What's Your Message

by Cam Barber

  Think about a typical person in your audience. Their mind is full of to-do lists and daydreams, and you walk on stage. They’ve sat through boring presentations in the past and wonder if yours will be interesting. They look at you… pondering how much attention to give.

  The overview ensures you start with clarity and certainty.

  We know that all anxiety is caused by uncertainty, but we haven’t yet focused that idea on the audience. When your listeners are uncertain about where your presentation is going, or whether you’ll be covering things of interest to them, they feel a little uncomfortable - uncertain. Yet when you make it clear where you’re headed, and they can see your talk will be relevant, they feel strangely satisfied. When you put them into this comfortable state at the start of a speech, it activates their minds and makes them feel better about you as a speaker.

  An optional introduction

  The overview is simple and reliable, but short. An introduction is one way to add ‘flavour’ to your presentation. It can include any creative idea, such as those listed later in this section. For example, a story, quote, metaphor, top and tail, provocative question, etc.

  You may have noticed that the top row of the Chunk Structure diagram includes 3 grey boxes. They are: 1) Scene setting, 2) Creative opening & closing and 3) Personal view.

  1. Scene setting

  The scene setting part of your introduction can be used to cover things like: the situation that led to this talk, your role, your company’s credentials or ‘housekeeping issues’ like where the coffee is, when you’ll break, if there is a handout, etc.

  This is also the time for the awesome “Just before we get started…” tactic covered in the first pages of this book. This technique can transform a cold or hostile environment into a relaxed and welcoming one. When you walk out as the speaker, the silence in the room, and all the eyes focused on you, can seem empty, cheerless and a little daunting. If you don’t do anything to address this energy void, it may take a long time for the room to warm up on its own.

  A lot of speakers mistake this common, understandable starting energy as a difficult audience. They walk out and think, ‘Oh god…this is a tough room!’ But, if you take on what you perceive as ‘the negative mood of the room’, you set it in stone. You might think, ‘They’re all serious here, so I’ll be serious too’. And you just hope somehow it will change.

  But why would it?

  As soon as the audience sees that you’re serious, uncomfortable or formal, they think ‘Ok, that’s the style of this talk’ and follow it as well. It becomes a self-reinforcing loop between speaker and audience.

  But you don’t have to fall into this trap. Think of it this way: there is no existing ‘mood of the room’, because they are all waiting for you to define it!

  The beautiful thing is that you, as the speaker, have much more power and control to reset the mood of the room than you realise. So, even if it’s a cold room, you walk in and say very casually… ‘Just before we get started…’ And everybody relaxes. The pressure of the start dissolves, and we are in conversation mode. Here are some examples:

  Just before we get started, I want to ask you a question, tell me… (and then ask them a question)

  Or…

  Just before we get started, let me give you some background on why we’re all together in this room today… (and then give them the background)

  Or…

  Just before we get started, we’re talking about a project update today, but let’s look at why this project is happening in the first place… (and then explain).

  You can use this technique to ease into a presentation, get your pace right, ensure your breathing is comfortable and adjust to the room.

  2. Creative Opening (top and tail)

  You can use an introduction to pique interest or paint a picture with a story, chart, dramatic statement or provocative question. For example:

  “We will never run out of oil.”

  “Half of what you know about health is wrong.”

  “Imagine living 100 years ago…”

  You can be as dramatic as you feel is appropriate, but make sure your creativity is linked to the message you want them to remember. There’s no point in having them remember your inventive opening, then forget your message. The best way to link your creative opening with your message is to think in terms of a ‘top and tail’.

  A ‘top and tail’ means starting your speech (the top) with a statement or idea, and then ending the speech with the same statement or idea (the tail) by linking it to your final message.

  For example, start by holding up a document titled ‘Peak Oil’, (which states that the world is running out of oil) and say ‘Today I’ll explain why we will never run out of oil’. Then go through your presentation showing the new oil discoveries. At the end you hold the document up again as you state your message that we’ll never run out of oil, supported by your key points. (You could even rip the document up at the end if you like the drama of it).

  Your ‘top and tail’ might simply start with a quote that relates to your message. At the end, you recall that quote and link it to your message.

  3. Personal view

  If you have a strong opinion about the topic, or think it’s especially important, tell them so at the start. Sharing your emotions can have great impact. A personal view might include your reason for speaking, your excitement or your disappointment. For example:

  “Before we get into the details, I’d like to recognise how hard the team has worked on this proposal. I’m really proud and excited with what we’ve come up with. So let’s have a look at it…”

  Or…

  “Today we are reviewing the quarterly sales figures and I think we have a problem! The numbers are really disappointing. It breaks my heart after all the hard work we’ve put in. [Pause] Ok, this presentation is about a smarter way to increase sales.”

