Ep. 190 Critical Step 2 To Be Unforgettable

Hey there, Mark Brown. The critical second step to be unforgettable. What?

When you say that, people are going to say, wait, you're going to give us number two? What step number one? Well, we'll explain what that is, but dive deeply into step number two in a minute.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the unforgettable presentations podcast 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.

So if you didn't hear last week's episode about the transformation of your character, please go back and check that out. We've had Mike Davis, who was one of our coaches, who wrote a book on storytelling, and he was blown away. And it's one of those things that we often don't take inventory in. We've got to tell. We tell our story, we follow a structure, but we forget one of the critical factors is showing the transformation of the character and the. How do you do that? Have you done that with each of your stories? Is it clear? Because having the transformation and having the audience be clear what the transformation is, that is critical to storytelling. So when we were talking about this, I had the idea that critical step number two to be unforgettable. What is that, Mark Brown? What's your initial thoughts?

Well, you know, again, my first thought is, well, Darren, what step number one, you go to step number two. I would always talk about being clear on your message as being the most important thing. But that's great. I have my message, Darren. So what do I do next? Do I get the right story? Do I think of a great character? Do I make something? What do I do for my critical step number two? So technically, I've set you up to answer your own question. See what I did there?

Very nice. Impressive. So obviously, people, well, what's critical step number one? Well, number one is get clear on your message. And we've said this, we talk about it, we insist on it. We coach on clarity, clarity, clarity. And so often people don't do it because they think it's clear enough. I think it's clear enough. And it may be clear enough to you, but you're not speaking to yourself. You're speaking to an audience. So make no mistake, we want to emphasize this before we Go into critical step number two, to be unforgettable when you're creating a presentation, when you're creating a speech. Step number one is get clear. And here's the test that Mark and I came up with is go deliver it, even if it's on zoom, to a audience that is like minded of yours. Give it a test audience and then ask them, what is your message? What is your message? And if 80% of them are not on the same page or pretty freaking close, guess what? It's not clear. It doesn't matter if they're a great speech coach or not. This isn't about the coaching side. This is about what is the audience hearing. So you have got to make it clear that they can give the message back to you. And guess what? Most of the time it won't be. That's okay. But you need to know to be unforgettable, you need that clear message. You can have some magical moments, but if you want them to walk away with the message, it has to be clear. So step number one is get clear. And you're probably not clear enough.

And the key with that is when you go and give it to a test audience. The key is, as Darren always says. Now, he's no lawyer, but he likes legal metaphors. Don't know why legal metaphors do not lead the witness. Do not. Do not give the audience any idea of what you think that message should be. Leave it entirely up to them to tell you from their hearts what they received as a message. And if that Darren says, you get 80 plus percent who can say that to you, even in their own words, they can articulate that to you. Then you know, aha, they got my message. Bear in mind, there are times you deliver a presentation and you think it's clear and you ask people what they thought and. And you will get different ideas. So number one is to be clear, we want to get that out of the way. Now onto critical step number two, to be unforgettable.

Dun dun dun dun.

Couldn't resist. Sorry. I couldn't help it.

Bam. Never should have given me a sound machine. Okay, so look, it's critical step number two. Get clear on this. So critical step number two is creating that sticky phrase. Creating that sticky phrase. We call it a foundational phrase inspired by Craig Valentine's term on that. And by the way, when Mark and I competed back in the 2000s, there was. We didn't know this. We didn't teach this. This wasn't part of what we do. But we took Patricia Fripp's deliver unforgettable presentations. The original program was Create youe Keynote. We turned it into a book. But what Mark and I added was we what's that sticky phrase that encapsulates your message? If you don't take the time to do this, or you skip step number two, which most people do, don't be most people. Which most people do. If you skip that now, you gotta put in a lot of work that you might have to throw away that is not relevant, because the whole rest of the speech is to take that foundational phrase and implant it, plant the seeds in the minds and the hearts of the audience that you have. So you might do a lot of work that you have to scrap some of it, or worst case, all of it, until you get clear in that message and then create the foundational phrase for this presentation. Now, if you're a toastmaster working on a contest, speech critical. If you're a keynote speaker, building your business, creating your own branding, it's critical to your own branding. So it doesn't matter whether it's 45 minutes or seven minutes, you've got to take the time to do this. And, Mark, we talk about this all the time in the speech contest. One of the best foundational phrases that you hear in the hallways years later is, I see something in you.

