Warm Them Up Before You Start

Icebreakers are a very yesterday tool. Facilitators who use icebreakers operate from a flawed theory of presenting. They think they need to use the first few minutes of their time building rapport and getting the folks in the room "warmed-up" to each other, the content and the presenter. This doesn't work.


A better theory is based on the fact that we have about 30-seconds to get buy-in from an audience member. This means that the "warming-up" needs to happen even before we officially begin - to maximize the power and effectiveness of those first, critical 30-seconds. In the classroom, this is called "bell work." This means you have something for the students to do from the moment they walk into the classroom, even before the bell rings and class officially starts. Here are a few techniques I use in my programs to get the audience members started even before I start...


Have music playing


Arrange the seating so they are forced to sit next to someone


Have an engaging question on a PowerPoint or easel pad


Have a set of engaging questions in a PowerPoint show (have the slides change every 5-10 seconds)


Get in the audience members' zone - roam the room, ask questions, listen


Give the audience an actual task to perform before the workshop starts - and make sure it is something that "laters" can do as they slowly stroll in


Most importantly, be in control of what the room feels like, looks like, and acts like even before you officially start!

Great E-Book for Professional Speakers

Scott Ginsberg is the Name Tag Guy. He has a number of valuable, relevant and straight-to-the-point E-Books and articles on his web site. His "234 Things I've Learned About Writing, Delivering and Marketing Speeches" is a great book for the professional speaker and a good one for any speaker.

Here is the link to the E-Book - http://www.hellomynameisscott.com/speak234.pdf

Here is the link to his website - http://www.hellomynameisscott.com

Enjoy!

Best Train-the-Trainer Book Out There!

If you facilitate groups on a regular basis (teachers, student leaders, workshop facilitators, corporate trainers, etc.) you need to invest in this book! I have read many of books like this throughout my 15 years of speaking and this one blows the rest out of the water! It is written specifically for teachers, but the learning principles are applicable across the board - particularly if your end goal is audience engagement, content retention and post-session behavior change!

Quantum Teaching: Orchestrating Student Success
Bobbi DePorter, Mark Reardon, Sarah Singer Nourie

Don't Bury the Lead

In journalism there is a principle called "burying the lead." This is where rookie writers hide or don't even know the main interest story in the story. They bury it down the page and readers get lost early and lose interest. Great journalist know that they need to start with the lead, throw it out there early, spark your reader's interest and then spend the rest of the words on satisfying this interest.

As speakers we need to remember this principle. Start with your primary point. Spark their interest. Get them asking questions. Make it relate to them. Give your audience a reason to listen to you and they will!

How to Communicate Like a Master

Here are three traits of improvement to learn how to be a masterful communicator (Masterful Communication is one of the ten PLI Essentials...)

Confidence.

Clarity.

Commitment.

How do you get there?

Confidence as a communicator is achieved through specific experience (understand what type of communication you need to be great at and then practice that) and by keeping your focus on others (the less you think about yourself, the less you think about how you can't do something or don't know something, etc.)

Clarity is achieved by communicating in concrete terms and by keeping your message very simple. Every communicator and speaker should read, re-read, and then re-read again Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath.

Commitment is achieved by deciding to deliver every time you have a communication experience that you know you need to hit out of the park and by deciding to improve your communication abilities every day.

Flexibility for the Audience

I had a client tonight say that the program I brought to their conference was the best ever (this was their seventh year) because they could tell I deviated from my "planned performance" to meet the needs of the audience. You can do this when you have...

1. An understanding of what an audience looks like when they need a change
2. An understanding of the timing it takes to make the shift successfully
3. Enough material to have a replacement pool to pull from

All three of these things come from just being out there speaking and from watching and learning from people who are great at it!

The Meat-Loaf Expert

Where should you go to get advice when sharpening your speaking skills? Think meat-loaf!
When I first took my speaking business full-time, I waited tables at an upscale restaurant in Tulsa to help make ends meet, [The Polo Grill]. The owner and executive chef said he made the best meatloaf in the country. I asked him how he knew. How can you really tell whether your meatloaf is better than another, first of all, and above that, how do you know that it is actually "the best meatloaf in the country?" His answer was that he sought out the leading expert on meatloaf (talk about a weird choice of profession) and he said it was indeed the best.

When you seek out advice on developing your technical speaking skills, make absolutely certain you seek out a "meatloaf expert" - someone who knows what works and what doesn't work for a broad swath of audience members. Anyone can tell you whether they personally like or dislike what you are doing up front, but that is just one opinion. Seek out a professional and have them tell you what to add and what to take away.

Make Your Message Stick

If you give presentations regularly, go right out and get a copy of "Made to Stick" by Dan and Chip Heath. I am half-way through the book after reading it for four hours because I am A) making notes on almost every page and B) stopping to work on ideas for my presentations that the book has sparked.

Buy it on Amazon

The Made To Stick web site

If you aren't ready to buy the book, then at least download this free manifesto from ChangeThis. The manifesto, written by the brothers Heath, is focused on strategy, but it discusses many of the key learnings from the book.

Manifesto Link

Holding Your Audience's Attention

A part of my business is training business professionals on the fine art of speaking and training within the context of their day to day work. The following tips are on how to hold the attention of a professional audience...

The average adult has a seven-minute attention span. Manage this by changing the way your group inputs information every 10-minutes or so. Options: listening to you, thinking about a situation, writing notes, discussing with a partner, group discussion, watching a video, etc.

Your employees have different preferred learning styles. Some are visual learners - they prefer to see information. Some are auditory learners – they prefer to hear or speak information. Some are kinesthetic learners – they prefer to feel information (either through physical or emotional movement). Your delivery methods should stimulate all three. Examples of how to stimulate each: visual – make notes on flip charts and hang them up around the room, auditory – allow the trainees to discuss with each other, kinesthetic – get them to move around the room every 30-minutes or so.

Attention fatigue can be heightened by the environment. To avoid this, try these strategies on: bright lights, cooler room, chairs that aren’t too comfortable, music playing, rotate meeting places, use your projector for videos/picture slide shows, sit your participants close to each other, put safe “play-toys” on the tables, etc.

Many trainees can be disconnected from the training because of unclear expectations or other misc. barriers to learning. Provide your group an opportunity to share their expectations for the day.

Keep your training or training-chunks short. Your trainings should not go longer than 90-minutes without a break.

Large Group Facilitation

1. Develop an eye for reading the current energy of participants and deal with that reality.
2. Always be in control, even in chaos.
3. Never sacrifice opportunity for process. Think nonlinearly.
4. Sew the group together. Allow them to connect with each other.
5. Make connections before, during and after.
6. Leverage numbers. Make a big impact with big activities.
7. It is absolutely vital to be seen and heard.
8. Utilize “ghost facilitators.” Create a communication chain.
9. Focus on the 90% that want to be there, not the 10% that have checked out.
10. Body language size needs to reflect the size of the audience.