presentation coach

Crashing...

Well, it happened again: An important and timely topic, relevant to the audience but in a presentation keyed entirely to the digital projection of video clips and slides.

Moments into the presentation, the technology failed.

And thus, I regret to say, did the presentation. Spectacularly.

The laptop-driven digital projector, perched amid a tangle of cables on a little table in the middle of the luncheon audience of more than 150 people and triggered by a remote in the presenter’s hand, would not respond to any instruction.

Blank screen.

Dead air.

Awkward silence.

An animated troubleshooting dialog quickly began between the speaker on the podium (still speaking into the microphone, by the way, so everyone could hear and experience her consternation) and a valiant member of the audience who volunteered to try and fix the projector. The rest of the audience, meanwhile, was left to simply sit and watch and wonder why on Earth they were there.

It only took a few endless moments, but the topic of the day morphed smartly into the technology failure. The speaker apologized and apologized and apologized for the malfunction, assuring everyone over and over and over again that “it worked in my office before I came over here!”

Eventually, mercifully, she accepted reality and gave up trying to overpower the technology. Instead, incredibly, she attempted to recover her presentation by describing, in detail, what the audience would have seen if the projector had worked as planned.

In other words, rather than build a case for her premise, she resorted to reading a video script verbatim (.”…and in the next scene, you would have seen…” “…it’s too bad the computer isn’t working, because this next slide is really something…”)

Oh, the humanity!

Just imagine, please, reading the script of your favorite TV show or film aloud to your colleagues as opposed to them watching it for themselves. A few things get lost in the translation, don’t you think?…like drama and context and perspective and impact.

Was this particular presentation salvageable? Unfortunately, no, not the way it appeared to be structured. The presenter was entirely dependent on a series of still and video images to make her case. Thus, when the images failed to project, she had no fallback, no Plan B. She essentially was left with little alternative but to apologize, fold her tent and retire. Opportunity lost. (And her reputation as a credible authority didn’t get a lot of polish out of it, either.)

Two lessons here:

First, plan your remarks as remarks. As you craft your content, pretend there are no visuals to support your main points. So, when the visuals fail to appear, you still have a cogent presentation in hand with which to continue. Perhaps not as colorfully, or as dramatically, but you would still be able to make your case with authority and conviction.

Second, if and when your technology fails, accept the failure and walk away from it cleanly. Don’t linger trying to tinker with the plugs and buttons, and don’t waste time or energy expressing your regrets or before you know it, you will have made your equipment failure the most memorable part of your program.

Sure, consider a brief attempt to get back on track, but only to prove the fault isn’t with a thrown power switch or unplugged cable. If the fix must be at the expense of the audience’s time, and it cannot be accomplished discretely by a third party, shut down the screen and simply inform the audience that you will be continuing without visual aids.

Then continue.

Don’t dwell on the technology failure.

Let me say that again: Don’t dwell on the technology failure.

And while you’re at it, don’t blame anything or anybody. Don’t whine or remind the audience what they’re missing by not seeing the pictures for themselves.

Instead, tell your story as it was intended to be told. With words. Good words, thoughtfully crafted. Ideas powerfully, cogently, persuasively expressed.

Make a case, not excuses.

The pictures were a bonus anyway. If you depended on them entirely to make your point, then perhaps your point wasn’t ready to be made.

Accountability...

Throughout Europe and the Mediterranean is enduring evidence of an ancient Roman empire.

Remnants of impregnable fortifications. Immense arenas and amphitheaters. Vast public plazas and imposing temples.

Then there are the great aqueducts; mammoth public works spanning broad valleys to bring water across terrific distances to thirsty towns and cities.

This is a big Wow. After two millennia of wars and natural upheavals, many of these works — built without structural steel or similar “modern” technologies — continue to stand. Some still carry water to this day. They are remarkable monuments to design, engineering and building skill.

How have these aqueducts — like so many other Roman structures — survived when most later generations of buildings long ago crumpled into rubble?

My guess is the unequivocal way Roman builders were held accountable for their efforts. Legend has it that as the supporting scaffoldings and other temporary buttressing were removed for the first time, the designers and chief engineers would be required to stand beneath the arches. It was their code, their standard of professional performance, to be the first proof of their respective talents; the ultimate show of confidence that the job was done right and the resulting product indeed was ready to present to the world.

