exchange is a wonderful time to begin exploring other people’s worlds.
One of the greatest gifts you can give another human being is to listen to them fully. If you want people to like you, ask them interested questions about themselves. Most people are more focused on themselves than on other people. You can differentiate yourself by being interested in the people in the room.
When first meeting the participants, try to remember their names because it is a great rapport-building tool. If you use people’s names, it shows that you care about them. These memory techniques can help you remember names.
• Have it as your intention to remember the person’s name.
• Repeat the person’s name three times in the first two or three sentences of the introduction.
• Collect business cards. Arrange them on a paper corresponding to the seating pattern in the room. Having the business cards will help you remember the participants. The cards are also useful in accurately entering their information into your database.
• Make nametags or tent cards. On the nametags, make the first name bold so you can easily read it at a distance. The ideal place for the nametag is the upper right part of the chest so you can easily see it when walking up to someone to shake hands. Use people’s names during the presentation. This reinforces the relationship, helps you to learn their names, and is one of the many keep-alives or hello packets that brings the listeners’ attention back to the presentation.
• Ask people you know to introduce you to people you do not know. Why? Because the person you know is saying to his or her friend, “This person is a friend of mine.” This technique helps to build rapport faster, thus dismantling the firewall more quickly because you are using the leverage of an existing relationship to springboard into the private network of the new person.
There are not only firewalls between you and the audience but also between the participants. You are playing the role of host, so introduce participants to each other. If you know their common ground, tell them, because it provides an excellent starting point for their conversation. This common ground will also be beneficial later on during the presentation because you can use things you heard to help emphasize a point or acknowledge the contribution of a participant.
For example, if you know someone’s interest is fishing, you can use fishing analogies to illustrate the conversation. Using information that comes from a participant will make that person feel recognized and valued.
Have music playing. The music you select depends on the type of energy you want to create. You can play relaxing, smooth jazz, classical, up-beat music like classic rock tunes, or popular current hits. You could even play music from the culture in which the presentation is taking place.
Most presenters do not play music, so this differentiates you and makes your show a richer experience. Music helps to reduce tension in the audience, which reduces the need to maintain a protective firewall.
Food and drinks are another means to create a comfortable, intimate, and safe atmosphere. The greater the informality, the more disarming it will be. The goal is to create a space that will relax the defenses of the audience.
During the Presentation
Now that the connecting and gathering phase of the conversation is over, the official part of the presentation begins.
How can you massage the space and relax defenses so that the resistance to opening up and communicating is reduced? Facilitate participation as soon as possible. Get the audience to speak in the first three to five minutes. This will be easier if you have pulled a lot of bricks during the connecting and gathering phase.
I call one technique I use to accomplish this The Level of Expertise. After you have introduced yourself and stated the purpose of the conversation, say something like this: “Before I move on, I want to get a sense of your experience with the subject of the conversation. How many of you have been involved in it for less than a year? How many for two to three years? Five years or more? For how many is this a brand new subject?”
Ask the people with considerable experience follow-up questions. You can list the years of experience on a flip chart and have someone add up the years of experience the group (including yourself) has on the subject. This becomes the group database. This accomplishes three things: first, it pulls several bricks; second, it lets everybody know where the knowledge lies in the room; finally, it lets you adjust the gradient level of the conversation to meet the level of expertise in the audience.
Share stories and experiences with the audience. A story is a factual or fictional account of an event. Experience is active involvement in a particular activity. I believe that your most valuable content is your stories and experiences about the information you are presenting. If you don’t have any stories or experiences, you might have a credibility barrier with the audience. The audience wants certainty that what you are selling actually works. If you have no experience, you are less believable. It is like claiming to be a guide who can take someone from one point to another when you’ve never been to the final destination.
Another value of sharing stories and experiences is that they promote intimacy in the space. When you make yourself vulnerable, the audience will open up in return. The reason the audience has the firewall up in the first place is to protect and defend themselves from you. You are initially perceived as a threat because you are “not one of us.” Sharing stories and experiences makes you more “one of us.” It establishes greater common ground upon which to build the relationship.
When the audience sees you as open and vulnerable, they don’t need to defend themselves and so don’t need a firewall for protection. Stories and experiences are disarming. I would encourage you to share yourself as deeply as possible. Your sharing of self creates a more intimate environment in the room.
Being an authority on the subject matter gives you the confidence to project your energy into the space. The thicker the ice is under your feet, the more power you will have in the room. If you have not earned the right to talk on the subject at hand, you’re likely to be hesitant and uncertain in your delivery. Have you taken the time to plan and practice your presentation? Failing to plan is planning to fail.
Ideally, you should know thirty times more about the subject than you will be using in your talk. If you are an authority on the subject matter, you are standing on thick ice. You will be confident in your ability to fire the data across the space and you will have no fear of being asked a question that you cannot answer.
Listen to the audience. Put yourself in their shoes. What are their concerns, cultural background, loyalty to the conversation, and knowledge level? The audience is listening to you through their conditioned reality. The more you understand that reality, the better you will be at navigating past their firewalls and positioning the data in a manner they can accept.
Always allow the audience an opportunity to contribute to the conversation. When someone asks a question, it may be appropriate to let someone else in the audience answer.
Maintain eye contact with one person in the audience when you are delivering your data packets. Only speak when you have a solid virtual private network (VPN) eye contact connection. This automatically pulls you out from behind your firewall and ensures a high level of consciousness. The more conscious you are, the more effective your speaking will be. This is discussed in chapter four in the section on the Point of Focus.
Facilitate a conversation by asking the audience questions. Encourage the audience to participate.
