How to Deliver a Great TED Talk: Presentation Secrets of the World's Best Speakers (How to Give a TED Talk) (3 page)

CHAPTER THREE

The ABC-C Formula for Powerful Presentations

The SUCCESS principles state that your presentation needs to be simple and easy to understand. This is achieved by having a clear structure.

The best presentations follow the ABC-C structure.

What is the ABC-C structure?

A – ATTENTION-GRABBING OPENING

Your speech needs to have an attention-grabbing opening. If you don’t grab your audience’s attention within the first 30 seconds of your speech, they’re going to tune out of your presentation.

Unfortunately, most presentations today have very boring, predictable openings that turn audience members off:

“Hi. My name is ABC. It’s a pleasure to be here on such an important occasion. So, before I begin, I’d like to introduce my organization to you. Our company was founded in 1959 by Mr. XYZ, after which it was acquired by …”

Have you ever been bored by such an opening?

Have
you
ever bored your audience with such an opening?

In the following chapter, you’ll learn how to avoid boring openings and you’ll pick up five specific tools that you can use to create openings that immediately capture your audience’s attention. You’ll also learn how
not
to open so that you can avoid the mistakes most other speakers make.

B – BODY

The next part of your presentation is the body.

This is where you make your main arguments and points. Later in the book, you’ll pick up specific tools on how to make the body of your speech compelling and persuasive.

C – CONCLUSION

Every speech needs a clear conclusion.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen too many speakers abruptly end their speeches with the terrible phrase, “That’s the end of my presentation.” Later in the book, you’ll learn exactly how to conclude your speech so that you leave a positive final impression on your audience.

C – CLEAR CALL TO ACTION

Every speech and presentation needs to have a clear call to action.

The call to action makes it clear what you want your audience members to do differently as a result of having listened to your presentation. Later in the book, you’ll learn about the importance of including a clear “next step” that your audiences can take after having listened to your presentation.

Every presentation needs to have a clear opening, body, conclusion and call to action. There are other structures that you can use, such as the “Problem/Solution” structure, “Chronological” structure, “Step-by-Step” structure and the “Feature-Benefits” structure, but all of them have an attention-grabbing opening, body, conclusion and clear call to action.

PROBLEM/SOLUTION

The problem/solution structure is a powerful speech structure. You open with an attention-grabbing opening which highlights the problem. You then transition into the body of the speech where you establish the extent of the problem and describe the consequences of not solving it.

Once you’ve built up enough pain and have your audience members craving a solution, you present your solution. You explain how it will help alleviate the pain and offer the advantages of the solution.

In your conclusion, you restate the problem and the consequences of not solving it. You remind them of the advantages of your solution and end with a clear call to action urging audience members to support your solution.

In his
fascinating TED talk
, Sir Ken Robinson uses a loose version of the problem/solution structure. For example, most of his speech focuses on the problem with the current educational system. Here’s a paragraph from the first half of his speech:

“...it’s education that’s meant to take us into this future that we can’t grasp. If you think of it, children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue - despite all the expertise that’s been on parade for the past four days - what the world will look like in five years’ time. And yet we’re meant to be educating them for it.”

Only after having completely explained the problem does Sir Ken present the solution. In your speeches and presentations, make you sure you never present the solution without first having built up the pain/problem. People don’t care about a solution unless the pain is excruciating enough for them to feel an urgent need to find a cure.

CHRONOLOGICAL

The chronological speech structure is very simple. You organize and explain events according to time, starting with the oldest. For example, if you were giving a presentation about how marketing has changed over time, you might start talking about what marketing was like 20 years ago. You would then talk about how marketing is done now. And you would end with your prediction of how marketing will change in the future. It’s a simple, easy to understand speech structure.

STEP-BY-STEP

Closely related to the chronological speech structure is the step-by-step structure. In this speech structure, you logically walk your audience through the different steps towards an event. For example, in her
TED talk on domestic violence
, Leslie Morgan Steiner walks her audience through the different stages in a domestic violence relationship:

“I didn’t know that the first stage in any domestic violence relationship is to seduce and charm the victim...I also didn’t know that the second step is to isolate the victim...The next step in the domestic violence pattern is to introduce the threat of violence and see how she reacts...”

