What Is The Best Way To Introduce Yourself When Presenting?
Usually when we are speaking we are introduced twice. Once at the very start by the MC and then during our segment of the talk. The MC’s role is quite simple. It is to set the stage for the speaker, to bring something of their history, their achievements and various details that make them a credible presenter for this audience. This can often be a problem though, depending on a few key factors.
Are you relying on the MC to do the research on you, encapsulate your achievements and highlight why you should have the right to stand up here in front of everyone and pontificate on your subject? Most people are too busy to do better than a perfunctory job of this and often they won’t appreciate what particular points need more highlighting than others.
It is always best to prepare your own introduction. Keep control of what is being said about you and the areas you wish to showcase. You can decide for each occasion which elements of your history or current focus are going to be most impactful for this particular audience and topic. Don’t make it too long.
I was recently organising a speaker for an event and his self-introduction was very long, a potpourri of his entire life. He obviously couldn’t discriminate between very, very high points very high points and high points, so he cobbled the whole thing together as a unit. I wasn’t the MC that evening but the actual MC ignored the whole thing and just said, “you have seen his biography in the meeting event notice, so I won’t go through it now”. Yes, we may have glanced at it, but we were not remembering it in detail and the chance to reconnect with it was no longer there.
The MC role can be difficult to manage for the speaker. They can choose to ignore everything your wrote and give their own version. Usually this is laced full of errors, exaggerations and miscommunication. Some MCs have pretty big egos and think they are the star of the show and that they can do a better job than any offerings from the speaker. What comes out of their mouth is usually an amazement, because you know what they were supposed to say.
For this reason, my advice is to only feed the MC the key points and deny them the option to seize hold of your reputation and background and pervert it into something totally unrecognisable. You only need them to set the stage and give you a chance to connect with your audience. When it is your turn to speak you can go freely into the details you want highlight.
I would not do this immediately following on from the MC. We need a break and the biography is not the best way to start your speech anyway. The start of the talk has only one purpose and that is to stay the hand of every single person in that audience, from secretly reaching for their phone to escape from you, to the charms of the internet.
Design a blockbuster opening that will grab the attention of the audience and then introduce yourself, rather than the other way around. When you get to your self-introduction, look for opportunities to tell a story that brings some highlight to the attention of the listeners. This is a more subtle way of telling everyone how fantastic you are. This also limits the amount of content you can share with the audience, ensuring it doesn’t get too long and too detailed. We will remember your story more than any other part of your introduction, so choose something that is highly memorable about you. Make it positive rather than negative. You can tell plenty of stories in your talk about how you learnt through failure, but for the introduction, choose those incidents which portray you in a good light. This is what you want people to associate with you – success, ability, innovation, bravery, learning.
Don’t allow your introduction to happen, with you as an interested bystander. Grab hold of the content and feed certain parts the MC to allow them to do their job. Keep other juicy parts for yourself, to set the scene for your speech to be a great success.
How To Control Your Reactions During Q&A
Creating and delivering the presentation sees you in 100% total control. You have designed it, you have been given the floor to talk about it, all is good. However, the moment the time comes for questions, we are now in a street fight. Why a street fight? Because in a street fight there are no rules and the Q&A following a presentation is the same – no rules. Oh that’s not right you might be thinking. What about social norms, propriety, manners, decorum – surely all of these things are a filter on bareknuckle duking it out in public? That is correct but it is not a guarantee.
There are different personality types assembled in the room. In Japan, often the English language presentation occasions are like mini-UNS, in terms of national representation. Different social norms apply in countries apart from your own. The French educational system promotes critique of statements and ideas and that is seen as an illustration of superior intellect. My fellow Australians are often sceptical and doubting and don’t hesitate to mention it, in a direct assault on what has just been said. There are also different personality types in the room. Some people are naturally aggressive and want to argue the point, if the speaker has the temerity to say something they disagree with.
What is considered rude, aggressive or inappropriate behaviour is a relative judgment depending on where you grew up, how you were educated and how you individually see the world. Even in Japanese society, there are occasions where there is heated argument and a lot of the typical Japanese restraint is out the window.
As the speaker we are pumped full of chemicalS when we get up to present. If we are nervous, then the flight or fight adrenaline chemicals are released by the Amygdala inside our brain. We cannot stop this but we can control it. It is interesting that if this state is held for a long period of time, we lose the feeling of strength and have a sense of weakness. A forty minute speech is a long time to be in a heightened state and by the time we get to the Q&A, we may be feeling denuded of strength. Just at the moment when we come under full force attack.
