Ep. 70 Do You REALLY Give the Audience What THEY Need? - Part 1

Hey there, Marc Brown. We focus so much on being unforgettable. And I think one of the things we've actually missed, which I think is critical, is what the audience actually needs. We've talked about this in our events, but we haven't really talked about it in the podcast. That to be unforgettable, we've got to help them get what they want. But they all have different needs.

And that's true. You know, we work so hard as speakers on our craft, on our skill to get our voice right, to get the language right, to get our points across. We can often fail to realize, yes, you are doing all the good things technically, but what about the audience? Yes, you want to give them value, but to find out what they need is to understand one thing. Not everyone sees you in the same way. We're going to talk about that today because we want you to find out how to give your audience what they really need.

Yes. And there's three people in your audience that we're going to actually ask them what they need. So. So you can be unforgettable.

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.

Yeah, Darren. You know, this is going to be a fun episode today. It's actually part one of a multi part series for everyone to kind of really take a good look at who's in your audience, what do they really need and how you can do it effectively. So you can be unforgettable.

Yeah, they've got different backgrounds, different experience and they bring that along with them in order to listen to you. And I think sometimes we forget that, that we just think, oh, well, if I just do it this way, it's going to reach people. And you know, we've learned about the. Or you've probably heard about the different learning styles and things like that we're talking about who's this person sitting in front of you? Sometimes we get that great fluffy feedback. Here's a one out of ten and ten. Oh, I got a nine. Ooh, I got. And we worry about that. Oh, well, what if we could actually sit down and authentically and truthfully hear from our audience and let's just say they're anonymous, so we don't know who they really are, but they're in your audience. What do you think, Mark?

I think it's a great idea and I'm glad you mentioned it because I know that you had a chance to actually hear from some of the audience members what they're looking for, what they expect, what they want, what they really need from us. And I would encourage everyone to listen carefully. If you're not watching, listen carefully. If you're watching, watch and listen carefully. Because you know what your audience is going to tell you what they need. It's up to you to provide it. Check this out.

All right, here's audience member number one.

Hi, I'm John. I'm in your audience. I admit it. Sometimes I can have the attention span of a small child. This better be fun. If you're telling one of those long, drawn out, boring stories with all that blah, blah, blah, I swear I'll be texting my buddy and checking my likes on Facebook faster than you can say boring. I need you to make learning fun. If you start talking all about you and how great you are, how I should be more like you, I swear I want to throw up. You've got to keep my attention. If you get boring even for a minute, I'm checking out. I swear. You've lost me. I probably do need your help, but if you're not interesting and tell great stories, don't get up and walk out. After all, that's why I sat in the back of the room. Connect with me. Help me. Give me what I need.

Oh, Mark, I love that.

Wow. Love, love, love that. And there's so much in there, you know? He says, listen, I like your story, but don't give me a long, drawn out story. And as a quick sidebar, I know somebody once asked a question, darren, how long should a story really be? And a fairly glib answer is, as long as it needs to be and as short as it can be. And the story need not take your whole speech. Now, some stories are short, some stories are long. But he's telling us. What John is telling us is, listen, don't be boring. And he done two other things I want to jump on real quickly. He says all about you, you, you, you, you. And Darren, you made it a point to teach about the IU ratio in presentations. And what John W. Is telling us is that can be really all I hear about is you. And I tell my clients all the time your stories are about you, but they're for your audience, they're about you, but for your audience, Darren.

Yeah, And I think that's one of the reasons we teach PACE elements, because we've got to keep it moving. We've got to keep that background, that voice, that modality of them listening to us. So it's even more important now to keep them engaged, because that's not just like, I'm going to take a look at my cell phone when nobody's making eye contact now they don't even have to. Or if they don't even have their camera on, they could be watching the football game behind the scenes, you know. But I love what he said, too, that. That's why I sat in the back, like he's looking for that reason. And you and I, if we're going to be unforgettable, we got to keep them engaged. We've. I remember my mentor, Dave Fitzgerald, when he spoke at AA meetings, telling his drunkalog story, he said that he could. His humor would actually get people in the back of the room forced to be there by the judge with their arms crossed. He could get them to uncross their arms because he was funny. Now that. It doesn't mean he was funny for the sake of being funny. It was an element that he used with a skill that he honed in order to get his message heard. So we gotta remember that even in virtual now, people are, quote, unquote, in the back of the room for reason. They're waiting to see. They're giving you a few minutes. I even remember Robin Williams when he was, you know, in the height of his fame, when he was in an interview, they said, well, is it different when you're famous? He said, yeah, they give you an extra 25 seconds of attention before they shut out. You know, so they got. You get a little extra juice because you're, quote, unquote famous. But then you still got to produce. I don't care who you are.

