Ep. 269 DO YOU PING YOUR AUDIENCE?

Hey there, Mark Brown. Ping your audience. Do you ping your audience?

What?

You first introduced me that term. What is pinging? To ping or not?

The word. Well, ping has several different, different definitions. I can't speak English today. One of them is this. To send a signal to a device in order to determine its status or location. That's technical in speaking. Ping has a similar meaning, which I will tell you after this.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the 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.

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

All right, so ping to send a signal to a device or phone in order to determine its status or location in presentations. You ping your audience by sending something to them to determine are they with me, do they understand? Can they relate to my experience? And the question is, as presenters, do you ping your audience? Darren?

Yeah. So the question is not to ping or not to ping. The question is, do you ping enough? And I love that, that literal definition, Mark, of to see the status of the location of a dev. Well, to see the status or awakeness.

Of your audience awareness. Yes, that's true. Are they with you? Are they awake? Are they following along? Yes, that's a good question to ask.

Well, and if you follow along with this podcast, thank you. Best favor you could do is please pass this on and let other people know about this podcast. Or if you're serious and you want us to work with you, you can check out get a speakingcoach.com or check out Stagetime University. This, however, is about one of the principles we teach, which is what is the most important part of a presentation, which is the thought process in the listener's mind. So the purpose of pinging, or Mark, may be purposeful pinging. We'll make things up as we go.

Indeed, the purposeful pinging of the audience.

And Mark, when you and I work with the CEOs for YPO, telling a brand new story, taking them from idea and to final stage, one of the ways that we help them and serve them is we help them create a script. And literally, we were working with one of our new friends, David Short. He was working on his script and we had to say to him, as you're working on a Script. Okay, here is a place you need to ping the audience. So he literally put it in parentheses. If you're watching the YouTube version, you see this. If you're listening to the audio we put in parentheses in the script, ping the audience. Because we didn't want to put our words in his mouth. So here's a place that you need to check in with the audience and make sure their thought process is with you. Have you ever worked for free for four years was the question he created. But it's a question to the audience or maybe it's a, maybe it's a visual that you put up to see if they're paying attention, but it's literally reaching out. Just like we teach with the words you or your. It's where in my presentation, do I need to ping them? Do I need to see if they can relate? Because sometimes a story we tell, an idea, we communicate, it's about them, it's about relating to them in their life. But we may have to hold their hand to say, okay, hey, do you see where this applies in your life? Because they may, in, in David's case, they may not have perceived that. Let's just say doing this or doing that was for free for four years. They might, oh, you don't mean this. You mean this. So we can do that with a question. With a well worded question, yes.

And not only that, I like your phrase well worded. A well worded question tickles the audience's brain cells. Of course. And one of the other values of pinging the audience is to establish that they can relate to the experience you had. And even if the experience was not the same, the emotion is the same. A question like, have you ever had your heart broken? That's a concept almost anyone can relate to. It may not be the same circumstance, the same exact experience, but the emotion attached to gives you the commonality. That's the connection you establish with the audience. So let me be very clear. One of the purposes of the ping is to establish and reinforce an emotional connection with the audience. Not only a connection with you as the individual, but a connection with the experience that you have had. When you establish that connection, when you get the head nods, when the audience is poking their chin and they're poking their neighbor, when you see that tells you the audience is communicating with you. Not only am I with you, I understand you, I feel you, I sympathize, and in some cases I empathize. That level of emotional connection puts you in a position to really give the audience an Experience, but it also gives them not only permission, but it gives them a reason to lean into what you have to say to receive and accept. Accept the wisdom you impart upon them. Because they're saying, Darren Lacroix, I relate to what you're saying. How can what you're saying help me? I just use a lot of words. But all of that is one benefit of strategically pinging your audience. Because Darren here and friends, here's the problem I find I had and many presenters have. We have so much information to share, we have so much wisdom we want to impart, and we have to be careful to avo a brain dump blah, all over the audience without finding out, wait, does this make sense? Am I connecting? Can you relate? Because here's truth. Sometimes you go on in your topic and sometimes the audience does not relate and they check out. A ping gives you an indication of their location in their mind and their heart. Where are they with you? Because sometimes they're out in the left field somewhere or in a tomato patch because you've lost them. Pinging gives you an indication of where they are with you.