Leslie uses numbering to make her steps clear (“first step, second step”). This makes her sequence very clear. After introducing each step, Leslie tells her personal story to explain each step (e.g., how her ex-husband seduced her, isolated her and then introduced the threat of violence to see how she reacted). The result is a very powerful and moving speech.

If you have several points in your speech, consider numbering them to make your speech flow logically.

FEATURES/BENEFITS

This is a great presentation structure if you’re talking about a product or a service. Steve Jobs was a master at using this structure. While most presenters would focus only on the features of the product, Steve Jobs would also sell the benefits. He would make it absolutely clear how the audience would benefit from a particular feature of his product. For example, when he introduced iTunes movie rentals, he clearly explained the benefits of rentals by saying:

“We’ve never offered a rental model in music because people want to own their music. You listen to your favorite songs thousands of times in your life. But most of us watch movies once, maybe a few times. And renting is a great way to do it.
It’s less expensive, doesn’t take up space on our hard drive…”

A client who I was coaching once asked me, “Can’t the audience figure out the benefits if we just give them the features? I don’t want to treat the audience as though they’re dumb!”

It’s a good question. No, the audience isn’t dumb. However, don’t make them think too hard about the benefits. They may not always make the connection between the features and the benefits. Either the connection may not be clear or they may be too lazy to make it.

Also, when your audience walks away from your presentation, they will most likely forget many of the features. If you only list out the features, they’ll forget most of what you tell them. However, they
will
remember the benefits. So make sure you clearly state the benefit of each and every feature. People buy a product or service because of the benefits it offers them, not because of the features, so make sure you spend plenty of time elaborating the benefits.

You may choose to go with one of the structures listed in this chapter or some other structure that suits your needs much better. However, no matter which structure you choose, make sure that it has an attention-grabbing opening, with a clear body and a compelling conclusion with a clear next step for your audience to take.

IN A NUTSHELL

• Great presentations require a simple easy-to-follow structure
  
• Structures you can use are:
  
  • Problem/Solution
    
  • Chronological
    
  • Step-by-Step
    
  • Features/Benefits
    
• No matter which structure you use, all presentation need to contain an Attention-grabbing opening, Body, Conclusion and Clear call to action (ABC-C)
  

CHAPTER FOUR

Creating an Attention-Grabbing Opening

You should spend time writing and rewriting your opening because it’s one of the two most important parts of your speech or presentation (the other part being the closing).

THE PRIMACY EFFECT

Primacy Effect: “Given a list of items to remember, we will tend to remember the first few things more than those things in the middle.”
–
ChangingMinds.org

Because of our tendency to remember the things at the beginning of a list, speech or presentation, the opening of your speech is the most important part of the presentation.

The opening of your speech is important for several additional reasons. It gives you a chance to do the following:

• build rapport with the audience members,
  
• create a first impression will that determine how receptive or hostile your audience will be towards your speech,
  
• set the mood for the rest of the speech, and
  
• grab your audience’s attention within the first 30 seconds, so that they don’t mentally check out of your presentation.
  

LESSONS FROM “THE DARK KNIGHT,” “GOODFELLAS” AND “TWILIGHT”

Think of the last great film that you watched. Many films begin slam-bang in the middle of a fight scene, a car chase, a bomb explosion or a bank robbery. The aim is to get you involved, interested and engaged right away. The blockbuster movie “
The Dark Knight”
begins in the middle of a bank heist.

Other movies aren’t as dramatic and instead open with an unexpected or shocking statement that engages you straight away. Consider the opening line of “
GoodFellas”
: “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.”

Successful scriptwriters, movie producers and speechwriters know that the key to success is to throw the audience right into the middle of the story. Even fiction writers know that the first few lines of the book are among the most important ones – the audience will mentally tune in or out depending on how well you’ve managed to engage their attention right from the very beginning.

Consider the opening line from the phenomenal bestselling book “
Twilight”:

“I’d never given much thought to how I would die – though I’d never had reason enough in the last few months – but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.”