Yeah. And you mentioned him saying, I was on the back of the room. We don't want to give our audience members a reason to check out. We want to give them a reason to engage. And as you said, Darren, being in the virtual environment now, that magnifies the difficulty. I can recall when I was doing youth programs. I go to a school, there's 800 students ages 13 and 14 or 12 to 14 in a junior high school. A wonderful age to have 800 kids in the gymnasium with you. And the principal had the teachers sit with their kids in sections in the whole gym and I'm on the gym floor. I'm looking up, and I've got these kids. I'm working with these kids. And I see teachers who are supposed to be leading these kids. They're reading papers and looking at their notepads. I'm thinking to myself, I'm here for you and for your kids. Okay, I'm gonna do my thing. And it would give me the greatest joy and blessing to see a teacher who's got their pencil up and they're grilling a paper, you know, and I'm talking and they're. Oh. And they lean it. Then they smile and they laugh and they're engaged with the kids. That, to me, was a blessing. But make no mistake, I had to be aware of what they were thinking. I had to make sure what I brought was relevant to them as a member of the audience. And we tend to get so focused on our material. After all, we're the expert. But we got to make sure not to give the audience a reason to check out and to engage them. And it becomes that much more significant than the virtual world. And chances are we're not going to change this too soon in the near future. We have to make sure to use the tools. To use the tools we've been teaching for weeks, for months now about engaging your audience, because that's going to keep them busy. As John W. Says, don't be boring.

Yeah, we've got to keep them engaged. So John is in your audience. Keep in mind, there's a lot of. Everyone's smiling. They're happy to be there, but that's not always the truth of what they're thinking. They could be pretending. So make no mistake, John is in your audience. Mark, let's invite another audience member here to speak to us and speak their truth. Let's check out Amber and see what Amber has to say.

Hello, Amber. What's my name?

I'm Amber and I'm in your audience. Look, I've got a lot of experience on this topic, and I've been in the industry for. For years. I am an expert, too. I consistently learn from other experts, and I'm hoping you have new ideas. Tell me something I don't already know. I'm open to your perspective, but you gotta give me something new. I've heard it all before. Connect with me, help me and give me what I need.

Mmm. You know what, Darren? She says I'm an expert, too. Connect with me and give me what I need. If you are an emerging speaker, you'll find very, very quickly that you'll be asked to do programs where you walk in the room. And you are not the only expert. We take comfort in knowing, I am the pro, I'm the expert. But sometimes there are people in the room who are equally qualified, and they need to get perspective. Your experience, your angle, your take, and how you handle your subject matter. If all you're going to do is regurgitate what you've read in a research paper or somebody, you talk to people who know, they will know very, very quickly. And it's really important that you bring yourself your experience, your perspective, your mistakes, the things that you have learned in an engaging way, because there are people there who. Who are going to go, okay, you are so and so. Okay, what you got. Right? But of course, if you're Darren Lacroix, that never happens to you, right?

That happens all the time.

And.

And we don't know it. And keep in mind, the people like Amber, they're already like established experts in their field, in their industry. You're talking to them, but they also know people. And they're also almost like the watchmen or the mentor of the group, maybe the matriarch or patriarch. So depending on how well you serve the people, they could recommend you to other experts and other audiences that they're aware of. If you serve them so twofold, number one, they got influence, and they could also come back to the meeting plan and say whatever they truly feel about you and how you know you as the speaker, serve the audience. But number two, they. So, number one, they have influence, but number two, they're that perpetual student. A lot of times, sometimes they're not their egos in their way, but let's pretend they're that perpetual student. You've got to give them that new perspective. Maybe it's the same thing, but maybe they need that reminder from your life experience, from your story. So if you remind them, that could be good. And also if maybe you can do a little more research, find out about how this universal principle maybe applies today, let's say on virtual, for example, and how that's different. Okay, that hasn't been said before. So now you're truly feeding that expert in that field. Every time we present, we've got the Johns, we've got the Ambers, and sometimes we just see the smiling faces because that's why we do what we do.

Well, here's what's also interesting, Darren. Amber Dub. Amber says. Amber M. She says, I am an expert, too. The fact that she is in your audience tells you that she expects you to give her something that's valuable that she can then apply to her business. And I gotta tell you, this may sound like I'm blowing my own horn or we're blowing our own horn. And Darren did not discuss it with me at all. But I want to share this with you from my heart. That became real to me in the summer of 2019 when Darren and I presented a 90 minute deep dive program at the National Speakers association convention in Denver, Colorado. We are here with other speakers, other subject matter experts who are top of their game, and we're teaching them techniques that we use to master the platform. We were blessed in that we had a full house. We had standing room only. But to have individuals who are subject matter experts come to us afterwards and tell us that they received value from the presentation made us feel a sense of gratification because we knew who was in our audience, we knew what they needed. And we had worked for years, for decades, on honing our skill in platform presentation. We have taken it all over the world, but we realized we had to give them true value. We had to really give the audience what they needed. And the blessing was to have one of the legends come to us voluntarily and share with us. Hey, Mark. Darren, I took four pages of notes on your presentation, but that is not just to say how good we are. What I'm saying is we busted our tails to prepare the material in such a way to meet the need of the audience. And as a result, as Darren says, they talk to each other. We've now been getting requests by NSA chapters around the country to come and deliver these kind of programs to them, because the value they receive, they're telling people about it. Why share that? Not only to say how good we are, but to tell you when you do this, well, it's pretty. I'm pretty, pretty sure you'll have a similar experience where people you serve will say, hey, listen, they did this so well. You want to have them come to your. Come to your group and share that message. And if you've ever had someone refer you for that reason, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Darren.

