Break the Rules and Make an Impact With a Not-So-Standard Presentation

By Cyndi Maxey, CSP, and Kevin E. O’Connor, CSP

The Challenge: Make your Ordinary Meetings Memorable
One thing we know as coaches to hundreds of presenters is that you are never remembered if you are ordinary. Every year your meetings team works to find extraordinary keynote speakers to challenge and inspire members. Wouldn’t it be great if you could achieve the same effect with everyday meetings—training sessions, Board reports, or project meetings?

The Solution: Break the Rules!
You can create the same effect if you step outside what others think they should be and make them what you know they could be. To do this, you may need to break some rules—or maybe just old habits, like the Medical Group Management Association did in their recent leadership development trainer training.

Being you is more important than being perfect. Memorable speakers are effective because they convey a natural rapport. Adrienne Antink, CAE, Vice President, Learning and Networking Center of the Medical Group Management Association, shares, “I remind our leadership development presenters that they don’t always have to have the answers. Get the audience to solve the problem, not you. “

Memorable speakers connect by asking something unexpected—for example: “How many of you play tennis? How many think you’re really, really good? Well this report today will remind you of your last great cross-court shot. It shows where our strategy paid off.”

People like being part of the process. They like it when they are asked questions or are polled about something. CAE Adrienne Antink adds, ”We encourage our leadership development trainers to use “mini-case studies” in their sessions. We’ve learned that the more the audience talks, the higher the scores.”

Surprise them in varied ways. Find the fun or unusual facts and statistics surrounding your topic. For example, if you’re presenting member demographics, compare them to another association that is similar and then for fun, one that is bizarrely far afield from yours—an association of clowns or magicians, for example. If you are presenting at a national meeting, find out how many are from a certain city or state. Then be prepared for the whoops and hollers of those loyal to Fargo, North Dakota!

Find a jolt—something that delivers a powerful wake-up call. Preview this by saying, “There are some things in my presentation that you are going to like and some things you are most likely not going to like. They revolve around three things: membership, marketing, and money.” At any point you can quote a current event from the day’s paper or USA Today—often used by the pros.

Face a trend with an anti-trend. Your audience may expect you to know a trend in the meetings industry. What they won’t expect is the opposite—just to stimulate thinking. The anti-trend exists peaceably alongside the trend. For example, argue the trend toward on-line meetings with your suggestion of an in-person program that cannot be compared to any on-line. Don’t fear inspiring a heated discussion.

Show a short DVD clip or a montage of photos. Generations X and Y will especially appreciate motion and visuals; an easy way to do this is with digital photography that you project from your laptop—from simple photos to elaborate venue shots.

Forego PowerPoint. Adrienne Antink, attests, ” We discovered that our presenters were intimidated by the PowerPoint slides we had created for them. By giving them permission to throw out the slides, we unleashed their creativity and energy.” One alternative is the flipchart, a forgotten friend of the presenter. You can be more intimate with a flipchart than with a set of dazzling slides. You can record group contributions, have preprinted quotes on the walls as they walk in, or present statistics that are easy to see. Finally, you can vary your approach as needed.

Stop in the middle and ask for burning questions. The three most common mistakes presenters make are saying too much, speaking too fast, and being too self-focused. These bad habits can all be put to rest via questions. Ask attendees to form groups of three and say, “Take four minutes and come up with two burning questions that you as a group can agree on that you would like answered before we leave here today.” Then customize your agenda accordingly.

Don’t cheat the audience of a rich conclusion. Try getting immediate feedback. Ask each attendee to comment for thirty seconds. How you phrase this question will give you the input you deserve. “What did you think?’ will invite all kinds of responses, some negative. “What impressed you as most workable?” will yield more possibility thinking. Finish with a short 3-4 minute close that summarizes your main points. Never finish with “That’s it,” or “Any questions?”

From the opening to the ending, your next ordinary presentation can break the rules. You can surprise, delight, and inspire your audience—no matter how ordinary the meeting or topic.