Ep. 80 Five Closing Mistakes

Darren Lacroix.

How are you, my friend?

I'm doing good. Mark, what's on your mind this week?

Well, first of all, matching shirts, who knew? But when it comes to speaking, you know, I've been thinking about speakers, and when they close their presentations, it occurred to me so many people make simple mistakes in their clothes that can really have an impact on what they're trying to do and how they want to serve their audiences. What have you noticed?

Why are you there? You're not there to take up time and space. Why are you there? You're there. All the work you did throughout your presentation is for this moment.

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.

All right, Darren. Okay, listen, man, I know it's a pet peeve of mine because I have been guilty of some of these very common closing mistakes, and today I'm glad.

You admit that you have. I haven't.

I really want to dive a little deeper, deeper on five very common closing mistakes and perhaps help our listeners find some ways to solve those problems.

Yeah, sometimes a lot of people think, you know, you need this powerful, amazing story to be unforgettable, and that is one element. But. But on these episodes, we talk about some of the finer things, and often it's layers of these tiny little tweaks and inclusions and procedures and strategies that together makes it unforgettable. So sometimes it might seem like we're being nitpicky, and we are, because that's what it takes to be unforgettable. So, Mark, I love this idea. Five closing mistakes. You. You worked hard your whole presentation. You gave your passion, your energy, enthusiasm, and. And now we hand over our mission to our audience.

Exactly. And the thing is, you know, as you said earlier, why are you there? We always teach. We always almost preach. Listen, think in your mind. What do you want the audience to think, to feel, and to do after your presentation? So there has to be value added at the very end. That lets the audience go off with a change of heart, a change of thought, a change of mind, and a determination to. To do something different, do something differently, to start doing something or to Stop doing something. And the first mistake that hinders and hampers. This is number one, offering a week closing.

Hinders and hampers. I love that you're just on it today. Mark Brown is on it. There's some puns coming soon. Yeah, it's the weak close. It's the close. It's mailing it in as opposed to taking the time to focus and make sure it's strong. We see this in corporate presentations. We see this in professional presentations. We this see this in speech contests. It's like, now I have ended. Okay, cricket, cricket, cricket. What do you want me to do with that? Like, it was awesome. I loved it. You got me excited. But what do I do?

Yeah, and it happens also in film. We get a nice film. The film's got us intrigued. It's good drama, a twist and a turn, and then credits. Wait, what's missing here? Something is missing, and your audience is actually telling you, please give me something to do after I hear your presentation. And if your closing is weak and it peters out, the audience may leave unfulfilled. And the last thing you and I want to hear is, that's an hour of my life I won't get back. And of course, Darren never causes that. I have done it in the past, but Darren, no, never, ever did that to an audience.

Exactly. See how smart you're getting hanging out with me? Of course I'm teasing. Because we've been guilty. Both Mark and I have been guilty. That's why we love this stuff, because we're passionate about it. We love it, we learn from it, and the more we try new presentations. I'm working on a new one here for our upcoming event, Game Changers, which I love Game changers. And I forced myself to create a new keynote every year. And then some of the gems that work really well, they become part of my other presentation. So I force myself. But I just like our listeners here, got to go back and say, okay, is my clothes strong? Because if you're just wrapping it up, that's not enough. That's weak. But if you don't know what to do, we get it. But our job with this podcast is to make you aware of the importance of a strong close.

And it boils down to one key question. Why did your audience, especially a paid audience, invest time and money to listen to you? They came to you as an expert in your field, as a thought leader or a key opinion leader, or whatever the new term may be, because they expect you to give them something they can chew on. That they can act on, and hopefully they'll want to act on it immediately. If your closing is weak, you give them nothing, you give them no value, and it really can hinder your reputation. Remember why you are there. We want to give the audience an experience that will impact them and hopefully have an impact on the people over whom they have have influence as well. So make sure your closing is strong, focused, and accomplishes that goal of moving your audience to action.

Mark, I've never said this before. New term. You need a chewy close.

Something to masticate on. To chew on. Yes.

