Ep. 307 7 STEPS TO UNFORGETTABLE - PART 4

Hey there, Mark Brown. So we're walking through a process, our seven steps to Unforgettable, right out of our book, deliver unforgettable presentations that we created with Patricia Fripp, our mentor. So we're walking through the seven step process. We're on part four. And look, if you like what we have to say and you want to go deeper, you want 144 questions that will dig and mine your life for, for the gold that's in there that maybe you didn't even think of accessing. So right now we're on part four, your compelling close.

And the key is this. With a good closing, chances are your talk just might be unforgettable. Let's do this, Darren.

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.

Stage time, Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation. Ahas, let's dive right in.

You know, Darren, we're talking about closing. And I can recall almost 30 years ago, I began to do keynotes. I mean, I was a Toastmasters world champion of public speaking. I was being asked to deliver these presentations and do keynotes. And I had a couple of really good friends who were honest and kindly harsh with me because I had been guilty of doing what so many speakers do when they're inexperienced. I had a close. After a close, after a close. It was the Colombo. Oh, one more thing. And oh, by the way. And I had no idea that I was closing so improperly. And if we were to ask our listeners and viewers to remember a time when they heard a presenter who they thought was done and they kept closing and closing and closing, I might have been that presenter. Why do I share this? Without the proper structure and knowing why you close and how you close, your closing just might be unforgettable for the wrong reasons.

Might be annoying. That's what it might be.

Been there, done that. Guilty.

We're both guilty. And a lot of presenters are, unless you get the process from the beginning. So if you've been guilty of that, no worries. The worst crime is not even be aware that you're guilty of that. But if nobody tells you you think you're doing fine and you've got these three ideas that the audience perceives as a close Even though you might not. And that's why it's so powerful to have a coach, someone who can say, hey, do you understand how this is landing? Because usually we don't. If we're not getting feedback from that higher level, we don't understand. And as we teach, the most important part of a present is the thought process in the listener's mind. So if we think you're closing and then you close again, and then you close again, we're confused. And a confused mind doesn't buy your idea, your concept. And they're probably not going to move forward with your call to action either, because they're scratching their head. Hmm. If you were with us last week, we encourage you to go through all the different steps. But last week we talked about your strong opening. This is about your compelling close. If you're not familiar with the Fripp model, check it out, probably find it online. It's part of our courses, it's part of our workshops. The Patricia Fripp speech model. If you're watching the YouTube version, you're seeing it right now. If you're just listening, picture this amazing world class concept. There's a gray bubble at the top which symbolizes your opening. There's a gray bubble at the bottom, which is your strong close, your compelling close. But what you may not see, even if you're listening and seeing, is there's a thin gray arrow that goes from your compelling close pointing up to your strong opening.

Wait, wait, you're pointing backwards.

Yes, yes. Because the open and close work together often. They're a sandwich, but they're much more than a sandwich. There's got to be a lot of meat in the middle. But we say that one of the important elements is getting clear on your premise. The premise is the thought or the idea that you're selling. We say that your strong opening must set up your premise. Your compelling clothes must reinforce your premise. So because of all the meat in the middle, you should now see things differently because of that perspective. But now that close is wrapping it up, tying it in a bow, giving us that one little reaction, eliciting emotion, and then a call to action.

I would hope that everyone watching or listening heard the verb in your statement. A strong closing reinforces your premise because the idea is your message is clear to you. You want your audience to get your message. You state your premise. I'm going to go through with this. I have a call to action. But when the closing reinforces the premise, it is one more time, it gives the audience one More taste, one more opportunity to digest the impact, the power of your message. So your closing should not be randomly chosen because I've got a great story I gotta tell. That may be true, but the purpose is to reinforce the opening and as Darren says, tie the whole thing up together in a bow. That way the audience remembers it. Why we want your presentation to be unforgettable.

