Chapter 1

Your Audience Speaks

I always sit in the quick-exit seats, the ones right by the door. When I attend a presentation, I want the option of escaping the clutches of a boring speaker who’s wasting my time. I’m amazed at the number of people who will politely sit in their seats, trapped by a speaker from hell. Their minds scream, “Shut up!” while their bodies fidget in disgust.

Early in my career as a presentation skills coach, I was asked to provide some one-day programs for the Oregon State Bar Continuing Legal Education speakers. These were lawyers who were presenting programs to their peers. To research the task, and to find out all about these programs, I attended one of the organization’s standard training sessions. Approximately 350 attorneys were seated behind rows of tables at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Portland, Oregon. You couldn’t see many faces, because most of the attendees were reading their morning newspapers. The news must have been really captivating that day, because when the speaker started to talk, most of the newspapers remained in their upright positions. Wait a minute; something’s out of place here, I thought. The speaker has begun, and most of the audience is ignoring him. And if that’s not enough, the speaker is ignoring their apparent total lack of interest.

My mission for this organization, and for the remainder of my professional life, became quite clear. I would train presenters to be so outstanding that in a setting like this, those newspapers would come crashing down. My job would be to help speakers captivate the audience and hold their attention right up to the closing line.

Defining a Strategy

I had a lot of questions. By what magic can people hold an audience spellbound? I was interested in the best. What’s different about the top 5 percent? What presentation pitfalls must be avoided? How could I find the answers and then teach the required skills to my clients? I distilled my curiosity into three questions, given in Figure 1-1, which I posed to over 1,000 businesspeople throughout the United States. In this chapter, you will learn the secrets of spectacular speakers—from the audience’s viewpoint. Their simplicity might surprise you!

The audiences represented a wide variety of occupations, including certified public accountant, engineer, company vice president, sales director, hairdresser, pilot, dentist, programmer, technical writer, financial analyst, pharmacist, secretary, and health care technician.

Figure 1-1. Audience survey questionnaire.

I administered the questionnaire at the beginning of the session, before the audience had a chance to be influenced by my training. I elaborated on the first question, asking everyone to consider the full gamut of speakers, trainers, instructors—everyone who, in their experience, had stood before two or more persons with something to say. Their choice could be a nationally known figure, a coworker, or the leader of a local scout troop. It was not necessary to remember the person’s name; it was acceptable to identify the person in some other way, such as “the keynote speaker for last year’s sales convention.” I didn’t want to place any limits on their selection. The detailed responses to my questions are summarized in the Appendix.

From the more than 1,000 responses I received, I randomly selected 200 for more detailed analysis. This review revealed a surprising number of similar perceptions that have become the cornerstone of my Speakers Training Camp. I share these findings with you, and I am confident that with this information, you can become someone’s favorite speaker someday!

1. Listen to Your Audience

Get ready for the three most important things audiences like about their favorite speakers—and the three most important things you’ll learn in this book. The audience responses were overwhelmingly weighted toward some simple advice to presenters.

Ranked according to number of responses, audiences say:

The secret to great presentations is not complicated at all. Audiences want a speaker who is outwardly excited about the topic, who uses bursts of humor, fun, and personal stories and examples to convey the message, and who is an expert in the topic.

2. Captivate With Steak, Sizzle, and Style

I packaged these concepts, giving them some snappy terms, and I refer to them as the three S’s of Spectacular Speakers (see Figure 1-2).

I categorized the survey’s responses into three areas: steak, sizzle, and style.

Figure 1-2. Spectacular Speaker’s triangle.

3. Work Harder on Your Sizzle and Style

Most respondents ranked style and sizzle above steak.

That’s right. Over half of the analyzed sample gave style (gestures, voice, personality) as the most desirable quality in their favorite speaker. About one-third stressed sizzle—stories, humor, anecdotes, audience participation—as most important. Only about 17 percent saw steak—information, content, message—as most important.

