For example, shared acquaintances, places you have visited, technology background, educational background, books read, movies seen, events attended, sports, vocation, religion, beliefs, history, hobbies, and television shows can all create common ground. Knowing this information ahead of time allows you to introduce it when you meet the people at the presentation. Communication before the presentation starts to shift the expectations of the audience from being unknown to becoming familiar. It gives the participants a greater sense of certainty about what to expect and therefore reduces the ego/mind need to maintain a firewall. Communicating in advance sends the message that you care and reflects the level of service your company will provide them in the future when they become a customer.
The Day of the Presentation
The conversation/presentation doesn’t start when you walk to the front of the room. It starts when you first walk through the door. The warm-up period is important because it is much easier to do the brick pulling during the informal gathering time than trying to do it from the front of the room.
Here are some possible communication strategies you can employ on the day of the presentation but before the presentation actually starts. Whether you are at your facility or the customer facility, you still are the Manager of the Conversation and the role you play is the one of host or hostess. The participants should be treated with hospitality and as honored guests.
Do you have greeters? Is there someone to welcome the participants and give them directions? Have you put any signage in place that gives clear directions?
When participants walk into the room, greet them. Introduce them to other participants. In this informal time, you have direct access into the other people’s private network.
Listen to what they say. The more you know about their world, the better you will be able to shape the conversation to meet their needs. As the leader, you need to take the initiative to meet people. Human beings often seem reluctant to walk up and introduce themselves to the leader.
For your own comfort, shake hands and meet as many people as possible before you go to the front of the room. Shaking hands symbolizes warmth and openness and communicates you have no weapon in your hand. The only time in most business cultures when you can actually touch a stranger physically, male or female, without giving offense is when you shake his or her hand.
Every culture seems to have its own greeting dance. For example, kissing once on one cheek, kissing twice on both cheeks, touching noses, hugging, touching foreheads all expose an intimate connection. For example, when I was in South Africa, the students taught me a local handshake that I used every time I met them. It always put a smile on their faces.
You especially want to meet the people you don’t know. Any attack/resistance will most likely come from the person with whom you have the least rapport. Most people’s tendency is to walk into the room and go toward someone they know because it feels comfortable. When you introduce yourself to another person, he or she is forced to come out from behind the firewall and open up to you. This communication exchange is a wonderful time to begin exploring other people’s worlds.
One of the greatest gifts you can give another human being is to listen to them fully. If you want people to like you, ask them interested questions about themselves. Most people are more focused on themselves than on other people. You can differentiate yourself by being interested in the people in the room.
When first meeting the participants, try to remember their names because it is a great rapport-building tool. If you use people’s names, it shows that you care about them. These memory techniques can help you remember names.
• Have it as your intention to remember the person’s name.
• Repeat the person’s name three times in the first two or three sentences of the introduction.
• Collect business cards. Arrange them on a paper corresponding to the seating pattern in the room. Having the business cards will help you remember the participants. The cards are also useful in accurately entering their information into your database.
• Make nametags or tent cards. On the nametags, make the first name bold so you can easily read it at a distance. The ideal place for the nametag is the upper right part of the chest so you can easily see it when walking up to someone to shake hands. Use people’s names during the presentation. This reinforces the relationship, helps you to learn their names, and is one of the many keep-alives or hello packets that brings the listeners’ attention back to the presentation.
• Ask people you know to introduce you to people you do not know. Why? Because the person you know is saying to his or her friend, “This person is a friend of mine.” This technique helps to build rapport faster, thus dismantling the firewall more quickly because you are using the leverage of an existing relationship to springboard into the private network of the new person.
There are not only firewalls between you and the audience but also between the participants. You are playing the role of host, so introduce participants to each other. If you know their common ground, tell them, because it provides an excellent starting point for their conversation. This common ground will also be beneficial later on during the presentation because you can use things you heard to help emphasize a point or acknowledge the contribution of a participant.
For example, if you know someone’s interest is fishing, you can use fishing analogies to illustrate the conversation. Using information that comes from a participant will make that person feel recognized and valued.
Have music playing. The music you select depends on the type of energy you want to create. You can play relaxing, smooth jazz, classical, up-beat music like classic rock tunes, or popular current hits. You could even play music from the culture in which the presentation is taking place.
Most presenters do not play music, so this differentiates you and makes your show a richer experience. Music helps to reduce tension in the audience, which reduces the need to maintain a protective firewall.
Food and drinks are another means to create a comfortable, intimate, and safe atmosphere. The greater the informality, the more disarming it will be. The goal is to create a space that will relax the defenses of the audience.
During the Presentation
Now that the connecting and gathering phase of the conversation is over, the official part of the presentation begins.
How can you massage the space and relax defenses so that the resistance to opening up and communicating is reduced? Facilitate participation as soon as possible. Get the audience to speak in the first three to five minutes. This will be easier if you have pulled a lot of bricks during the connecting and gathering phase.
I call one technique I use to accomplish this The Level of Expertise. After you have introduced yourself and stated the purpose of the conversation, say something like this: “Before I move on, I want to get a sense of your experience with the subject of the conversation. How many of you have been involved in it for less than a year? How many for two to three years? Five years or more? For how many is this a brand new subject?”
Ask the people with considerable experience follow-up questions. You can list the years of experience on a flip chart and have someone add up the years of experience the group (including yourself) has on the subject. This becomes the group database. This accomplishes three things: first, it pulls several bricks; second, it lets everybody know where the knowledge lies in the room; finally, it lets you adjust the gradient level of the conversation to meet the level of expertise in the audience.
Share stories and experiences with the audience. A story is a factual or fictional account of an event. Experience is active involvement in a particular activity. I believe that your most valuable content is your stories and experiences about the information you are presenting.