Ep. 142 Customize...and Connect

Hey there, Mark Brown. You and I are teaching right now. Unforgettable Presentations. We're at the end of day one and I realized that I was never really taught how to customize my presentation to a group. So I have my presentation, I understand it, but now I'm talking to a Rotary convention, I'm talking to a group of Wells Fargo managers, I'm talking to account executives. So what do you do? And it just now I take it for granted. But I realize this could be powerful because I had some amazing response last week in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Mark, your opening thought.

The thing is, I think the key is if we can learn how to customize, we can please every audience every time, and that can make us unforgettable.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the differ difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcasts with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells a story and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation? AHAs. Let's dive right in.

Oh, Mark, this is such a powerful tool. At the beginning of my career, when I didn't have enough content, I would overcompensate by customizing, and I realized the power of it. So I usually ask the event planner, like I just did in Hershey, if I could come in a day early. And Mark, I've never heard an event planner say this before. I was in a day early, stayed an extra night with their permission, spent the whole day with everyone, and I listened to their stories. I took some pictures with the people I was talking to too. You know, use the slides in my programs to help customize it. And at the end of the day, this was a first time doing 17 Minutes to youo Dream as a keynote live for a big fee. And I asked her, I said, you know, I really hope I exceed your expectations tomorrow. She said, and I quote, you already did.

Wow.

Just by spending that time, she said, you made our members feel heard. And that was big. That was important to them. And so now every audience will be a different. I'm not gonna hear that every time by any means, but it was a big reminder. And I thought, hey, let's do a short, quick podcast on just creating that bridge between our content and their world.

Yeah. And it's really important because, look, most of us who are professional communicators, we have Our back pocket speeches. Many of us, most of us, are hired to deliver a message that's tried and true. People know what we talk about, and we have our stories that are our stories. When an audience, a meeting planner, when a corporate VP or president hears that we are adjusting our presentation specifically address a need that they have, it's a game changer. And I would encourage everyone hearing this to think about how can I customize my presentation? I'm not saying rewrite it and change the whole thing. I'm saying customize it to meet the needs of the audience in front of me that day. I'll be honest, Darren. In the last couple of years, I wrote a brand new keynote that I've delivered to different Toastmasters, districts and in different environments virtually most of the time over the last couple of years. I gave it live in South Carolina a week, a week and a half ago. But every time I do it while maybe same stories on the same premise, I always insert information, references and connections that apply to that specific audience. So please, friends, don't think when we say customize, you must revamp the whole thing. No, it means how can they see a bridge between your content and them, Their demographic, their people, their pain, their joy, and their situation. So Darren's first idea is to go in early, pay attention, listen to what they're saying, have conversations, so when you address them, you address them with greater knowledge and they'll appreciate what you have to say. I did it a few years ago for an insurance company, and I went in two days early, went to breakouts, went to general sessions, and I closed my program by reflecting on the week. When I did that, the planner said it was the best closing they ever had. Why I customize to meet their needs. Other ways you can customize, Darren, is to find out what is unique about that audience. Way back in 1996, I had an audience. My first trip outside North America or usa. It's so awesome. I was in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and I realized, oh, my goodness, many of these individuals, for them, English is a second language. And I thought to myself, how could I really appeal to the entire audience? And I don't know why I thought of this. I chose to tell my opening story, en Francais in French for the audience to understand. Most were bilingual. Some were just mostly French and a little English. I told that opening story, I invested time. I went to a lady I worked with who was from France, gave her my script, she did a translation. We worked on it together for weeks. Darren, I flew to Montreal. I told my Opening story in French. And the audience gave me a standing ovation after my opening story. Not because Mark Brown was so great, but because they knew I invested the time, the energy, and the effort to learn the story in their language and to speak to them in their language on that occasion with a story that was valid. But all that extra work was worth it. Not for the standing ovation, but for the appreciation that I respected them enough to go that far, to serve them. That's customization.

That's unforgettable. Unforgettable because most people won't do the time or take the time or the effort to put in that extra. It's work. It's work, I'm not gonna lie. But if you care about the audience receiving your message, you'll do the work. If you want to stand out in the event planner's mind, event planners know event planners. And Mark, second technique, second idea is you did this not too long ago, connecting to their theme. What's their theme? Your thoughts on that?

