Should I tell ‘em what I’m gonna tell ‘em, tell ‘em, and then tell ‘em what I told them?
The following comes from TJ Walker’s upcoming book “The Wisdom of Your Audience”. Consistently, the worst advice speakers and presenters get, comes from everyone who is NOT your audience. The following gives examples of some of the WORST advice people are often given. It is followed by the advice of your audience. Listen to them. They are your true judge and jury.
Should I tell ‘em what I’m gonna tell ‘em, tell ‘em, and then tell ‘em what I told them?
Your Corporate Communications Director: “Your speech needs a clear-cut outline. So yes, you should tell people what you are going to cover. Then tell them the messages, and then tell them what you told them.”
Your Speech Writer: “This is the best structure for delivering a message since God came up with the Holy Trinity.”
You: “Finally there is agreement. I will use this structure for my speech. Great! This makes my outlining easy.”
***
Your Audience: “This is the dumbest advice we’ve heard since ‘Starve a cold, feed a fever.’ We have a better idea: Tell us your idea once in a manner that is so interesting and memorable that we can’t forget even if we tried. Do you want proof that the tell ‘em what your gonna tell ‘em, tell ‘em and tell ‘em what you told ‘em school of thought doesn’t work? Quick, how many emergency exit doors are there on a 747? You don’t know, do you? Even though, if you are a frequent traveler, you have been told scores or hundreds of times how many exit doors there are. You don’t remember because each time you were told, you were told in a boring manner and you weren’t paying attention. Got it?”
March 13th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Imagine a speaker giving a heartfelt, impassioned speech, capturing your attention … until they start stumbling through their facts because they’ve forgotten something important.
The Intro-Body-Conclusion (tell’em what you’re going to tell’em/tell’em/tell’em what you told’em) outline is the most efficient model for any speech.
This item touches on two very important parts of a speech; the organization (outline) and the delivery.
The reason we don’t remember how many exits are on an airplane is not because the information is poorly organized; it’s because it’s so insincerely presented, we can’t help but ignore them until they bring us our warm towel and a cookie.
Teaching speakers to frame their pertinent information in an outline will (hopefully) mitigate the worry of whether they’ve “hit everything.” This should help them relax, which should help smooth their delivery.
So an outline can help speakers relax by memorizing their most important facts, thus helping them smooth out their delivery.
And how do I know this works? Because you just read all the way through my answer, which is set up in just such a manner.