Archive for the ‘Content Strategies’ Category

Do you want to move your audience to action when you speak? 

Do you want them to want to listen to what you say next? 

Is there a next step you want your audience to take after your speech?

There should be! And it’s important to realize that when you are in speaking, you are in sales. However, it’s easy to sell people on listening or taking a next step when you know these 3 secret to selling your message.

Listen to the following 3-minute live audio and then take the Quiz below

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Quiz:

Question # 1: Never sell a product (or service or idea or yourself or change), always sell what?

Question #2: Put the _____________ before the resource?

Question #3: What was the result I promised my audience would get when they signed up for my 52Speakingtips.com site?

The real key to motivating your entire audience

Take your audience across the EDGE. In other words, offer them results that come from all 4 of these trigger categories.

E = Esteem more – offer results that have to do with recognition, self-confidence, self-esteem, fame, and attention. An example I use in my speeches is, “If you want to become known as the best speaker in your neck of the woods, then really listen closely to this next point.”

D = Do more – offer results that let them know they’ll be able to do more tomorrow than they can do today. Or make sure they know they’ll be able to do more than most people who don’t get the advice they’re about to get. An example I use is, “How would you like to make a deeper connection with your audience than you’ve ever felt before? Okay, this is a slight-edge principle…” Another example I use is, “When you get this next point, you’ll find yourself moving towards your goals, dreams, and aspirations, even while you sleep.”

 G = Gain more – Offer results related to making more money, cutting expenses, and saving time (i.e. letting your long road lead to their shortcut). An example I use is, “It’s important to realize that more buzz brings in more biz. So let’s look at how to get more of both.”

 E =Enjoy more – Offer results of more joy, adventure, and excitement and less stress, frustration and pain. An example I used way back in my World Championship speech was, “You’ll feel a peacefulness, a serenity, a tranquility that you never even knew existed. And sooner or later you will feel…fulfilled.” Those lines were very intentional to offer joy. Earlier in the speech I offered an Esteem result by saying, “You’ll have confidence exuding from every pore in your being.” Again, that was very intentional as I was crossing the EDGE. The only problem was, in a 7-minute speech, it’s not as easy and subtle as it is in a 30-60 minute keynote. Still, it’s worth doing because you want to hit everyone’s hot button.

 

Why does the EDGE Formula work?

It’s because you actually have several audiences inside of your audience. Keep in mind that different people in your audience will be moved by different motivations. Some will want more money. Others will be motivated by more recognition. Still, others will want more free time while others will be motivated by having less frustration and stress. The way to motivate all the people in your audience is to take them across the EDGE during your speech by offering results from each of the abovementioned categories. If you have 30-60 minutes, you should be able to do this seamlessly and subtly.

Review of the 3 Sales Secrets

Secret #1: Never sell a product, always sell the result

Secret #2: Put the result before the resource

Secret #3: Take your audience across the EDGE

If you want your audience to act on your message, which will give you a long-term impact on them, then follow these 3 secrets to selling your message.

If you want to make an extra $3,000 to $5,000 per speech by masteing back of the room selling (even if you have no products of your own), then click here.

By far one of the most neglected parts of a presentation is the transition from one point to another. The sad thing is that transitions can completely breathe new life into a speech and give you a surefire way to get everyone leaning forward waiting to hear what comes next. Below you will pick up a process to make your transitions so powerful, your audience will say,

Wow, I can’t wait to hear what’s coming up!”

 Here is what too many speakers do

Be honest, surely you’ve watched many speakers go from one point to another by stating something like, “Okay, now, point number 2 is…” or “Now, my next point is…” These speakers take for granted that the audience is still with them and that the audience wants to move on to this next point. Keep in mind, you might know it’s a valuable point but how will they know? The most effective speakers use transitions as a time to do two things:

1. Remind the audience where they were with point they just made
2. Entice the audience to join them on the journey to the next point. That’s right, tease them!  

  

3 Step Process for Transitioning with Power

Let’s look at a 3-step transition process you can use to create great anticipation from your audience members.

 Step One: Remind them where they have been

 Step Two: Tell them where they are going

 Step Three: Entice them to come along to the next stop

 Let’s listen in on a live example. In this clip, I am transitioning from my 2^nd R to Remarkable Results (Relinquish) to my third R (Rely).