Yeah, we had so many influencers in front of us, and that led to more presentations because we serve. That's a great example, Mark. Thanks for bringing that up. Of the Ambers in your audience, and that was to have Harvey McKay and say it was the best breakout session he had ever heard in 20 years in NSA. I was like, can you say that again on camera?

But the coolest thing was Darren I mean, and again, this may sound self serving, but we want to show the principle. Harvey Harry McKay is a legend in the speaking business and he came to us both unsolicited. And again, the result was the work we have put in over the years working on this. I can recall, Darren, you went to a program in New England. It must have been, I don't know, 2000, three years ago. Working on our craft. Working on our craft, working on our craft. And if you work hard with the mindset, I really want to give my audience what they need. These kind of results are the results you're going to get, Darren.

Yeah. And if we look at it that every presentation is an opportunity to get more presentations, is an opportunity to influence the people who are in your audience. And it's also preparing you because mistakes will happen, other things will come up, comments will come after, and you're like, okay, put that in the box. Because we could use that for our next audience. It's resolve to evolve. We've got to be constantly evolving. And it was so cool, just unexpectedly having Harvey McKay come up to us and having. I had someone come up and say, I saw you six years ago in France and I'm a professional speaker now because of you. I'm just like, I get choked up. But that's one of the reasons we do this. Like that can mean more. But we've got to remember there's that person who's maybe at the beginning of that career and that person who's got a lot of experience and just coming to kind of check you out. So they're in our audience. And mark this episode, I want to cover one more audience member. And this, this one, we love to have this one I call the cheerleader who's in your audience. It's great to have them. But listen at the end of her comment, because there's one thing, honestly, this is somebody who I felt was in the audience, but I actually have a friend who fit this description and I asked her that question and she said yes. So here's what audience member number three has to say. Let's talk to Mary.

Let's meet Mary. It's time to meet Barry.

Hi, I'm Mary. I'm in your audience. You know, I love speakers. I've seen a lot and many of them several times. And I always come back for more. I sit in the front row every time because I can't get enough. And then after your program, I'm going to jump on Facebook and I'm going to tell all my Friends how great you are. But here's what you might not know. Even though I'm listening and I'm nodding, I am really not good at taking action. I have a stack of notes from other presenters sitting on my desk that I have never looked at, not once. What I need is a clear call to action. Make my next step clear. Give me a reason to follow through on it. If you're good, I'll tell my friends. But if you change my life, I'll tell the world. Connect with me. Help me. Give me what I need.

Oh, Mark, I love that on so many levels because sometimes we hear that cheerleader and they posted on Facebook how great I am. And I brought my friend aside and sat down and said, hey, by the way, do you actually follow through? And she was very honest with me, and she said, no. So sometimes, just because people are posting about us, that's nice. But have we truly made a difference? And I love the two things that she said. That's a great reminder to all of us to truly be unforgettable. Number one, you gotta be clear. And number two, you gotta give me a reason to take that action. It seems obvious to us. That's why we're there. Here's the subject. Well, we assume that everyone is a sponge. And sometimes you're gonna have sponges in your audience leaning in. But how good you are is the people on the fence that will go to action that will make a change because you were good, not just because they were the sponge. They'll always be those sponges that even if you're horrible, they'll pick something up and they'll do with it. Mark?

Yeah. A couple of things here. One, she said, I'm on the front row, and I come to your programs over and over again. And if we think about it, there are individuals. I have accused one gentleman of stalking me. For the last eight months, I've done all these programs in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and India, and he shows up. He's there all the time, and we laugh about that, but he's a true sponge. But he's always there. But what came to mind is the second part where you said, taking action. Now, Darren, we didn't talk about this, but you remember a couple of years ago, we're doing our lady and the Champs program, and we had the 1, 2, 3 idea, and there's a gentleman who was in the program, and you had told him about the idea of one action twice a week for three weeks, Become a habit. And he actually sent you a video Testimonial of how the call to action when he actually did it, how it transformed his progress. He was studying for a program, a class, and I don't want to tell your story or tell his story. We didn't discuss this before, so you can't find the video right away, but could you share with us how the idea of a clear call to action changed this man's life so much he actually gave you a video testimonial about it?