The opening line shocks and leaves you wondering,
“Wow! What’s happening? Why is she dying? How is she dying?”

The purpose of the opening few lines of any speech, movie or book is to engage the audience straight away … to grab their attention from the outset.

How many speeches or presentations have you watched where the speaker managed to grab your interest from the first few lines that he spoke?

How many speakers have you heard whose openings made you think, “Wow, this is going to be really good”?

Now, consider, how good are
you
at creating compelling openings which reel your audience into your speech? If you feel that there’s room for improvement, this chapter will be valuable for you. You will pick up tools you can use to arouse your audiences’ interest and grab their attention from the beginning.

But first, let’s discover the three opening mistakes that you should avoid:

1. BORING “ME-FOCUSED” OPENING

Unfortunately, too many speakers begin with boring “me-focused” openings that put their audiences to sleep.

Have you ever heard a speaker begin a presentation with an opening that sounds similar to this?

“Good morning. Thank you very much for having me. My name is ABC and I am from Company XYZ. My company has been in existence for 150 years. We focus on providing out-of-the-box, customer-centered strategies that leverage our client’s strengths and empower them to achieve organic growth in this new economy.”

How excited do you think audiences will be to learn the history, mission and values of your organization? Not very.

The key to giving great presentations is to make them not about the speaker but about the audience! Presentations are about the audience … not the speaker.

Therefore, your opening should be You-focused. It should let audience members know exactly what problems you can solve for them and what benefits you can give them!

2. OPENING WITH INSINCERE GRATITUDE

A fellow public speaking coach started his seminar in this manner. When he walked into the room, he began with:

“Hi, thank you very much for having me today. I’m very pleased to be here, and I’d like to thank Mr. X for having invited me to conduct this workshop.”

At this point, the coach looked us in the eye and said:

“Okay, so how many of you expected me to say exactly what I just said … almost word for word?”

People began to laugh and everyone in the room raised their hands.

The point is simple: Almost everyone begins their speeches and presentations with a “thank you,” using almost the same exact words.

If you’re one of these presenters, then you’re losing out on a great opportunity to differentiate yourself from everyone else. You’re losing out on an opportunity to make a great first impression!

Even worse, many of your audience members might unconsciously label you as boring and uncreative, like every other speaker they’ve seen, and they’ll mentally tune out of your presentation. Trying to bring these people back will be a challenge, and you’ll be left with an uncomfortable room full of strangers who aren’t really listening to what you’re saying.

As you’re about to discover, there are several techniques that you can use to capture your audience’s attention and imagination straight away. However, before you come to those, let’s first address a common objection that most people raise during my public speaking workshops: “Why shouldn’t I thank people at the beginning? It’s the polite thing to do!”

Most speakers, despite knowing the dangers of using a standard “thank you for having me here” opening, continue using it because they are under the false assumption that thanking people
must
be done at the beginning of their presentation.

There is nothing wrong with thanking your hosts and your audience members for having you, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be done at the beginning. In fact, not only might you lose your audience with a canned “thank-you” opening, your gratitude may also be perceived as insincere. The fact is, because most speakers say “thank you” during their opening few lines,
your
“thank you” will sound no different … it will be considered as an opening formality rather than a sincere expression of gratitude.

So, when is the best time to thank your audience and your hosts?

The best time to show your gratitude – both to your hosts and your audience – would be sometime
after
your first minute on stage, after you’ve established rapport with the audience.

For example, a fellow speaker who was given the opportunity to present a training seminar on leadership thanked his audience during the middle of his speech, when he said: “And by the way, talking about leadership, we can all agree that Jim (
the CEO)
has done a fantastic job of leading this company!” This unexpected comment during the middle of the speech sounded more sincere and honest than a canned “thank-you” beginning.

Another comedian who I witnessed thanked his audience a couple of minutes into his routine (after he had all of us laughing at his opening story) and said, “By the way, you guys are a great audience and it’s really my privilege to be here today! See, last week I had this other audience who …” and then he dived right into another joke.

