The YouBlog

Forget "Electrifying" - Think "Effective"

OH, THE PRESSURE . . . I was reading something by a well-known speech coach the other day. There were a lot of good, if familiar, bits of advice. And then he went on a thread that brought everything to a screeching halt. He exhorted his readers to "Be electrifying."
        Yikes! How do we do that?
        Most presenters struggle with how to keep their audience interested. And now presenters should electrify their audience? What a leap.
        Actually, it's a leap you shouldn't bother with. Trying to be electrifying is like trying to be funny or trying to be happy — you can't force it. Being happy, being funny, and being electrifying are by-products of other things, like shared experiences or flashes of inspiration or unexpected ideas.
        Audiences can be electrified by a speaker, but the sensation they feel is not because the speaker has willed himself to be electrifying. Rather, audiences get charged up by the ideas or moments they experience while in the presence of a speaker who is fully engaged with them. It's the insights or discoveries that the audience makes that fire them up and getting them thinking "Yes!" or "Aha!"
        And it's their flashes of energy that lift the event to "electrifying" status. Sure, a speaker has to be reasonably energized to get them engaged, but it's his or her ideas that matter most, not how big they smile or how boldly they stride across the stage.
        Give your audience something to care about — something to get excited about — and you'll get all the energy back that you can handle.

Zigging When Everyone Zags

REMEMBER THESE ADS? (click through to see the YouTube video, if you're getting this via a feed) Hal Riney's campaign for Gallo's Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers was a huge hit and catapulted the brand to #1 in its category.
        The reason I bring this up (beyond giving you a quick laugh) is that there's a terrific object lesson about NOT doing what everyone else is doing.
        Hal Riney was brilliant. He understood how — well, I don't know if he understood how to break through the clutter. Do any of us know that, as if there's a scientific formula? No. But what Riney did quite successfully was to challenge the status quo and work to find a different way to reach and affect his audience.
        And his story, in this video excerpt, of how the Bartles & Jaymes campaign came to life is a message for all of us.
        It was the mid-80s and wine coolers were suddenly all the rage. According to Riney, 50 or so companies were climbing on the "Wine Cooler Bandwagon". Conventional wisdom held that the ads should feature music and lifestyle images of the young people to whom the product was targeted.
        But Riney felt that if all the other advertisers were taking that approach, how could Gallo's offering stand out and become the #1 product? His approach was to do the opposite of what people expected. So instead of bright, bouncy shots of twenty-somethings cavorting on a beach with a wine cooler in their hands, he put two geezers on a porch and let them ramble on in homespun fashion about their lives and their wine cooler.
        It was a big success and indeed helped Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers become the #1 wine cooler (which was Gallo's objective).

What does this mean for you?
Don't just go through the motions. If an opportunity arises that really matters, don't just trot out the same presentation you've used before — and don't limit yourself to what everyone else is doing (or has always done). Think about other ways you might get your message across, then have the conviction (or guts?) to use one of those approaches.
        Maybe that means you won't use PowerPoint. Or you'll wheel in some big prop. Or you'll change the venue. Or you'll hand out kazoos and have everyone hum the punch line.
        Riney broke out of the rut of convention, and so can you. It just takes being open to new ideas.
        Meanwhile, as Frank and Ed said, "Thank you for your support." I appreciate your continuing interest in The YouBlog. :-)

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall . . .

THERE WAS ONLY ONE LINE from a new piece in the New York Times that directly spoke to us business-types, but it was a doozy. Even the title of the article — "Names That Match Forge a Bond on the Internet" — is seductively sneaky. Why? Because we care about ourselves, and anything that is like ourself has to be good.
        Here's the killer line: "... human beings are unconsciously drawn to people and things that remind us of ourselves."
        If you've read Robert Cialdini's book "Influence", you'll recognize this as one of his six Principles of Persuasion. The principle in question is Consensus, and the hook is that, when faced with uncertainty about a decision, we look to the actions of others — particularly similar others — for guides about how to act.
        So what does this mean for you?
        Well, the more you can help people see themselves in the visions you paint or the stories you tell, the more likely they are to buy into what you're proposing. That's why testimonials and case studies can be so powerful, particularly if the person or situation is close to the ones you're currently trying to influence.
        And that's why using phrases like "... similar to your situation ..." or "... just like you're facing ..." are so important. You help them see that this will work for them, too.
        As an added benefit, when you're talking about someone else's situation and results, you're NOT talking about features of your product or service. You're letting the most critical element — what they'll achieve — shine through. And that's the most persuasive approach of all.

What If There Were No Speeches?

I HAVE TREMENDOUS RESPECT for people who get up in front of others to share ideas. I have tremendous respect for the people who help them get up there, and for organizations like Toastmasters, and bloggers like Garr Reynolds (whose post on The art of the teleprompter sparked my thoughts today).
        My greatest respect, however (and it should be yours, too), is for the people listening to others speak. They're giving the gift of their time, in exchange for the hope of finding something that will influence their lives. Notice I didn't say "hearing something", but rather "finding something." There's a significant difference. Hearing is a passive act. Taking what you've heard and connecting that with what you already know is active.
        And isn't that what every speaker really wants to do? Change minds, change behaviors, even change the course of history (since we're in the throes of a political campaign here in the U.S.). Some feel they need bold language, stirring rhetoric, and sound bites they hope will endure forever.
        But it isn't about sound bites, not if you really want to move people to action. Of the last nine U.S. presidents, there are only two sound bites that have stuck with me: John Kennedy's famous "Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country." and Bill Clinton's mantra in 1992 "It’s the economy, stupid." Kennedy's was certainly scripted, but it's memorable because it made a personal connection with the audience (which can't be said for the other seven passages cited in that Wikipedia link). Clinton's, on the other hand, grew out of a sign posted on his campaign headquarter's wall. It works because it's so conversational — and because it boiled the whole campaign down to four very human words.
        And it's that human connection that makes all the difference. This applies whether you're a presidential candidate, the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or someone who is trying to rally support for a cause in your community.
        "Fair enough", you're probably thinking, "but why the provocative title and goofy lyrics above?"
        Because most "speeches" are dull exercises in turgid text. They're not conversations, they're boatloads of logic and grand language. Do they inform? Maybe. Do they motivate? Rarely. Do they bore? Frequently.
        Which takes me back to Garr's post today. Garr's writing and insights are excellent — that's not what set me off. It was looking at the unfortunate piece on John McCain AND (for me) the less-than-inspiring clip of Barack Obama (at least the first two minutes, which was as far as I got). While Obama is clearly far more at ease with the teleprompter than is McCain, they're both still reading.

WHAT IF either of them had instead stepped out from behind the podium, looked straight at the people in front of them, and said "Here are the three things I'd like to discuss with you today." And then they had a conversation. No scripts, no memorization, just really human interaction, where ideas get exchanged, we get to see the person underneath all the (former?) rhetoric, and we make a personal — individual — connection with that person. My God, you really could change the world.
        I am a realist, however, so I don't expect to see that in the U.S. political arena. But you can, and should, take any and every opportunity to throw the script away and just have an open, engaging conversation with your audience — whether you've got three people or three thousand. It's that connection that matters, not flowery language. If we can move people's hearts, we can move their heads.

[Note]
Doing away with "speeches" doesn't negate the value of Toastmasters or speech coaches. On the contrary, seizing opportunities to share ideas is fantastic — just make sure it's conversational and fresh and human, not stiff or formal. And everyone needs an editor and an extra, discerning eye.