Who Do You Remind Me Of?

How you dress and act (body language) before you begin to speak is sending thousands of messages to your audience. One of the most important thoughts your audience is thinking when they first see you that dramatically impacts the first moments of your presentation is:

Who do you remind me of?

They are making a connection between what you look like and anyone else in their life who looks the same. If you are speaking to high school students and you are dressed in a standard suit and tie, they are probably connecting you to their principal or teachers. If you are dressed in a fancy suit and tie, they might be connecting you with a famous person. If you are dressed in a nice shirt, jeans and cool shoes, they might be seeing the person sitting in their chair when they look at you.

The effectiveness of your presentation's first moments is directly influenced by who you remind them of before you start talking. The question you need to ask is, "Is what they are thinking a good thing or not?" Of course, the answer to this question is complicated and it all depends on which part of your personality and style you need to emphasize to best get your point across that day for that audience. Do you need to come across as serious, entirely credible, cool, common, extraordinary, etc.? Ultimately you want to be a little of all of these, but you are leaving a strong impression of only one or two.

If you don't know which direction to take, a good benchmark to shoot for is to dress one step above the norm of your audience's attire. If I am speaking to high school students, I am wearing jeans, nice shoes and either a sport coat or a nice polo. If I am speaking to a group of executives in business casual, I am wearing the nicest business casual I have. If I am speaking at a suit and tie event, I am shooting for being the nicest dressed suit and tie guy in the room.

Regarding my body language, my method is to mirror their body language, but add just a tough of energy to it. This "touch" could manifest itself by walking a little faster, talking a little faster, smiling a little stronger, meeting a few more people, etc.

The trick with both areas is not to go too far. Now, I do know certain speakers who have the way they dress as part of their act. They either dress way down or way up and that is their "signature" thing. Of course, if everyone started doing what they did, they would pick a new thing.

Remember, your presentation starts before you start speaking. Make those few precious moments as strategic as possible. You can never get them back.

Keeping an Auditorium Audience Engaged

• Pack ‘em in!  Rope off the back rows if you need to, but do whatever it takes to get the audience seated in the middle/front.  The closer you have the audience to one another, the more you can do with them and the more attention you will have.  The best way to do this is to not give them options.  Make it a requirement to sit in certain sections and not sit in other sections
  
• Move ‘em!  Movement is obviously limited, but not totally gone. Here are a few ways I use movement in auditorium settings to get everyone physically, socially and actively engaged in the program:

1. Random mingling. They can still stand up and meet/greet/discuss with a handful of people that are seated to their left/right/front/back.
2. Teams. You can still get them into teams. The best set-up here is teams of six. Three people from one row and three people in the row behind or in front.
3. Switch 'em. For a quick jolt, ask them to switch seats with someone. They can move as far as they want. Those who are really ready to be social will really move. Those who don't will just move one seat over. Either way, you accomplish your task.
4. Pair share. Have them discuss with a person to their left, their right or in a different row.
5. Big group movement. Find activities where everyone does the same thing and where that thing involves movement. I.e. - Simon Says, a camp song, etc. You find a good number of options at http://www.thesource4ym.com/.

Good Private Thinking

"All good public speaking is based on good private thinking."
Scott Berkun (from his new book Confessions of a Public Speaker)

Get it today to get your 2010 reading started right. Caution: it is a complicated, layered, opinionated, clearly written work. If you are not interested in growing or being challenged as a speaker, do not read it. However, I have given at least 100 public speeches each year for the past 18 years and I have found a ton of value in it.

You are an Agent of Change

It is said that the amount of energy in the universe is constant. Energy is neither created nor destroyed. It is only changed from one form to another. The fat in your body is potential energy waiting to be turned into kinetic energy. A lump of coal is waiting to be burned and turned into fire. Your audience has energy waiting to be turned into excitement, sadness, laughter, surprise, etc.

All presentations change energy from one form to another. A waiting or bored audience member is just a lump of potential energy waiting to be turned into another form of energy. The experience of your presentation should be built around these three questions:

1. What form of energy are you wanting to tap into?
2. How do you plan on making this change happen?
3. What are you going to do with your audience after you've altered their energy?

The next time you are faced with an audience that aren't responding the way you had planned, don't blame it on them - blame your strategies. They are either not changing their potential energy into kinetic (i.e. they are doing nothing) or they are changing it into a different kinetic form than you'd hoped. Your job is to figure out how to get that energy focused on your presentation's needs.

The seeds of that change are in connecting the audience members' needs with your presentation's needs. These needs include:

- Safety
- Entertainment
- Intellectual stimulation
- Social interaction
- New and fresh content
- Fun
- Comfort
- Relaxation
- New solutions
- Encouragement
- Motivation
- Inspiration

My speaking associate, Kelly Barnes, sums up how we get the potential energy of our audience turned into kinetic energy in a big way:

The MOVE formula
(Making Optimal VAK Environments)

Move my feet... get music going
Move my eyes... get visuals up
Move my ears.... get me up to speed on what we are going to do
Move my mouth... get me talking to others
Move my brain... get me thinking
Move me... get me physically moving on purpose
Move on.... get to the point

One Way to Help People Believe You (And Believe In You)

"If you don't have confidence in your take, then we don't want to hear it."
Jim Rome, Professional Sports Talk Guy

Fab Five Formula for Your Next Speech's Outline

Five questions to answer as you are preparing your next speech's outline:

Who (are you?)
Don't spend much time on this, but quickly let me know who you are:
Why are you qualified to talk on this topic?
What is your style (serious, fun, interactive, etc.)?
What is something about you I can personally relate with?