The face of the speaker is a critical indicator during the Q&A. I caught myself shaking my head to indicate disagreement with what was coming my way in the form of a question during the Q&A. Without initially realising it, I was sending out a physical sign that I wasn’t accepting the questioner’s bead of disagreement to what I had been pontificating. From an audience point of view, this looks like you are inflexible, closed to other opinions and just dismissive of anyone with an opinion that differs from your own.
Even if you are not a rabid head shaker like I was, the expression on your face may be speaking volumes to your audience. You might be displaying a sceptical visage of doubt and rejection of what is being said before you have heard the whole argument out. You might even be pumping blood into your face so that it goes red in colour. There is a female businesswoman I know here, whose skin goes bright red when she is in the public eye and begins to look like one of those warning beacons. There is probably nothing she can do about that, but it is definitely not a good look. Or your general demeanour is one of disdain for the questioner and you look arrogant and disrespectful of alternative opinions.
Given the chemical surge leading to denuding of strength I mentioned earlier, we may look like we are defeated by the questioner and this impacts our credibility to show we are true believers in what we said and are fully committed to that line of argument. We don’t want to appear like we have collapsed in the face of pushback during the Q&A. Maintain a brave front, even if it is all front. The audience won’t know the difference.
Nodding during the questioning is also a big mistake. We do this in normal conversation, to show the speaker we are paying attention to them and this bleeds over into public speaking events as well. I learnt this when I did media training. The television media love it when you are nodding, because they can take that bit in the editing and transpose it to sync with the voice of the person disagreeing with you and it appears you are accepting their argument. Very sneaky isn’t it, but when you pop up on TV agreeing with your questioner attacking all that you have said, it is too late. Even if there is no TV there, don’t look like you are agreeing with the questioner and control that nodding right from the start.
So during Q&A maintain a totally neutral expression on your face and don’t allow you head to nod. If you feel anxiety from the question, take some slow deep breaths to slow down your heart rate and breathing. Keep supremely calm and remember that really aggressive questioners look like dills or grandstanders to the rest of the audience who usually place their sympathy with the person under attack. We do have that Colosseum thing in us however, where we like watching blood sports and Q&A can come under that category.
So we have to appear above the fray, in control, calm, reasonable and assured of what we are saying. Control your temper, don’t cut them off mid-question, leave a pregnant pause after they have finished, to allow some of the tension to dissipate, then lob in a cushion or neutral statement to give you thinking time and then answer their question.
Here is a killer technique for obstreperous questioners. When you start to answer their question, give them 100% eye contact for six seconds to show you won’t be intimidated. Next switch your six second eye contact to various other members of the audience and never look at the questioner again. By publically and completely ignoring them, you take all the air out of their puffed up ego and you decimate them through denial of attention.
How Many People Should Present?
Often, we are presenting as a team and more than one speaker may be involved. Is that ideal or are we better off to have only one speaker? Usually we are talking for around 40 minutes, so the time isn’t all that long to split over multiple speakers. Are we better to limit it to one or two, or does it actually matter? Personally, I prefer one speaker if possible and if necessary then two as a maximum. There is the rhythm requirement for both speaker and listener. Chopping and changing all the time makes it hard for the audience to identify with the speaker and absorb the message. For the speaker too the chance to get one’s cadence rolling gets truncated when you have to hand off to the next speaker.
Having multiple speakers is common at events, but usually they have the full time allotted to them and they don’t share it around. There are some reasons for this and one is that the speaker is the star of the show. We want to be careful about having two suns in the sky. If one of the speakers is very polished, professional and very competent as a presenter and their comrade is a shambles, then the audience attributes your firm’s level of professionalism to the shambles, rather than the excellent presenter. The reputational damage from this is huge because the audience finds the lowest level of skill and plots you there. You have also just clearly demonstrated that your firm is incapable of professional consistency.
Even if both speakers are competent, there is the issue of maintaining the same level of energy in the room. Remember, the audience is stone cold when they get into the venue and we have to warm them up. We are in the Age of Distraction and today audiences are shameless about pulling out their mobile phones and scrolling through their email or social media as they multitask. We speakers want them single focused on us and not escaping to the tantalising delights of the internet. The first speaker has to break through that wall of disinterest and mild to throbbing cynicism and grab everyone’s attention. They have to win the audience over and they use all the weapons at their disposal, ranging from the quality of the material involved to the delivery techniques employed.