 

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 Let’s quickly analyze the steps of that transition.

 Step one: Did you hear how I went back and stated the first two points (i.e. Face Reality, Relinquish what’s in the way) before moving on to the point about Relying on the people?

 Step Two: Did you hear how I mentioned that the next stop on our journey is to Relinquish what’s in the way, because “You’re either on the way or in the way.”?

 Step Three: Did you hear how I enticed them to come along or at least teased them for WIIFT (What’s In It For Them)? They now know that, if they come along, they’ll pick up an idea on how to change the StatusQuoaholics and become invaluable to any organization to which they belong. In other words, they know why they should come.  

If you listened closely, you heard a two-step process I use regularly for enticing my audience to come along with me to the next stop on the journey.

1. Point out a pain
2. Make them a promise

 Sounds harsh, doesn’t it? Well, make no mistake about it, many people won’t take any action unless they are too uncomfortable standing still. Also note that most people are motivated more by avoidance than attainment. Therefore, moving them away from a pain and then towards a promise is a very effective sequence. Too many speakers only offer the promise. Well, the promise without the pain is not as effective. After all, would you take a headache pill if you had no headache? So remind them of the pain first and then turn their pain into your promise.

At least let them know where they are going and why

Here is another example of a transition I used to use regularly after I finished the point about using your unique gifts. 

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Here’s the quick breakdown of that audio. You heard me call back to my previous point about using your unique gifts and I even got the audience involved. Remember, like Tom Hopkins says, “If they say it, it’s true.” Then you heard me tease into the next point by letting them know they’ll be moving towards their goals even while they’re asleep. They don’t know what the point is yet, but they at least know WIIFT and so they anticipate the next part.  

 

The BOB Approach to Enticement

Give much thought to these spaces between your points. Here’s a suggestion for you. If you’re the type to memorize your opening line of your speech and your closing statements, do yourself a favor and begin to memorize and internalize your transitions as well.  Dont’ wing them. They’re too important! These can become the building blocks of a benefits-oriented speech which, like most magicians, leaves the audience wanting more.

 Another great ideas is, when you create your transitions, always think of BOB. You might want to write the name BOB in front of you whenever you put together your speech and especially your transitions. BOB stands for Build ON Benefits. If you build your transitions on the benefits your audience will get (WIIFT?), you’ll keep even the toughest audiences with you for your entire journey. And you will provide a much needed energizing and enticing break between your main points.

 

That past 12 years of professional speaking have taught me something invaluable that I never expected to learn about audiences.

Your connection to them often comes from what you didn’t plan to do or say

 

Spontaneity Sparks Speaking Success

Surely you can connect with your planned content. However, audience members love to feel like this is not just another cookie-cutter speech that you are giving and that some of what is happening hasn’t happened anywhere else. Spontaneous moments provide this satisfaction.  

By jumping on the spontaneous moments, you will…  

• Deepen your connection
• generate an eruption of humor
• Turn some of your audience members into the stars of your speech
• Get more buy-in for your message because “People buy into what they help create,” and your audience helps to create this speech
• Give your audience members something fun to refer to days and months later
• Lift the energy
• Refresh you as the speaker because it feels new and magical for you too!

 

Why don’t more speakers use spontaneity?

With so many benefits to having spontaneity, what keeps most speakers from taking advantage of these potential speech-changing moments?

Answer:  Trust and time.

Trust: They don’t trust themselves to be able to leave their planned content, jump on the spontaneous moments, and then seamlessly return to continue their points. You must be willing to leave your mental script and take a chance without knowing exactly where it will take you.

 Time: They don’t allow enough time and space within their content to milk these wonderful moments. If you’re called to do a 45-minute engagement, you should not plan for 45 minutes of content. Instead, plan for 35-40 minutes for a couple of reasons.

• First, it will take a few minutes for people to settle into the venue and for your introducer to introduce you.

 

• Next, you cannot connect with your audience when you are rushing through your material. If you plan to fill up the entire 45 minutes with your content, you WILL be rushing and there will be no room to even look for spontaneity. Remember the old speaker proverb: When you squeeze your information in, you squeeze your audience out.

 

• Finally, it’s perfectly fine to end a few minutes early whereas it’s often disastrous to end a few minutes late. The balance you want to strike is to give them great content and leave them wanting more. Only when you provide space for these moments, will they arise and present themselves as tremendous opportunities.