What (is in it for me?)
Why should I give you two of my most valuable assets - my time and attention? This question is not about future results, this is about immediate results. Which of my needs are you going to satisfy right now? My need to be entertained, informed, safe, social, thrilled, comfortable, challenged, etc.?

When (will I need to take action?)
How can I tell if I need to live your message or not? How do I know if I am already living your message? Help me understand when I need to take out this tool (your message) and put it to use.

Why (should I take action?)
This is probably the most important in terms of helping your audience want to take action. Help them see the benefits of your message, not just the features.

How (do I take action?)
What are a handful of concrete steps (3 - 5) I can take in my life to live your message?

This isn't an all inclusive list and everything on this list might not fit your topic, but take a look at it the next time you are preparing for a speech and it just might spark a thought or two.

Be Clear About and Enforce Expectations

Your audience members need help knowing how you expect them to act. Give them clear expectations early in your presentation and then help them know how they are doing throughout.

9 Tips for Leading a Small Group Discussion

1. Have a casual presence. This will put your group and you at ease and grease the conversation. However, it is also important to remember that you need to bring the energy to the group. Your eyes, body language and vocal patterns need to model engagement and energy.
   
   
2. Address each individual by name and be personable with them. It is too easy for small group discussions to have a formal/stuffy feeling and this environment prohibits open comments from the group. Keep it loose.
   
   
3. Set time limits on discussions - particularly if you have a set number of topics to get to that concern different members of the group. The easiest way to shut down someone from adding to the value of a conversation piece is to make them feel like their topic won't be discussed.
   
   
4. Mix up cliques in the room - physically and conversationally.
   
   
5. Paraphrase comments from the group to make sure you (as the discussion leader) fully understand them. This will also help the group process any longer, jargon-filled or fragmented comments.
   
   
6. Make certain the group gets to physically move around at least every 60 minutes or so. This could be switching chairs, getting into quick small groups to discuss what they've learned so far, doing an experiential activity to strengthen a certain lesson or actually taking a break. A quick boost of movement is the same as a quick boost of attention energy and leads to a more tuned-in and thus valuable group.
   
   
7. Encourage note taking (a passive way to stay connected to the conversation) and model this for them. Don't forget to have someone capture relevant, revisit-able information on a flip chart or PowerPoint for later discussion or review.
   
   
8. Call out anyone who is actively being disruptive or harmful to the group process. Best case scenario is to do this in private and away from the group, but if you don't have the time or space for that, then a gentle, verbal nudge in the group can be helpful to get them back on track. Be nice about it though. Mean = distrust = disengagement.
   
   
9. Do your absolute best to keep the discussion focused and on track. Your primary role as the discussion leader is not to bring value to the group through input, but rather through leadership and thought directing.
   
   

Good luck!

S.M.I.L.E. Formula

A good majority of your success on the platform is based on how you act before you get there. Click over to my leadership blog for some tips on how to maximize this all important time!

The S.M.I.L.E. Formula to Networking Success

Audience Rapport Lessons from Shinedown

I caught the band Shinedown at the San Diego House of Blues last month. The room was wall to wall with rockers and there I stood in my biz casual holding a noteboook (I just came from a working supper.) Needless to say, I felt a bit out of place, but I enjoy catching live music when I'm on the road, so there I was.

[FYI - If you don't own any Shinedown, start with Simple Man and I Dare You.]

I knew I would be hit with a wall of sound, but I didn't expect to be overly impressed with the audience rapport skills of Shinedown's lead singer, Brent Smith. However, after the first 10 minutes of the show, he had everyone in the room not only loving their music (which they already did), but also respecting him as an entertainer, crowd-leader and man.

Here's what went down:

1. After the opening song, he gave a heart felt thank you to everyone for coming and paying hard earned money to be there. He graciously put the thanks on them. He even said their city was beautiful, which granted we were in San Diego, but even when you compliment something obvious to a crowd of people, they respond positively. LESSON: Put the focus and thanks on the audience quickly, especially if you are playing a role where most people in that role are in it for selfish reasons (ie - a self-absorbed rocker.)

2. After the thanks, Brent did something I have never seen at any concert, he had everyone give a high-five or hand shake to someone next to you. We do this all the time at our speaking events to break down barriers between audience members, but in this venue Brent did it for a different very obvious reason. LESSON: Get the audience interacting with you and each other quickly.

3. Twenty seconds into the third song, he stopped the song because a fight broke out in front of the stage (this was a hard rock concert you know). He physically and vocally intervened and let everyone know that tonight is about the music and having a good time, not being stupid and fighting. He waited until the two either made up or left. The entire crowd went crazy clapping when this went down. Everyone knew what type of night it would be from then on - all about the music of hard rock and none of the rest. LESSON: Control the room or the room will control you. Its not that a fight will break out at your event/conference/meeting if you don't, but losing control also looks like disengagement, side chatting, texting, no learning, no emotional buy-in or a host of other behaviors.

4. He got the crowd involved in the singing. Most of the time they were singing anyway, but he took one song and orchestrated their involvement. The cool thing is that it was at the start of one of their new songs that not everyone was familiar with. They were after he finished. LESSON: Involving the audience in a big, meaningful way increases all the things you want increased during and after your program - entertainment, learning, retention of content, retention of the experience's feelings, etc.

5. He introduced a hard rock love ballad by having saying that every man here is about pride and hard work and integrity, but we would be nothing without our women. He made great points quickly and honestly and even the single dudes in the room could respect the foundation of his logic. LESSON: Speak from the heart and there are very few presentations where the heart isn't appropriate to bring into the discussion. It connects with everyone.

6. Brent Smith was a performer to the extreme, both as a lead singer of a hard rock band and as a leader of the room of people having a great time. LESSON: Your audience needs you to be a master of both your content and the delivery moment of your content if you are going to make the impact you need to make.