I see something in you. Yep.

But I don't know what it is. And that was Denon Jaya, and he gave an amazing speech. And still to this day, I hear it in the hallways because it's so encouraging. And in that atmosphere, that's held highly. But he took the time. Now, we encourage you to create a sticky phrase. Whether it's rhythmic or it's got to have rhythm, it doesn't necessarily have to rhyme. It has to have rhythm. It doesn't have to rhyme. And one of the tools that we suggest, Mark discovered is a tool called Word Hippo. Word Hippo. So if you go to Word Hippo Free Service, you will find that it has different tabs, synonyms, antonyms. Okay, so you figure out what is that message I'm trying to get across. And we got to be super careful. You may have a universal message that everyone needs that reminder of, however, it's cliche. Well, it didn't used to be cliche. A year ago, a decade ago, two decades ago, it was cool and new, but now it's so cool at the time that now it's cliche. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I. I've heard it before. So I give an example from One of my coaching clients I was working with, trying to create this well. And I tell this with his permission. His name was Chandra. He had this story of he would try something and quit and try something and quit and try something and quit. And his wife, who is the guru of the story, gave him some advice. But we were trying to encapsulate the advice from the guru. It doesn't always have to come from the guru. It can. In this case, it did. But we took the word quit and we put it in. We used a different service. I love word Hippo. So we'll just go with word Hippo for this example. And we put it in Word Hippo. And all of a sudden, all these rhyming words came up. So we're trying to Quitting too soon. Quitting too soon. And of course, we've all heard, don't quit. You know, that's overdone. Got it. Now we need to make it his own. We need a Chandraism, if you will. What is that? What is that phrase that we could remember? And the wisdom that his wife gave him is he was working really hard, but he would try something and not really dedicate himself. So when we look at the word quit and all the rhyming words.

Rhyming words. Right.

We found. And again, this is a great creative tool with you or even better with a speech buddy that could help you or a writing buddy that you could do this together. Because it works even better if you're with someone, but you can do it alone and try to find and create that sticky phrase that we then take the. Remember, we talk about the emotional truth. The emotional truth. So Chandra's wife never literally said this, but she gave the emotional truth of this. She delivered that advice to him. We just made it in a stickier phrase so it would be remembered and repeated. If you haven't checked out our book deliver unforgettable presentations. We talk about creating speeches that are remembered and repeated. That is gold. That's why I brought up Den and Jaya's phrase, because that's exactly the essence of what we're doing. So when we put it in, we try this word, try that word, try this word. And we came up with the phrase, don't quit, commit. Don't quit, commit. See, he was trying things, but he wasn't committed to them. So he didn't give them time to transform, to bubble up, to give the value, whatever it was he was trying to figure out. So we now took that phrase, don't quit, commit, and we put it into his wife's mouth. So she says this to him now. She gave him the wisdom. We're just making it in a tighter, as Hollywood says, based on a true story.

Ah, here you go.

Hitchcock says that all Hollywood does is take real life and pull out the boring parts. Well, our job, too, is to tell the story in a way that we get the message and we remember it and we go home. And three days later, three weeks later, when that point where we need to make a better decision, we remember the advice that you gave us or came from a mentor in that moment, and we make a better decision. See, it doesn't matter what happens in the moment. Giving your speech in the moment, Giving your speech is our opportunity to plant the seeds so that they come up at a critical time, they blossom at a critical time later on, just to get your arms around this. One of the things that my mentor Vinny said to me was, never turn down stage time. Any day that you get on stage is a day that you don't grow. Never turn down stage time. And so Mike Davis, one of our friends and coaches, I got to a point where I had these opportunities. I don't want to go up. But then I remember what he said to me. And then Mike and many other people who've heard that story over and over again, they come to the point where they're at their Toastmaster Club and they're looking for a volunteer to speak. And the wisdom of my mentor pops in my listener's head and they end up volunteering to give a speech even if they're not ready, even if they're not fully prepared. So I live this wisdom, but at the same time, our job as a speaker is to pass it on to someone. But we've got to put it. And that one doesn't rhyme, by the way, but it's sticky because of the story as well. But we have to take our message and encapsulate it in 10 words or fewer.