Well, you know, it's interesting. I have done several talks for Toastmasters groups as well as corporate association and so on. And very often a group will have a theme, a conference theme. And the first time I did this was 2001. I spoke in Bahrain for the first time, and the conference theme was Together Towards Tomorrow. They had just gotten together. They were building their district, and they wanted to have plans for the future. It was great. They have all these goals for the the future. And I took their theme together towards Tomorrow. I customized my remarks. I made that my title. I talked about what it means to have a direction. You're going somewhere, heading towards something, and what will tomorrow hold for you? I couldn't resist. I went to Annie Tomorrow, Tomorrow. It was kind of cute. But the fact I made the effort to look at what can I do to serve the audience very well was fantastic. As a matter of matter of fact, I was in Dubai one time. There were two guest speakers. There was someone else and myself. And at the end of the conference, I sat with the organizer, and he said, mark, you know, you're both good speakers, but one thing stood out for me. The other individual came with their planned prepared program, and they delivered it to us. But you really matched your program to our conference theme, and that made all the difference. Thank you so much. Now, I say it not to brag, but I say it to point out to you. I have evidence that when you customize, when you tie your remarks to a conference theme, you immediately send a message. Your theme is important. To me. Your people are important to me, and your message is important to me. And I would suggest, Darren, that have a pre conference call and ask them what is the message you really want your people to hear that can deliver? When you customize your prepared program, your stories, your lessons, but customize it to them, they say, yes, this speaker cares about us. And customization will go a long way, not only to transforming your audience, but the impression you leave on a meeting planner. And guess what? They talk to each other.

Didn't you have one that we just talked about in the event about Compassion Creates?

Oh, yeah. I actually wrote a keynote. The theme was Compassion Creates. And as part of my customization, I had stories to tell about how compassion worked in my life. But one of the things I did was I went to a dictionary definition of compassion. I used that in my opening to clarify what the word meant. And I found stories that I knew spoke to that particular theme. So here's an idea for your friends. You have a plethora, a wealth of stories in your experience. And when you can find a story from your story file, Darren, you always preach, keep a story file. We're in the middle of our program right now. Unforgettable presentations. We say, build a story file. If you maintain a solid story file, you can then go to your story file and say, I choose this story instead, because that story speaks to compassion. And I'll customize, I'll leave these two in, but I'll replace one with this story which directly speaks to their conference theme, their message, and what their theme for the year may be. Because sometimes a conference theme is not only for the conference, it's actually a kickoff for the corporate, for the company's year. And that becomes their mantra, their slogan for the whole year. And you can be the one by customizing your remarks to make it so much more meaningful to them. And trust me, that will make you unforgettable.

Yeah, absolutely. Not just delivering that presentation, but the unforgettableness, if you will, of making up words, unforgettableness comes from how they feel about it. So the more effort and time that we put in, the more we get that feeling of unforgettable. And Mark, I know even when I told the event planner, because she had never ran a big event before, and I told her that was gonna come in a day early and I had to get permission. What I found out when I got on site was, let's just say the event board of directors, they all talked about me and my willingness to do that before the event. So now you've got this good juice going around before you even get there. So now it's kind of like the. The setting up or the. There's a word I'm looking forward to escaping me at the moment. But it's kind of like setting up the context. Like I now, in their mind, I have a better context of who I am to them, better perspective. I'm coming in ahead of where I was had I not been willing to do that. The other thing, you know, I do is I wasn't able to do it. In this one, I had challenging. Connecting to the event planner. It was through a speaker bureau. We had an early meeting, but it didn't. Yeah, it just didn't warrant this. But usually I asked for a list of 10 people that I can talk to ahead of time who are going to be in the audience, and I use their stories. So since I wasn't able to do that, just didn't work logistically the way this one came together. But being there a day early, I went, I sat, I took pictures with people, I asked questions. And for those of you familiar with our event, unforgettable presentations. If you haven't been through it, join us for it. We walk you through how to create a keynote. But if you've ever seen this FRIPP speech model, you know, we talk about a point of wisdom. You can only have three points of wisdom, maybe four, but a point of wisdom. Then we talk about evidence to back it up, to prove your point. And what I love about the FRIPP model is it allows me to pull out one of my pieces of evidence that I always use and insert theirs. So, like you're saying, it looks like I wrote the speech for them. I didn't. I just replaced key pieces of evidence where whatever I learned on site, I can just add the slides in. I took some pictures with people. I added it in as my reminder and to be able to edify people who are in my audience. And they're like, look, it's me. Oh, I know her. Even though I didn't talk to everyone, what I kind of notice is, let's just say Thomas. I'm talking to Thomas ahead of time. Well, people don't know me. Most people know I'm an outsider because they've been coming to this conference for years. And they're like, who's that guy? And then they see the picture, oh, he's the keynote speaker. And they see the keynote speaker talking to people. By default, I get again, more good juice. If you will. Because even though I didn't talk to them directly, I talked to them, like, by proxy, if you will.

