Our audiences are interested in their own problems and how to fix them.  This is old news to anyone who has studied the arts of rhetoric, persuasion, and of course advertising.  If you can define the problem faced by your audience, you build your credibility and engender in them a need – an itch – to solve the problem.

So how and when can a public speaker talk about the problems of the audience?  The answer is: right off the bat.

A few years ago at Cisco, the sales organization got together for a major overhaul.  Individual sales guys were hoarding client information, which benefited them but undermined the progress of the enterprise and the quality of the company’s service.

Among the speakers was a young woman speaking on a new subject: the data warehouse.  She stood in front of a large auditorium filled 99% with men, and said simply, “Cisco, we have a problem.”

You could have heard a silicon wafer drop.

She went on to describe the problem, its causes and consequences, and only after she had finished her problem definition did she introduce the solution: the data warehouse.

There is a point at which the presentation skill of problem definition becomes tedious.  But it doesn’t come as soon as you think.  If you truly understand the issue, and tell stories that illustrate the problem, then you have got the audience hooked emotionally and intellectually: they are going to listen hard to your problem definition, and your proposed solution.

You may get push back, because every idea gets scrutinized by critics and skeptics, but that’s good – they are pressure-testing your reasoning.  And it’s better to get them involved in a discussion than to have them ignore you.

The presentation skill of problem definition helps your audience move forward in the right direction, creates dialogue, and gives birth to creativity and innovation.  Plus it makes you look like one smart cookie.

Good presenters are problem solvers.
Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

When we watch American Idol, we may talk about the competitors’ singing skills, but what we really care about is whether or not they created a little moment of magic for us.

When we go to the symphony or the opera, we may discuss the mechanics of the fingering required of the first violinist in Bach’s B Minor Mass, but what we really care about is the enchantment we experienced, the transport we felt as we were taken out of ourselves by the music.

When we attend a business presentation, we may momentarily think about the presenter’s ease and comfort at the front of the room, but what we care about, and remember, is the value of the experience, what we learned, and how much it shed new light on an issue important to us.

Our audiences want to get our big idea, and have that idea illuminate their battlefield like a flare, so they can do business better, or make a better decision.  They don’t give a hoot about our presentation skills unless they’re having trouble grasping what we’re trying to say.  They’re looking for an “Aha!” moment, not for body language or eye contact.

It reminds me of my transition from theater into business.  In theater we spoke about the truthfulness of the moment, about what the actor was trying to say with the words, about his expression of intention, his ability to be in the moment – responsive and alive to the immediate circumstances.

In business, I was suddenly engulfed in conversations about the mechanics of speaking – how to stand, gesture, move, and use your eyes.  It was all about appearing, and not about being – being enthusiastic, being full of conviction, being able to bring new ideas to life.

I recognize that actors have scripts written for them – scripts they memorize, and that they are pretending to be passionate, or ambitious, or sly.  So do we.  But the audience doesn’t want to see acting skills.  Acting skills are a given.  The audience wants to be deceived to such an extent that they believe that what is happening on the stage is really happening.  That it’s real.  We want to suspend our disbelief, and live vicariously through the dramatic (or comedic) struggle to which we are witnesses.  Otherwise, without the illusion, we don’t get the emotional kick.  When we see the mechanics, the illusion is destroyed.

The art of presenting lies in hiding the art.  As long as you can suspend the audience’s disbelief – in other words, get them to believe in you and your message, you’re doing your job.

Your skills are in service to the creation of value for the audience, and like all good servants, they’re at their best when they don’t draw attention to themselves.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

The key difference between a live presentation and an online presentation is the challenge of holding attention.  An audience member sitting in his underwear scarfing a bagel, holding a baby in his lap, and flipping through emails on a Blackberry is a hard guy to connect with.

If the same guy were sitting in a room with his colleagues and bosses, he would be more focused, making an effort to impress his colleagues and bosses with his seriousness of purpose.

How to grab and keep him?  Here are some webinar tips to capture and keep attention:

• Base your presentation content on a case study your listener can see in his mind.
• Or, focus the content of the presentation on a relevant business problem.
• Spend less time per visual to keep the scenery changing.
• Write sentence headlines on slides to get the BIG IDEA across.
• Keep visuals real simple, preferably graphical.
• Require interaction.  Give quizzes using multiple choice questions.  Then give the correct answers, and show how many listeners got it right.
• Do this often to increase retention of presentation content.
• Move through the agenda reminding them where they are on the journey.
• Use a conversational style.  Or have two presenters in conversation.
• Rehearse a lot.
• Time your rehearsals.
• Have some one in the room with you to look at and talk to so you feel and sound more natural.

Like drugs, technology has side-effects.  Online presentations isolate listeners, where their attention can wander.  The peer pressure and expected behaviors of an actual live gathering of people tends to make people more focused.

You can reduce the risk of losing them, and talking to the void, by using some of the presentation techniques mentioned above.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.