I gotta go look that up now. All right, we're gonna pause this podcast for a second so I can pull out my dictionary. So number one mistake, Mark, a weak close. And no one thinks they have a clothes, but so many presenters do because they. They don't know what it takes to make it strong. So research it. Find a book, find a teacher, Take one of our boot camps, take one of our master workshops. So we will show you, especially game changers coming up. Check out stagetimelive.com stagetimelive.com and because you listen to this podcast, you can get 25% off with Podpod25. Love to have you join me, Mark. Jennifer Lear. Vince Antonucci. Ford Sakes. Ford is doing a new program he's never done for us before, Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur.

That's kind of cool. I want to jump to what we had as number four, but it really ties into the week close. I want to jump down to number two being having no call to action and go a little deeper on that. Now, we said before a week closing, we don't know what to do with it. But a call to action specifically has the audience doing something. For example, if you're doing a presentation about communication skills and you give your audience specific things that they can begin to do, then they can go out and start doing it. And ideally, a call to action says, here is something you can start doing today. If you're talking about leadership and you want to inspire your leaders to do, delegate more, more frequently or to find the qualities in their staff members that will help them become better leaders. You want to inspire your audience to go out and begin to identify on their teams who might be a good leader, who might. I want to take the risk of delegating that responsibility. The idea of a call to action is you want to focus on when this audience leaves, will they be doing something to help themselves, help their business, help their organization? And very often what happens is skill experts will expound upon principles and ideas. They'll tell some good stories about leadership, about communication, about humor, whatever topic may be. And they share their stories. It's entertaining, it's wonderful. But we now in the audience begin to ask, okay, that's great, but what can I do in my life, in my career, in my business, to be as good and to elevate the people I work with and, and to increase my bottom line? So don't get me wrong, we always talk about good, relevant stories, telling your story, giving principles, ideas and all of those wonderful techniques. But your audience has to walk away saying, I'm going to do something. You know, Darren, several years ago I had the blessing of delivering a presentation for a group in the middle America. And I told a simple story about my father, my late father, what we call Jorge, even his name wasn't George. The simple story of my father and me having a cup of coffee one day in an airport in Miami. And at the end of my presentation, I spoke about the kind of father he was in my prayer I would be half the father he is. And I wanted to inspire those who were in the room, who were fathers, to be good fathers. And I spoke right before lunch, woo hoo, not after. And a gentleman came to me and he stopped me in the hallway, says, mark, I really want to follow up with you on something you said today. But before I do, could you give me five minutes please? I need to go call my dad. I had forgotten that story until we began talking today. Darren, truly. And it occurred to me that's the kind of impact we want to have with a strong close. He wanted to talk to me, the visiting guest speaker, world champion. That was kind of cool. But he said, I'll talk to you after. I got to go call my father first. And it was like, boom. And I don't say this to brag, please, I don't say this to brag, okay? But time and time again, having learned and made mistakes, I realized if we have a strong close, your audience will do something. Last quick story. I gave a talk for an insurance company at a major convention a couple of years ago and the conference chairperson gave me a 25 second video testimonial. My theme was how to be your best and perform. I talked about work, about family, about life. And in his testimonial he said, this Mark inspired us to be our best. I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna hug my kids and do something better tomorrow. My call to action, to be your best at work, to be your best at Home to be your best as a father, as a husband, as a person, as a citizen. It struck true with him, and he said, I'm going to go hug my kids and do something better tomorrow. And it hit me again. Boom. My call to action worked because he told me what he was going to do. So here's a question, Darren, for everyone. At the end of your presentation, if your audience members came to you one by one, could they tell you what they're going to do because of your call to action? Yeah.

And not everyone will do it. Don't kid yourself. Not everyone will do it. But that's okay. Your job, as it's been said many times, is to be responsible to your audience, not for your audience. So for those people who are willing, who trusted us with their time, who love our new perspective that we've installed, unless they do some kind of application of what we've done, what we've taught, what we've inspired them to do, without that application, there's no transformation.

Oh, without the application, there is no transformation. Write that down, friends.