Now, in the book, which you can find on Amazon or you can find on our site, goes through many different options of closing. But I want to give you a specific one, my favorite one, one that I use often. In fact, one that we invented or at least labeled in the process of creating the program, Create youe Keynote by Next Week, which turned into the book Deliver Unforgettable Presentations. And my favorite is what I call the dialogue close. The dialogue close, which means we close using a line of dialogue that was in the meat of the speech. So there was a story, let's say, in the beginning, maybe it was point of wisdom one, point of wisdom two, point of wisdom three. But now I use my mentor, Vinnie, for example, that taught me stage time, stage time, stage time. And so at the end, I may close by saying, look, I don't know everything, but I do know this. If Vinnie was here right now, he would tell you, never turn down stage time. Boom. That's the idea or thought that I want them to walk away with. That is calling back to a story that's in the middle or in the meat of the presentation. So I'm reinforcing the main point, which is not to turn down stage time. Now, different keynotes, I have different points, but when I'm teaching presentation skills in a keynote version, that is often one of the main premise or the main premise from that specific speech. Each speech has its own premise and its own open and its own close. But in that situation, we're calling back to a story told in the middle. But I use a line of dialogue from a mentor that passed the wisdom onto me. And through me, they're passing the wisdom onto the audience.

Yeah, and the cool thing with this particular option, friends, is that it's ready made, it's tailor made for you. You have a powerful story, you have a voice of wisdom who we may call the guru in a story. And they really help you to learn the lesson that you want to teach us. And calling back with the dialogue close gives the audience a couple of benefits. One, they get to recall a story, hopefully a powerful story you told earlier, and they remember the story. It'll also help them remember the character, be it a human being or inanimate object that taught that lesson. It then reinforces the message and the premise through dialogue. We learn very easily through dialogue and conversation. Oh, he said, she said, the teddy bear said. But it also gives the audience one more taste of the power of your premise. So a dialogue close, it's very easy, very convenient, but most of all, it's quite memorable. Look at your own presentations and think of the most powerful story you have and the moment when dialogue was delivered. The aha came. It's giving you, it's handing you an opportunity to use that particular closing technique to make your closing memorable as well. Reinforce the premise and the audience walks away now with a stronger reason to act on your call to action.

Yes. So that closing, again, reinforcing the idea of the premise. So that's why the premise is kind of the foundation. We can't just create a closing if we don't know what we're reinforcing. So there are many options. You could close with a story just like you could open with a story, you could close with, as we say, the rest of the story, the Paul Harvey close. You might have given us a cliffhanger at the beginning and then we go back to that same story, but now we hear the end of the story, what we call it, a suspended story. There are many different options for closing, but you've got to be strategic. And if you're getting paid well, it's expected you close well. If you want to get paid well, it's expected you close well. It is important to be concise. And we always say, don't worry about memorizing your speech, internalize it, but you're open and you're close. You should know word for word it should come out of you easily, it should flow out of you and you should have conviction.

Mark There is one particular mistake, Darren, that I know I shouldn't say I know because I was going to say I know you pull your hair out, but you don't have any hair to pull out.

Too many coaching clients.

But here's what it is. We talk about this often in corporate settings. We have learned, seen, discovered over 30 plus years each in the business that very often the speaker will close with Q and A. We have discussed this in various podcasts, also in our blogs about the idea of not ending with Q and A. And we don't want to go into great detail, but what often happens is, before I go, we have time for a few questions. People go for their mobile devices, they get their Keys, their pocketbook, whatever. Because they know the presentation is over, they're going to get questions. I'm not interested. I'm out of here. I. If not physically, certainly mentally, we don't recommend you close on the Q and A. You may have questions. You can certainly have a time of Q and A. But always preface the Q and A with the idea you have one more thought, one more point, one more key, one more technique that will make this all make sense. But to honor them, you have about eight minutes for questions, whatever the case may be. But after Q and A, you must leave them with that final thought, a compelling thought that will make your closing memorable. We don't often do this. I'm going to actually read a quick line from our book where it says this. It says, even if you receive excellent questions during Q and A, remember, you still must conclude your presentation by delivering a closing as powerful as the opening. Even when you get good questions and you answer them, you still must close with a closing as powerful as your opening. And one way to do that is to let the audience know, I have one more thought, one more idea for you. And again, it gives you one more opportunity to reinforce your premise. Leave them with an idea that will inspire them to act, so your call to action makes that much more sense to them. This may seem very simple, but it's not that easy unless we know, as Darren said earlier, we know how we will close cold. It's in us. Not just memorize words, but it's in us. So even with Q and A, which can be challenging, never abandon the fact you need to close. Strong, compelling. So the audience remembers your premise, is called to take action, and they remember you and your message.

