Activating new channels of awareness

Last week, I wrote about Carla whose virtual audience during the workshop completely changed as she gave her presentation.

Their faces in the little squares on the screen went from coldly severe to eyes shining with intense interest and some unbelievably warm smiles.

I heard from many of you when I asked for your thoughts on how Carla created that.  Carla faced a challenge that many in the world of virtual presentations face.  And few have mastered.  This can help you.

Putting yourself in Carla’s shoes, the difficulty is that when you look into the camera lens, you don’t SEE an audience.  And, if your audience is skeptical like Carla’s was, when you look at the computer screen, all you see is a wall of unconvinced faces.

In other words, you’ll get no encouragement from cold machinery or from an icy audience.  Especially at the beginning of your presentation.

Everything must come from you.

Not easy in this environment.  Talking directly to the camera lens is necessary, but it throws many people.  They freeze up.  They’re stripped of all that makes them comfortable in conversation.  It feels like “no one is there.”  No one to connect with. 

That becomes reality.  An ugly one. 

Being causative is all about creating the reality you want.  About transforming the “reality” in front of you into the highest ideal you can envision.  Creating a new reality.  The one you want.

Carla took one audience reality, one audience experience, and created another one, a completely different one.  The one she wanted.

Here’s what you need to know:

Just because you can’t see the audience, doesn’t mean they aren’t there.  They ARE there.  They ARE real people.  And they WILL respond like real people when you become someone they can connect with.

Your first step in this transformation is to move from “needing to see them” to simply KNOWING they are there.

It has to be real to you that they are there.  They have to be real to you AS PEOPLE.

Otherwise you’re just going to be talking, but you won’t be talking TO anyone. 

You’ll talk too fast, you’ll be disconnected, they’ll be disengaged and you won’t reach them.

Even beyond that, you need to be aware of them as you talk.

Effective communication is all about awareness.

Even through all the virtual machinery, people can tell whether you’re aware of them or whether your mind is somewhere else. 

They can tell whether you’re self-conscious, overly aware of yourself, whether your attention is consumed by anxiety, or making sure you cover all your material, or trying to remember what you want to say next.  All of these lose the audience.

The people in your audience can tell exactly how aware of them you are.

When you are aware of them, it greatly perks up their attention and they tune in.  They get interested.  They engage.  First with their minds.  Then with their eyes.  Then with their smiles and their words.

It all starts with your ability to really BE there and be aware of the person or persons in front of you. 

Stop telling yourself that you “need to see” them.  You are perfectly capable of being aware of them.  They are there.  Start KNOWING they are there.  Start opening up your other channels of awareness.

Notice your conversations this week.  See if you can stop the mental noise and just be fully aware and in the moment with that person.

When you can do that, you’ll get a glimpse of the power you have to impact others.

Let me know how it goes!

Be the cause!

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The quickest way to warm-up a cold & skeptical audience

Carla was practicing her presentation in a recent Mastering Virtual Presentations workshop.  The audience was a grid of cold squares arranged across the computer screen.  Faces grim, mouths turned down at the corners, flat, dead eyes.  A detached virtual audience, completely unmoved by Carla’s words.

Three minutes later, Carla presented again.

She offered the very same presentation, with the very same words, to the very same audience.

Everything was the same.

Everything except the results. Those were very different.

This time the audience was leaning forward, looking at their screens with love.  Smiling.  And several of them were smiling so big, you could see dimples. Their eyes were glowing with interest and affinity.

I took screenshots of both audiences and when Carla asked me, “How did I do?”  I showed her both of the dramatically different screen shots of the exact same audience.

What changed that audience in less than three minutes?

Imagination.

Carla’s imagination.  

For you, it would be your imagination.

Here’s what happened.  I was helping Carla prepare for a very large presentation she’ll be giving this month.  It’s not large in terms of number of people.  There will only be 5-10 people in her audience. But it’s for a contract that’s worth billions of dollars.  Competition is fierce. Carla’s competitors are way ahead in the industry. Carla’s company is a new player. Some of the features she’ll be presenting are unproven.

Carla told me before I started coaching her, “They’re going to be very skeptical end closed-minded.”

After the first time she gave her presentation, the one to the very frosty audience I described above, I asked Carla, “What were you imagining about your audience?” 

Carla said that, as she was speaking, in her mind’s eye she could see the face of the most skeptical and closed-minded person in the audience that she knew would be there.

And that’s exactly what she got.  Her audience was grim, cold like statues. Their faces totally skeptical. Closed-minded.  Not sold.

Then I told Carla to look into the camera lens and imagine a person who really got what she was trying to tell them, who really got how good her product is and who was thinking, “I really want that. I love what she’s saying. I’d love to work with a fresh player.  It’s perfect.”

It took her a moment, but Carla did it.  And I took a screenshot of that audience as she was speaking.  Same people. Completely different audience.

Leaning forward.  Connecting.  Completely engaged.  Intense interest.  Warm smiles and great warmth in their eyes.

I would show you the screenshots, but it would be a complete violation of privacy, not to mention the non-disclosure agreement I signed!  But trust me, it was a dramatic night and day transformation.

Can you figure it out?   Carla said the same words.  Why did the audience transform?

Tell me what you think.  I’ll dive deeper into this next week.

Be the cause!

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How to disagree

Many people in my workshops tell me they want to learn how to disagree. Especially with their boss, or other people that are higher up.

It’s easy.  

Just say, “I disagree.”

I’m obviously joking.  You can see learning how to disagree is not actually what they want.

What they want to learn is how to get the other person to agree with them. That’s a whole different thing.