Now fast forward two thousand years… Just imagine for a moment how much better our contemporary speeches and presentations might be if the people making them were required to listen to them first. What if the presenter had to perform the equivalent task of standing under the arch as its capacity to withstand gravity was tested?

I’d like to think those of us in the audience would enjoy a vastly improved performance. We would hear content expressed cogently, crisply, with passion and interest, stripped of extraneous detail, flabby language, confusing digressions.

We would be spared meaningless PowerPoint exhibitions.

We would witness a speaker visibly interested in expressing an idea rather than simply enduring a speaking requirement.

It can be done. For instance, most public speaking self-help books suggest the presenter rehearse with a tape recorder of some sort. This is good advice. Hear yourself as others would and you will realize where you can improve.

Many coaches — myself included — rely on video to capture a rehearsal so the presenter can both see and hear herself before an audience does. The impact can be astonishing.

Take for instance some of these reactions:

“I had no idea I did that with my arms!”

“I don’t look like I believe what I’m saying, do I?”

“Wow, do I really talk that fast?”

“You know, I could have sworn I was speaking in complete sentences.”

“Wait a minute, what was my point with that last part?”

“Oh, dear.”

These are folks who stood under the arch. Full marks for them. They invested the time and realized there was a bit more engineering that needed to be done before they were truly ready to unveil their presentation to the world.

Their reward: A presentation that was complete, cogent, cohesive…able to stand on its own merits, with a delivery that was confident, practiced, well-paced.

As for the audience, rather than endure a fragmented assembly of words, jerky body motions, and half-formed ideas, they enjoyed a meaningful and worthwhile journey, clear of detours. They could focus on the value of the message rather than be distracted by the clumsiness of the messenger.

As you plan your next presentation, consider standing under the arch. Think not about yourself, or even the details of what you have to say. Think first about your audience and their expectations for a program that satisfies their need for information clearly, concisely and confidently expressed.

Craft your presentation with the means to endure. Give your audience reason to remember its message. It’s absolutely worth the extra time and effort.

Insulting...

Show of hands, please. How many of you have ever attended a presentation and the person introducing the main speaker decided to do his or her own shtick?

You know, when the introducer relies on tired one-liners and insider jokes (and insults) to describe the speaker?

“She graduated from Big City University… but we won’t hold that against her.”(Ba-da-bump)

“He worked for the Ain’t It Great company for ten years. If you can overlook that, folks, then you’d probably agree he’s had a pretty good career.” (Ba-da-bump)

“He’s been married to Margaret for six years… it must be love, I guess.” (Ba-da-bump)

Oooh, it’s painful to hear such things. It really is. It tells the audience the introducer is trying too hard to be funny, and failing successfully. Audiences cringe, the graceless humor grating on their senses, steeling themselves for the next awkward zinger.

I don’t get it. Why is it some folks think insulting the person they are introducing is funny?

Now, I’m not talking about a gentle, good-natured ribbing among colleagues in situations where the audience, the introducer and the speaker all have a long-standing bond or a shared experience — say, teammates at a sports club dinner or office colleagues at a TGIF thing, where a few chuckles, even belly laughs, at another’s expense is part of a culture of camaraderie (and where the introducer knows how to do it well).

No, I’m talking about formal introductions… say, when a new member is presented to a civic or service club, or a keynote speaker is introduced to a business luncheon audience.

The key to a great introduction is to convey respect for the person being introduced.

Yes, it can be humorous. Yes, it can (and quite appropriately, at times) evoke smiles, even laughter. But there’s a thick dividing line between chuckles and insults.

Diminishing, put-town humor is a very cheap laugh. And it leaves the audience feeling cheapened, too. It suggests the presenter and his or her topic do not deserve the audience’s attention or respect.

If you’re struggling with how to keep an introduction light and frothy, invest the effort to learn a little bit more about the person being introduced. Find an amusing—and brief— anecdote about what interests him or her, or about a milestone in his or her life. Ask if you can use it (please, ask first!), then work that into your remarks. It not only can help lighten the mood of the room, it will reveal more about the personality of the speaker more positively than some put-down rim-shot about which school she attended or how awful his marriage must be.

When you finish your introduction, folks in the audience should feel they know enough about the speaker to believe he or she knows and cares about the topic at hand; that he or she brings experience and insight to the situation; that the speaker is worthy of their time and attention.

The audience should be looking forward to the speaker’s remarks rather than feeling relieved the introduction finally is over.