 

Move towards, not away from, these opportunities

Example #1: Sometimes you can bring audience members on stage to help make a point and realize there is a potential for some humorous, spontaneous moments. Here’s an example that comes from a public speaking workshop I did last month in Sri Lanka. I brought someone up on stage who told a story about how he and his friend hid behind a bush as they watched their teacher walk by a pool. Then they decided to run out and push this teacher into the pool. As I worked with this participant’s story, I received my own surprise about his friend. Listen to how it went (68 seconds)

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That was just the tip of the iceberg of the spontaneity that happened with that participant. Still, it lifted the energy of the audience, provided humor, and made him the star. People are still e-mailing me about that moment a month later.

Example #2: Other times audience members will do something or say something that you can address. For example, let’s take a workshop I did two days ago for the enrollment staff at a University. I facilitated and activity in which the participants were to get into groups of three and make triangles. Usually they draw these triangles on paper. However, one participant claimed to have made several triangles but none were on paper and I couldn’t quite grasp her explanation or see any of her triangles. Now, you can’t see what I’m doing, but you can still pick up the flavor of our interaction based on the response of the other audience members. Listen to this (86 seconds).

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Just in case you’re wondering, I was doing several physical moves and turns on stage and calling them “triangles.” The key is it was all in fun and she, at least for the time being, became the star of that moment. But the other key was knowing this was a two hour workshop and allowing myself not to fill the entire two hours with content. In other words, I left time for spontaneity and interaction. As a result, it lifted the energy, provided a tremendous amount of humor, and made her star.

Example #3: Here’s one more example that happened to me many years ago. While speaking to a group of probation officers, I began my dramatic closing story about a devastating moment in my childhood. Needless to say, I didn’t get the reaction I imagined. However, I did milk the reaction (spontaneous moment) I got. Instead of running away from or ignoring the moment, I ran to it. Here’s how it went (2 minutes):

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Your Challenge

So there you have it. Now you know what these wonderful magical spontaneous moments can do for you and you know that Trust and Time are what you need to take advantage of them.

In your next (non-contest) speech, I challenge you to have at least one spontaneous moment that you jump on and milk to see where it takes you. When you do, feel free to send me a comment in this blog entry describing the moment so I (and others) can enjoy it too! Thanks in advance. I look forward to hearing from you.

 

To become a top-notch speaker and keep improving, it is important to internalize valuable speaking truths. Now, these are my truths but I’ve certainly found them to work for the hundreds of speakers I have personally coached. I suggest that you tack these Reminders up in your workspace and keep them in front of you. 

If you are not familiar with some of these reminders, I have also provided the three resources you can access to grasp the reminders fully. 

7 Storytelling Reminders             

1. Tap into your audience’s world with a question before you transport them into your world with a story. 

2. Don’t give the cure before you build the conflict. 

3. Too much narration = a report. Too much dialogue = a stage play. The right mix = a very compelling story. 

4. It’s not the line, it’s the look before and after the line that tells the story 

5. If we don’t see a change in your character, then you don’t have a story. Show the change after the cure. 

6. Just give a hint to describe your scenes and characters. People buy into what they help create so if you go into too much detail, there’s nothing left for them to do. Save those details for your novel. 

7. Don’t just establish the conflict; escalate it using at least two escalation events). 

Resource: These reminders come out of my most popular best-selling course that helps you keep your audience on the edge of their seats with your stories. It’s called the Edge Of their Seats Storytelling Home-Study Course for Speakers. 

7 Keynoting Reminders

1. To be an excellent speaker you must be an excellent tease. Find ways to Transition Tease them for what’s coming next (using the Silver Spoon or Verbal Knife approach).    

2. Never end with the Q and A (Questions and Answers) session. Have one if necessary, but don’t end with it. 

3. Check the PARTS (make sure you have a Phrase, Anchor, Reflection, Technique, and Sale) for every point you make so that you become known as a content-rich speaker. 

4. Use all 4A’s for Anchors (Anecdote, Analogy, Activity, and Acronym) in every keynote speech or training session 

5. Use the 10:1 Rule of Thumb to determine how many points to make during your speech. If you’re speaking for 45 minutes, make no more than 4 major points and dive a mile deep into each one. Remember the old speaking proverb; 

When you squeeze your information in, you squeeze your audience out 

6. Make sure you provide a Roadmap (i.e. “First  you will pick up tools on how to breathe life into your speech, then you’ll see how to bring the audience to you, and finally, how to build a message that sticks.”) so your audience knows exactly where they are going. 

