TJ Walker discusses what makes presentations memorable: surprise matters more than truth. He cites Seth Godin's framework but argues some interesting people don't speak truthfully. Walker recommends rehearsing on video and including at least one unexpected element to make ideas stick.
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Marketing maven Seth Godin asked on his blog earlier this week, are you interesting? And he has an interesting way of defining this. Seth Godin says to be interesting, you need two things. You need to speak the truth, and you need to have some element of surprise. Now, I actually disagree with him on the first, that I certainly like people to be truthful. I want the truth. But there are a lot of interesting people out there who don't say anything remotely close to the truth, in my opinion, Donald Trump. There are a lot of people out there who have been very, very successful political leaders, far right, far left, who aren't necessarily speaking the truth. But I do think he's on to something with this element of surprise you do need. When you're giving a presentation or he discusses writing a book or anything else, you need something that surprises people. The big problem too many presenters have is they're giving a speech and everything is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It seems ordinary. It's just another fact. Another fact. And maybe their eye contact is good. Maybe they don't have any uhs or ums. Maybe their hand gestures are fine, but everything in their presentation is so entirely predictable, straightforward, logical and linear that it's instantly forgotten. Human beings want to be surprised. We want to go to that horror show and jump out of our seats in surprise. Now, when you're giving a presentation, you don't have to be a horror movie director, but it's still important that you figure out of all the things you could say on a particular topic. And it could be last month's quarterly earnings. Focus on something that will surprise your audience, because that's what's going to make it interesting. That's where the insight is. So, yes, practice rehearse on video. Make sure you look comfortable, confident, engaging in all of that. That is important. But at some moment in your presentation, you need an element of surprise to make the idea that you have interesting to people. It doesn't have to be horror movie hopping out of the bushes with a knife surprise, but it needs to be something people were not expecting. What do you think of this description of what makes someone interesting? Do you buy it, yes or no? Do you agree completely with Seth, or do you agree with me that you don't have to be truthful and you can still be interesting? Post your comments here, whether you're watching this on YouTube, Facebook, or anyplace else. If you have questions about how to make your own presentations more interesting, please post them here and I will answer you in a video later this week. So we try to be very responsive here@mediatrainingworldwide.com Also, if you're looking to improve your own presentations, go to our website and sign up for a free online video based course on how to be a better presenter. Mediatrainingworldwide.com you'll see the link below.