Remember, when introducing someone, it’s not about you. Please don’t try to command the spotlight with your imitation of Don Rickles at a Dean Martin roast (egads, dating myself there, aren’t I?). That isn’t what the audience came to hear and it shouldn’t be the memory they take away with them.

Common courtesy...

Over the years of coaching and conducting clinics on presentation skills, I’ve tried to calm some of my clients’ worst fears about public speaking by reassuring them their audiences are dependably tolerant and polite souls.

Don’t worry, I say, your audience won’t walk out on you.

I’m beginning to think I’ve been giving the wrong advice.

Could it be bad presentations are perpetuated because we audiences are so polite?

Is our genteel practice of sitting through to the bitter end ultimately giving permission to those who would fritter away our time with content that is pointless, PowerPoint slides that are spectacularly meaningless, stagecraft that is graceless?

What if we, as the audience, did indeed walk out?

Not in a huff, mind you. Just quietly rose from our seats and stepped through the door.

What if we started to make clear that we no longer would tolerate speakers who were blatantly unprepared, unrehearsed or unable to make a point?

I’m not talking about the performance of the painfully shy junior staffer who must deliver a report at the monthly managers’ meeting, or the reticent parent who’s been dragooned to summarize the committee’s work on the neighborhood school festival. For them at these frightful moments, we can only reply with tender mercy.

I’m talking about the folks who ought to know better, who ought to do better, when stepping in front of an audience.

The experts, the elected officials, and business leaders who, by virtue of their position, know they are going to be asked to speak before a meeting of Rotarians or Kiwanians or Soroptomists, or to colleagues at a conference or citizens attending a town hall.

The speakers who ask to be invited to make their case to a group, then consider their work done once the invitation arrives.

The speakers who blow off suggestions of help by declaring “I know this stuff; I talk about it all the time. Put up a few Excel graphs and bullet lists, and it’s a done deal.”

The speakers who seemingly work harder positioning their reputations than preparing their presentations.

So, what would the world be like if audiences gave themselves permission to slip away when threatened by a dreadful presentation?

Well, maybe, just maybe, some folks would begin to invest a little more time and thought into crafting a good presentation, rather than waiting until the last moment and then winging it.

Perhaps speakers would work smarter to prepare themselves (like learning how to use their digital projector, for instance), rather than prey on the gracious indulgence of the audience.

Perhaps speakers would make the effort to read through their remarks (at least once) in advance, solicit the honest critique of a colleague, even seek out a coach to polish some basic delivery skills… do something to protect the interests of the audience.

Perhaps we, as the audience, would get better value for the time we invest attending the presentation.

So, okay, rather than offering gentle reassurances, maybe I should start saying this instead to folks concerned about speaking in public:

“Your audience won’t walk out on you IF you’ve done your best to prepare and can demonstrate your readiness to present…

“IF you’ve structured a cohesive, rational narrative of your points and conclusions…

“IF you use only those graphics that help you clarify your point rather than lard it down with extraneous visual clutter and slideware whizbangs…

“IF you put your audience’s needs first over your own…

“IF you are authentic in the delivery of your message rather than detached and passionless…

“And IF your message is clear, succinct, memorable and not vague, meandering or weak.

“This isn’t about the audience agreeing with what you say. That’s a function of your persuasiveness in the case you make. It is about the audience sticking around long enough to hear you say it, and that’s a privilege you must earn by respecting their investment of time and attention.

“Otherwise, people will — and should — walk out.

“It’s up to you.”

So, what do you think? Would it make a difference?

Gettysburg...

As a speechwriter — whether you deliver the remarks yourself or ghost them for someone else — you command enormous power.

You can change the world.

Lincoln did it. His remarks dedicating a new national cemetery at Gettysburg, for instance, are widely credited with not only redefining the rationale of our Civil War, but re-framing the very nature and destiny of our nation.

And he did it in 263 words.

Consider this:

There are people in our society — in every society — we classify as opinion leaders.

Are they necessarily smarter than the rest of us? No.

Are they wealthier or taller or cooler than anyone else? Nah.

But they can articulate their thinking with words carefully chosen and themes carefully crafted.

Their power lies in their ability to influence how the rest of us view the world and interpret events.