Yeah, we can't talk about pinging without talking about the pingaholic Ed Tate, the ping master. If you don't know Ed, he's amazing. He is the trainer's trainer. He's the reason we're good at what we do when it comes to training audiences as opposed to presenting keynote. Ed also has this way too. Just to make sure you leave no audience member behind, whether it's training or speaking, where he says, does that make sense? So he's pinging the audience to check in with them. You know, he'll introduce a concept. But before he goes on, does that make sense? He wants to make sure he's getting the 80% head nods or looking and reading their face. If they're confused, then he shouldn't go on. He needs to go back and explain. By the way, Ed and I are training trainers. If you're interested in joining us for Train the Trainer, we had that workshop coming up. Just check out stagetimeworkshops.com we'd love to help you get to that next level that you want in your speaking or training career. Write down the code PODPOD25POD25 and that'll give you 25% off because you're a listener of unforgettable presentations. But Ed is just a master at that, reaching out to the audience to make sure we're with them. So whether it's a keynote presentation or a training pinging, is important to make sure we're affecting the thought process in the listener's mind. Now, in training, you may do more pinging than you do in keynoting. So keynoting, it may be highlights or concepts, whereas training, it could be every step along the way. Or if you're doing a teaching a process, training a process, it might be at each step of the process. So make no mistake, it's subtle. You may not even notice when a speaker or a trainer are pinging you. But you as the expert, as the speaker, as the trainer, you need to be aware. Maybe I need to ping more often or at a specific place.

Mark, good point. And here's an idea for you. No, this may be unfamiliar to you and you're saying, okay, I need to ping the audience one, and perhaps I must ping them some more. But here's a simple method. I won't say process to verify the effectiveness of the ping. I call it the ping and pause. The ping and pause, because the ping is essentially asking a question. When you ask a question, you need to wait for the answer. So what happens in that space? You may have heard me say, you ask a question or make a statement, you put some air around it. But in the ping and pause, here's Mark Brown's perspective, ping and pause perspective of how this works and why it works. When you ping and pause, you are then not just letting the audience ponder your words, ping, pause and ponder. It's also ping, pause and process. But here's the thing. You ping, pause, but then you must also pay attention. What do I mean by that, Darren? I'm talking about the. Literally looking at the audience. I'm assuming a live audience here. Okay, Were you ping. Can you relate? Can you imagine how that must have felt? Then the Boston cameras, what? Shut up. Right? You shut up. You ping, you pause. But pay attention to the audience. Make some eye contact. Look for the head nods. Look for the emotional reaction. Look for the. Look for any kind of emotional response the audience may give because that tells you tacitly, non verbally, they're telling you, oh, that's good. Or, huh, I'd never consider that before. Or they're going, oh, man, I thought I was the only one. We don't need to be psychologists to be able to read an audience's reaction. But if you ping, pause, and let them respond to you, maybe in. You are doing a ping, pause and process. Because here's the cool part. We didn't really have our structured presentations. We know where we're going with Everything, right? We know what we want to say. But you ping the audience pause, you may get a reaction that you didn't expect or a response that triggers a thought in your mind that says, you know what, I need to invest an extra minute and go deeper on this, or I need to pause a little bit longer. Or maybe not in the moment, but their reaction tells you I need to go back to the drawing board with this and dig a little deeper for the next time I give this presentation, because that reaction told me something I didn't expect. But the ping and the pause is not just about you delivering the presentation. It's about you allowing the audience to communicate with you to make sure that what you receive helps you deliver your next presentation more unforgettably. This may appear to be an advanced technique for you. So here it is. Bottom line. The ping is not just about changing your pace element and having a chance to talk to the audience. It goes deeper than that. It allows you to measure, as in ping, to identify location and status. It allows you to measure the status of the audience. Where are they with me? What is their reaction telling me? And sometimes, perhaps rarely, a ping to a particular audience, a demographic, a committee, an association, a corporation, that ping tells you more about where they are as an organization. Their response does that maybe you weren't aware of. Again, it's rare, but if we're paying attention after the ping. Ping, pause, pay attention. Ping, pause, pay attention. That's the ping and pause process that I just made up. Well, really? But seriously, ping, pause, pay attention. You might learn something.

Yeah, and my version of the same idea would be ping, pause, and ponder. While you're pondering. While they're pondering, you should be reading the room.

Exactly.

And I know this is what you're saying. I'm just giving it a different spin. Ping, pause, let them ponder while they're pondering. Your job is to read the room. And if you are the expert, you should be seeing if they're with you, if they're confused, if they got it, if they agree, if they don't agree, because maybe you're pinging to kind of poke them or prod them. So you're actually checking in to see if they're really paying attention to. To say something that seems backwards or non proper. I'm looking for a word.