It's required. Like, we have to apply what we've learned. You can be a perpetual student. Now. What I call to action is quote, unquote, the standard term in the speaking world. I like to look at it this way. What's the next step? What's the step? Okay, it's a step. It's not a thought. It's the step that they need to take after they hear you. In my old days, you wanted to be funnier. Go get the Judy Carter book. That is the next step. Before I had my own programs, that was the best next step. So even if you don't have a product or a program or a coaching call of your own, what one thing could you recommend they do that would catapult them farther along in their journey? And I believe it's our responsibility, Mark, to figure out what that is, know what it is, and then ask them to do it. So for this podcast, it could be at the end that we ask them to sit down and examine their clothes. If we could just get them to do that, they're more likely to look at these mistakes, see if any of them apply and inspire them to actually make it stronger. Because here's the cool part. If they sit down and do that, it doesn't just affect their presentation. It more dramatically impacts every single audience they'll be in front of live or online, for the rest of their career. So it resonates, it ripples. But you've got to take the Time to have a good call to action, or as I rather say, next step. I think it's our responsibility, Mark, as a presenter, to figure out what that is and then ask them to do it.

Yeah, and the cool part is you mentioned ripple effect. That's right. It'll certainly have an impact on the audience. But think of all the people in their lives, their family, their constituents, the people under. Within their sphere of influence who they can have an impact on because they take that next step which comes from. From you. I don't want to belabor the point, but I know there have been several times. We had a whole program, a conference recently, a couple of years ago. Our whole idea, the whole concept was to execute and the entire event was based upon what will your next step be, what will you execute, how frequently will you do it? And you, Darren, had a wonderful testimonial from one gentleman who took that next step and transformed his plans to go to college and get his degree because he did what you asked him to do and he took that next step. Powerful.

And it was a practice speech. It wasn't even at the main event. It was in my preparation for the main event. So that's another one of my little philosophies, is there's no such thing as a practice speech, maybe in preparation, but there's real life, people listening to you help them. It doesn't have to be perfect, but help them. So take the time to get clear and make sure you have a call to action or as I love to say, a next step. So, Mark, mistake number three. I'll dive in a double close. Double close, Triple close. We see this all the time. And here's the key. We know most people don't intend to double close, but Mark Brown, what is a double close? First?

Well, Darren, in conclusion, I want to leave you with one more point and I'll talk for a while and then. Oh, and in conclusion. And I say in conclusion twice and I won't even know I did it. Matter of fact, I remember I went to a conference early in my career and I had two wonderful evaluators who told me, Mark, you closed a couple of times, said, really? Yeah. You said this. And then you said this. You know what? You're right. I had double closed. And it was unintentional. I hadn't seen it. But think back to somebody you may have heard who did just that. You thought they closed. Their inflection was great. Their phrasing was wonderful. They stepped forward, they were going to close. And then something else. Happened. You're like, oh, man, you had the clothes and you kept going and ask yourself, did I do that? Under 40? You may not get that one. Or under 30. Steve Urkel. Yeah, because it happens so frequently and we don't realize it, Darren.

Sometimes it's well meaning. We have this inspired thought of something else we want to say in that moment. Guess what? It ain't about us. And guess what? You worked all this hard, passionate, structured work, and then you just diluted the close by you wanting to say something more rather than what's best for the audience. Hey, if you have an inspired thought and you want to share it, do it before the close. But once you go into the close, close.

And that's how we always say, rehearse your opening. Have your closing down pat because you double close. It'll dilute your message. I can remember, Darren, back in the mid-1990s is a court case that many people who were in that era will be familiar with. Some one oriental. James Simpson, the O.J. simpson trial. And at one point, a prosecutor was delivering a passionate address to the jury. And he. He coined a wonderful phrase. He said, Ron Goldman was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nicole Brown Simpson was in the wrong place for a long time. Then he kept talking. No, that's a lot. Oh, my gosh, what a great line that was. Now you're in the jewelry and you hear that Nicole Brown Simpson was in the wrong place for a long time. I'm thinking, Darren Boston style.

Shut up, shut up, shut up.

