Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Laugh Track

When preparing a talk, don't forget to build in the laugh track. You're probably wondering if I mean that literally. The answer is yes and no.

What I mean is that audiences need guidance, and they need it to be spoon fed to them. Guidance, cues, prompts, reminders, directions, suggestions – all of it helps an audience to stay with you and to know what's coming and what's expected of them. Audiences don't like to work hard, think hard, guess, or wonder. It's your job as the speaker/presenter to build in the cues and the prompts and as much guidance as possible. 

Some examples: If you're digressing to tell a story, call it out and say, "I'm digressing for a moment to tell a story." If you're slowing down to ensure that everyone follows a complex idea you need to share, say so. If the whole reason for addressing a group is to reassure them, then tell them, "The whole point of my talk today is to reassure you." If you're moving between sections of a longer presentation, then, by all means, announce the transitions. 

For followers of SmartMouth Talks, yes, this is the same idea behind using a Focal Point at the beginning of a talk and reinforcing it at the end – if there is something you want an audience to think or know or do or feel, you need to tell them.  

That's why sitcoms use laugh tracks, they leave nothing to chance; when they want you to laugh, they prompt you with the sound of laughter. And guess what? When we hear the laughter, we laugh. Works like a charm. The power of suggestion. Fascinating. Use it.


Thursday, June 14, 2012

Whatever Works is the Right Answer ...

Interesting phenomenon. Yesterday I was working with a CEO who is filming a series of short video messages to his large and growing employee base. The content is good – simple, straightforward, memorable and repeatable, a little bit of humor, a little bit of info, a lot of focus on the audience. The delivery was a bit more of a challenge; we needed to get him to appear more natural and less stilted on camera. Hmmmm, I thought, let's ditch the script and teleprompter and have him just chat with the camera. Sounds reasonable, rational, logical, right?

Well, after versions where we had him wing it and just chat, then had him use just bullet points, then fleshed out the bullet points a bit more, we ended up back at the starting point – pretty much a full script running on the teleprompter. Ironically, that's what helped him relax and appear most natural. In fact, he was quite good, we got some great footage.

In this biz, there are a lot of woulda-coulda-shoulda's, but in the end whatever works for the individual speaker is the right answer. We're all wired differently; what motivates us, comforts us, and gives us confidence differs from person to person, speaker to speaker. I could beat each of my clients over the head with the same baseball bat, but it would be pointless. Whatever works best resides within each of them, and so my only role is to help find that and pull it out of them, that's it.


Monday, June 4, 2012

K.I.S.S.

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

– Albert Einstein