How to get results from any speech
In recent months I get to work with many municipal candidates. The elections are approaching, the competition is tough, and the candidates are required to be professional so that home circles bring voters and donations, so that the motivational talks will make the activists 'devour' the territory, so that the interviews in the media will achieve maximum resonance. In short, it's not easy for them. That's what they come to me for.
What we can all learn from campaigning
The special thing about contesting elections is that the candidate needs all the help he can get. Most of us speak and need one or two things: a student presents a seminar and wants the understanding and appreciation of the audience, an employee attends a meeting and wants support for his position, a salesperson gives a presentation and wants to close a deal. The candidate in the election needs them all.
That's why candidates become experts in the art of calling to action (I wrote about it in the newsletter two years ago) on a different level from all the other speakers, and we have a lot to learn from them.
A call to group action
Contrary to what you see in the movies, it is very difficult to 'close' a deal during a speech to a group and there is a necessity for time to work one-on-one at the end. Therefore, a speaker who wants to get something from his audience uses two strategies:
- Never get off the stage without asking the audience.
Make it a habit that will accompany you even after the campaign, because it is an important habit for everyone. End a speech and immediately after the conclusion (remember the triangular structure?) present a request or two to the audience. - Ask for simple and easy things to do
The big requests are asked one-on-one, in front of an audience you have to ask for simple things and do it at the end of the speech: sign up for our newsletter, join your Facebook page, come to the next meeting, etc. The simpler the requests, the more likely they will be implemented, and those who have fulfilled your request once are more likely to do so again in the future. - Adapt the requests to the audience according to a pre-prepared list.
It sounds a bit paradoxical - both adjusting the message in real time and preparing it in advance. The way professionals do this is to prepare a 'bank' of requests in advance so that requests can be pulled from it in real time according to the audience. And so if there are young people in the audience, they ask for volunteers, and if there are adults in the audience, they ask for donations. In our workshops, we work with each speaker on preparing a 'list of requests' and using it in speeches, meetings, and even on the campaign website.
A personal call to action
Many speakers are surprised that even after a speech that they feel went well, people from the audience don't approach them at the end (those of them with fear of the crowd interpret this as proof that they were bad). The reason for this is very simple: the audience also feels a degree of awe of the speaker and therefore people feel uncomfortable approaching him after the speech. When the speech was successful, the problem worsens, because everyone thinks that everyone will be interested and assumes that there will be a queue. Worse, sometimes one or two particularly loud people jump in to argue first and discourage the rest.
What to do?
Get people to approach you at the end of the speech by a combination of cues, direct address, and the use of helpers. This combination is not easy, but together the three tools should allow you to catch all those you could talk to
- Clues in speech
It's a good idea during the speech to mention that you would be happy to talk to the participants at the end and to drop hints like "once someone came up to me after a speech and said to me..." or "I know that this point hurts a lot of you and whoever comes up to me at the end will also be able to help me" - Her face is straight
It's a good idea to say at the end of the speech, before the summary and the call to action, that you will stay behind and will be happy to talk to anyone who has questions left at the end. - Use of assistants
It's a good idea to come to every speech in front of an audience with an assistant, and then answer any question that you think the asker can help you or help you while referring to the assistant and asking him to contact the asker after the speech.
This makes you look very managerial, makes the audience feel that problems are being taken care of, and gives you an excuse to talk to the questioner at the end or on another occasion. It is important to emphasize that the reference should be in addition to the answer to the question to the whole audience and not to the place.
How do you learn to use all these techniques?
Most of the tools in this article are not part of the basic public speaking course but are learned in personal training with our team or in the follow-up courses.