Have you ever reconsidered a memory of a person (& then renewed respect for that person too?)?
This is a favorite story about a diplomatic decision my Grandmother made years ago; it was a guest post submitted to Women Grow Business recently. It’s stayed on my mind a lot.
What do you think?
What people in your life have you negatively judged but later, re-perceived their decisions (& assertion) in a positive light?
Here’s a 90 second video … or a story summary follows below too.
It all started with (6) small business owners presenting at a conference’s lightning round.
Each speaker spoke for app. 5 or 10 minutes only. They all demonstrated their own unique qualities as speakers. And the same time, their approach to content & format had traits in common: they were informal yet still informative, engaging, and story-centric.
This speaker slate set the audience’s expectation for what the lightning round would be like.
Then something completely different took the stage.
A sales representative from one of the event’s sponsors started a 20 minute sales pitch. Yikes.
Certainly a sponsor has a right to work with conference planners on how they will engage with attendees. But this sponsor’s presenter disengaged the audience by coming across as a plastic salesperson wanting to validate product (vs really help listeners in the room).
It begs the question: was there a more effective way for the sponsor to promote their product?
Criticism was striking. And it changed my speaker preparation checklist forever.
The negative reaction from the in-person audience and also reactions on Twitter were significant. Overall the event was a great small business conference (the Grow Smart Biz Conference here in DC) with a diverse, strong speaker slate.
This experience however has added (3) questions to my speaker preparation checklist to always address: Is my presentation style and tone compatible with what the audience expects? And is that style going to compliment or contradict other speakers at the event? As in, does the audience expect a sales pitch or another type of approach to engagement?
It was fantastic to visit the Lincoln Memorial with Diana recently and to discuss President Lincoln’s historical address.
How can a two minute speech make such an impact?
President Lincoln’s words from 1863 moved our broken nation toward a healthier ideal (with the fantastically resonant address being just two minutes long).
Above is a 90 second clip of our adventure – and a written transcript follows too!
<< Transcript >>
(en route to the memorial in a cab!)
Jill:
I’m here with a great person.
Diana:
Hello, everybody. I’m Diana Marin, I’m with Jill Foster right now and
we’re going to the Lincoln Memorial. Guys, you’re going to enjoy the speech.
(from inside the memorial)
Jill:
So we’re here on the left side of the Lincoln Memorial where wonderfully
engraved is the first portion of Lincoln’s speech “Four scores and seven years ago” it’s
kind of giving me goose bumps.
Jill to Diana:
You said some fantastic things earlier about what
really stood out to you about the speech. Do you want to share briefly on that?
Diana:
Sure. Oh the speech was great, so I want to say mostly for me
[the best part was] when he said “Conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that
all men are created equal.” So for me he defined war as an effort dedicated to all these
principles of liberty and equality for America. This is the country of freedom and just
like that he’s considering all the places around the world [that aren't free]. And
he wanted to continue for us to believe that we still have freedom and that we are equal,
it doesn’t matter if we are girls or boys or black or white or brown or yellow, it doesn’t matter,
so for me that was great.
Welcome!
Today’s post was originally submitted as a guest feature to the great community at Women Grow Business. These thoughts are offered in a few ways: (90) seconds of video embedded here or also a written summary follows too, whatever suits your preference.
What is going on?
What am I going to learn?
How is this relevant to me?
These are driving questions an audience immediately wants answered when you or any speaker takes the stage to give a speech. The first question is the biggie and represents the audience’s natural craving for orientation to the speaker’s purpose.
Lead ‘em to clarity
An audience wants a sense of partnership with us, trust that we the speaker will lead them to some level of understanding. This was really crystallized for me when collaborating with a colleague this week on her speech. She was exuberant about her story; her content was great too.
She was in the initial storyboarding and brainstorming phase. And she wanted to inspire specific reactions in her audience. We were writing ideas on a whiteboard together when…
She stopped, looked me in the face, and said:
“But I really love this particular story. I think the real thrust of my message is right here.”
That’s when I asked we stop for a minute and said: “You just answered the driving question for the audience of ‘what is going on with this speech!’ ”
It was the needed gravity and purpose that the audience would seek.
It caught us both off guard.
When we first started storyboarding, both of us assumed other stories and anecdotes would be priority for her content. But the storyboarding process led to a certain memory, a professional experience that was more conducive to her audience’s expectations. She became more alive when focusing on this perspective; and her clarity of mind heightened too.
That was a welcome surprise (pay dirt!) in preparing the rest of her content.
It was the driving momentum for this speech; in light of her expertise and her specific audience, it’s definitely the story her audience needs to hear.
What about you and your approach to speech prep? Does storyboarding ever produce unexpected surprises regarding content?
