The Worst Combination for All Speakers

Episode number five. Now, if there's one episode that you do not want to miss, it's this one. And I would suggest that you repeat it again and again and get this down because it addresses the number one reason why people blow up their presentations, the number one reason why people never get their voice and their message out to the world, and the number one reason altogether why people don't buy into what you have to say and don't listen to you. Okay, so listen closely. Let me start by asking you a question. When, when you go to give a presentation online, offline, doesn't make any difference whether it's three people or 3,000. When are you the most nervous? At the beginning of your presentation or the end? Yeah, of course, at the beginning. Second question. When is the group potentially the most skeptical? In the very beginning or toward the end? Of course, in the beginning because most of them, they don't know you, they're most skeptical. Let me ask you a third question. How long does it take for people to get an impression of you? How long? Seconds. That's right. Now, if you think about that, that is a horrible, horrible cocktail. That's a bad combination. And what happens is you're the most nervous, they're the most skeptical, they're making an instant judgment. Everybody knows that kind of subconsciously going on. And if you blow that first couple of seconds or the first several minutes, it's all downhill from then. Or worse yet, it's an uphill battle to come out of the hole that you just dug for yourself. Now, it's not like people are going to yell at you and boo you or anything, but they're just checked out. So this episode is about how do you engage right out of the gate in a way that makes you look the best? Enrolls them, they feel good about it. All kinds of subconscious things that go on. I have taught this to hundreds of thousands of presenters all over the world. And the ones that do it are the best. The ones that hear it but don't follow it, struggle. So listen very, very closely. Okay, so what happens is people start a presentation, you're a little bit nervous. I'm not even going to go into all the reasons people do that. I'm just going to tell you what to do. Number one. Okay, Number one. So write this down. Number one, prepare two closed ended questions. Two closed ended questions that are relevant to what it is you're talking about. So let's say you're talking about developing championship teams. So your first question, you start with a question you don't say good morning. You don't tell a joke. You don't say, how you doing? You don't say thank you. You don't say any of that. Listen closely. You start. The first words out of your mouth are questions. I'll explain why in a second are questions. And the question can be like, how many of you would like to be part of a real hot, high performing team? Thank you. Or and maybe another question, you could say, how many of you ever been frustrated at least one time in your life by other members of your team? Give me a show of hands. Say yes. Thank you. So what did I just do? Fert did a whole bunch of things. First of all, the Heat was on me, right? Everybody's looking at me. The minute I ask a question, I take over control. And now the heat's on you. The heat's on you. You have to think so immediately I forced you into engagement whether you like it or not. Now you add something. Like, if you're on Zoom, you would say, how many of you have been. If you've ever been. How many of you have ever been frustrated at least one time with a teammate? Give me a thumbs up if that's ever happened. Or type in yes in the chat box. Do that too. Okay, so. Or raise their hand depending on the number of people that you have on your call. Okay, so you start with those in questions. Now, why else are you doing that? Well, because. Because they get to know that you're real. Because you're not asking them stupid questions like, how many of you watched the baseball game last night? No, you're asking something that's relevant and it's a question that lets them know that you're not just some fluffy guy, that you kind of understand the problems and the concerns that people have. Okay? So you telegraph all these messages right up front in like a couple of seconds. So immediately you put them on notice. Okay, so you ask a couple of enrolling questions. Now the second thing you do. What's the second thing? Second thing you're going to do is to think about this. They're sitting there on this Zoom call. They have other things going on in their lives. They're texting back and forth. They've got all kinds of crap going on in their lives and they're not present. So how do you handle that? So after you ask your questions, by the way, every time you ask a question of a group, you say, right. You say, thank you. Excellent. Appreciate it, Whatever that is. Okay, so the next thing you do is you're going to acknowledge them for being there. Now, this seems kind of obvious, but most people skip it or they do it insincerely. So what that sounds like is, first of all, I know you have. All of you have very busy schedules. You have a lot of stuff going on, and you had to move some things aside to be