7. Use the Discuss and Debrief method to have your audience review and verbally express your message towards the end of your speech. Remember what Tom Hopkins said: 

 If I say it, they can doubt me. If they say it, it’s true 

Get them to say your message. 

Resource: These reminders come out of the course that helps you develop and deliver a captivating 30 to 60 to 90 minute speech. It’s called the Create Your Killer Keynote Home-Study Course for Speakers. 

7 Selling Reminders

1. Never sell a product (or service, idea, change, or yourself); always sell the result. 

2. Go across the EDGE (Esteem more, Do more, Gain more, Enjoy more) when selling your results and making your promises. 

3. Always state the result before the resource. For example, I ask some of my audiences the following: “Raise your hand if, a year from now, you’d like to be at least 3 times better than the speaker you are today (result)? Great then visit my free site at http://www.52SpeakingTips.com (resource) and get a free speaking tip each week for 52 weeks.” 

4. Create the Need for Now so your audience acts on your next step immediately. They will not act later. 

5. Put the power of reciprocity to work for you. It’s in peoples’ DNA to want to return the favor. 

6. Never make a separate sales pitch during your speech. Instead, make it an organic extension of your story using the Then, Now, and How approach.   

7. Put the process, not the person, on a pedestal. When you lift yourself up, you let your audience down. But you also bring down your ability to sell because unless you come across as similar (and not special), your audience won’t act on your message or buy anything from you. 

Resource: These reminders come out of the course that helps you make an extra $3,000 to $5,000 per speech by selling products and services. It’s called the Mastering Back of the Room Sales Home-Study Course for Speakers  

Closing your speech with impact can open up the doors of opportunities because what you say last determines how your audience members feel once they walk out of the doors and go back to their lives. You can give a wonderful speech but if the ending is weak, your audience will walk away feeling like the speech wasn’t very strong. So here are 4 tools you can use to strengthen your closing and henceforth your speech.

Signal

Before you close your speech, you should signal that you are closing. Tell the audience that the end is near. Be more creative than saying, “In conclusion” or “In summary” or something to that effect.

I like to use picture words such as “Let’s wrap this message up” or “As we come to the end” or “I’ll leave you with this…” Whatever you do, let them know you are closing because here’s what will happen:

They’ll listen again!

That’s right. People have been trained to know that your closing means you are most likely going to reiterate your message and so their antennas go up and they often begin to take notes.

Call back

As you move into your closing, make sure you call back to each of the major points you made. For example, listen to this quick wrap-up of one of my new keynotes. Listen for the 3 Ls (my main points) as well as how I let them know the speech is coming to a close.

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Important Point: You can either call back first or signal first depending on what makes better sense for the flow of your speech. In this case, you heard me call back first and then signal that I’m closing.

You just heard me call back to my main points. However, there is also another very important way to review your message. Have them say it! I blogged about this before, so click this link for details on how to get your audience to say your message.

Questions and Answers (Q & A)

You have probably heard me say, “Never end with the Q & A.” Why? It’s because people remember best what they hear first and what they hear last. Your message needs to be the absolute last thing in their ears. Therefore, it’s okay to have a Q & A, but just don’t end with it. Have it about 90% of the way through your speech. Listen to this quick audio of what happened to me when I didn’t heed this advice and I closed with the Q & A.  

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Lasting Anchor

Finally, once you’ve signaled that you’re closing, called back to your major points, and held a Q & A if appropriate,  it’s time to move into your lasting anchor, which will most likely be a story. However, just like you should have be doing throughout your entire speech as you transition from one point to the next, it’s extremely important to tease them before you tell them.

They’re probably wondering, “I already have got the message so why should I listen to this last piece?”

Your answer is the tease. Tease them to let them know what’s in it for them to stick around mentally for this last piece. Listen to how I tease and then go into my final story. This is for my 4 Rs to Remarkable Results In Leadership message.

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Once you tease them before you tell them, go ahead and give them a powerful closing story that provides them with hope and proof that your message will work for them. In doing so, you will close your speech in a way that opens doors for more engagements.

