Warming Up The Audience Before Delivering Your Message

Regardless of the setting, whether I’m leading a workshop, lobbying or speaking at an event, I always warm up my audience before delivering my message. When they’re warm, I’m hot.

A Story from the Field

The CEO of the large pharmaceutical company was anxious to meet with an Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM).  His company had considerable concerns around a regulatory process and he wanted to share their proposals towards addressing that challenge.  He knew that in the weeks prior to his meeting there had been quite a bit of bad press about the ADM’s program. What’s more, the bad press was the result of accusatory comments levelled directly at the ADM by another pharmaceutical company.  It was of little surprise to the CEO when he was only granted 30 minutes for the meeting, and even less of a surprise when 30 minutes was reduced to 15 minutes once he arrived.

Rather than launching into his proposal, he started the meeting by explaining that he understood the challenges the department faced.  He explained that he thought the press coverage unfair since it did nothing to contribute to an open dialogue between his industry and the department.  The ADM who had started the meeting with her hands folded across her chest and her lips tightly pursed, slowly began to relax.  When her assistant came into the meeting to get her after 15 minutes, the ADM shook her head and the meeting proceeded. By the time the CEO explained that his company funded a group of independent scientists who would be available for an exchange program with the department due to their specialized knowledge, 45 minutes had elapsed. The ADM was leaning forward attentively and asking how the scientists were chosen and how the exchange might work. The meeting ended after an hour and there were smiles all around.

As government relations exercises go, I have rarely been so impressed with a client for turning what could have been a disaster into a triumph. When we were told we had 15 minutes I wasn’t sure if he would stay or walk out, but he was made of sterner and smarter stuff.  It’s a lesson that has stayed with me.

Four tips for managing first meetings:

  • Do your homework. Understand what challenges and opportunities face your audience.
  • Assume nothing about your audience’s knowledge of you; make sure your position/attitude is clearly stated at the beginning of the meeting.
  • Read the body language of the person you are meeting with and respond to it.
  • Establish rapport before trying to deliver your pitch.

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Handling Hecklers

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Personal Paradigms, The Good, The Bad & The Impact

They say that goldfish have a memory that’s about 10 seconds long, no doubt an exaggeration but for argument’s sake, let’s say that’s true. With a memory that short, they would be forever rediscovering the world around them. They would have no operating principle to help them navigate. Without personal paradigms, we’d be very much like that goldfish.  Though his bowl of water is small he is forever shouting, “Hey, there’s a castle! Hey, there’s a castle!”

How Personal Paradigms Serve Us: Paradigms help us to interpret, define and engage in the world around us. Without our paradigms, we would constantly be struggling to determine and define what we see, what we hear and what we should do about it. Our paradigms help us to move through our lives seamlessly.

When I was in college, I made a friend who often shared stories about her family and their activities. She spoke of the antiques her mother collected and the beautiful old apartment they lived in. She shared stories of their travels and generally painted an amazing picture of her life.  As I got to know her better it became clear her stories didn’t quite reflect reality. There were no antiques, no beautiful apartment and certainly no travels.

Young or old?
Young or old?

Flash forward a few years and I’m on Parliament Hill and the office across the hall has brought in a summer student. One day the student tells us about her adventures. She has met Sting, spent a few weeks on the streets for a research project, her grandmother has left all her money to her cats and she has written for a popular soap opera. As you can imagine, because of my history, my paradigm would not allow me to believe the stories she told unless I had evidence. It was simple when people start telling fantastical stories about their lives you need to look more carefully.

Later, I quietly mentioned to my colleague that I had some suspicions about the truth of the stories shared. Well, my colleague’s paradigm was different from mine, so she got more than a little annoyed at my suspicions and a few uncomfortable days followed. After a short period, the summer student… disappeared from the office across the way. It eventually came out that she had made up all of her stories, including her skills. People were shocked and angry, but not me. My paradigm had stepped in and said, this is bull. Once that happened, all I could see were flaws and inconsistencies. Our paradigms save us a lot of grief and can generally help us to interpret the world.

How Personal Paradigms Make Us Blind to the World: So your thinking, so what? You’ve heard all this stuff before. But what if despite knowing this, the most experienced and in some cases the most powerful people in our respective worlds persisted in behaving as if their paradigm was the only paradigm?

Is the black diamond the top or bottom of the square?
Is the black diamond the top or bottom of the square?

People get used to power and after a while, they can start to think that no matter what they do or say, they are somehow removed from consequences. They can build a personal paradigm around themselves that is so airtight that they become incapable of seeing pitfalls. They lose the ability to judge good from bad. They can divorce themselves from seeing the errors in their own behaviour.

Consider American President, Donald Trump,  celebrity chef Paula Deen or former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, all could lay claim to huge popularity and all had difficulty seeing problems with their own behaviour.

When our paradigms blind us, they don’t just make us blind to opportunity, they make us blind to threats, blind to ethical considerations, blind to the harm we are doing.

Whatever Your Perspective, Understand That You Have One: Although you may have heard it countless times, don’t forget that your truth is not necessarily THE  truth.  Your version of reality may not even be based in reality. If this was an easy thing to remember, then the examples above would be a lot harder to find.