here. Some of you are here by choice, some of you not by choice. I want you to know that I appreciate that. By the way, how many of you could be someplace else other than here right now? Okay, good. How many are still thinking about the other place? All right, good. Thank you. So I know that you have a lot of choices and maybe no choice at all, but I'm going to do my best to make sure that the time we're spending together is worth your time. And when you go back to whatever you're doing, you're going to be much more effective. If that's okay with you, give me a thumbs up. Okay, so let's stop for a second. What did I just do? I acknowledge them. We're going to talk about this in a second. I acknowledge what was already going on in their mind and got them present. I acknowledge the fact that they have other things going on. I know that it's a burden for them. I'm not trying to be all full of joy and power and all the good stuff that we're gonna talk about, that. That stuff gags me. And the average person does not see it as sincere. Okay, so be real. From the heart. Don't say something like, well, before we begin, I really want to thank you all for being here. Who gives a crap about that? That didn't come from the heart. That wasn't sincere. But, you know, I remember one of the times, my first program that I taught live, public program, I taught live, actually, Robert Kiyosaki and I, back in the early 1980s, we were both learning to present, and we did our first live program together. We were so nervous, we thought we'd just do it together. And you know what? Nobody showed up. Well, actually, that's not true. We had 100 chairs set up and only two people showed up. And one person was in the wrong place. And we never even did. Never even did the program. I mean, it was just a disaster. So now when I see people actually sitting in a room or on a zoom call, I am grateful because I know the pain of playing to an empty audience. And so just come from that place. Be real. Be sincere. I've said it before, I'll say it again. Presenting is a conversation. It's not a performance. It's a conversation. It's. It's not a performance. Okay, so what have you just done? So you've acknowledged them for being there, so now they're a little bit more present. By the way, all this has happened in like the first 30, 45 seconds. But you see what you're doing. You have set an environment or a context that is very different from anybody else that's going on to a zoom call. You've set a context of welcoming people in. You're asking the questions, and remember, the person that asked the question is always in control. So you're in control of the room and your energy is good and you've acknowledged them. You thank them for being here. Okay, good. You're learning something. Give yourself a thumbs up. Say, I'm learning something. I can't hear you, but I'm going to pretend I can hear you. Okay. All right, so what do you do next? What do you do next? Well, depending on the type of presentation, maybe what you want to do is you want to give them a real. A quick overview of what you're going to cover. So look, so we're going to be talking about. What are we talking? We were talking about teams, right? So we're going to be talking about how to build high performance teams. So three things we're going to cover is, number one, how to recruit the best players so you can have a great team. How many would like that? Number two is how to keep everybody accountable so that when, Pete, when, think, when stuff starts hitting the fan, that people still do what they say they're going to do. And number three, how to create an incredible tool. It gets people to create, to operate at their peak performance. How many of you guys would like that? Boom, boom, boom, boom. Not very fast now. Why? I mean, not very slow. I did it very quickly. Why? Why? Because I'm selling the presentation. It could be you're gonna talk about. It's a sales presentation. So what we're gonna cover are the research that we've done on your company and what we've. What some of the areas we found. There were some big gaps. Number two, and some amazing solutions that will allow you to increase your sales quite a bit. And number three, how to implement all that. Okay, so whatever it is, you just got to tell them real quickly so they in their brains are going, okay, I got it. I'm here for that. Now the next part is critical. The next couple steps are critical. Take a few minutes. Now, depending if you don't have a lot of time, maybe 30 seconds. 