I was recently reminded of the importance of openings and transitions when presenting watching a new speaker in action. They were using the occasion to establish their business here in Japan. Like this speaker, most of us face an audience who don’t know us when we start speaking. They may have glanced at the blurb from the organisers listing our accomplishments and background, all proving we are a legitimate expert, someone people should listen to. Regardless of the massive self-promotion we passed across to the hosts of the event to send out to everyone, we still have to deliver the goods.
The audience enters the room thinking about a lot of things, but thinking about us isn’t the highest priority. They have that day at work to process what has happened so far. They also think about things they must do after our talk and what is coming up later that day or the next day. In other words, mentally they are pretty busy and then we turn up.
Usually, the MC will introduce us and set the stage for us. The quality of these introductions is scarily various. Some MCs are arrogant and won’t be guided by the carefully hand crafted, elegantly wordsmithed script we have laboured over. We have been working hard to marshal all of our key selling points, aiming to stack high our massive credibility. Whenever one of the MCs goes off piste, it is rare that they do a better job than what we have put together. They often get the facts wrong and miss the key selling points.
As the speaker, we should “insist” to the meeting hosts that the MC read out what we have prepared and not ad lib, freestyle or indulge themselves with our entry point to our talk. Be firm with this. Most people don’t give talks and don’t put their personal and public brands out there. They have no idea how important these small details actually are.
In this speaker’s case, the MC did a great job of selling them to the audience. What comes next is very important. We have to say something which grabs attention and sets the stage for the main points we are going to make. Remember, the entire crowd are fully obsessed with themselves and not us, so we have to smash through that mental preoccupation they have with their world and bring them into our world.
We should have received a list of company names and their positions before the talk. This is a big help. It allows us to gauge the temperature in the room. Are they experts or amateurs or a mix? Depending on who is in front of us, we construct our opening. We know they are all self-interested, so if we can open with something which appeals to that obsession all the better.
In this speaker’s case, the opening was all about them and not about the greatest interests of the audience. That was an opportunity missed. We need to connect us with what the audience is most interested in and typically with the thing they fear the most. We are all risk averse and we gravitate toward our fears before we head for our pleasure points. That means scaring the hell out of your audience is always a reliable starter to make sure they have forgotten all about the day and are now solidly with us in the room. Think about the hottest topics with the greatest sex appeal at the moment. Talk about that.
Always avoid controversial elements like politics and religion, though. As Michael Jordan famously said, “Republicans buy sneakers too”. We do not want to create hostiles in the audience, if we bag Trump or Biden in our opening. There are plenty of other scary topics to choose from and something closer to home is always best.
For example, in Japan, we have a major decline in population underway. That is an abstract idea for most of us. We just see the media headlines. We don’t really notice the decline though, because it is gradual. The trains seem just as crowded as ever, when we are going to work. However, if we can connect that to our own futures, we can bring that scary topic alive.
We can say, “It is good that we have a Government run pension scheme in Japan that we all contribute to. It is a worry though, that probably by the time you are ready to collect, your money may not be there. That scheme works based on the younger generation paying into the scheme, so you can get our money out when you are older. If there are not enough young people contributing, there won’t be enough money for you when you retire. That is what declining population means for most of us. Are you going to be okay when you stop working?”.
After hearing that opening, the audience will be all ears to hear what we have to say on the subject. They are expecting we come with a solution and they are ready for it. That staff meeting they have after this talk or them picking up the dry cleaning is now completely out of their minds and they are fully concentrated on us. This then sets us up the transition to the main talk where we outline our key points, backed up with evidence which is unassailable.
Our speaker didn’t manage to pull that off. Basically, they focused on themselves and missed the chance to really snag the audience’s fears and therefore their full attention. We can hit the listeners right between the eyes with our opening and then inject a short piece about ourselves before we transition to the main body. That is a much better approach, than jumping straight into talking about ourselves.