Pick your topic: Civil rights. Abortion. War and peace. The words opinion leaders use to make their respective case — whether for or against — come from somewhere. They are not casual or arbitrary, but deliberate. Their language is crafted and shaped and honed so that each sentence, each phrase, says precisely the correct thing, triggers precisely the desired response, evokes precisely the intended imagery, invokes precisely the necessary action.

Your message may be weighty, life-changing, monumental … or not. Regardless, the mechanics of good speechcraft remain constant.

Abraham Lincoln knew that, intuitively, from a lifetime of studying the classic orators.

Franklin Roosevelt knew it, too. So did Martin Luther King. And Ronald Reagan.

We know of these people, what they believed and what they expected of us because of the words they used to talk to us. By the structure of their arguments that led us to intended conclusions. By the stories that converted abstract concepts like freedom or justice or national identity into meaningful examples each of us could feel and appreciate and assimilate.

Your words make a difference when you want them to. Whether advocating for global peace or an increase in your department’s budget, what you say and how you say it matters.

Just remember, it’s never a function of how many words you use, but of how you use the words — of the stories you tell, the images you evoke, the confidence you show in your own message and its meaning.

No matter how large or small your world, you have the power to change it.

Monday morning...

Two office co-workers meet while getting a fresh cup of coffee down the hall.

“Hey, how was your weekend?” asks one.

“Optimum,” replies the other. “Our family’s agenda commenced at 6:36 a.m. Saturday when we awoke from our overnight slumber. We then performed acts of personal hygiene, dressed and proceeded to consume foods of varying nutritional value with which to stimulate our energy levels for the as-yet undetermined but anticipated tasks to come.

“We then deliberated our options for how to utilize the remainder of the day and by consensus determined our time would be best occupied with a journey to the river, where we would attempt to capture a water-residing, gilled creature at the end of a filament line…”

Silliness? Yes, of course. It’s a Monday-morning conversation over coffee, after all.

So let’s try it again:

“How was your weekend?”

“Really great! We got up early Saturday and decided we needed to head down to the river to get in some fishing. Fantastic day!”

Same story. Same conclusion. Significantly different character, however.

The first version is pompous, passionless and inaccessible; the second answers a simple question simply, with obvious delight and enthusiasm.

The first reflects the speaker’s concerns with a process of presentation rather than its purpose. The other tells a story.

Which works better for the listener, do you think?

Presenters too often get all caught up in stuffy formalities. They fall into the darkness of thinking the act of public speaking means they must strip themselves of personality, of authenticity, of directness. Perfectly clear, wonderfully appropriate conversational language gets edited out of their remarks and replaced with colorless, passionless, stupefying memo-speak.

These folks approach their remarks in the flawed belief the more bland they are, the more seriously their message will be taken.

They figure, why not be safe by being boring?

Because boring doesn’t work.

Boredom gets in the way of understanding. What enables and encourages understanding, on the other hand, is style. Style engages the audience. It delights them. It speaks to them on a human level.

Style casts your message in a context that means something to most people.

Now, some folks use boring as a shield, an insulator, to protect them from their own fears of vulnerability. They reckon if they don’t reveal their emotions in any way, if they retreat behind the barrier of memo-speak, then any rejection by the audience will be directed at their remarks and not at them.

They’re mistaken, of course. When you bore an audience, you can expect their rejection to be very personal. After all, it’s you who made that 15-minute presentation seem like an hour. It’s you who made the message unnecessarily complex, the ideas unnecessarily difficult to grasp.

A presentation is not a data stream. It is one human speaking to other humans. Getting a message across is already enough of a challenge; don’t make it more difficult. Tell a story. Tell it simply. Tell it as if it’s worth telling.

And, please, try to enjoy yourself in the telling.

Grace under pressure...

We make mistakes.

We lose our train of thought, or our place in our notes.

We stumble over words.

We stumble over our feet on the way to the microphone.

It happens.

So what?

Here’s what you don’t want to have happen: You don’t want your awkward moment to be the most memorable part of your presentation. You don’t want to make a bigger deal out of it than it deserves.

I was emceeing an awards ceremony many years back and was to introduce a local venerable who would present one of the evening’s most coveted honors. He had an easy, one-syllable name, so naturally I managed to mispronounce it. But I just didn’t correct myself. I made a big deal about correcting myself, and how I should have known better, etcetera, etcetera. Meanwhile, the gentleman approached the stage gracefully, smiled at me graciously, then stepped to the microphone, gave his full attention to the audience and proceeded with his remarks.