30 seconds to give a little bit about your background, who you are. Because what's the little voice in their brain saying? First thing they're saying, am I in the right place? Why do I want to do this? Okay, so we've kind of handled that already. We got them engaged, we thanked them for being there, right? We told them what's coming up. Now what are they thinking? Remember the skeptical, cynical little voice might be sitting out there going, well, who's this person and why should I be listening to them? Why should I be listening to this? Why should I be listening to this person? Okay, which is a good point. It's a good point. Because they don't know you. Okay, so what do you do? What do you do? You take about 30 seconds, take about 30 seconds, or if you have more time, maybe two or three minutes, and give a little bit about your background, something like this. So those of you that haven't met me before, my name is Blair Singer. Some of you may know me as Rich dad advisor Robert Kiyosaki, best selling author of three books in the area of team sales and personal development. And over the last 25 years, I've worked with thousands of people, help them become world class presenters and get their messages out to the world so they can massively increase their income and massively increase their reach. Okay. And I'm really looking forward to doing the same thing with you. Boom. Just a real quick credibility piece, elevator pitch, if you will, about who you are, what you do do. Now if you don't have that and you're part of a company, talk about your company. Hi, I'm part of a team. We used to do this back in the days when I was selling for Unisys. Hi, my name is Blair. I'm part of the Unisys team. Over the last 25 years, we've helped hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs with office equipment solutions that increase their efficiency, reduce their payroll expense and help them be competitive in the marketplace. Boom. Whatever that is. Just a quick elevator pitch of what you knew. Now don't brag just the facts, tell the truth and you don't have to expound upon it. The left brain of the audience needs to know that you know what the hell you're talking about. That's all that is. So you just got to give it, give a little bit of that to them. And then the second part of that, we call this, by the way, the earn the right. You're earning the right the second part of that is why you're there, why you're excited to be here. And it could be like, and the reason. And so that's my background. But the reason I'm here is it because right now the world needs great teachers and leaders more than ever. The world is filled with misinformation, false hope and all kinds of stuff. And if I can help you, support you, your business and your teams to be able to deliver great messages to the world, then we all win. Okay, how many of you are here for that? Give me a thumbs up. Done. So what did I just do? What I just did is that I gave, I satisfied the little voice in their brain. I satisfied the whole issue that they have about does this person have any idea what they're talking about? And again, you don't have to be grandiose about it. You have a list of all these credentials. I have a PhD, an MBA and blah blah, blah. People don't care about that. Honestly, I know there are some regions around the world where people think, well, I wrote this book, that book, this book, that book. People don't care. They want to know what you've accomplished. Like when I say I've helped thousands of people be able to get their messages out to the world so they could multiply their sales and multiply their reach to the world. That's what people want to know. They don't want to know your credentials, what school you went to and all that other stuff. Nobody cares. Nobody really cares. They just want to know what you are able to do for them. Okay, now I'm going to tell you, go back. I would pause this, I'm going to go back and listen to this sequence again. This is a multimillion dollar nugget filled sequence that I've taught the thousands of people. Some of the greatest presenters on every world class stage in the world, in every language have used this. And most of them, many of them, I've taught them or my students have taught them. Okay? So please, please, please use this, use it with care, with humility. Always remember to ask lots and lots of questions while you're doing it as well. Okay? So let's just pause right here for a second. By the way, if you ever have any questions about all these and you want to run some of this bias, just send it, make a comment and one of our coaches or myself will be happy to support you in crafting your own presentation. But it's really, you only have a couple of minutes to get it across and most people are Very, very bad at doing it. And they think that by telling a joke, creating humor, being cute and charismatic will cover the day. And you know what? I've seen that blow up in people's faces more often than it's worked. I mean, what's the thing? You tell a joke, what if nobody laughs? What if some people feel the joke is offensive? I mean, just don't do that. Keep it relevant to what they have to say. Okay. Which brings up the next reason, one of the next pitfalls people fall into. And that is when your reality, your sense of reality with the world begins to separate from the audience's reality of the world. Let me explain what I'm saying. So I've seen lots of presenters and bosses and team leaders that were very, very excited about what they had to offer and how it's going to change the company. And we're going to take on this new policy. We're going to take on talking to a team that's burnt out, overworked, tired, it's end of the day and they're rolling their eyeballs and going, oh, my God, we have to go through this again. And what happens is, unfortunately, the leader, whoever's presenting, is completely oblivious to what's going on in front of