How did I get here?!

You’ve been jolted into a room you’ve never been in before. You suddenly just show up there. Your first instinct is to start looking around and try to figure out where you are. A chandelier. A white couch. Some paintings. A living room of some sort? But in whose house? And how the heck did I get here??

You know what I'm talking about. It's happened to you countless times during company presentations. As the speaker presents, an idea is suddenly thrown in and the details of it are discussed before it was ever introduced. And you, along with the rest of the audience, start to wonder: where are we? How did we get here? Which idea is this? Wasn’t he talking about something else a moment ago? And you start looking around for clues in the speaker's messages so that you can try to piece together where they are going…those clues aren't physical objects in a living room perhaps, but you catch my drift.

We all know that when we present our ideas, we have to lead our audience, pull out that trusty messaging map and navigate them safely to shore. And yet, there are two particular places on that map, right at the messaging level, where I see speakers neglecting to lead their audiences time and time again in the meetings I watch at various companies across the globe.

They Don't Open The Door

I find that people are usually very good at explaining the nitty gritty details of what they want to say - they know the impact, the numbers, the results. They know all the stuff that's in the middle of the room - they dive right into it. They show you impressive graphs detailing the latest sales trends and then compare it to last year's results. Then they jump right into the sales focus for the coming quarter. But they don't open the door.

Spending a moment on clearly defining the specific topic you are about to discuss before drilling down to those numbers and graphs prepares your audience in advance so that they actually know what's coming. And that kind of navigation is priceless in communication. If I had to pick, I'd say it's probably the single most common problem I see in the private and group trainings I lead around the globe. Think of it as opening the door to a room before you walk into it. Grasping the handle, gently pulling it open and then graciously inviting your audience to walk in is a totally different experience from that jolting, where-the-heck-am-I experience I described earlier. Or think of it as Waze announcing, “in 300 meters, turn right”. When you take a moment to define your key idea, your audience knows that in 300 meters, you’re going to get into the heart of that idea. This creates anticipation for your audience (watch as they lean forward). And when you go on to fulfill your promise by drilling down into that idea 300 meters later, your audience is happy. Yes, they nod. We follow.

Another spot where I see speakers neglecting to lead their audience is when they move from one idea to the next. Providing a clear segue from those awesome sales results you showed to explaining exactly how they relate to the sales actions for the coming quarter will keep your audience with you. I can’t tell you how many time I’ve heard the words “next slide” used as a cheap imposter for a segue. If you don't walk down the hall in order to connect one idea to the next idea and then open the door to that next idea - you risk losing your audience.

"You've Arrived At Your Destination"

There’s a really great model I learned at a communication class I took at Stanford called “What/So What/Now What”. It offers a very defined structure that can help you build your messages. I'll explain it briefly. "What" is the beginning of the message - it's where you define the key idea you're going to discuss. "So What" is the middle - where you get into the impact of the idea, the results and effects. And the "Now What" is where you wrap it all up with the next step, the call to action.

I love this model for many reasons, one of which is that it gives a simple, memorable name to every key stage in a business message. I like to add one more step to this model which I call “connect” - this is where you create a connection that leads us from the idea you're discussing now to your next idea, thereby making sure that we (your audience) always know where you're heading. If you think of every idea as a room, there's a clear logic in terms of how to approach your message:

Undoubtedly, the “what” and the “connect” parts of the model are the two that I see causing the most trouble for speakers and presenters. These two bits are most often either not fully defined or just skipped altogether. I spend a lot of time in my work helping trainees distill the definition of their "what" or their "connect" so that their audiences know where they're going and how they got there in every moment they are speaking.

I'll show you what I mean with an example. I was training someone recently who is launching a new service in the employee wellness space. This new service was particularly tricky to explain because it's unlike most other services so my trainee couldn't find a precedent in the market that she could easily compare it to. My trainee came to see me because she was prepping for a pitch meeting. She planned on opening the meeting with a quick simulation of the app so that the HR person she is pitching to can dive right in and experience it. In effect, she wanted to take the HR right into the middle of the room and show her the good stuff. But she was going to do this before she even explained what the service is, where it came from, what it can do for employees, or why the HR should even listen to this pitch. And that would've likely left her audience feeling jolted and lost.

My simple takeaway for you today? For every key idea you are explaining in your next meeting ask yourself as you prepare - will it be clear to my audience how I got here? Do they have enough information to understand the idea? Did I gently open the door and lead them in? If you're not sure - try recording yourself as you discuss the topic and put yourself in the shoes of your audience as you watch that recording. This should help you see whether you're throwing your audience into the middle of the room or gently opening the door.