Yeah. One of the keys there is this. You mentioned the rhythm and the rhyme. You can also use alliteration where the first letter repeats itself and it's as long as it's rhythmic enough to be memorable. We talked about that in Jaya's speech at Toastmasters way back in 2014. Recording is now in 23. 99 years later, he's got 8.4 million views, the most viewed Toastmaster Speech Contest final in all time. But he has those. The rhythmic piece to it. But here's a why, as Darren says, one of the wisest. If it's quote unquote tweetable and repeatable. If you are saying it over and over again, time and time again, it means that you crafted a line that may not have been the main thrust of your speech, but because it's rhythmic, it runs as a thread throughout the presentation. It makes not only the line memorable, it makes the message memorable, and people will connect you to the idea. When people hear stage time, stage time, stage time, they think, Darren Lacroix. They think, I must take advantage of every bit of stage time that I can get. When they hear I see something in you, they think, who's got potential? Where's that potential? How can I pull that potential out? So think of a phrase you can use, not just for it to be rhythmic, but to be relatable, for it to be significant and have value for the audience. Darren, a year ago, when I was doing Game Changers, line I used was, your role is invaluable, you must be reliable. And the hubble, of course, rhymes, but I use that line several times in the presentation. Everybody, when I was done, is, yep, your role is invaluable, you must be. And they said, reliable. A message like that, and that's pretty universal. I use that particular line when I do teamwork or team building exercises. I said, look, each person's role is important. You understand that When I say, look, your role is invaluable, you must be reliable. They understand their value and then they understand their responsibility. So the thought I want to share with you is this. Yes, rhythmic is good. Rhyming is good. Alliterative is good. But put effort into understanding why this particular foundational phrase works, its value to your audience, personally and collectively. I just told you where Darren's particular mantra, Darren's foundational phrase, the value is, I need to do this because I want to improve. The one I just shared is I must realize, even though my role may seem small, it is important to the organization. Therefore, I have the responsibility of being reliable and trustworthy. All that in one phrase. That's the beauty of a strong, solid, foundational phrase. So we challenge you to think about this phrase. Ten words or fewer that will be sticky enough to not only be memorable, but to provide value to the audience when they hear it or when they repeat it, it prompts some kind of action.

Yeah, Mark, we've talked about this section before. I've had a friend who is a Metro police officer who is involved in the Las Vegas shooting here.

Yeah, Richard. Yeah.

He said that when you're in a crisis mode, which when even Though it may not be the crisis of that level. We're in any crisis mode in our life, even if it's like we're trying to make a new decision. Brian had said that when you're in a crisis mode, you actually go down to your highest level of training. So when you have that training ingrained in you, you revert to that because you're in crisis mode. So your brain isn't thinking of everything and all the possibilities. It goes back to that level of training you had when you're in that mode. And Mark, this is a new one that I heard this week and I know the shootings are something that's out there in the news a lot and it's a horrible situation, but I heard one of the officers say that they were trained to isolate, locate and eliminate.

Yeah. And that particular phrase, again, it's a difficult situation to address. But in a crisis situation, that three word foundational phrase prompts the action that they have to take to save the lives of people who are on their watch. They don't think about it. It's there, right? Isolate, locate, eliminate. That's what they have to do. And when you have a phrase that is so meaningful to you in terms of what you do for your work, for your job, your responsibility for your family, when it is that memorable, that sticky, and it sticks, it can prompt action that becomes almost second nature. We're not saying everything you say to the audience because it's going to make them act in a second nature, as if by second nature. But if your sticky phrase, your foundational phrase is that meaningful, that solid, that moving, it means the audience will begin to respond and act almost instinctively as a result of the weight and the power of your foundational phrase. So what am I saying here? What I'm saying is, think very hard about what you choose to share as a foundational phrase in your presentation. Because I submit to you, friends and loved ones, when well used, your foundational phrase will be infinitely more powerful than you think it is if it's done well and applied to the ears and minds of a receptive audience.