They do their job and now there is handover to the other speaker. The audience cynicism meter springs back into action as they now have to sum up the new speaker to see if they will keep listening or get out their mobile and escape the room. What are some best practices for the handover. I don’t think I ever see this done well. Usually it is some poor bromide like , “Taro will now talk about X” and up steps Taro to the microphone or the podium.
Instead, why not say, “we have found some fascinating applications of this material for your business. This will be of interest to every business in the room today, because we are all facing the same issues of staying relevant in business. We have an expert here to guide us through the traps and obstacles, someone who has been working on these issues for decades, please welcome my good friend and colleague Taro to the podium take us through how we can prosper and differentiate ourselves over the next decade”. When our colleague begins moving to the stage, we are already clapping vigorously to inspire the audience to also clap. On stage, we ceremoniously welcome him or her with a warm handshake and a big smile and then depart to our chair, leaving the limelight to them.
They have to be presenting at the same level of energy we were so that the transition seems as seamless as possible. There should be no time lost switching laptops or dickering around with the technology. If that needs to be done, they should launch straight into their remarks, while someone else does that for them. Their immediate job is to focus 100% on the audience and connect with them straight away. We talk about having a strong opening to grab the audience when we start. The second speaker also needs to have that too. We can’t just leave it with the first speaker, because the audience will have forgotten that by now and here they are face to face with an unknown quantity. The second speaker has to design their opening to grab their listeners attention too.
When we get to the Q&A this needs to be worked out ahead of time. What you don’t want is vaudeville, where a question is raised from the audience and both speakers look at each other quizzically, wondering who will answer that one. One of the speakers will act as the navigator, either taking the question themselves or passing it over to their colleague. In this way there are no doubts about who will answer it and also a few seconds available for the colleague to gather their thoughts and think how they will answer the actual question.
It will be predetermined who will offer the final close after the Q&A. A good practice is to make it the first speaker, so that they can reconnect themselves and the speech from the second half back to the first half. It ties a nice, neat bow on the whole proceedings. The point is all this must be planned out in advance, so that all contingencies are catered for.
Okay, So How Should I End My Speech, Make It My Triumph?
This is a tricky part of designing and delivering our presentations. Think back to the last few presentations you have attended and can you remember anything from the close of their speech? Can you remember much about the speaker? This close should be the highlight of their talk, the piece that brings it all together, their rallying cry for the main message. If you can’t recall it, or them, then what was the point of their giving the talk in the first place? People give talks to make an impression, to promulgate their views, to win fans and converts, to impact the audience, etc. All weighty and worthy endeavours, but all seemingly to no effect, in most cases. What can we do to stand above this crowd of nobodies, who are running around giving unmemorable and unimpressive talks?
The keys to any successful talk revolve around very basic principles. Vince Lombardi, famed American Green Bay Packers football coach would always emphasise that the road to success in his game was blocking and tackling – the basics and so it is with public speaking. Design must not start with the assembly of the slide deck. Yet this is how 99% of people do it.
Instead start with designing the final closing message. In other words start with how you will finish. This forces clarity on you, drives you to sum up the key takeaways in one sentence and gets to the heart of what it is you want to say. It is also excruciatingly difficult, which is why we all head for the slide deck formation instead.
Once we have sieved the gold nugget from the dross, grasped the key point of the talk, then we are ready to work on the rest of the speech. The main body of the talk will flow naturally from the close, as we assemble data, facts, examples, stories, testimonials and statistics to support our main point. We then array this vast army of persuasion ready for deploy at our summation. It must flow in a logical progression, easy to follow for the audience and all pointing back to support our main contention.
The opening and close can have some connection or not. The role of the opening is very clear – grab the attention of the assembled masses to hear what it is we want to say. We can state our conclusion directly at the start and then spend the rest of the time justifying that position. Or we can provide some general navigation about what we are going to talk about today. Or we can hit the audience with some nitro statement or information, to wake them up to get them to listen to us.