Has your paradigm ever helped or hindered you? Have you ever seen someone else struggle because they just couldn’t see the “truth” of a situation?

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Every Contact Counts

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Every Contact Counts

Ever start to do one thing only to find that you have actually achieved something quite different? Well, the two young men in the following story set off to deliver some tickets to an important contact, what they accomplished was some very effective, albeit negative, branding.

Two young airline executives were on Parliament Hill for some meetings with members of parliament and thought they would take the opportunity to drop off a dinner ticket they were holding for the Chair of the Transport Committee.  When the young execs arrived at the Chair’s office unannounced, the assistant greeted them with a smile and asked if she could help.  They explained that they had a dinner ticket for the Chair and could she pass it along.  She looked a bit puzzled and then asked which dinner they were referring to. They explained which dinner they had in mind and were somewhat surprised when she shook her head in the negative.

“I’m sorry, there must be some mistake,” she said, “the Chair is attending that dinner, but he is not sitting at your table.”

The young executives, who had risen up the ranks of the airline based on their brilliant assessment skills, collectively shook their heads in the negative. “No, no, we know he is at our table.”  The assistant, looking a little less pleased said, “No, I just checked his schedule, he is not sitting at your table.”

Clearly, the assistant was new or uninformed they thought, “No, you’re mistaken we know for a fact that he is.” they insisted.

The conversation went on in this vein for quite some time with the executives getting increasing short-tempered with the assistant.  Finally, in a fit of temper, they stormed out of the office with their ticket.

As it happens, the assistant was right; the Chair was attending the dinner but not sitting at the table with the airline.  More importantly, they had left a very unfavourable impression with the assistant, which was unfortunate since she was not only the Chair’s Senior Policy Assistant and adviser, but she was married to the Executive Assistant to the Minister of Transport.  While she may not have ever consciously done anything negatively towards the airline, the story of the rudeness of their executives certainly made the rounds and couldn’t help but to contribute to an overall impression within government ranks that, that particular airline bred a lack of respect in its staff.  That lack of respect seemed to explain a lot about their customer service reputation.

A brand is not just a logo and it doesn’t just reside in your advertising, its reflected in every interaction you have with clients, customers and stakeholders. In fact, your brand is probably best displayed in your human to human interactions. The following tips may be helpful.

  • Assume nothing when walking into a situation, when confronted with conflicting information, do your homework.
  • No one likes surprises at work, avoid unplanned visits.
  • Treat everyone with respect and if a conflict develops, don’t escalate.
  • Every contact that you have with customers counts, so never take them for granted.

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Marketing Attitude

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Marketing in the Uncanny Valley

A few years ago the Canadian Association of Optometrists ran a campaign called, “Open Your Eyes”. The campaign included a commercial that garnered a fair bit of commentary. It featured a woman who rises out of bed and begins to make her way through her morning routine with her family. The thing that makes the commercial a point of discussion is that she has her eyes closed throughout, but her lids are painted with eyes in a striking light brown. The result is an uneasy appearance. As the commercial unrolls the camera pans to show the viewer things from her perspective. As she encounters her family and neighbours we, the viewer, are surprised to see that no one reacts. She and they wave and interact as though everything is normal. The commercial is arresting, but it also makes the viewer a touch uneasy, in a word, the commercial is uncanny.

Little Baby’s Ice Cream took uncanny into the realm of creepy. They ran an ad that featured a somewhat androgynous ice-cream being, who stares piercingly out at the viewer as she slowly and methodically eats herself. Starting at the top of her head she scoops away more and more of herself while her stare becomes increasingly vacant.

Although we know that these images are contrived, intended to get our attention, they are still disturbing. Uncanny is like scary but operates almost on a subconscious level. It can sit close to normal without being at all normal. That proximity between normal and creepy can be so disturbing that it can create cognitive dissonance. So why would someone marketing a product ever want to cause the consumer mental stress?

Simple really, if the advertising works just right, they are disturbing, but utterly memorable and believe it or not, appealing. Little Baby’s managed to garner national attention and their sales followed in a steady upward projection long after the initial commercial was aired. The commercial has received well over seven million hits on YouTube and the “YouTubers React to Little Baby” has received over eight million views. The success of Little Baby’s was so profound that they created more commercials, all uncanny, and even a documentary on the making of the commercials.

What these short and disturbing offerings are is a brief titillation. They get our attention, make us giggle, get grossed out or better still, they make us talk. They are startling and disturbing, but ultimately safe. This type of advertising does not require the endurance needed for a horror movie and they do not induce the physical reaction or risk of extreme sports, but they do give the viewer a jolt. They are the flip side of humorous advertising that lulls and amuses while it embeds itself into our minds. Both can be effective or foolhardy.  It is not an easy line to walk, but if you can hit it home, the results can be spectacular. This last video comes as a suggestion from a friend and it hits all the right uncanny buttons.

Whether promoting a book, movie, service or product, when have you seen uncanny work it’s magic?  Have you ever thought of doing something a little off-putting to bring attention to a product or service? What do you think of uncanny advertising?

Image by Masahiro Mori and Karl MacDorman

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