Last week I had an extremely competent woman in my workshop.  No one does her type of work better than she does.  She was very soft-spoken and very respectful of others.  She avoided unpleasant situations and frequently held back saying which she was thinking.  In a group she was especially subdued.

She was at manager level, but despite many attempts, never moved higher in the organization. She had almost given up making it to Director.

Everyone loves her.  She was frustrated.

It was especially tough for her when she disagrees.

The difficulty most people have when they disagree, is maintaining a deep human connection and a feeling of rapport with the other person.

If you lose these 2 things in a disagreement, you’re going to fight (and lose) a battle.

These 2 are the foundation for every great conversation and every great outcome you’ll ever have.

The mistake people make is they start disagreeing when there’s no real connection between them and the other person. I see this all the time in my workshops.  They’re so focused on disagreeing, they’re not focused on staying connected.  Do that and you lose.  Period.

They think the problem is that they’re disagreeing. 

Not true.

The problem isn’t that you’re disagreeing. The problem is that you’ve lost that strong connection with the other person.  If you never had it to begin with, it’s even worse.

Without the connection, you have no power. 

I have been receiving a series of emails from this woman in my workshop saying that learning these skills has had a profound impact on her life. She’s speaking up. She disagreed with her boss and swung him to her point of view. She tells me how exhilarating it is to have these skills and how strong, how powerful she feels.  She is dancing through life.

I predict she will be a Director soon, and then not long after, she’ll be a VP.

Build that deep human connection.

Then talk about anything you want.

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How to warm up an audience

All audiences look disinterested at the beginning, unless you're Oprah, of course. 

I remember my first audience. I’d made the decision to be a professional corporate trainer, but as I was standing in front of my first group, looking at 20 skeptical, disinterested faces, I suddenly had no idea why I wanted to do this, and the thought occurred to me that I would be much happier if I just turned around and left now.

Well, that first time I was stuck. While I seriously thought about leaving, my feet didn't move and I started talking.

That was over 30 years ago and since that time I've learned that, unless the audience already knows and loves you, that's how ALL audiences look at the beginning. I often have cold audiences who don't know who I am and they look exactly like the very first one.

Many of my clients tell me their audiences are even worse, because they come in and immediately start multitasking.

So, how do you break through and reach the audience who looks like this, how do you get them warm?

By making a deep personal connection with each person. 

Focusing in on them as individuals, not as a group (this is very important). By putting your full attention on them individually and giving it your ALL when you talk to them.

I've had people ask, how can you possibly do that with an audience of 300? Here's how. You connect with each person briefly, so you have enough time to connect with all of them individually.  

This reminds me of an audience I had of 200 trial attorneys. The CEO of a very upscale, prestigious law firm hired me to speak to them about communication. Sounded good to me so I said yes.

When I got in front of them there was a wave of ill will coming from the group that just about knocked me over. Suddenly it occurred to me that this is a group who thinks they already know everything about communication and are only here because the CEO mandated it. I slowly realized that as trial attorneys, they were supremely skilled at silent antagonism when their opponent is talking. I was the opponent.

It was a wave of, “We want to see you fail” like I had never experienced.

As they introduced me, and I was eyeing the sea of hostility I was about to enter, again it occurred to me that I would rather be anywhere else. Alas, too late.

When I tried to connect with them as individuals, they repelled me with their eyes.

How do you penetrate a barrier like that?

I refused to be distracted by the hostility. I focused on the person BEHIND the hostility. 

As I was speaking, I put my attention on each person in the audience, penetrated the hostility with understanding, understood each one, one at a time, and delivered the full force of me and my message.

Many people think that during a presentation, understanding is 1-way. In other words the speaker presents, and the audience understands. This violates the natural laws of communication.

Excellent communication is predicated on 2-way understanding. 

While many people can do this 1-on-1, most people don't know how to tune in to others when there is a GROUP of them to tune into. But it's important and those who have charisma have mastered it.

So, as I was speaking, I was simultaneously understanding each person, one at a time, giving each individual the full force of my understanding. What they experienced was someone talking to them who fully understood them and WASN'T making them wrong for it. That's rare.

Let me explain what I mean by giving the full force of me and my message.  I don't at all mean that I was forceful, because I am very, very rarely forceful.

What I mean is not holding myself back, using both intention and vitality, combined with strong affinity and understanding to deliver my message fully.

Most people don't put enough of themselves into their communication to create an impact. Unfortunately, those who give their all often don't know how to ALSO make a personal connection with the audience, and so they speak passionately, but their message bounces off the surface, doesn't penetrate. The audience remains an audience of spectators, not an audience in rapport.

It takes both: a strong, deep personal connection with each person in the audience plus how you deliver the message .

It took about 5 minutes for the attorneys to fully warm up. I thought that was pretty good. It was a 2-hour talk, so we had plenty of time for the good stuff. And, when they warmed up, they REALLY warmed up. Turned into a wonderfully rowdy crowd and we had a great time.

Afterward, the CEO told me the evaluations were very good with a number of complaints. The complaints were that the session was too short and they wish they'd had more time. Considering they bill by the hour and the total billing rate in that room for 2 hours exceeds my imagination, I took that as high praise.

So, don't be at all dismayed when you first look out at your audience and see polite disinterest and feel that barrier or wall. Unless your rock band is currently playing on the radio or you’re speaking at your family reunion, that's how most audiences look. Even for CEO's.

But it doesn't matter how they look at the beginning. What matters is how QUICKLY you can turn it around and get them warm and with you.

The key points I've mentioned above always work, you can count on that. 

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