Yeah. And the thing is, let's not downplay the value of having that conversation. When you are on the platform in a customized presentation and you say, I was talking to Jerry last week, your CEO, and we had a good laugh about this. You tell a story of you and the CEO or the CFO or the meeting panel or somebody they know having this conversation where you reveal knowledge that applies to them. They're saying, wow, they took time to go meet with Jerry to talk about this, and they understand where we're coming from. And you have no idea the power of a visual of you on that big screen with two or three or four people in the audience who they all know having that interaction, it sends a very clear message. This particular presenter not only has done their homework, but they have taken the time. No, they have invested the time and effort to build relationships with people in our organization. I will listen to what they have to say because clearly they know about us. They're concerned about us. They understand where we're coming from. And they took the time, invested the time to build that kind of relationship. What I didn't tell you, Darren, I mentioned earlier the insurance company I spoke for. When I went in two days early and followed the whole thing, I was told it was the best closing they ever had. Well, guess what? Next week I'm flying to that same company to do a keynote for them again. That was four years ago. You get asked back, right? They asked me to come back and to speak to a different segment of the organization because they said that message was so good. We want this particular group to hear that message as well. They even asked for a specific message. And that's for them twice before. My third go round now. And that's because I customize my program to suit their need. It is not that difficult to do when you make these small changes. And please do not discount what Darren just said. When you remove one of your own bits of evidence and insert the result of a conversation, a story of one of their own heroes, but something that appeals and applies to them, it makes a big difference. I did a keynote last year for a large franchise organization. I may have told you this, Darren, but in my presentation, I talked about one of their. One of their locations which happens to be close to where I live. And when I mentioned the location, I mentioned the name of the manager who was there and the experience I had at that location. What do you think that does for this audience. When they hear a name, they know, a location, they know. And I tell them the experience I had, they now know I'm not just talking about customer service. I'm sharing my experience with them. And that's very, very helpful. And if you can, when given the opportunity, find out about their own discussion boards within the organization. This particular company gave me access to their insider Facebook discussion group so I could learn about what they were doing. It was easy for me to make specific references because I went in, I watched, I listened, I looked, I listened to videos, and I learned about them. So when I spoke about them, they felt a connection to me that could not be removed. And that's the key. When you customize, you connect. When you customize, you connect. Darren.

Brilliant. So to give a quick example, so here I am, and I was talking to a Rotary conference, and it was three different districts getting together. And here was the cool part, Mark. They had never had an outside speaker before, which was different and interesting. And the event planner, Diane, was kind of taking a risk by spending a lot of money, investing a lot of money in a keynote speaker, when they're like, why, we could get someone for free. So I knew that the pressure was on. I knew there was some skeptics in the audience that I had to prove I was worth the investment. So that just kind of, like, geared me up and got me to go deeper. So, for example, you look at what are your points of wisdom and what are you trying to get across? For example, one of the things that I talk about in this new keynote is the doubt, the doubters, the naysayers, people who tell you you can't. Well, one of their charities that they support is polio. They're trying to eradicate polio. So when I sat down and talked to a few other people, there was a woman there who. She had polio. And they were supporting people who have polio, and they're survivors of polio and helping them cope and deal. So I found three. She told me three stories, and I got images from the website of this woman named Bonnie and another woman named Shirley and another named Marty. And they wanted to be teachers. Like, their dream was being to be teachers. And they were told they can't, and no, you can't, or arm crutches and leg braces. And so, like, you could never be a teacher. And she did it anyway. Each of them had their dream. One woman, I think it was Bonnie, she dreamed of sk. Skiing with her kids, because her kids love skiing. So I put this Image up. I talk about her, I tell their stories. So it's their stories become evidence in my speech. So Shirley and Marty were both told you never be teachers. Well, Marty went on, I think it was Marty who she actually became a PhD. So I used the examples of their naysayers, the people that were naysayers to them told, told them they couldn't, but they did it anyway. And so that backed up. My point is that whatever dream you have, there will be naysayers. So Bonnie did it, Marty did it, Shirley did it, why can't you? So I didn't say this, but that's the implied message. So they're also extreme examples of the exact point that I'm trying to make. And then Mark, you know, I talk about this being all, all in. So Shirley was all in, Marty was all in, Bonnie was all in. They found a way. So if they can't, why can't you? So it tied in, it dovetailed in perfectly with my message. Now obviously I won't use those again because they're not part of every organization. But I really could if I wanted to. But instead I want to try to find the examples from them. So every person I spoke to, I'm looking, I'm searching for those examples that will back up my point.

And the key there is I'm looking and I'm searching. Friends, if you want to customize and really serve your audiences, be on the lookout. Search. Find ways to connect their experience to your message. So even though they're hearing you, they can see and feel themselves in your message. And hopefully they'll walk away saying, you know what? I am so glad that this individual invested time and effort to make sure that their message was in sync with our experience. They connected that to us and that's going to make you unforgettable.

We'll see you next week.

Make sure you subscribe to our show.

Remember to subscribe because if you miss a week, you miss a lot.

If you like this episode, please leave us a review. If you want to get more from Mark and Darren, check out stagetime University where they provide experienced presenters a proven path and world class feedback. To become the speaker everyone is talking about, go to stagetimeuniversity.com join us next week if you're going to take the time to prepare a presentation. Make it unforgettable.