In the opening scenes of The Wizard of OzF1.1, Dorothy runs away from her Kansas home and promptly encounters Professor Marvel, a seedy, itinerant con artist whose tacky traveling wagon advertises him as “Acclaimed by The Crown Heads of Europe.” He offers his services to “Read Your Past, Present, and Future in His Crystal Ball.”
Professor Marvel, played marvelously by Frank Morgan, takes one look at the naive girl, glances down at her suitcase, and says, “You’re running away!”
Having missed his glance, Dorothy asks wondrously, “How did you guess?”
The Professor replies, “Now, why are you running away? No, no, don’t tell me!” He looks off pensively, as if conjuring some magical power. Then, as if having divined a vision, he says conclusively, “They don’t understand you at home!”
The wide-eyed girl smiles and says, “Why, it’s just like you could read what was inside me!”
The Professor then offers Dorothy a crystal ball reading and asks her to close her eyes and concentrate. As she does, the Professor quickly rummages around in her basket. He then proceeds to describe what he pretends to see in the crystal ball, referencing the items in the basket.
Clearly, Professor Marvel is a charlatan, but we can learn a positive lesson from his trickery. He was able to connect with Dorothy and establish her trust by referencing relevant facts about her. The lesson here is that presenters can connect with their audiences by making references to relevant facts about individuals in the audience or about the audience as an affinity group.
Such connections are rare in today’s presentations. Pressed by the demands of business, most presenters pirate their colleagues’ slides, do minimal preparation, and then dump a load of generic data on their audiences, who, to all intents and purposes, would have been better off accessing a canned webinar.
Finding relevant facts that can customize any presentation doesn’t require manipulative glances, the covert services of a private investigator, or an army of academic researchers. You can use seven simple techniques to build powerful connections with any audience.
You don’t have to pose as a Professor Marvel, but you can make your audience marvel at your efforts to connect and personalize.
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