We had one of my friends who's a presenter at a large bank, and I shared the stage with her and she is speaking at the treasury level to the top executives and she was teaching about what she does in the credit card division and when she's trying to bring on a new client, a new big company to use this bank's services for merchant services, and she used it as a thread and she said, we can either win Together or lose alone. And she would tell another story, give more content. We can either win together or lose alone. We could win together or lose alone. So it became the thread, but it came to. She's giving us examples. She's giving us case studies, as we call them, case stories. When they're done right, she's threading it together, but making this is the message. Here's the story, here's the example. But this is what I'm trying to say. This is Aesop's moral to the story for us as presenters. It's that takeaway message encapsulated in a foundational phrase, just so critical. If you want to be unforgettable, if you're just creating a presentation, you don't care about that. I know, I know. But that's what we're trying to say is the process is different when you're trying to be unforgettable.

It's funny. I just occurred to me, Darren, that this is a technique that advertisers use when they, when they sell products and services over time. The. The line that the tagline is designed to prompt those who are watching or listening to take some kind of action. And it's funny. I know, I. Years ago, there was a commercial phrase called this is not your father's Oldsmobile. When they rebuilt that right? But maybe 20 plus years ago, I went to an event, a convention in Dallas, Texas, at the Fairmont, and the company, national sales manager was telling the company what brand new changes, and he took a spin off of this is not your father's Oldsmobile, created his own phrase. And throughout his presentation as he detailed the different ways the company was changing, the new initiatives, the new compensation structure, the staff being how they're going to arrange the regions. We'd always say, this is not your father's company. This is not your father's company. And every time he said that, he reinforced the message and the idea of hope. What lay ahead? The future. These new plans, these new ideas were meaningful to a national sales force of almost 500 people that day. That's the impact I'm talking about. When a well crafted foundational phrase is used in a way that the audience not only remembers it, but it is a tool, an applicable tool to help them move forward or in a direction that you need to take. Here's a point. A good foundational phrase carries weight and influence.

Ooh, that's a foundational phrase right there.

I'll tweak it.

That's good. You're good and well. And here what we're also trying to do is get your brain thinking this way, searching, hearing, because you're listening to this podcast, you're going to start seeing more foundational phrases, more sticky phrases. Good. Let those be an example. Maybe they can inspire you. I think of the old Ron Papille commercials, the infomercials back in the day. Set it and forget it. Set it and forget it. You know that I think the. One of the famous chefs even did that with his rotisserie Emeril, with his rotisserie product. You know, Bam said it and forget it. And guess what? That appeals to people who are maybe not cooks or don't want to worry about things. And it just, it appeals to the audience.

I'll tell you when I heard that used. Most recently, one of our friends, fellow coaches and speakers, CSP Eddie. Hey, when he's talking about his calendar management program, it's called Acuity. I use calendar myself. But he said one of the beauties of it is you can set it and forget it. People choose time on your time while you're asleep, they're booking time with you, and they only work with you when you're awake. You just set it and forget it. Applicable outside the kitchen in a business application. That's the power of a solid foundational phrase. People will say it over and over again and use it in their lives, in their work, in their business, in their families, and maybe in their comedy routines if they're humorous. Me, I'm not funny. I'm just funny looking. So.

And if you're a keynote speaker or aspire to be one, it becomes part of your brand. I'm known around the world for stage time, stage time, stage, stage time, around. There were people I've never met. Why? Because people repeat it and it becomes associated with me. So we're asking you, we're encouraging, we're imploring you to please take the time and understand this needs to be critical. Step number two, whenever you're creating a presentation, if you're working on a story, a new story that's going to be significant in your presentation, take the time. It's not just something you sit down and do either. I know the one. When I was working with Chandra took, I want to say, about an hour and a half. I remember when I sat down with Craig, we created a phrase, we're like, what, what is it? When. When people are. We're trying to show the importance of mindset right before you take the stage. So he and I sat down, zoom, like this. And we literally banged it out. We looked at it. We each looked at our computers, we playing around with it, and we created the phrase. Now, again, it didn't just pop out. And this is Craig Valentine. He thinks this way. But we came up with the phrase. Skill set without mindset will leave your audience upset. So you have that. Would that be alliteration?