I should have left it there. But I didn’t, of course. In my embarrassment for having made such a silly mistake, I kept referring to the gaffe as the evening wore on. These were intended as witty little asides, you understand; shining moments of my clever, self-deprecating humor. But the audience didn’t laugh. Why should they? It wasn’t funny. It was awkward and tiresome. I wasn’t letting them forget my mistake. From that point, events sort of cascaded into a dark place inside of me. My performance — and authority — as the emcee was compromised.

We learn from our mistakes. What I learned from that one was to give myself permission to goof up. And, more importantly, if and when I do goof, contain the damage briskly and move on.

Mangle someone’s name in an introduction? Stop. Say “I beg your pardon” or “Excuse me,” say the name correctly (if you can; if you can’t, don’t compound the error), then keep going.

Lose your place? Stop. Look at the audience, smile and say, “Excuse me, but it seems my mouth just got ahead of my brain,” or words to that effect. Then take a moment to find your place and continue. No need to panic. No need to rush. No need to make dramatic excuses or apologies.

Lose your train of thought and forget where you were going with your last comment? Stop. Look at the audience, smile and say, “My brain was so involved with what I was just saying that it pushed my other thoughts out of the way. Can someone help me find them again? Where was I?”

Trust me, someone will help you.

Then move on.

A simple, declarative acknowledgement. Then continue.

What’s important to the audience isn’t that you made a mistake, but that you continued delivering your message.

Audiences are very forgiving. They want you to succeed. And if you goof up, your audience may become as uncomfortable over it as you. You see, what they fear is not that you may stumble but that you will melt before their eyes, creating an awkward moment for everyone and diminishing the value of the presentation.

So make it easy for them. When you realize a mistake, just smile, correct the error, regain your composure, then complete your presentation.

By so doing, you will be informing your audience that your message is more important than the messenger. That you accept you’re only human. That you’re grown-up enough to get back up from your stumble, dust yourself off and return to the game.

Isn’t that a more pleasant outcome than the memory of a speaker (or thin-skinned, self-conscious emcee) who cannot accept that he or she isn’t perfect and proceeds to jabber incessantly about it?

Who are these people? (continued)…

A presentation is a gift.

Your audience is giving you their time and attention. In return, they hope to realize some form of benefit, some value from the information you provide.

So here’s one rule for success when speaking to an audience:

Have something to say that can make a difference in their lives.

Make your talk about them and their agenda, not you and yours.

Consider the case of the sales rep from the seed company. He gets the chance to talk to a room full of new homeowners, potential customers for a new grass seed product. With energy and enthusiasm, he talks about the new seed. He tells how much money the company invested in its research, describes the convenient packaging, relates how the company is poised to dominate the market.

The audience remains impassive to his remarks.

Finally, a hand appears in the back of the room.

“Yes?” acknowledges the salesman, pausing in his carefully crafted narrative.

The homeowner stands.

“Excuse me,” he begins, “I'm glad your product's such a success but I didn't come tonight to hear about your lawn seed. I want to hear about my lawn and what you can do to make it better.”

What’s your topic?

Is it grass seed? Or how it can improve lawns?

Is it a new software product? Or improvements in productivity?

An investment opportunity? Or creating and protecting wealth?

Perhaps it’s advocacy for a social cause. Or why helping feed the hungry or house the homeless can benefit the entire community.

No matter what your topic the principle still applies: Know your audience. Recognize why they are there, what’s important to them, what might stimulate a choice or decision or action on their part.

Then craft your message and engineer your remarks accordingly.

Now you don’t want to push your audience. You don’t want to pull them, either. You want them to journey with you to your destination. You want them to want to go, with willingness and open minds.

How to do this?

It’s not complicated.

Give them a compelling reason. Show how the journey benefits them, meets their needs, solves their problems.

Demonstrate you know the difference between your agenda and the audience’s.

You’ll end up selling a lot more grass seed.

The grand design…

Architects typically don’t design buildings by first assembling the sticks and bricks and then standing back to see what it looks like.

They design buildings by first asking lots of questions to determine what the end result needs to do.

What will be its purpose?

What features does it require to accomplish that purpose?

Who wants it, and why?

Who will use it, and why?

Is there space for a big, leisurely building, or must it be compact and minimalist?

Only after satisfying themselves that their grand, preliminary design meets certain tests do they begin the task of detailed fabrication.