 

Have you ever been inspired by a speaker and ready to take on the world but then 3 days later you were back to normal? I know I have.

Would you like to be the kind of speaker who not only inspires your audience for the short-term but also touches their lives for the long-term?

Would you like to keep getting re-hired as a speaker, which is the most inexpensive way to build a speaking business?

Great. Then you’re on the right post.

The Problem with Forgettable Speakers

The reason you might get inspired by a speaker but then forget about them and their speech shortly thereafter is because chances are that speaker gave great theory but no way to practice it. In other words, he lit a match but gave no way to keep the fire burning.

What is the way to keep the fire burning?

Give the audience something specific to do after they go back to their lives. Most speakers do not do this. Instead, they simply give great information on stage (a spark) without giving a way to fan that flame.

  

Solution?

After your story (or activity) and at the end of your point, you can then offer them a way to practice your theory. Give them something specific to do when they get home. Listen to this 80-second audio clip of the end of one of my stories. The Foundational Phrase is “When you make others visible, they make you valuable.” Once you hear that phrase, you’ll hear me give them a way to practice what I call “The Sheen Factor.” Keep in mind, I’m coming out of a dynamic story filled with laughter and action and then I turn serious and give them this:

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Welcome back. What did I give my audience to do? I had them think about (and later write down) two questions they can ask themselves daily to make sure they are being properly guided.

Let’s look forward a year from now. Imagine if some of the people in that particular audience are now in the habit of asking themselves two questions at the end of each day. If this is the case, then I have some questions for you:

• Do you think I’m still touching their lives?
• Do you think they’ll remember me?
• Do you think they’ll remember my message?
• Do you think they might want to hear me again?
• Do you think if people want to hear me again they might hire me again?

I have evidence that the answer to all the above questions is an emphatic yes!

It’s not enough to simply offer theory. We must give them a way to practice it. Give them something to do when they get home.  

 

How do you give them something to do?

Giving your audience something do to is much more about awareness than it is about a strict process you have to go through. In fact, once you are aware to do this, it’s quite simple. To figure out what I’m going to give them to do, I usually go through something like the following:

1. Revisit my point (and main Foundational Phrase)
2. Ask myself, “What specifically can they do once they get home to live out this point?”
3. How can I sell them on doing it?
4. Am I asking too much of them?

 

Too much is too bad

This 4^th key is critical. Think back to my audio clip where I asked them to ask themselves two questions. That’s not difficult is it? What if I said, “I want you to go home and write down 20 questions you can ask yourself each day?” Forget about it! Less is more when it comes to giving them something to do.

For example, in another module, I ask my audience to write down their perfect day. That might seem like a lot. However, because of my 4^th question above (Am I asking too much of them?), I make sure I say, “Only use one side of one piece of paper.” That way it doesn’t seem overwhelming and they know I’m not asking them to write a book.

Keep your suggestive actions short.

Next Step

Revisit one of your main points that you already illustrate with a story. Then, write down one specific way your audience can practice heeding that point. Feel free to post whatever it is you plan to have your audience do once they get home. I look forward to seeing what you have.

Always remember this:

When you give them something to do, they’ll give you something to do. Speak again!

So often I watch speakers tell stories that sound like this:

“I did this and I did that and then I did this and then I did that and then this happened to me and then I did that…” And then, at the end of the story, they turn to the audience and say, “And you should do it too!”

That is not an engaging message. The problem is the speakers lose the audience during the “I-focused” parts of the story.

The Solution

There are many solutions to this speaking problem and the one you pick up in this lesson is a favorite of mine, because it’s simple, quick, and non-invasive. What I mean by non-invasive is that it doesn’t cut into your speech and leave scars. Instead it’s simply something you can apply to the surface that makes the speech more attractive. This tool is what I call You-focused check-ins. When it comes to your audience’s attention, always remember this:

You must check in so they don’t check out

 

Have you been checking in with your audience?

To keep your audience engaged throughout your stories, it’s important to check in with them. Many speakers check in after the story, but the key is to check in at the beginning, during, AND after. Listen to the following 2-minute story and then read the notes that follow:

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You-focused check-ins

Instead of simply going into my story and expecting my audience to follow along, I used you-focused check-ins to make sure my audience was constantly involved. You can do the same.

