By Patrick McGee Copyright 2008
You’re giving a presentation to influence a group to support a project and at the end you get this question from the most important person in the room: “Are you sure you’re asking for enough money?”
Is that victory or what?
It happened to a client I worked with. It happened because he identified the most important person in the room. It happened because in his presentation he addressed the most important business concern that the most important person in the room had. And it happened because he made certain to remind the most important person in the room of that most important concern – at the beginning, in the middle and at the end.
Identifying the most important person in the room was easy. Zeroing in on that person’s primary business driver took a couple of tries. Why? Well, like most of us, my client considered this most important person’s most important issue through his own lens and the driver he identified first was not enough for the president to override his own lukewarm interest and the conflicting interests of others and support this proposal so strongly.
In coaching this client during is preparation, we moved up the president’s “hierarchy of needs” until we found the ultimate driver: his financial target. The proposal was then built to set this context in the president’s mind for the duration of the presentation and to show how the proposal supported the achievement of that target. And that’s why the president wanted to ensure the success of the proposal.
We have duplicated this success with others for their speeches and presentations by using the same approach. Its successful application relies on the use of the Why? question. (The Japanese use a concept called The Five Why’s? They keep asking Why? until they are satisfied that they have deepened their understanding to the fullest.) Spending preparation time on getting this front end right helps ensure success at the end of the presentation.
What about a mixed audience? We get this question a lot. We use the same approach.
Example: A client was going to a major industry conference in Europe. There was a lot at stake for the client. Her company had invested heavily in the content she would present and her boss wanted the company to make an impact. Her performance was going to be closely watched.
We talked through who would be in the audience. Not only did we identify audience segments (customers, potential customers, competitors, other suppliers, media, others) so that we could identify who was most important to talk to, but we also analyzed what their mindset would be at the time that my client would make her presentation. The reality is that getting 45 minutes right after lunch on the third day of a conference is like the story reader at kindergarten at naptime. Yes, you’ll have some listeners, but most of the audience will be tuned out, even if their eyes are open.
That analysis of the audience is important. We knew what the client was facing. Then we put ourselves in the seats of the audience. (This is a great exercise: Ask yourself, “If I am sitting in this audience, how I am I feeling and what am I interested in?”) The client had a lot of data. Would the audience absorb it? Why were they there? Why would they stay awake and listen to my client? Why would what she had to say make an impact? Why would they engage with the company? Why would they follow up?
The answers to these questions fine-tuned the base presentation and the tactics to achieve the goal of the company. Instead of the presentation being over laden with data and rushed, to get it all in without running overtime, my client knew what the audience needed and how best to deliver on that need. She set the context: why do companies need to know about this data? Then she whets their appetite: What kinds of data have been collected? Finally, she set the measurable engagement piece: How can attendees (even the napping ones) get access to all of the data?
So, what’s new about this audience analysis? Nothing except the depth. Most people who make presentations think about their audience. In truth, many make too many assumptions (that’s a subject for a future blog post) and their analysis is light, or lacking, or they propose to talk to everyone, instead of to those who really matter. And sometimes they just miss what the audience really needs to hear, especially if it’s not what they said they wanted to hear.
Any audience can be analyzed and strategized. If you feel that you won’t be rigorous in doing it on your own, get some help: a colleague or a coach. We get so close to the subject we can’t see the forest because we have our nose pressed up against a tree. Remember the client at the beginning of this post? Would the president, the most important person in the room, have asked him that commitment-laden question if the client had not pushed himself to find and invoke the key driver that would eventually trigger the president’s support? If you want it you have to know whom you’re talking to and why.