He just sat there. It was perfect. And then he went on to speak for. They're like, oh, man, why did he do. Yeah.

Oh, no. As Patricia Fripp says, your last words linger.

Bingo.

We've got to be clear and concise. Once you say, I'm leading up to my close there maybe, maybe there's a story without ending line. But if there isn't a story, it should be just two or three lines. That one clear, specific. Of all the places you need to be clear. It's in your closing. Closing needs clarity. Clarity in your closing.

All right, I like that.

Let's go to number four. Mistake number four, hanging questions. And this is a favorite. This is a specific idea. We're actually going to do a whole episode in this. Probably next week. Yeah, don't hold us to that. But probably next week and episode 81 or on episode 80 right now. But hanging questions, leaving questions. Now there's a time to open a loop, as we call it. Open a loop, open a question. To get the audience intrigued and want to know. However, by the end, we need to answer those questions and close with a strong call to action. But if we leave question in the audience's mind, we are diluting the effect of our whole presentation. And Mark, I'm just being honest. I know you've never made this mistake, but I made this week, I was preparing version 1.0 of the keynote for Game Changers for the opening Game Changers, and I used to go around Las Vegas and do it at Toastmaster Club. So I started with my own Toastmaster Club this week and just did it virtually. So now I'm start starting to find other clubs. But I Talked about my 17 minutes every day towards your dream. You are the CEO of your dream. And at the end, I did a round robin. I want to know. I asked my questions. What inspired you? What made you think? What was confusing? And several people said, why 17 minutes, a dose of my own medicine. I know better. And that's why I love that if you're listening to this, we love that you're listening because that means you're truly trying to get better. You're looking for new ideas or revisit ideas that maybe you forgot about, but now it's time to revisit them again. So thank you for listening to this. Tell your friends about the podcast. Mark and I love what we do, and we know you paid so much for the sub. Wait a minute, it's free. Oh, yeah. Okay, Mark, we got to do something about that.

No, we love this.

We love this.

You know that idea of hanging questions. I happen to be. I played the role, not played the role. I served as an evaluator for a Toastmasters meeting some time ago in my home club. And I was kind of direct with my speaker. He's a very, very good speaker. And he talked about being able to play music of different kinds. And he had played all over the country, played at the White House, he had played here, he played there. What a wonderful experience it was. And he said, you know, as a speaker, it's not that much different if you're a musician. As a speaker, you got to be able to do certain things. And the first thing you must do, tip number one, is. And he gave a tip for the audience, and he gave a speech, and he was done. I told him about two hanging questions. So question number one, you played all over the country with jazz and classical and pop and great. But what instrument did you play? We're asking you, what did you play? He said, oh, I never Told you. I said yes, and you said, I got some tips for you. Tip number one was first start out with doing this. We never got tip number two. He goes, oh, wow. Yeah. So what we need to do as a call to action is to examine our presentations. Hopefully, if you don't script them, at least you outline them. And look through your outline and ask yourself, am I leaving an unanswered question in the audience's mind? Am I making a reference to which they really can't understand and need to resolve that you don't want to leave any hanging questions in the audience's mind. And we're going to drill down deeper and in a special episode just for unresolved questions, hanging questions. So you will never make that mistake again. Darren lacroix.

I may make it again, but here's the cool part. As soon as I'm reminded, I realize they're right. Even though I might have paid more or learned more or earned more than the people who are giving me that feedback, guess what? They're right. It doesn't matter. It if I'm truly open to having that audience impact, doesn't matter. So, by the way, you may be wondering why 17 minutes to your dream. I may have opened that loop for you as you exactly this. And there was no scientific fact. It was just my high school football. My football, not Mark's football practice jersey number. It wasn't even my game jersey. It was my practice jersey because that's where it matters. So it's the whole point is to just get you to sit down and do something to get started. So it could have been 14 minutes, it could have been 15 minutes. I just chose 17 because that was my practice number. And the first time I had a transformation in my life, which was becoming a starter because I was. Enough is enough. Anyway, too much information. But I didn't want to do the same thing here on the podcast. Why 17 was a high school football number. That's all.