Mark, what is a rhyming? The set, set, set. That's the rhyme at the end. Alliterations at beginning where the first letter, like when Peter Drury said a kaleidoscopic cacophonic Catalan carnival. That's Peter Drury a few episodes back. Again, listen to that one. That's alliteration used so powerfully and so meaningfully. But yeah, it takes a while to craft it. And as Darren mentioned that he and Craig spent some time on this. It's okay to get with a friend, an associate, somebody you trust, a fellow presenter, invest some time helping each other out. You can do a buddy system where they help you with yours and you help them with theirs. And before long, your thought process begins to improve on both your parts. Begin to think a little differently and maybe helpful to find. You get so close to what might work and you find what clicks for you, and you go, aha, that's going to work for me. But invest some time with someone you know and trust and work on this together. You might be amazed at what comes up.

Yeah, it can surprise you. Have fun with it too. You know, have a glass of wine, have a beer, have a cup of tea. Whatever works for you.

But I see here in Georgia. Iced tea.

Iced tea. Iced tea. But whatever works for you. Please take the time to do this. And it is a little bit of effort. But here's the key. Your effort multiplied by every audience member who hears you. Your effort is multiplied by every audience member who hears you. So if you truly care about impact, you care about building your brand, you want to do better at a speech contest, you want to help people in front of you take critical step number two seriously, to be unforgettable.

Here's one more thought to give you an additional assignment. We said earlier. Step number one is to be completely fully clear on your message. Step number two is to get that foundational phrase in place. One of the trickiest pieces of this is to make sure they're not so far unrelated. You have to work too hard to connect them both. We made the assumption you'd go there. But for simplicity's sake, for my own mindset, I want to state this. When your foundational phrase can Be easily connected to your main message. It makes your job easier. Therefore, the critical caveat is it may be a wonderful phrase in isolation. It sounds good, it seems good. But be very sure you can quickly make that connection to your main message so the audience doesn't have to do any mental gymnastics. Because the truth is, once in a while, I'll find a really cool phrase and I'll try to make it fit, but it's not exactly what need. And maybe if I give myself a break and put that phrase to the side, put it in a file somewhere. Hello. It may become more valuable somewhere else in a more meaningful way. So this. Let's do our best to connect that foundational, sticky phrase to the message we want to portray. Step one and step two. That way, they dovetail. They work hand in hand and make it that much easier for you to deliver an unforgettable presentation.

And here's an idea, too. After you tell your story, think of the term or think of saying the phrase. What I'm saying is. And then the foundational phrase follows that. Or what was the lesson I learned? Boom. So now you're setting up. Here's the moral of the story. So when Mark and I do a lot of our online trainings, we talk about. About our trip over to Europe. And I'm taking a lot of pictures. I'm taking a lot of pictures. And Mark comes up with these four brilliant questions as to how to figure out what's on your camera already. That, why did you take that? And then the moral of the story is, so here's what I learned. Capture what captures you. Capture what captures you. And here's Mark. Here's how you know you nailed it. Hmm. When you hear an audible mmm, that goes at the right spot, that's when you know you nailed it. When you were in a live audience and you see a third of the audience grab their pen and write it down, that's when you know you nailed it. So a lot of tests, but observe your audience, because as we teach you, the audience teaches us what's working. Mark Brown, take us home.

Well, friends, you have your assignments. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to carefully craft your sticky foundational phrase. Get with a friend or a buddy. Make it happen. Connect that to your main message, and you will be unforgettable.

All right, join us at an upcoming Stage Time workshop. Go to stagetownworkshops.com or. Or work with us to create your foundational phrase as a member of stagetime University. See you next week.

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