At the end there will be two closes, one before the Q&A and one after. The majority of speakers allow the final question to control the proceedings rather than themselves. If that last question is a hummer, a real beauty, right on the topic and allowing you to add extra value to your talk, then brilliant. How many times have you seen that though? Usually the last questions are a mess. All the better, intelligent questions have been taken, the best insights have been plumbed and now we have some dubious punter who wants a bit of your limelight. Their questions can often be off topic, rambling, unclear or just plain stupid. Is this how you want your talk remembered?
The final two closes can reflect each other and be an extension of what you have already said or you can split them up and give each its specific task to make your point. The close before the Q&A can be a summation to remind your audience of what you spoke about and prime them for questions. Obviously recency, the last thing people will hear, will have the most powerful impact, so the second close must be very carefully designed.
Be careful of the event hosts wanting to take over immediately after the last question and not allowing you the chance to make your final close. You might have gone overtime or they need to vacate the venue or face a bigger bill or whatever. They can be thanking the audience for coming and wrapping things up with their news of their next event, before you can blink an eye. You need to word them up at the start that you want to make a final close after the Q&A and then you will give them the floor.
The other component of the close is the delivery. So many speakers allow their voices to trail off and allow their speaking volume to descend at the peroration. You want to be remembered as someone passionate about your subject, excited to be there to share it with this audience and a true believer of your message. That means you need to drive the volume up, hit the last words with a lot of passion and belief. Make it a rousing call to action, to storm the barricades and to change the world. That is how you want people to remember your message AND you as a speaker as they shuffle out of the venue and go back to work or home.
When Should You Take Questions During Your Talk?
Having an audience interested enough in your topic to ask questions is a heartening occurrence. Japan can be a bit tricky though because people are shy to ask questions. Culturally the thinking is different to the West. In most western countries we ask questions because we want to know more. We don’t think that we are being disrespectful by implying that the speaker wasn’t clear enough, so that is why we need to ask our question. We also never imagine we must be dumb and have to ask a question because we weren’t smart enough to get the speaker’s meaning the first time around. We also rarely worry about being judged on the quality of our question. We don’t fret that if we ask a stupid question, we have now publically announced to everyone we are an idiot.
Some speakers encourage questions on the way through their talks. They are comfortable to be taken down deeper on an aspect of their topic. They don’t mind being moved along to an off topic point by the questioner. The advantage of this method is that the audience don’t have to wait until the end of the talk to ask their question. They can get clarification immediately on what is being explained. There might be some further information which they want to know about so they can go a bit broader on the topic.
This also presents an image of the speaker as very confident in their topic and flexible to deal with whatever comes up. They also must be good time managers when speaking, to get through their information, take the questions on the way through and still finish on time. In today’s Age Of Distraction, being open to questions at any time serves those in the audience with short concentration spans or little patience. Not everyone in the audience can keep a thought aflame right through to the end, so having forgotten what it was they were going to ask, they just sit there in silence when it gets to Q&A. Their lost question may have provoked an interesting discussion by the speaker on an important point. Having one person brave enough to ask a question certainly encourages everyone else to ask their question. The social pressure of being first has been lifted and group permission now allows for asking the speaker about some points in their talk.
The advantage of waiting until the end is that you remain in control of the order of the talk. You may deal with all of the potential questions by the end of the talk and the Q&A allows for additional things that have come up in the minds of the audience. It also makes it easier to work through the slide deck in order. The slide deck is alike an autopilot for guiding us through the talk, as we don’t have to remember the order, we just follow the slides. Of course if we allow questions throughout, we can always ask our questioner to wait, because we will be covering that point a little later in the talk. Nevertheless the questions at the end formula gives the speaker more control over the flow of their talk with no distractions or departures from the theme.
Time control becomes much easier. We can rehearse our talk and get it down to the exact time, before we open up for questions during the time allotted for Q&A. If we have to face hostile questions, this is when they will emerge. Prior to that, we have at least gotten through what we wanted to say. We had full control of the proceedings. If we get into a torrid time with a questioner, early in the piece, it may throw our equilibrium off balance or cause some consternation or embarrassment to the audience, detracting from what we want to say. The atmosphere can turn unpleasant very quickly which pollutes everyone’s recollection of you as the speaker. Also, if we don’t know how to handle hostile questions, our credibility can crumble. A crumbling credibility in a public forum is not a good look.
So my recommendation is for the seasoned pro speakers to take questions whenever you feel like it. For those who don’t present so frequently, err on the side of caution and take the questions at the end.