  You should, too.  Collect good phrases and good verbs the same way we’ve advised you to collect good personal stories and anecdotes to use in your writing.

Remember, dry rarely sells.  It won’t sell your product, your idea, or your point of view.  Pump up your communication with words that have impact; and, when it makes sense, words that hit your audience with the impact of a meteor the size of a Volkswagen.

That kind of verbal fuel will power your communications to speeds that could leave you breathless.

Photo used with permission http://flickr.com/photo/7765337@N06/2955312136 Creative Commons Licensing

In our lives, we all have different people, things, books, movies, music, etc. that inspires us. What inspires you? Tim ‘Gonzo’ Gordon and Roger Pike discuss the sources of inspiration they find.

Communicating with an audience is tricky in a lot of ways: you rarely know exactly who’d going to be in the audience and you can not predict the state of mind they’re going to be in when you are handed the microphone.

Yet you’re not speaking into a vacuum, either. You’ve done your homework, researched the audience the best you can and discussed the speaking engagement with the organizer. So you know a lot about logistics; size of the room, approximately size of the audience, AV set-up, etc.

But any speech is still tricky because it’s typically only a one-way communication. Sure, a seminar is more give-and-take, but a typical presentation is usually one-to-many. Even if you have a Q&A at the end, you’re still only hearing from a small segment of the audience.

So one thing you learn is the you never know exactly how your message is being received by your whole audience.

Yes, there are usually a handful of folks who come and praise you – if you did even a merely adequate job.

Another thing you may learn is that you left something out. And the speech went just fine. Only you know that you left out that piece! It may have been a key piece, a good anecdote, an illustrative factoid; whatever it was, you learned that the speech survived just fine without it.

Often after speeches I’ll learn that it came out a lot better than any of my rehearsals. Unless you’re like a robot and can repeat the same speech over and over with the same inflection and same pauses and emotion, every speech you deliver will be different. Even if it’s the same speech.

Even if you could deliver an identical performance twice in a row, your audience would be different. And they’d probably react differently: responding with laughter at a joke your last audience didn’t get, perhaps a little spontaneous applause at one point that the other audience ignored.

Of course you can also learn a lot about yourself. For instance you can learn that with each speech you stretch your comfort zone a little more. You define your message a little more clearly. You have a better idea of who you really are with each speech. Knowing that helps you in your preparation for your next speech.

Getting up and speaking to an audience is one of the more challenging things we humans do. The more we do it – as in any pursuit – the better we get at it.

But we never get so good that we can rest on past accomplishments. Ask any performer, whether stand-up comic, actor, singer, musician: they know that with each performance the audience is hoping to see them at their best. Hoping, hell! They’re demanding it. They paid good money. Even if you’re giving a free speech, or if the audience didn’t personally pay, they’ve still invested in the time it takes to sit down and listen to your ideas.

So you’d better give it to them good. As good as you can. No matter if you’re feeling under the weather or you’re distracted by personal stuff.

As soon as you hit the stage you have to be the person the audience wants you to be. Now that person may be exactly who you are, or it may be a livelier version – your persona, so to speak.

With each speech you learn who that persona is, and how to present it to those faces, all watching you.

Probably the best thing you can learn from speaking in public is that you have no limits, except self-imposed ones.

As you plan and prepare for your next speech, look to take an objective view: see what you can learn this time. And incorporate that knowledge into the next one.

Your audience will thank you for it. But probably not as much as you’ll thank yourself.

photo credit: TheCreativePenn

photo credit: Robert Banh

It used to be, here in America, that people didn’t talk about three things: death, sex, and how much money they made.

Now it seems that at least one or two of those barriers have come down. People don’t mind talking about sex or reading about it in newspapers when the latest scandal breaks. There is also a lot of chatter about finances, although I would argue that in a one-on-one conversation, people do NOT want to talk about the kind of money they make. Although they will go to lengths to make it know how well they’re doing – if they’re doing well.

So that leaves death.

I find that people don’t like to talk about the impending end of life.

My life insurance agent is Rob, an old buddy from high school. Naturally in his line of work he has to talk about death to clients, because his product – life insurance – by its very nature, must include what happens to your family after your life is done.

So when Rob talks about death, he couches it in terms that make it seem less ‘heavy.’

“When you croak, you’ll want make sure your kids are taken care of,” he’ll say.

By using the word ‘croak’ instead of ‘die’ it’s a way to bring up the subject in a lighter manner without glossing it over.

We find hundreds of terms to use instead of ‘death’, ‘dead’ or ‘dying’. Here are just a few…

• pushing up daisies
• garden of stone
• bone house
• cashed it in (or out)
• cash in your chips
• had his fun ticket punched
• the sweet hereafter
• happy hunting grounds
• deep six
• threshold to eternity
• dirt bed
• six feet under
• no longer making coffee
• no longer eligible for the census

and so on…

If you are broaching an uncomfortable subject with an audience, look for ways to break the ice with unusual language. Put a twist on the words you might normally use. Try and get a chuckle with your approach. By putting your audience at ease, it becomes easier for you to get to the heart of your topic.

Personally I like that Rob uses the work ‘croak’ because it puts a funny twist on the subject but it doesn’t really pull any punches. We have all likely heard the term ‘croak’ as a reference to death. It is also the sound a frog makes. As a kid, it was a funny word, especially when used in reference to death.

If a speaker said to you that “you’re gonna croak someday!” wouldn’t it bring out a bit of a laugh?

And wouldn’t that warm you to the subject? Of course it would.