  So, the introduction can include the options listed above, or others that you cherry-pick from the next section. Use your own judgement, however a shorter introduction is usually better than a long one.

  HOW TO END A SPEECH

  The universe has no end.

  Doesn’t that blow your mind a little? When you look up in the sky, it doesn’t end. Ever. Han Solo and Chewbacca could travel at light speed in the Millennium Falcon forever, and they’d never get to the ‘far reaches of the galaxy’, because it just keeps going on and on. (Which is what some presentations feel like.)

  This is difficult for humans to fathom. Our brain can’t process things that don’t end. Yet this creates an opportunity to satisfy people’s craving for completion. With a tidy ending, your audience will process everything you‘ve said with less effort, and find it easier to remember.

  Last words linger. Don’t waste them

  The end of your talk is automatically a focal point for your listeners. The point in time where you say your last words, is the most favourable time to embed a message. However, it’s amazing how many presenters seem surprised by the ending of their own talk! Have you noticed this? The final slide comes up and the speaker says,

  “Oh, um, I guess that’s it. So… any questions?”

  This is your big ending?! Certainly not the way to gain credibility and clarity at the end of your talk. The end of your presentation is your golden moment to leverage all the words you’ve said up to that point.

  A weak ending diminishes your credibility. Why? When the audience doesn’t get the structure they crave, your ideas seem a little weaker, less important, less memorable, less complete. And because you’re the speaker who delivered this unsatisfying combination, you don’t appear to have as much authority. There are a few options in the way you end, so it’s helpful to think of the end as having 2 stages:

  1) Your wrap-up.

  2) Your final message.

  Your wrap-up

  A wrap-up can include a recap of your main points. This might be as simple as repeating ‘bottom line points’ from the end
of each chunk. It’s not required, but might flow well leading up to your message, especially for long talks. Test it out loud to find out.

  Your wrap-up can also be a setup for your big ending, like Steve Jobs’ Stanford Speech where he told a story that put his final message in context. The wrap-up might be where you tie up your ‘top and tail’, referring back to a point you mentioned at the start so you can then link it to your message.

  Your final message

  And now it‘s time! Time for your final message. So, face the audience. You can indicate to your audience that you know it’s the end, by taking a breath. Or pausing. Or saying something like, ‘To wrap up,’ ‘In conclusion’ or ‘Here’s what to do next’. This sets their mind up for your memorable statement.

  Your Message Statement now has a uniting power. It coalesces all your information into a satisfying, recallable, transferable summary. The ending message helps the audience see the logical flow of your information and it ties your presentation up with a bow.

  OPTIONAL TECHNIQUES TO ENGAGE YOUR LISTENERS

  The techniques to further engage your audience are grouped into 3 areas. You can use them to:

  • Provoke the mind of your listener

  • Connect with your listener

  • Activate the mind of your listener.

  How to PROVOKE the mind of your listener

  Here are my favourite ways to provoke the listener’s mind to ensure they’re engaged.

  [a] You may be thinking …

  The first is called the ‘You may be thinking…’ technique (YMBT). It counters objections or concerns that may block the absorption of your ideas. Many speakers are relieved when they finish their presentation without anyone from the audience asking them difficult questions.

  This is a fool’s paradise. Most people who have concerns don’t mention them. Research shows, that for every person who complains about a product or service, there are 19 others who were unhappy but chose not to say anything. In other words, only 1 in 20 people will speak up.

  It’s the same with your audience. Most people who have concerns or objections that might make them resist your ideas, won’t say anything. But these unaddressed concerns can kill your project. Your listeners need their objections neutralised. This technique raises the concern and then satisfies it with a reasonable response. Here’s how to use it: work out the questions or concerns your audience might have, then state them like this:

  “You may be thinking… [state their question or concern. Then state your response]”.

  When this technique is done well, your question provokes their mind, then satisfies it with your answer. Below is a form you can use to 1) write down the question or concern in the language the audience would use, and 2) write your response.

  Here’s an example of how it might sound:

  “You may be thinking, the price is too high. Well, that’s a common concern, but when you factor in the life of the product, it’s actually more cost effective than the alternatives.”

  Benefits to the YMBT technique

  Here’s a machine-gun list of benefits for the ‘you may be thinking technique’. It demonstrates you understand their perspective, building trust as a result. It dissolves objections, making people more open to your message. It creates a ‘dialogue feel’. Your presentation feels 2-way rather than one-way. This is more engaging. It reduces the cognitive effort required by the listener to explore the idea, so you are easier to listen to. It builds commitment. They feel more satisfied the ideas have been explored objectively, and you’ll never be surprised by a question on stage, because you’ve identified them beforehand.

