Keep it Simple

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And now effective communication with Phil Zeller, CEO Dale Carnegie
Southwest Michigan. So there I was just last week out
in fabulous Las Vegas. I was out there at a
conference and I was having a great time and meeting
a lot of people in networking and talking to a
lot of folks. And one night we decided to go

(00:22):
out and somebody said, hey, let's go check out the speakeasies. Well,
what's a speak easy? Well, if you remember back to
the Prohibition years back, of course, here in the United States,
we had something called speakeasies where they were like these
secret places where you could go get a beverage. So
I said, hey, I'm game. I'm always up for anything.
Let's have a good time and let's go out and
experience the town. So we headed out. We went to

(00:45):
a speakeasy that some folks told us about, and we're
sitting in there and they had a musician up there.
And I don't know if you ever found yourself in
this situation, but here he was. He was up there
with his guitar, he was taking request and nobody was
given him in anything. Nobody was giving him any music
to play. And I could sense up there he really
wanted to interact with the audience in the room. And

(01:07):
you've been there before, right. You see an entertainer, somebody
up on stage and they're trying to connect with an audience,
and maybe it's you. Maybe you're in a meeting giving
a presentation and you really want to connect and you
want to get them engaged, and you're struggling with it.
And I was watching what he was doing because of
course I study effective communication. It's Phil Zeller with you
here today, and this singer decides, you know what, I'm

(01:31):
going to try something a little different because I'm not
getting any requests from the audience. So what he decided
to do is he had asked a couple of times,
you know, has anybody got a favorite song? I had
put a request and nobody was answering. He said, wait
a minute, wait a minute, and I watched the wheels
clicking in his head. He wasn't getting the response, and

(01:51):
he simplified it, simplified it. What a beautiful thing to do,
Simplified it made it. He use their question rather than
telling me who you want to hear from, let me
find out something you don't have to think hard about.
And this is what we can do with the audience.
And so the singer said to the group, all right,
we got a nice crowd here tonight. You all come
from somewhere, and I'm gonna count down three two one,

(02:13):
and when I get to one, holler out where you're from.
So he goes three two one, and everybody shouts out
where they're from, from around the world. Now, imagine you're
that singer. You're up on that stage and you hear
all these places coming out from all these people. Well,
they just gave you a bunch of material to work with.

(02:33):
So immediately he picks up. There's a group of folks
there from Canada, and he turns to them he goes, Canada,
Well you must love so and so and so and so,
and you got some great singers in Canada. And now
he's interacting with them and like, yeah, we like so
and so and so so. Should we play something from them?
And they're like, yeah, do that, do that. And it

(02:53):
was such a simple thing to see. And we don't
always take this in. And if you found yourself in
front of a group of people before and you were
tongue tied during the Q and A, because you can't
get anybody to participate and you're looking at them, they're
staring back at you. Simplify it, make it easier for
your audience to give you something to work with, because

(03:14):
if you're asking them a question makes them think too hard,
you're not going to get an answer. So when you
simplify it like he did, we're going to count down three, two, one,
holler out where or from? It was easy to go.
And then, of course he was a musician, and he
knew a lot about musicians. He played music. He was
taking open requests, so obviously a very talented individual in

(03:35):
his field and was able to take the places and
then tie them back to singers from those locations. And
it's such a simple thing for us to do, but
it's a skillful art form to work at it. And now,
next time you're giving a presentation and you ask, okay,
who asked the first question? Typically that's how we open
up a Q and a session. Who has the first question?

(03:56):
And if you don't get a response, simplify it, make
it easier for them, give them a location or give
them something then tie your information back to it. Or
the other thing that you can do, which works really
well as well is ask a question that has often
asked of you. So in his case, it could have
been well, oftentimes people ask me, where does my music

(04:19):
come from? Who do I really like? Well, I go
back to my roots where I'm from, and I'm from
this location, and these are the musicians that come out
of my area, and this is the type of music
they sing. Let me share with you a song from them.
He could have done that, and it's the same thing
you could do in a presentation with a group of people.
A question I'm often asked is and then fill in

(04:40):
the blank. And what it does is it primes the
pump for the people in the room to get engaged
and ask you questions. And it's a great simple skill
set to learn and utilize when you're given presentations to
get feedback from the audience, to get them engaged in
a Q and A, to get them ask part of
your presentation. So as you think about this again, my friends,

(05:03):
when you're giving presentations, you want more engagement because people
are going to be more lively, they're want to share more,
they're going to get more from what you're saying. Get
that engagement. Ask them simple questions, simple questions that doesn't
require them to think and get the pump moving. Prime
that pump, get it going, and you'll get more engagement
in your presentations. And if you don't give you something
right back quick, go ahead and give them an example

(05:25):
of a question that you're often asked and that will
also prime the pump. You've got this not go make
it happen.