Do research online. Talk to friends. When taking on a subject that might normally make people uncomfortable, look for words and phrases that put a spin on your topic and find ways to work them into your presentation.

photo credit: hha124l

Every audience is different. A speech that goes over great at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon may fall flat at a business networking dinner.  Often there’s no way to know exactly how an audience will react.

Making your audience squirm is a sure-fire way to have the speech as a whole fall flat. From sitting in audiences to being the speaker, I’ve seen many ways to make your audience squirm. Let’s try and avoid these, eh?

1. Being Unprepared. Now, you may think you’re unprepared. But if your preparation consisted of brushing up on your topic and little more, you are definitely unprepared. And it will show. Preparation means writing, rehearsing, re-writing, rehearsing again, etc., until you could give the speech without notes.

2. Using Inappropriate Humor. Wow, it still amazes me that some people do this. But it happens. Try and tell a joke that falls flat. Tell a joke that’s even slightly off-color. You may get a few chuckles from some like-minded members of the audience, but the rest will be staring you down. Ethnic jokes? No way.

3. Going past your scheduled time. If you’re scheduled for a 15-minute talk, it’s a sure bet that people will start to look at their watches and squirm by about the 16th minute. They’ll be checking Blackberries, looking towards the door and trying to figure out how much longer you’ll drone on. And they’ll be thinking of ways they can escape.

4. Show your lack of confidence. Depending on the audience, this may not be such a big deal. But if your confidence meter is at its lowest ebb, it won’t be long before your audience senses it. Some will feel uncomfortable and others will silently root for you. This is the time to find the boldness within and put it on for all to see. Smile. Walk tall. Speak confidently. Of course, if you have rehearsed your speech enough so that you can give it by memory, you’ve probably shaken a lot of those butterflies.

5. Appearing distracted. Speaking gigs are occasionally going to have their distractions. You may be near a railroad track; the yard crew might be driving a lawnmower right outside; the kitchen staff might be clearing the tables. Anything can distract you, but will you let it? Best way to handle a distraction is to judge it by the audience’s reaction. If it’s a major distraction (train going by 300 feet away drowns out your speech), you might have to tell your audience you’ll continue as soon as you can hear yourself think! If a distraction is minor, keep moving and you’ll be okay.

6. Give a disorganized speech. If your audience is unable to follow along and see the major parts of your speech, many will start to squirm. Make it easy for the audience to follow along and they will.

7. Try and tell a joke with a punchline (see #2). While this is similar to using inappropriate humor, it’s not the same. Unless you’re a professional joke-teller, leave the punchlines at home. If your audience doesn’t laugh, you’re stranded. And they’re uncomfortable. Tell an anecdote or a funny story instead.

8. Stretch out your conclusion. ‘Nailing’ the close is one of the biggest challenges for most public speakers  (listen to our recent podcast on The Close). Lots of speakers will instead make their audience squirm by stretching it out and waiting for the right moment to escape. Sorry, you have to prepare your closing, too! If nothing else, summarize what you just told your audience, urge them to make either a physical or mental action, and sit down. And bask in the applause.

photo credit: Neil Rickards

You’re going to give a speech. How long should it be?

The first thing, obviously, is to ask the organizer how long they’d like it to be. If they want 20 – 40 minutes, that’s a pretty wide range. If they say just ‘give us 25 minutes’ that makes it much easier.

A couple of rules of thumb here:

* Speak as long as it takes to get your message across. No more, no less.

If you think it will take you 40 minutes to get everything across, but you’re only given a 20 minute window, you’ll have to do some judicious editing to narrow down the focus of your message.

* If your audience is palpably bored, you’d better get to the end quick!

If you’re 20 minutes into a 40 minute scheduled presentation and your audience’s eyes are glazing over and some are nodding off, you’d better do one of two things: either wrap it up and get off stage, or spice it up so that your presentation is more lively and interesting!

* Spice it up.

There are many ways to re-energize your audience if they seem to be getting sleepy and bored. Interactivity always helps. Approach the audience. Ask questions, even they’re only rhetorical questions.

If there is one person whose attention is drifting, slowly move in her direction and establish eye contact. This brings them back into the game a bit. Don’t bore your eyes into her, just do it enough to establish a connection. Once that’s done, you can move on to another person.

Another way to get interactive is – if you have a wireless microphone and the ability to go into the audience – to move down to their level. By doing this physically, you not only get their attention by getting closer, you also establish a subtle connection that you are moving to their level (mentally, emotionally, physically) that they’ll quickly pick up on. Just make sure you’re still visible from the back of the audience.

On occasion you may be asked to give a presentation that is scheduled to be a half-hour, but at the last minute the organizer says they’re running over time and could you shorten your presentation to just 20 minutes? This is a great opportunity to figure out the most effective way to say the same thing in shorter time. Is it possible? Sure. Will some of your more nuanced messages be lost? Possibly. Again, the key is to keep your points to three (or less) main bullets, and support them with sub-bullet points.

Finally, with a nod to the title of this post (How Long Should You Drone On?), are you really droning on?

If you feel that you are ‘droning’ on and that your audience has a zombie-like response, perhaps it’s not your message so much as your delivery.

If your delivery is boring, that can be fixed. It will take time, and some re-examination of your presentation skills, but we firmly believe that ANYONE can learn how to deliver polished, scintillating presentations. It just takes work and dedication.

And before you know it, your audience won’t be counting the minutes until it’s time to go, or looking around for the waiter – they’ll be so caught up in your speech that they’ll almost be disappointed that it’s over.

Yes, that can be you!