  [b] Metaphors

  A good metaphor paints a rich picture in just a few words. It’s a figure of speech or a comparison, where a word or phrase ordinarily used for one thing, is applied to another. In it’s most basic form it works like this:

  A [first thing] is a [second thing].

  For example, ‘life is a roller coaster’. Well, it’s not actually a roller coaster, but it might feel like it sometimes. The metaphor adds a strong emotional and visual image to the idea. And it provokes the mind into action by compelling your listener to make a comparison.

  Metaphors are a great way to see a subject from a different angle, or express an idea in a vivid way. Metaphors engage the mind because when you compare 2 unlike things, you create mental images in the mind of the listener automatically. What an amazing power to have! With a few words you force activity in the mind of another person.

  We’ve seen how the coach of Hawthorn Football Club used metaphor, describing the opposing team as a ‘shark’ which will ‘die’ if it stops moving. This was a powerful way of getting across the idea of relentless tackling to ‘kill’ the other team’s game plan.

  Einstein became the most famous person of the 20th century, not just because he was smart, but because he was able to communicate complex ideas in simple ways. He often used metaphor to do this. For example, when asked his opinion on the new theory of quantum physics, he rejected it with, “God does not play dice with the universe”. When talking about the atrocities of war, he said, “Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.” And when he wanted to get across a point about crowd thinking he said, “In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must, above all, be a sheep”.

  Einstein also used metaphor to simplify new ideas. Here he is explaining the new technology of the day:

  “You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.”

  Here’s another Steve Jobs example. After launching the new iPad tablet, Jobs was asked if tablets would succeed the laptop. He responded,

  “When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, because that’s what you needed on the farm. But as vehicles started to be used in the urban centres, cars got more popular. Innovations like automatic transmission and power steering and things that you didn’t care about in a truck as much started to become paramount in cars. PCs (personal computers) are going to be like trucks. They’re still going to be around, they’re still going to have a lot of value, but they’re going to be used by 1 out of X people.”

  So, laptop and desktop computers are ‘trucks’, and tablets are ‘cars’ that are easier to use.

  Props as metaphor

  I use a prop as a metaphor. It’s a simple red ball. I tell people the red ball is their message. When I throw it to someone in the audience I tell them it represents the speaker transferring a message to the listener. Then, I ask the person who caught it, to throw the ball to someone else in the audience. This represents the message being transferred to others.

  This simple prop gets an idea across quickly and with great recall. We even used the metaphor in our logo.

  I’m sharing this with you so you can see how to develop your own metaphors. The red ball came about because I went through the exercise of saying, ‘A message is like…’ …well, it’s like a thing flying through the air between the speaker and the listener, um, like throwing and catching a ball.

  All you need to do is say the following out loud and maybe brainstorm it with friends…

  “This [project, idea, challenge, etc] is like…”

  …and see if you can come up with a kick-ass metaphor to embed in the mind of your audience.

  [c] Imagine…

  Here’s another technique Einstein liked - he explained a theory about the fact that nothing is faster than the speed of light, by saying:

  “Imagine you are driving a car in space at the speed of light: what happens if you turn the headlights on?”

  This is a metaphor with a boost - the word ‘imagine’. He brought a difficult concept to a level most audiences could understand and retain. The ‘imagine technique’ is another way of provok
ing the mind of your listener. It transports your listeners into ‘the picture’. I call these images ‘imagine scenarios’ or ‘living examples’. There are a number of ways to use ‘imagine scenarios’. Here are just a few:

  • Imagine… [paint a picture of the future].

  • Imagine… [outline the positive result if we do X]

  • Imagine… [outline the negative result if we don’t]

  • Imagine… [the problem solved]

  • Imagine… [experiencing these good/bad feelings]

  Guiding people through an imagine scenario makes them feel part of the story rather than just observers of it. That’s why the imagine… technique is used all the time in advertising. However, we can also learn from advertisers who use it poorly. It’s not a matter of just throwing in the word ‘imagine’. Remember to paint the picture for them. So, rather than saying, “Imagine the benefits of having more time…”, say:

  “Imagine what you could do with an extra hour per day…. write that novel, play more golf, relax more instead of rushing, etc.”

  Notice the imagery? Another example: instead of saying, “Imagine being able to call the USA for just 35 cents per minute”, say:

  “Imagine chatting to your family more often. Imagine seeing the small number on your phone bill and realising you can call your friends in the USA for not much more than calling interstate.”

  Instead of, “Imagine the speed of broadband internet”, say,

  “Imagine sitting at your computer and have pages load instantly as you click. No more waiting for pages to load…”