How CEOs Think Strategically about Public Speaking

CEOs receive 3 speaking invitations each week, according to a recent survey by Burson-Marsteller. Amazingly, 37% of CEOs evaluate these invitations based on their own satisfaction compared to 35% who think in terms of business leads or 19% who think about attracting talent through their speaking engagements.

My number one rule pf public speaking is to Put the Audience First. This means that you as the speaker create a call-to-action that is meaningful to the audience, and then craft the rest of your speech to drive to that call-to-action. When you as the speaker think mostly in terms of your own satisfaction derived from the speech, I don't believe you can effectively Put The Audience First.

When you do Put the Audience First, you focus on outcomes--what can they do differently after hearing you? This can correlate strongly with your business goals, such as obtaining business leads. Is this a paradox? Here's how it works:

Lets' say your strategy for speech making is to increase business leads. That seems to be self-focused. Yet when you convey the value to the customer of doing business with you, the customer/audience experiences their investment in the speech as earning a high ROI--while at the same time you obtain what you wanted to get: business leads. If you think only about your own satisfaction--did I feel good delivering this speech, did I get good press, did I fill the room--you may have accomplished all those things but they are only momentary gains--not the long term ones you would get if you thought about Putting the Audience First.

What is your strategy when it comes to accepting speaking invitations? Share how you have met your strategic goals through speaking by posting on our comment link.

Comments

[Terry Gault]

Sue,

Thanks for relating the story and the stats. It sounds like most CEOs approach speaking invitations as a monologue instead of a dialogue: a serious mistake.

Presentations should always take the audience into account, and should therefore sound more like a dialogue than a monologue.

Dialogue refers to interacting in ways that build shared meaning, rather than colliding in ways that foster disagreement, frustration and confusion. It is a subtle process that may be difficult to understand, and even more difficult to actually create.

Dialogue has the ability to convert detractors into supporters, conflict into consensus, and add depth to business relationships.

A dialogue influences another's perspective by first demonstrating a deep understanding of the position you want to influence. People frequently resist attempts to be influenced by using the statement, "You just don't understand."

In a dialogue, your skills of collaborative inquiry and listening provide others with a profound sense of being heard. When we feel that we are heard, we become more willing to be open to another point of view.

The most effective presentations are always ones that keep the audience closely in mind.

Thanks for the post!

[Jonathan Steele from Speechmastery]

Your so right.

It is rather a simple concept but hard to understand for many.

The sooner you help everyone else get what they want, the sooner you will get what you want.

Thanks for the statistics.

[James]

Great post. I agree completely about putting the audience first - many speakers make the mistake of giving a speech that makes them feel good about themselves.

James
blog.jvf.com