them. Number one or number two, they don't care. And they think that their words are going to excite them. Okay, well, first of all, words never excited anybody. Okay? Words never excited anybody. Words are only 7% from an NLP perspective, 7% of the communication. The rest is enthusiasm, body language, tonality. So there's got to be some oomph behind it. But even with that, you could still be creating a Grand Canyon between you and the reality of the team. And at the end of the day, what happens, you don't know how to handle that. Not only do you have no buy in, but you have skepticism and you end up with a lot of pushback and you'll be, what? I thought it was a great presentation. Okay, so let's address that. You want your reality to be as close to them as possible. So if you know you've got a team that's a bit trash burned out, you're looking at them and you can see they're kind of like slumping here. They're doing their best, they're drinking water, slurping coffee, say, look, maybe you're opening questions to your own group. Could be something like, look, how many of you feel a little burnt out? Based on everything we've had to do over the last couple of months, okay, good. Thank you. I understand it. How many people feel like you just need a break or could enjoy taking a nap right now? Now what's going to happen, by the way? This is a good thing to do, by the way. When you, if you present in a group after lunch because they're already tired and they're sitting there and you're going to say, oh, we're going to start with an icebreaker, don't do that. Because then they, they put you into a category of one of those kind of trainers. Don't do that. Okay, don't do that. You're better than that. Just repeat to me. I'm better than that. All right, good. All right, awesome. So don't do that. Don't do that. You come back, you see they're tired and say, look, how many of you had a good lunch? Excellent. How many right now would just love to take about a 5, 10 minute nap? People are like, yeah, no. He said, sorry, I can't give you a nap, but I totally get how it feels. Okay, so maybe we do a little stretching or whatever. But again, just to acknowledge the reality of where they are at, I'll give you a gross example. Many years ago I was in Austin, Texas and talking to a large group of people. It was a multi speaker event. Excuse me. It was in the middle of the summer, very much like this summer. Very, very hot, very, very hot. 120 degrees, something like that. You know, for some of you, that's like 48 degrees Celsius, just crazy hot outside. And we're in this big office building and the air conditioning system failed in the middle of the presentation. So the speaker before it had gone out. And so now the temperature's rising, people are sweating. You know, the other person, you know, they're talking and they're going on and on and on. They're racing to get through it, completely ignoring what's going on. People are checking out, people are like falling asleep. And it was ridiculous. It was ridiculous. And I was up immediately next. And I go, I'm looking at the group, I mean, I'm sweating, I'm perspiring like crazy. And I said to the group, I said, how many of you are about ready to pass out from the heat? And the whole room roared in approval. Yeah, right. It was like this emotional release from the group because I was at least willing to acknowledge the reality of what was sitting right there. Now you might say, well, what's that got to do with team building or project? It has everything to do because they're human beings. The reality is. The reality is the reality that they are all sitting in. And if you lose contact with that, you become an alien to them. Okay, well, what do we do? They all roared. I go, okay, so I'm going to cut my presentation down. I mean, we're supposed to be here for an hour. Just do this about 30 minute sprint. But here's what I ask you to do. Everybody take your notebooks, hold them up, okay? And I want you to fan the person next to you fan with your notebooks. And so everybody was like laughing and, you know, they're still sweating. And I said, do that as often as you want to, and whatever you need to do is, fine, dump water on yourself. I'm gonna. I appreciate your willingness to hang in there. What did I do? Was that part of my presentation? No, but it was a part of a presentation. It was part of checking with reality. Okay, Is checking in. Now, on a zoom call, you have people from all over the world. You have people from all over the place, things going on. You know, all of a sudden you may have four or five people on that call that have their kids running around in the room with them. They're creating all kinds of noise and disturbance, which, by the way, you want to always make sure in zoom calls that you have a staff, a staff member that is monitoring the mute, so they can keep that muted, but it's distracting to other people, right? So I say, look, I know some of you. I'll just stop. I go, look, I noticed some of you have kids in the room, which is awesome. I mean, I wish my parents would included me in business a little bit more. I would have learned a lot faster and that would be great. So as long as you stay on mute, that's