Let’s go back over exactly what I said to keep them engaged. Here are just some of the check-ins I used (along with when they occurred) in this 2-minute story

Before: Raise your hand if you feel like sometimes reality hurts?

Before: Have you ever stepped on a scale…and been forced to face reality?

During: Raise your hand if you have kids

During: Then you know the doctor is always going to measure their length and their…weight

During: I don’t know if you’ve ever been around somebody who just recently gave birth

After: Isn’t it interesting how, when things don’t seem to go our way…we don’t seem to measure up, it’s almost in our DNA to place the blame on somebody else.

 As you can see, you-focused check-ins are not always questions. At times they are statements you make that get your audience to reflect on their own situation. Whenever you know you have something in common with your audience, state it.

Why does this work?

You-focused check-ins work because of the following speaking truth:

When they reflect, you connect

In a sense, when you keep having your audience reflect on their own lives (i.e. facing reality, stepping on a scale, having their children measured, being around a person who recently gave birth, placing blame, etc.) they continue to connect it to your story. Their reflection builds your connection and keeps them interested. After all, they know the story is not just about you but it’s also about them. They took part in it!

Remember, people buy into what they help create. You-focused check-ins make them part of the creation process.

 

Considerations when checking in with your audience

• They’re called You-focused check-ins for a reason. They use the word “You.” If you re-listen to that 2-minute speech, I guarantee you will find at least 20 “yous” in it. In fact, I counted 14 “yous” in the first minute alone. They are soft “yous” but they are “yous” nonetheless. I don’t like hard “yous” because they turn off audiences. Hard “yous” are when you say things like, “YOU have to do this and YOU have to do that.” That’s preaching. Soft “yous” are almost imperceptible.

 

• If you know you have something in common with your audience (i.e. kids), use a you-focused check-in and get the affirmation. That will keep your audience engaged because they can relate.

 

• When you check in with your audience, you should think about different you-focused questions you can ask them that get them to reflect on their own lives. However, as you have heard, you-focused statements work very well too. Mix it up. Ask some questions and make some statements.

 

• You can also briefly step out of your scene and look at your audience as you check in with them. Then, as soon as the quick check-in is finished, you can immediately go back into your story with your characters speaking to each other rather than continuing to speak to your audience.

 

• Really wait and acknowledge their response. For example, if you’ve asked them to raise their hands, look around the room and see them. Your audience wants to be seen by you so don’t do what many speakers do when they ask and ignore. If you make a statement such as “I don’t know if you’ve ever been around someone who just recently gave birth,” look for the nodding heads or smiles from people who are expressing “Yes, I have!” Then go on with your story.  

 

One Caveat with the Check-ins

Don’t take yourself out of the story too long with your check-in. If you do it will become invasive. Instead, be quick and subtle. If you leave the story for too long, it will simply frustrate your audience and soon they’ll give up following you.

Final thoughts:

When you check in, they won’t check out.

Most of the time my job is to tease you and make you wait for the breakthrough point but today I’m coming straight out with it. As you may know, speaking involves creating a series of scenes into which we bring our audience members. But the question is how do we bring them into these scenes? Well, the answer is simple.

To bring your audience members into your scene,  you should…

Literally place them somewhere in your scene!

For example, listen to these five very quick audios and answer the questions that follow. Imagine you are in my audience.

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Where were you in my scene?

Right, you were walking into the doctor’s office with my wife and me.

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Where were you in my scene?

That’s correct, you were on my phone.

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Where were you in my scene?

Right, you were in the passenger’s seat of my car.

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Where were you in my scene?

Exactly, you were walking towards me in the Chicago airport.

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Where were you in my scene?

Yes, you were sitting beside my wife and me on our old beat-up, black leather sofa.

Your “Re-living room”

 I once heard a speech coach say, “Don’t retell your story; relive it.” Absolutely. And now I’ve added, “And invite them into your re-living room.” In other words, give your audience members a place to sit (or stand) inside of your scene so they can witness your scene as it occurred.

Most speakers leave their audience on the outside looking in. You can have your audience on the inside living out the scene.

How do you place your audience into your scene?

You develop your scene and then you ask yourself, “Where can I put them so they see what I saw and hear what I heard?”

A huge mistake some speakers make

I’ve worked with many speakers who got really excited about putting their audience members into their scenes and then this is what I heard each time they started a new story:

• If you had been sitting with me, you would have seen…
• If you had been there with me, you would have heard…
• If you have been walking with me, you would have felt…
• If you had been…
• If you had been…
• If you had been…

 Stop! I created a monster! Doing it this way every time you start a story makes the speech stale.