Those who craft the best presentations observe the same process.

What do you want your remarks to do? What task must they perform?

Draft your plan beforehand.

I’m not talking about the outline of content, but about the central message, the theme, the Big Idea.

Here’s a test to apply to your thinking: “When my audience leaves at the end of my remarks, I want them to (blank).”

Now fill in the blank.

Next, determine what it will take to move your audience to take whatever action you’ve proposed.

What’s important to them and their interests?

What facts are appropriate for informing them?

What stories dramatize and humanize your points?

What benefits will appeal to them?

What hazards or risks await them?

Then, finally, what do you want them to do? Do more than tell yourself at this point. Tell your audience. (This is your call to action, and no presentation is complete without it…even if it’s no more than suggesting they think about your remarks over a cup of coffee.)

Whether you’re preparing for a major speech to a national conference or a 5-minute report to your co-workers, visualize your ultimate design before you begin building the structure. Your message should drive the construction process, not the other way around.

In the end, you want a rational, cohesive result that stands confidently in the minds of your audience, not a flimsy collection of bits and pieces that will collapse onto itself with the first challenge.

Who are these people, anyway?

When the books you read about public speaking, or your presentation skills coach or trainer, tell you to “Know your audience,” just what are they talking about?

Are they expecting you to memorize everyone’s name and the names of their children and pets?

No, it’s not about that, or about knowing their birthdays or what kind of car they drive (unless, of course, your topic is about their car).

It’s more elemental.

It’s about understanding the relationships in the room. Being aware of common frames of reference. Respecting the audience’s history, values and traditions. Then using that knowledge as a tool to sculpt your message so it has relevance and resonance for them.

Knowing your audience can spell the difference between a powerful presentation and a forgettable one… between fulfilling your objective as a speaker and squandering an opportunity.

Here’s an illustration:

The publisher and editor of a statewide business magazine came to town one day to promote a new editorial product. As they previously had done in other cities and towns across the state, the pair hosted a breakfast meeting at a downtown hotel and invited what their publication’s data base suggested was the “A” list of local business and community leaders.

There were about 75 people in the room that morning. As the guests sipped their coffee and nibbled on melon balls and croissants, the magazine’s editor stepped up to the lectern, thanked everybody for attending and motioned for her assistant to flash the first in a series of slick PowerPoint slides onto a screen.

With a practiced eloquence, she proceeded to position her new product by lecturing the audience about themselves: Who they were. What was important to them. What sort of choices they were facing in the marketplace.

Then to burnish her own company’s credentials, she took credit on its behalf for bringing so many opinion leaders to this one place so they could get to know one another better.

That was the moment when she lost traction with the audience.

She was from the big city up north. This wasn’t the big city. It was a much smaller town, in a rural corner of the state.

The people in this room knew one another. They had a collective history. They didn’t just do business with each other. They had grown up together. Many had attended local schools together as kids and now their own children played on the same school athletic teams. They sat together on numerous civic and business committees, boards and commissions. They belonged to the same Rotary and Kiwanis and Lions and Soroptimist clubs.

It would not be unusual for them to encounter one another — socially as well as professionally — two, three, even four times in a given business day.

So when the speaker commended them for coming together like this to talk business, she was telling them she did not know her audience.

When she failed to observe, let alone acknowledge, the connections that existed among the people in this room, she no longer was having a conversation with them, she was talking at them.

What made the situation more astonishing was that this was no drive-by sales pitch by lightweights. She and her colleague were people of experience, intelligence and influence. A great deal of time and thought and expense had gone into hosting this presentation.

Yet, they were sending a clear signal they hadn’t done their homework.

Such neglect is a signal of disrespect.

Her audience disengaged. They were courteous, of course, and sat politely through to the end of the program. Mentally and emotionally, however, they already had left the room.

Another outsider coming down here to tell us what to do and think.

And that made her all too familiar to them.

Know your audience.

That doesn’t mean learning people’s names and birthdays and favorite movies before you speak to them.

It means investing the time to determine how the people in your audience relate to one another. What commonalities exist? What burning issues might they be facing?

For an audience to be willing to let you enter their world, you first must demonstrate the thoughtfulness of a good guest. Make inquiries. Do your homework. Then acknowledge who they are and what they value as a community of people.

Neglect to do so, and you may be left knocking at their door, your message unheard, your objective unfulfilled, your opportunity lost.