56 Resonate
The instructions your high school speech teacher gave
you to picture the audience in their underwear is now
officially obsolete. Instead, you need to picture them
all in colorful stockings and tunics with superhero
emblems—because these are the heroes charged with
carrying your big idea to fruition.
It’s important to know what makes your audience tick
in order to connect with them. So how do you get to
know them and really understand what their lives are
like? What makes them laugh? What makes them cry?
What unites them? What incites them? What is it that
makes them deserve to win in life? It’s important to
figure this out because according to the former AT&T
presentation research manager, Ken Haemer, “design-
ing a presentation without an audience in mind is like
writing a love letter and addressing it ‘to whom it may
concern.’ ”
1
This section will help you create empathy
for your audience by brainstorming the attributes of
the hero and mentor archetypes.
Though your heroes might be lumped together in a
room, you shouldn’t view them as a homogeneous
blob. Instead of thinking about the audience as a uni-
fied clump when preparing your presentation, imagine
them as a line of individuals waiting to have face-to-
face conversations with you. You want to make each
person feel like you’re having a personal exchange with
him or her; it will help you speak in a conversational
How Do You Resonate with These Folks?
tone, which will keep them interested. People don’t fall
asleep during conversations (unless your conversations
are boring too. If so, you need help beyond what this
book provides).
An audience is a temporary assembly of individuals
who, for an hour or so, share one thing in common: your
presentation. They are all listening to the same message
at the same moment; yet all of them are filtering it dif-
ferently and gleaning their own unique insights, points
of emphasis, and meaning. If you find common ground
from which to communicate, their filter will more readily
accept your perspective.
As an option, you might want to create a narrowly
targeted message for specific people in the audience
so that your presentation comes across as a personal
conversation with the highest-priority individuals. Even
if only one person gets it—if it’s the right person—it’s
worth it!
You need to get to know these folks. You are their men-
tor. Each one has unique skills, vulnerabilities, and even
a nemesis or two. The audience must be your focus
while you create the content of your presentation. They
are so important, in fact, that the next two sections
of the book will revolve around the audience. So stop
thinking about yourself and start thinking about con-
necting with them.
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Get to Know the Hero 57
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