 

2 Keys to Keeping your Scenes Fresh and Original

One: Be creative and mix up the way you place audience members into the scene. Don’t always use the generic, “If you had been…” Perhaps you can say, “Imagine being in my passenger’s seat when…” Another favorite way is to use a question and ask something like, “Have you ever had to sit on the middle seat on a plane…squeezed to death between two people? Well, I don’t mean to bring you back there but that’s how I felt for 15 hours.”  

Find creative, interesting, yet subtle ways to place them somewhere in your scene.

 Two: Realize that you don’t have to always bring them into your scene at the very beginning of your scene. There are times you can start the dialogue AND THEN invite them in. For example, remember the clip you heard that said, “If you had been sitting beside my wife and me on our old beat up, black leather sofa…”? Guess what? That invitation happens about a minute after my initial dialogue with my wife begins. It happens about a third of the way through the story.

So the lesson here is to mix it up. Mix up the language you use to place your audience members into your scenes. Mix up the time when you bring them into your scenes. And certainly mix up where you place them in your scene. In other words, don’t always put them beside you. Sometimes they can be walking with you, walking towards you, on your phone, on your sofa, a fly on the wall, etc.

Or you can use the following phrase made famous by Patricia Fripp: “I wish you had been there…”

Your options are endless.  

I’ll see you in my next scene!

When companies bring you in to speak, they don’t want a cookie-cutter presentation. They want you to customize the message and the experience just for their staff. Doing so means the difference between being re-hired time and time again (and building a lucrative business without much marketing cost) or doing “one-off” speeches, burning that bridge, and constantly struggling to find the next client.

Here are 3 Keys to Customizing Your Speech for Great Results

Customizing Key #1: Uncover a Story about them

Chances are, during your conversations with the client long before the presentation, you can uncover some stories about at least one person on their staff. In fact, many times you can use the conversations you have with them as the story. For example, I was hired to do a speech to all the staff at a School District in Virginia. Because I was referred to the Superintendent, he didn’t know me and he’d never seen me speak. So he grilled me to try to ascertain whether or not I would be as good as the speaker they’d used over the past few years.

As a speaker, what did I do? I used this grilling to my advantage by turning it into a story. Listen to this 1-minute audio that occurred towards the beginning of my presentation:

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The Mr. Turner story and other customization I did for this District deepened my connection with them. In fact, Mr. Turner pulled me aside after the speech and said with a laugh and in a good natured manner, “I have to call our old speaker and tell him we’ve found someone new!”

Customization Key #2: Speak their language

One of the other ways to customize is to speak the language your client shares with you. For example, one of the large corporations I spoke to this year gave me a breakdown of how they expected their staff to develop. They felt that 70% of their development would come from on-the-job training, 20% would come from relationships and feedback, and the other 10% would come from self-study. Well, I studied these numbers and used them in the following way (1-minute audio clip):

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Speaking their language and applying my formulas helped this audience see that I was on their side and it deepened the connection. In fact, they are rapidly becoming my biggest client as they continue to re-hire me. It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with customization.

Important point: Keep in mind you don’t have to change the structure to your speech. My 4 R’s to Remarkable Results message stays the same. It’s just that some of the content within the 4 R’s speaks my client’s language and includes at least one of their stories (or a story about them).

 

Customizing Key #3: Stress the Right Messages with your Stories  

As I’m sure you know, every story you tell has the possibility of making several points. The key to customization is to make sure you tell your story and make the right point for that particular audience. That’s why I keep not only a story file but also a Foundational Phrase File so I’ll know the various points my stories can make.

For example, when I speak to entrepreneurs and speakers, one of my points is “Your Dream is not for sale.” However, when I speak to corporate audiences, I can’t make that point. Why? Because, in most corporate situations, most of the staff are dreaming about working somewhere else!

In fact, early in my career I made the mistake of speaking to a corporation and using the story about “Your dream is not for sale,” and emphasizing that message. Later that week the meeting planner called me and said,

One of our Vice-Presidents was so fired up about your message that he…left the company

Whoops. Do you think I was ever asked to speak there again? Make sure your message adds value and doesn’t subtract employees.