Well, you know, Darren, I find that actually quite inspirational. Seriously, because you said it was your practice Jersey and the 17 hit me in terms of wow. For Darren, 17 means I've got to work my tail off. I've got to practice at this to become good at it. So I received that in a certain way. 17 equals practice equals rehearsal equals preparation equals excellence equals unforgettable. That's how I took it. But then again, I'm kind of weird, so please forgive me.

I like your version better than my own.

But here's the thing, though, friends as a sidebar to that. So you never really know what impact your presentation, your words. A simple reference to a practice jersey. It wasn't even my real jersey. It wasn't my game shirt. It was my practice shirt. But to this guy, it meant something. And you never know when a reference you make, a story you tell means something to the audience. So think about this. How much more valuable will the closing be if you are intentional about exactly what you want the audience to hear, to feel and to experience so they can then act on your clothes? This is good. But think about that really. It may seem like a small thing Darren said earlier. It may seem small, even the small little tweaks, but a small tweak to a closing can be the difference between somebody walking away going, eh. Or saying, I'm going to go hug my kids and do something better tomorrow.

All right, final wrapping it up our clues about the clothes mistakes is mistake number five, not connecting your clothes to the premise. Now, Mark and I teach a two day event master workshop called Unforgettable Presentations. That's what the podcast was named after. And one of the ideas that we insist on, that we beat people up on is your opening needs to set up your premise. You got to get clear on your premise, so you got to get your premise ready first. Then you create your opening. Because how do you know what's the best opening until you know what you're trying to set up? And your closing must reinforce your premise. So opening sets up the premise, closing reinforces the premise. So if we're not even tying our clothes into the premise, if we don't have that connection to the premise, we miss the point of a close. Mark.

It's funny, Darren. People ask about my speech and of course those who follow the podcast will know episode three I think it was you and Ed dissected that feats with a fine tooth comb and a filleting knife. And I realized I was doing some of these things correctly. But back in 95, in the previous millennium, I had no idea I was following these good principles. Small speech was under seven minutes. I talked about a second chance and about intolerance, indifference and ignorance. And in my closing I said, yes, let's kill the beast, because everyone deserves a second chance. I had tied my closing directly to my premise to reinforce the idea that we need to give people second chances because we all want them as well. That was 27 years ago and I didn't understand the power of it until much later. But conversely, had my closing had no value to my opening of my Premise it would have been. That's nice, but why would you even. What? And if anyone walks away feeling like a confused dog, you know, like the dog turns their head sideways, you don't. You want to make sure it's clearly connected because that's why you were there. You're opening sets up the premise. You're closing reinforces the premise. You close the loop and the audience clearly understands not only what you said, why you said it, but how they can then use it in their own lives.

Darren and to define what premise is. We love Patricia's premise. We learn from Patricia. We pass on her wisdom. Fripped F r I p p.com Patricia Fripp check her out. She's brilliant and she defines it. The premise is the thought or the idea that you're selling. The thought or the idea that you're selling. So if you're overriding thought or idea is every presenter can create a world class presentation. My clothes, even if I don't say those words better reinforce that or I missed the mark. There's no great close in and of itself. There's no great opening in and of itself. The great close is the one that reinforces the premise, has a call to action. So our audience knows what to do today or tomorrow that can truly help them apply what they've just learned from us.

And with that, Darren, we need to close properly. We don't need a second add in conclusion. But it's wise to do a recap before we do close today. About five closing mistakes. One is a weak closing. Let's know what a strong closing is and bear in mind the importance of a strong closing. Number two, no call to action. We have driven down deeply on this have a strong call to action that it can act on today or tomorrow. Number three, don't double close. Hopefully we have not done that ourselves today. Number four, do not leave hanging questions in the audience's mind. We will do a podcast on that. And number five, don't make the mistake of failing to connect your closing to your premise. How did I do?

You did good, kid. I'm proud of you. You've done good. Look, if you take these mistakes, clean them up and make sure you're taking the time to evaluate them and your clothes, you'll be one step closer to being unforgettable. We'll see you next week when we talk about open loops.

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