There are several ways to wake up an audience. And if you read part 1 of these posts, you’d have seen you could use ‘well-loved’ stories to create drama and attention. And wake up your BNI audience. 🙂
But is there another way to wake up an audience?
Yes, there is. It’s called demonstration. If you demonstrate something, your blah-blah won’t end up being so yawn…and you’ll actually engage people. Now if your 60 second presentation is tough, think of how tough your ten-minute presentation can be. And how tedious for the audience listening to what you have to say. But hey, it doesn’t have to be tedious, if you use the power of demonstration.
Just like Greg Lee (yes, he’s a BNI member from Maryland, USA) did.
Here’s his story: And he’s talking about how he demonstrated a solution for ‘chronic backache’.
“I ended up putting two large sheets of paper over my whole body down to my toes. And had people write on me what causes back pain: accidents, menses, stress, strain, injury, etc. On the second piece, I had people write down what do they do to relieve their back pain: meds, chiropractic, acupressure, aspirin, etc;
Then we talked about what these all have in common.
One of the members said that they only address the symptoms and don’t address the cause.Then we talked about how I address the causes of back pain, in particular the emotions that are held in the pain.
We had a 9-year veteran of BNI say that this was one of the most engaging presentations he’s been to in a while.
So it’s time to wakey-wakey your audience. And yeah, demonstration does it very, very effectively.
Even if all you have are two large pieces of paper 🙂
Sean D’Souza
http://www.psychotactics.com
3 comments
Thank you Sean for your post.
I wanted to avoid the 10 minute yawn-fest or giving too much information that no one remembers. In the past, I have given presentations that are too complicated or that gave too much information.
I wanted visuals that would be memorable, entertaining, and educational. I’ve learned from Sean the value of communicating the drama of one important point in a BNI presentation. I went through three iterations of preparing different presentations:
1) having boxes stacked up with puffy pillows between them to show what happens to your back,
2) using Sean’s suggestion of scrunching smiley faced balls to show what stress does to your back,
3) having people in the meeting get up and act out back pain. Finally, I decided upon the paper idea because time was running out and I wanted it to be simple.
As people wrote and drew the causes of back pain, I acted them out. Members were tossing out comments right and left. One participant actually drew out a picture of an internal organ and how that leads to back pain.
I talked about addressing the emotional factors of back pain. Most people in the meeting had not associated emotions with back pain. I talked about how strong emotions can lead you to tighten up your muscles. Next, I spoke about how to feel and release the emotion in pain in order to achieve significant long-term relief.
I talked about a client who was in pain at a level of 8-9 out of 10. The only indication of her pain was her withdrawn heavy looking face. A single tear ran down her face. When I saw the tear I really got how much she was in pain and I said to her, “Oh, that must really hurt.” She nodded and we were able to find and release the underlying emotions in her pain. At the end of the session she said that she was in a 2 out of 10 pain. Her face was much livelier and there was a bounce in her step.
The most memorable feedback was from a 9 year veteran BNI ambassador from a nearby county. He’s been too countless presentations and many of them put him to sleep. He felt engaged and acknowledged how the group responded positively.
Simple presentations around one main idea is my rule for BNI presentations.
Greg Lee
http://www.TwoFrogsCenter.com
Hey Greg,
Great to see that our Blog is being read by BNI members in Maryland! We are looking to create a worldwide community of BNI members through this website – sharing ideas and thoughts and I wanted to thank you for your part in making this happen.
Graham Southwell
BNI New Zealand
Greetings:
Mr. Lee is one of my members in Frederick, MD. and a very engaging fellow. He has taught the members of his sales team to say “ribbit, ribbit” every time he stands up to speak. They never fail to interact with Greg.
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