Critical Tool for Customization:

Where do you get all this information about the client’s stories and competencies and wants, needs, topics to avoid, etc.? Well, there’s a tool that most successful speakers use and I call it my Pre-Program Customization Questionnaire. Click below for an example of the Questionnaire.

Pre-Program Customization Questionnaire

 This is a questionnaire you want your clients to complete preferably at least 30 days before the event. But don’t stop there.  

You should also have some conversations with your client because they’ll tell you some things on the phone (or in person) that they won’t dare write down on paper. The conversations and the completed Pre-Program Customization Questionnaire will give you the information you need to put the 3 customizing keys to work for you.

Final Thoughts:

Using the tools above will empower you to benefit your audience in many wonderful ways. By the way, have you ever studied the word “benefit?” Well, “bene” has its origin in Latin and it means “well” or “good.” So, basically what benefit means is you are a “good fit.” Customizing will make you a great fit for your client. And once you become a great fit, they want to try you on time and time again.

Do you want to connect deeply with your audience? Great, then take advantage of the spontaneous moments that occur during your prepared speech. How?

Well, before we get into how, let’s look at why. Why should you use spontaneity in speaking? After all, this is supposed to be a prepared speech, right?

Why Use Spontaneity?

Here’s a secret the most effective speakers know.

Your audience wants to be heard too!

They don’t just want to be passive listeners, they want to be active participants. This is why they laugh out loud. It’s why they make comments. It’s why they look at you to see if you’re really seeing them. In other words, they want your speech to be a dialogue rather than a monologue. Doing so will make you the kind of speaker that builds a connection and then deepens it throughout the speech.  

How can you Use Spontaneity?

One of my favorite ways to use spontaneity is to ask a question, listen for the responses, and then comment on those responses. For example, listen to the following 1-minute live audio clip from a speech I gave in Bankstown, Australia.

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Welcome back. Believe me, those spontaneous moments helped establish my connection with that audience and, throughout the presentation, thanks to more of those moments, that connection only grew deeper.

So how do you prepare to be spontaneous?

Use this quick 5-step process:

1. Think of a question you can ask your audience that is not rhetorical
2. Write down some of the responses you think you will receive. This will get easier overtime because you’ll actually be receiving responses and you can pick up the most common answers.
3. Construct replies for their most common responses.
4. Test your replies on your new audiences
5. Tweak your replies until they become short and humorous (if you desire humor in that moment).

You will soon find yourself making comments that seem spontaneous even though they will  be prepared. Don’t get me wrong, many times you’ll simply find true spontaneity in the moment and the right words will come to you at the right time. However, once that happens, guess what? That same spontaneous moment becomes planned spontaneity for a future speech! By the way, that’s why it’s so important to record your speech every time. Remember “What gets recorded gets rewarded.”

When you record your speech this time, you’ll know what to say next time

What does it take to be Spontaneous?

It takes guts. You have to be willing to leave your mental script at times and go with the flow of your audience. Then you must be able to seamlessly transition back into the flow of your speech without losing momentum. That’s why it’s important to internalize your speech rather than memorize it. Remember your speech anchor for anchor or idea for idea or scene for scene rather than word for word. I don’t know anyone who memorizes a speech word for word and uses effective spontaneity.

Three Caveats to Using Spontaneity?

1. Know when not to leave your speech in search of spontaneity. While there are many moments when it helps to jump on the spontaneity, there are some moments when you should not. For example, don’t leave a dramatic scene of your story in order to have a spontaneous conversation with your audience. That is a time when you should simply plug ahead with your speech, because you don’t want to relieve the story’s tension until you’re ready to relieve it. If it’s dramatic, keep it dramatic until you’re ready to bring us back up with humor. Make sense?
2. Try not to use so much spontaneity that it keeps you from ever finishing your message. That’s a sacrifice that will leave your audience disturbed. I have seen that happen to a speaker recently.
3. Don’t force it. The spontaneous moments will occur in every speech you give. You just have to look for them. It might be something someone in your audience says or does, or it might simply be a mistake you can turn into humor. However, don’t force it. If it’s not there, it’s not there.

I almost forgot 

Oh, and one last thing; not all spontaneity involves a verbal response. Sometimes the very best spontaneous moments you can have simply involve a smile, facial expression, or gesture that lifts up and lightens a moment.