fine. But let's give them a hand for their courage to run business and family at the same time. What did I do? Say no, get your kid out of the room. Go on past it. No. Now everybody's relieved. They're relaxed a little bit. They're relaxed. Why? Because we matched the reality. Now, the term for that I think I might have used it before, is called as Is Ing. As is ing, which means calling it or telling it as it is. Okay, this is good. Use this in a meeting environment. Use this in a presentation environment. If you suspect, if your little voice suspects there's something else going on in the room, another agenda. People are not buying in. People are distracted. Stop right there. Don't go any further and just say, whoa, whoa, hold on. Excuse Me, I could be totally wrong, but it feels to me like some of you are nodding your heads, but I'm feeling like not everybody's buying in. Is that what's going on here right now? Somebody give me some feedback. Now, what do you think is going to happen in that moment that everybody that was checked out is now no longer checked out? They're like, they're right in there and they're going, no, no, no, everything's fine. Okay. Or they'll say, well, yeah, I'm just confused. You said this about that before, but now you're contradicting that. Oh, good, thank you. So let me clear that up. So as is ing, a very powerful tool. And here's the good news about as is ing. Even if you're wrong, if your assumption of something going on is wrong, no penalty. And they say, no, we're good, we're fine. Okay, good. Thank you. Just wanted to make sure. What are they thinking? They're going, wow, the person's pretty perceptive, picking up on a lot of stuff. Maybe I should be paying attention a little bit more. Okay. All right. So again, the other thing too about reality of the room is do your best when preparing to work with a group of people, whether it's an industry, whether it's a group of people, your company, your team or whatever, to really understand the environment that they're already operating out of. What do I mean by that? I mean, in other words, I'll give you an example. I did some work at IBM many years ago. We did some amazing leadership programs there back in the day. And I was preparing for a two day program. I was preparing for a two day program and in the middle of the pro and just. And before the program began, before the program began, I was having a coffee in the cafeteria and I happened to overhear a couple of people speaking about the fact that they had. That their team had just been downsized. Half the team was now gone. They had been let go on Friday, and how horrible that was and how they felt bad for those people, how they missed them. I'm thinking to myself, oh my God, is this the same team? I'm supposed to be teaching them how to be leaders and how to build a championship team. I mean, can you imagine? I walked. So I walk into the class and I threw away my entire agenda and I said, excuse me, is this the team? Is this the team? Are you familiar with the team that just lost half of their team and going, that was us. I go, oh, my gosh, I understand. How do you feel about that right now? How many people are feeling pretty beat up about that? How many are feeling a little confused? And I changed everything and it turned out to be one of the most magnificent two day programs we ever did. But had I not, as is what was already going on there? And most people are afraid to. Well, it's none of my business. And I don't know. And look, just be a caring person. Be a caring person and be the person that does that. So do your best to acknowledge what you can. Yeah. And as is as best you can. As is as best you can. Let's pause here for a second. I hope you're learning a lot in episode five. This, this, like I said, it could be the most powerful of all the episodes. So go back review again and again and again. If you become masterful at just what I told you, it's going to put you into the category of the top 10% of anybody in the world in presenting. Now, hopefully you know what you're talking about and you have some good material too. But I've seen lots of great material that never saw the light of day. I've seen great people that had big hearts that wanted to make a big difference, to grow their businesses and to sell lots of stuff that never got sold because they couldn't get past these things. They couldn't get past these things. You have to trust me that after addressing literally millions of people, millions of people in over 40 countries around the world, I'm going to tell you that these are the things that matter the most. They matter absolutely the most. Okay? And they want to be able to trust you, to respect you and to love you. Okay? So one more piece, One more piece I want to cover that has to do with that in a very big way. And that's this. And that is what I call the loss of humility or the I did great syndrome. I did great. What's that look like? Well, it looks like. Ask somebody, a protege and I'll ask them. So how'd your presentation go? Oh, I did great. It was awesome. Really? Tell me about that. Yeah, I mean, it was. Everything worked and people. There weren't too many questions and da da, da. And all this other