I can't find it. Let's say unorthodox.

Unorthodox. Perfect.

If nothing else, please hear our hearts here, because here's what I've been dealing with. I've Seen so many presenters who have so much information, good information, have done the research, they've put the work in, they have received and they want to give from the depths of their hearts, but they just give and don't really appreciate the fact. An unforgettable presentation really is communication between presenters and the audience. If we sat down to just talk, at times, the audience, audience made us realize by their reaction, oh, you're onto something here. And the reason why I emphasize this is I remember I had a client one time, a pro speaker, who was delivering a keynote and because a part of their story, not because a part of their story was poignant and a bit emotional, however, because their story has been their story, which they have told time and time and time again, the power and impact of their story can easily, and it happens to me too, can easily become lost in the routine of delivering the speech over and over again, particularly when you do give a talk. Several times in my career, I've spoken to over a million young people giving the same presentation, continually upgraded that I began giving in 1995. I last gave that presentation three weeks ago in Illinois, as over as course of 1995, 2024. That's 29 years of me delivering the speech and it's very easy for me to just go through the routine and deliver it. But when you ping the audience understand this, that audience has never heard it before. It's their first time hearing your presentation, right? So when you ping that audience, don't just keep barreling through your material honestly. Find out what they have to say about it, how they respond to it, and be very cautious of being so familiar that you may miss the value of the nuance of a little longer pause of a ping, well chosen in location and time to see where they are. And here's a request I have for everyone watching this podcast. Perhaps the idea of the ping is fairly new to you. You've done it before, or it's brand new. You've never done it before. I would invite you to think about the ping and invest some time to think about where and when to ping. Darren, you said earlier, that's one question, is, are you pinging? The second one was, are you pinging enough? And the third question is, are you pinging enough in the right places in your presentation? I'm going to say it again, are you pinging enough in the right places in your presentation? Don't just ask a question for asking questions sake. Don't just use humor because you want them to laugh. Oh, it's been Seven minutes. I got to make him laugh. No, the question. When you pose a question to your audience at the right time, in the right way, you are really giving them more value because now they're going to process and think, wow, I'd never thought of that before. And a ping may be very simple. How would you handle that particular circumstance at that time? Really? Oh, I've never dealt with that before. But if I do, how would I do it now? You got them thinking, you got the brain working. You are adding them, you're adding value to what you say by engaging them to be actively involved, not just sitting back, arms folded, listening to you talk for 48 minutes. I don't mean to sound harsh. I want to invite you to understand there's value and power when you ping the audience at the right time with the right question, in the right moment.

And Mark, here's just another example again from David's speech later on, Frazier taught me the power of a bold vision. So that's one of his mentors, vision ping. So he actually categorized his different pings. Is your vision bold enough? And then P is for pause to let them ponder. It's just. Yeah, it was to him it was a brand new concept, but he didn't know. But it's our job to enlighten people who are serious about their presentations. So take this seriously. Again, the thought process in the listener's mind. Pinging is to make sure they're with you, to make sure you're affecting or affecting their thoughts. Thoughts. It's more important than you think. And here's the key. If you're a high paid keynote speaker, you cannot ping at all and you'll get the same check. But when you ping, you're going to get a deeper connection, a more lasting impact on your audience and probably more referrals. So pinging is important, not necessary, unless you care about your message.

And I'm sure everyone who's hearing us today does care. So I do leave you with this thought. Do you ping your audience? Do you ping your audience enough? Do you ping the audience in the right moment at the right time? And do you ping, pause, pay attention, let them ponder and process the answer. Up to you.

We'll see you next week. Next week we have a pastor that I saw his sermon and I was like, nope, we gotta talk about this. So this isn't just for pastors. However, if you know a pastor, make sure they listen next week because there was a powerful sermon at my church. So Shane, our pastor at the crossing in Las Vegas. I asked him if he would be on the podcast because Mark, he had a hysterical, hysterical comedy club worthy text exchange with a text spammer. He had one of the best illustrations I've ever seen on that stage. And he also had this video. You know how we teach using a video clip that elicits emotion, but not only do I want to talk about it, but the strategic use of the video clip that elicited emotion. So join us when we're going to go in deep with a sermon called Chosen Made New with Pastor Shane from the Crossing Church in Las Vegas. Whether you're interested in sermons or not, you will get some ideas from this, I promise you. Did you get that? I just pinged you. See you next week.

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