Yeah. And we want you to create the open in the close. Note, there's seven steps, not seven random ideas. There's an order to them, structure. So after you figure out your. Your premise, then you go to create your opening. Now you go to your closing. And the two of them, you want to create one, then the other, because they're going to connect them now, they may change over time. You may realize you have a stronger story in the middle that's so good, it needs to move to the end. So it's an ever evolving process. But you're closing. By the way, a quick tip on the close. If you're doing Q and A, let them know how long or how many questions, give them the context, give them the idea of how much time or how many questions you're going to take. Time is probably even better because Sometimes people might ramble or go on, but you let them know. I'm gonna leave you with one important story from my mentor. But before we get to that, I'm gonna take 3 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes of Q and A. So you're selling that. There's gonna be an idea you wrap it up with. Otherwise, in the corporate world, especially as soon as you say Q and A, people start packing up. They close their notebooks, they pull out their phones, they start checking their texts and. And, yeah, so that's why you want to say you're going to close. You're going to leave them with one final thought, one insight, one whatever that is. So you've almost got to sell your clothes, plant the seed of your clothes before you go into Q and A. Otherwise they'll proceed that as the end. Mark Brown.

One more thought. Darren, you said earlier, it's a very simple example. You said it's more. A good presentation is more than just a sandwich between the opening and closing. So I'm going to take that sandwich idea, which sounds kind of corny, but let's think about this. I remember years ago, I used to see a comic book cartoon strip called Blondie. It's probably from the 50s, but Blondie's husband's name is Dagwood. And Dagwood, my mom would say, I want to make you a Dagwood sandwich. Because Dagwood used to always make these huge sandwiches that they're stacked, forget clubs. I mean, he had a triple, like a club sandwich. But I thought about Dagger. I chuckled to myself as you were talking, Darren. I chuckled because I thought, you know, when we're going to make a sandwich, we choose. We've got the white bread. I'm going to put some cheese, some tomatoes, some lettuce. Some people want to put onions in there. I might put some salami or whatever else. If you're a vegetarian, you may not put anything, anything carnivorous. There any carne in there? But very often, even making. Was it dairy? The pbj, I learned the very popular American lunch, peanut butter and jelly. And I've watched people put one piece of bread, they put the peanut butter on this side, they put the jelly on that side and they put it together. But people stack their sandwiches as they see fit. And I took the idea. You said sandwich. My brain went, okay. I chose it's white, it's rye, it's wheat, it's perpendicular. But I choose my bread. I choose to layer with my points of wisdom and supporting evidence, but I do it Deliberately to. Some people don't want tomatoes and meat together. They want tomato, then lettuce, then meat. That's fine. But notice you take time to structure how you put your sandwich together. And that last piece goes on top. You kind of squish it down and you're like, ah, it's ready. It's a silly example, but it's a principle. There. There's a structure to the way you make your sandwich. In the same way is a structure to the way we talk about putting your presentation together. And you carefully put that last piece on and you go, ah, I cut it across diagonally. I have just made the perfect sandwich. In the same way, you carefully decide what bread I'm gonna go with. Wheat bread. You get what two pieces of wheat bread first. Darren says, get your opening and get your closing. They have to be coordinated. Very few people go with wheat and pumpernickel to make a sandwich. They choose. You choose those two pieces of bread first. We're saying, even though it's step four, your closing has to be connected that closely to your opening. Think of your sandwich. Have the bread first, you get the bread out, you put it down first, then you collect your ingredients. It's a similar process. Sounds simple or sounds trite, but done well. You will literally construct your unforgettable presentation by putting it together where the closing reinforces the opening. And you go, ah, just one nice sandwich. That, for you, is one unforgettable presentation.

So if you open with a rhetorical question, consider. Doesn't mean it's the perfect close, but consider, maybe you revisit that question, right? But now you answer it differently. Maybe you reinforce part of it from the middle that answers that rhetorical question in a more concise, premise, reinforcing way.

Yeah, it could be a challenge. It could be a challenging statement. You offered it at the beginning, you offer the challenge, but after your presentation, you say, now, can you then now do or fulfill this challenge? Because it connects the opening to the close. There's so many look at, please go to get the book. Look at different options for closing and see how this fits very, very well. And I'm telling you, once you get accustomed to doing this, you'll feel as if, yeah, I've built this speech in the right way and the audience is not going to forget it. That's what it takes. You need that compelling close that is reinforcing your opening to make this whole presentation unforgettable.

I encourage you to go back to part one, two, and three and get the book if you want to go more deeply into your life to mine your life and your stories, the first time you go through it may be a little overwhelming because you're being introduced to a world class process. But once you get it, you'll think this way and you'll be able to create better presentations more quickly. Most importantly, you'll realize the parts that are going to help make it Unforgettable. So join us next week for Part five.

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