The key point here is that you should avoid canned “thank-you” openings because you end up losing an important opportunity to distinguish yourself from most other speakers. Furthermore, you will lose your audience (after all, why should they listen if they already know what you’re going to say?) and your gratitude may be perceived as insincere. Instead, thank your audience
after
you’ve established a connection with them using one of the five opening strategies you’ll pick up later in the chapter.

Note:
I do realize that there are some very formal situations where you simply
must
begin your speech by thanking your hosts. If that’s the case, a short and simple “Thank you” will suffice, after which you can dive into a question or a story.

3. OPENING WITH A JOKE

“Should I open my presentation or speech with a joke?”

Ah, interesting question! Humor is a great way to form a bond with the audience. A humorous speaker immediately gets the goodwill of the audience and is perceived as a more likeable speaker than someone with little or no humor.

However, my personal suggestion would be to avoid opening with a joke for two reasons:

• Jokes from a joke book don’t impress anyone:
  If you use a joke that you’ve read in a joke book or on the Internet, there’s the danger that the audience might have heard it before. Immediately, you’ll be labeled as unoriginal and the audience will doubt the authenticity of the rest of your presentation.
  
• Jokes might detract from your main message
  . I’ve seen some presenters open with a joke that was completely unrelated to the main point the presenter was trying to make. In an attempt to be funny, most presenters go out of their way to include jokes that take attention away from their main message. After all, it is very difficult to find a joke directly related to the point you’re trying to prove. Bottom line: Don’t open with a joke that has nothing to do with your presentation!
  
• Most people can’t tell jokes as well as they think they can
  . A joke requires expert timing and great use of facial expressions, both of which most speakers lack. This results in a “bombed joke” and creates an uncomfortable silence in the room. If you’re the victim of an opening joke that falls flat on its face, this may negatively affect your confidence throughout the rest of the speech.
  

However, if you are a humorous speaker, you
may
want to open with a humorous story (one which is related to your message). The reason a humorous story works is because it’s your personal story, so no one in the audience has heard it before. In addition, there’s no pressure on you to be funny as there is when you are telling a joke. Finally, stories are intriguing, so they will help you capture the attention of your audience.

FIVE BRILLIANT WAYS TO START YOUR NEXT PRESENTATION

After having studied more than 200 TED talks, I have found that there are five ways you can open your speech that are proven to capture your audience’s attention:

1. START WITH A STORY

The best speakers are master storytellers. They tell touching tales, using compelling stories as a means to solidify their message. A well-told story will always be remembered.

A story is a great way to open your speech, but it also works just as well as a closer. In fact, according to Bill Gove, the first president of the National Speakers Association, the essence of public speaking is to “tell a story, [and] make a point.”

In her
popular TED talk
on the power of introverts, Susan Cain hooked her audience into her speech by immediately diving into a personal story:

“When I was nine years old I went off to summer camp for the first time. And my mother packed me a suitcase full of books, which to me seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do. Because in my family, reading was the primary group activity. And this might sound antisocial to you, but for us it was really just a different way of being social. You have the animal warmth of your family sitting right next to you, but you are also free to go roaming around the adventureland inside your own mind. And I had this idea that camp was going to be just like this, but better...”

See, you’re curious to find out more about her camping experience, aren’t you?

The reason a story is a superb opening strategy is because:

• Stories captivate people
  : Everyone loves a good story, so starting with a story will capture your audience’s attention. The moment you begin with a story, your audience will have no choice but to tune in.
  
• Stories create connections between the listeners and the speaker
  : A personal story will arouse emotions in the listeners. Studies have shown that our brains cannot tell the difference between “real” events and imagination. Therefore, when you tell a story, your audience will imagine it and “feel” the same emotions that you’re describing. Your story will not be forgotten because your audience will “experience” it rather than just hear it.
  
• Stories are memorable
  : We are hard-wired to learn through stories. Scientific research has shown that we make sense of the world through stories. People even view their lives as a story, with a beginning, a middle and an end, and with each new experience being regarded as a “new chapter” in their lives. Because of this natural hard-wiring, we may forget statistics and fancy charts, but we will always remember the essential elements of a good story.