4. Avoid the Ten Terrible Turn-offs

Most people, at some time, have griped about something annoying that a speaker has said or done. Sometimes they’re even bored into oblivion. There is a wide variety of complaints. Reading a presentation is definitely a turn-off. A presentation with no pizzazz is hard for most to endure. The “uh” syndrome drives most folks batty. Nervous habits, speaking too long—the list is endless. But the number-1 complaint is not necessarily what you would expect. In fact, I was a little surprised to see that most of my respondents singled out, as the greatest turn-off:

Perhaps the audience interprets a monotone voice as a strong signal of lack of enthusiasm. If this is true, then lots of voice fluctuations and voice energy are needed to convey enthusiasm (which the audiences have indicated is their number-1 request).

After everyone had completed the surveys, I asked the individuals in the group to explain their answers. I could tell that when we came to the section about speaker complaints, “What is the worst thing a speaker can do to turn you off, bug you, even make you grind your teeth in agony?” the audience was eager to share their horror stories. They could hardly wait to outdo one another in the “worst speaker I’ve ever seen” department. It was as though they were unleashing years of pent-up emotions.

Audiences have a strong and eager voice when it comes to complaints about speakers. Here are the ten terrible turn-offs (in order):

Besides the top ten, there are additional things that can disturb the audience. Many of them seem petty, but they can be so grating to someone sitting in the audience that he or she will stop listening to the message. What a great way to take a personal inventory on possible blunders. Remember, the audience was asked to list the worst thing a presenter can do. The list of audience turn-offs continues (in no particular order):

5. Be Creative With Both Technical and Nontechnical Audiences

Finally, I was surprised when I compared the answers of one professional group with those of another. I had thought that engineers and lawyers, for example, would be most interested in the technical expertise of the presenters, whereas trainers and marketing professionals might lean toward more flamboyant, entertaining speakers. I was wrong! On the contrary:

Whether I was analyzing a group of computer experts, accountants, or salespeople, the same pattern emerged. Approximately 85 percent of the people in any group said, “Be dynamic.” “Motivate me.” “Entertain me.” Only about 15 percent were most interested in the bottom line, data, and facts.

Who says speaking has to be difficult? You just give the audience what they want, steak, sizzle, and style, and you avoid the terrible turn-offs.

6. Audiences Want Steak: Know Your Stuff

According to the audience members, here are the top seven things you can do to ensure that you are delivering just the right “steak.” Audiences say:

7. Audiences Want Sizzle: Be Interesting

Sizzle is what happens when you add some heat to the “steak.” It’s a message zipped up with interest, creativity, and entertainment. Among ways to do this, humor was the overwhelming favorite. That was expected. But what was interesting was that all types of audiences during all types of presentations ranked humor as the number-1 item they liked in presenters. All types of audiences like humor. They rank it as their favorite speaker skill. Even when the subject was serious or technical, the audience enjoyed a good laugh. When it comes to laughter, there are no dividing lines between professions. Laughter is universal.

The following are the top eight requests for sizzle:

In addition to humor, stories were also very popular with the various audiences. Listeners particularly enjoy personal stories and true-to-life experiences, especially those that relate to their world.

8. Audiences Want Style: Be Enthusiastic

Style comments cover (1) gestures and nonverbals (what we see) and (2) voice (what we hear).

For example, one attorney cited former President Kennedy as his favorite speaker for three reasons. He was:

Audiences want to see outward signs of enthusiasm in gestures and voice. Not one respondent preferred a soft-spoken, easygoing, mellow, laid-back style. Audiences are looking for outgoing personalities in their presenters.

Listed below (in order) are the eight most critical style components identified by the audiences:

Develop Your Own Steak, Sizzle, and Style

As my research developed and the concepts of steak, sizzle, and style emerged, I began using these three categories in my Speakers Training Camps. I found that the simplicity was just what my trainees wanted. Rather than bombarding them with an overwhelming amount of information, I decided to package the entire training into the three categories steak, sizzle, and style. I’d like to do the same thing for you. Keep it simple. Delivering presentations is not a monstrous task. Once you think in terms of steak, sizzle, and style, you’ll see how easy it is. The chapters in this book are also organized according to those three critical areas. You’ll learn ninety-three more ways to captivate a business audience.