stuff. And I'm going to. Okay, this is already going to be a problem. Why is it going to be a problem? Speaking and communicating is not a perfect game. Just like golf. Nobody's ever shot a perfect game in golf. So every golfer knows when they get done, if they do good job, you celebrate the win. But you always Know what could I have done better on hole number 12? What could I have done better on my short game? How could I improve this? And the same thing is true, same thing is true of a presentation. I heard it once said by Frank Bettger, great old time author. He said, the best presentation you give is the one you give right after the one you just gave. Because at that moment, you know, with the things you could have, should have, would have done. And it's a good idea to do that, by the way, because then you solidify it in your mind. So I have found that rookies over the years get this I did great syndrome, I'm awesome, get very full of themselves. Why? Well, because when you start presenting the way I'm teaching you to present, when I teach you how to do it this way, is that people will automatically come up to you and say, thank you so much, you changed my life. You think I'm kidding? You try this stuff, that's what's going to happen to you. Okay, you changed my life. It's awesome. Thank you so much. And you know, your ego gets very filled. It's very fulfilling. It's great to know that. How great is it to go to bed at night knowing that somebody came up to you and said, thank you for changing my life? Are you kidding? That's amazing. But the challenge here is to understand that the inflated ego is not good for being a great presenter. Okay? Because the I did great syndrome shuts you off from improving. It shuts you off from looking at the nuances and the pieces that allow to get better and better and better. Kiyosaki and I have always said that we've never given a perfect presentation. Not even close. Not even close. This one's not. I mean, I would like it to be better. But you know what? I know that every time I can get a little bit better. And you've got to have that humility syndrome. And to understand this, this is even more important. So listen to me closely. The magic on your zoom call, the magic in your room has nothing to. Has very little to do with you, has everything to do with that audience. The brilliance and the genius is out there. And when you are able to be the person to engage that and get the feedback and get them to respond and get their energy up. Now what happens is all that flow comes toward you. It's kind of like the unit. Maybe you've ever had a moment where you're in front of a room, information comes through your mouth that in you going, wow, that was Pretty good. That sounded more intelligent than me. It's happened to all of us. And it's at that moment where, because you're following a good system and a process, you tap into that universal wisdom and flow and consciousness out there. So don't take it on that it's all about you. Because here's what will happen. When there's an ascension, there's a crash. Always happens all the time. Look at great, you know, athletes, actors, actresses, you know, they reach this level of stardom and power and accolades, and within days you hear about them on drugs, alcohol abuse, all kinds of crazy stuff. Because what happens is they think it's about them. You want a little secret? I'm going to save you a lot of grief, save you a lot of depression. I'm going to save you a lot of upset. Remember, you are there by their decision. You are there because they grant that space to you and never ever forget that you are there to serve them. And the minute you go from serving them to dictating to them and telling them and being better than them, I'm going to tell you, we could do another whole video on this. You're going to pay for that. Something's going to bite you in the shorts. How do I know? Because it's happened to me more than once in my career. Okay? So the idea here is to be humble, to be grateful, and to acknowledge all the sources that allow you to be present and to channel whatever information you can. Because some of the information you channel through some of that information is your own, and the rest of the information, enthusiasm comes from them. So it's not just about you. It's not just about you. So don't allow yourself to get into the. I mean, celebrate your wins for sure, for sure. But don't allow yourself to get to the place where I'm great, I'm awesome, I'm better. And all this to this day. I've been doing this over 30 years, and I can tell you that I still hold that I am the eternal student. I'm still learning, still learning how to present, still learning how to deliver. I'm still learning how to get the best out of people. At our Master Facilitator Program, at our master Facilitator program, we talk about the fact that the genius is not on the stage. The genius is in the room. The genius are all those people sitting in the room. And your job as a teacher, leader, facilitator, business owner is to tap into that and pull it out of them so they can see it, and they can take action with it. Okay? So remain humble, my friends, and love them, and they'll love you. Be amazing, Sam.