Yeah. And it was actually a practice speech. It wasn't actually the lady and the champ speech. It was in preparation for that. And he happened to be at two different Toast Toastmaster clubs when I was, quote, unquote, working out the story. And he came up to me and said that, you know, this 1, 2, 3 thing, just, you know, one action twice a week for three weeks. And it worked with him. And he said he was kind of falling behind in his college courses. He decided to dive in, follow through in the action. And he said that it actually worked for him. He got ahead of the game and did. Did really well in that course. And it was because of that moment, but it was also because of what I learned from my coaches. Like, get out there and do it. Unless they're moving to action, we're kind of failing. And again, we can't be responsible for everyone, but we gotta be responsible to everyone. We've got Mary, we've got Amber, and we've got John sitting in our audience. That's why we can't just throw it together and. And tell great stories. That's a good thing. That's a great thing. But if we're not taking into consideration what the audience really needs, and are we giving them what they need?

Yeah. And I tell you, I gotta go back to Mary one more time because I know we're showing the video of silhouettes, people telling you who they are. But if you think about it, think back to the last time you gave a presentation, particularly live, several months ago. I know that, but can you identify John and Mary and Amber in your audience when Mary mentioned about. I'm there every time and I want to call to action. I remember the theme we had at our conference that year was execute one action word. Execute. Gary, in our programs, our workshops, we have people get to have keepers and they have action items. And I think it was you who said in our last program, for the longest while, we always had notes. Notes. They became keepers. Keepers, keepers. Yes, Good ideas, great ideas. But how many of us have stacks of good ideas? Stacks of Sermon notes from pastors whose services we attend. We all have these notes, but then we bumped the game up and said, okay, along with your keepers. I love these. These are great. What are your action items? And the action items tell you what you decide. I will do this. And we push our people. We say, what are your action items? What are your keepers? And now we're calling on them. What have been your breakthroughs? What have you gotten the last time you did this? What have you done with your action items? It's a level of accountability. But if we can give our audience members something to walk away and to do, and ideally, if we can offer even one idea that they can apply that same day, it's actionable, then we really are giving them what they need. It's important to know, yes, Mary's in the audience. Identify her. Amber's in the audience. What does she really need? John's in the audience. Am I engaging them enough to really make sure that they're having the experience of being with me and they're walking away with true value? These audience members are asking you questions. The answers must come from you.

Yeah. Remember, John's in the back of the room too. And if you're leading a webinar, it means his camera's off. So what can we do to still help him? We've got to keep it engaging. We've got to help all of these people. And I love this episode, Mark, because this is really where it matters, where we're taking the time to consider who's in our audience and what do we need to do with our content to make it more digestible with each of these audience members, Mark, I don't want to overwhelm people. So I think we'll do this well, as in bite sized servings. Bites.

Bite sized bites.

I think we'll do another part two and maybe even a part three, and we'll visit more people who are in your audience. Did we do any keepers this time, Mark?

I'll give you a couple of ideas. Well, first, John. John's overall idea number one was don't be boring. Right. He says, I'm in the back of the room. I don't want drawn out stories. Don't tell me all about you. I want you to engage me and I want you to notice I'm in the back of the room, ready to leave and to text my friends. So I want you to connect with me. I want to feel it's more about me than about you. Amber says I'm an expert, too. I want Added value. I want new material. And I will tell my friends about you because of the value you give. And Mary says I'm here all the time. I've heard it before. Give me a key call to action, make it clear. I'll know what to do. I'll post on Facebook, I'll tell my friends, I'll blow it up and I'll promote you if I know you provide value. So these three people, John, Amber and Mary are your audience members who are in the seats or at the screens and they're telling you what they need. So the question becomes, do you really give your audience what they need? The answer is up to you, Darren.

Yeah. And if you want more, how to's on exactly how to do that. Join us for one of our events. Mark and I love doing this podcast. It's kind of like talking shop off stage or backstage in the green room. I love this. What we specifically do at each of our events is we give you the step by step processes how to but we're thrilled that you're listening. Thanks for being a subscriber. If you haven't already subscribed, subscribe. If new you're tell your friends. Especially in this series because a lot of times we never consider these people are in our audience. If you do want to check out our upcoming schedule, just go to stagetime workshops.com stagetimeworkshops.com and if you want to be a VIP or join us, just use the code podpod25podcast25 pod25 and get 25% off just because you're a an unforgettable presentation subscriber and listener. So Mark, we'll see you next week. Take us home.

All right my friends, the question is do you really give your audience what they need? Join us next week for more answers because we want you to be good, to be great. No, we want you to be unforgettable.

See you next week.

Make sure you subscribe to our show.

Remember to subscribe. 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.