Value is a difficult thing to pin down. In any audience, there is bound to be a wide range of interests, needs, and wants. How do we decipher that array into a presentation which meets all expectations? Well, we can’t. There are too many variables at play, so we have to work on hitting the target for the majority of those who have assembled to hear us speak. There is a designated theme for the talk, hosted by an organisation whose members have aligned around a central set of interests. That is a good starting point to ascertain which angle of approach will be the best and most effective. Within that broad spectrum, we have our own areas of expertise and interest, and we seek the nexus of those two forces to find the right theme for the talk.
Having worked out which theme and approach will meet the needs of most of the audience, we need to look for our value bombs. What do we know which they don’t? What valuable experiences have we had, which they won’t have had? What dead ends and failed missions have we experienced, which they won’t have had as yet and will want to avoid? The process of elimination is at work here as we dissect our own knowledge bank and our host of experiences, as we draw on the resources we have available to us for assembling the talk.
There is a balance between talking about ourselves and making it relevant to the audience. Some speakers get that line of demarcation confused and spend too much time on their own glorious career. They forget the audience is not like us and have different drivers of importance to them. Our examples, from our own hard wrought experiences, are certainly powerful and appealing to an audience. However, we have to move from the specifics about us to the broader frame of reference to how the audience can apply the lessons we have learnt.
This is where the value transition takes place. We need to craft that transition carefully. This is what happened to me – the incident; this is what I learnt as a result – the insight; and here is what you can learn and apply for yourself – the application. This incident-insight-application formula is a very handy frame of reference to throw over the talk we are designing, to make sure we can draw out the value for the listeners.
Because it happened to us, it is true. Now what we deduce from the experience can be debated, but usually when everyone shares the same context, the chances are high that similar conclusions will be reached. This lessens the chances of an audience disagreeing with our findings. The application has to be broad enough to capture the various situations of those in the audience. There is usually a range of industry sectors, ages, genders and experience sets we have to appeal to.
A good way to cover off this variety is to think about what would be the top five possible applications of our insight for this audience. Probably we won’t get everyone perfectly included, but the chances are high we will get the majority catered for. Even if we use the rule of three and say here are the three best applications of this idea, that will usually be enough if we think that five is stretching things too much.
When we line up the experience, insight and application, the audience can all see that we are providing value, even if it happens that we are not hitting that particular person’s bullseye. That effort to make the talk relevant for the listeners will be appreciated and it shows we really know what we are talking about.
Pontificating is great fun, but audiences usually want the lessons on what not to do and what to do in that order. The risk averse nature of people requires that we outline where we failed as a warning lesson to others, that they should avoid doing what we did and save themselves a lot of money and trouble in the process. Everyone loves a good train wreck story, and I am sure we all have plenty of them to share.
The design stage of any talk is critical and so let’s make sure we are thinking value provision from the very start, as an overall guiding light before do anything else. What value do we have to offer and work from there to align that with the likely members of the audience for our talk. Include some “don’t do this folks” lessons and everyone will be happy.
