Persuading Crowds Part 4: A Crowd of Many

Hello everyone!

Christopher Peck with Speak Into Action Communications.

Welcome to the final portion of our four-week series on Crowd Persuasion inspired by T.S. Eliot's quote.

Do we all know it by heart?

"Business today consists in persuading crowds."

Part two covered a crowd of self, last week we went over a crowd of one, today we talk about persuading a crowd of many. And, you guessed it, persuading a crowd of many is about being present, transparent, and consistent.

Being Present: Looks different because with a crowd of one you want your audience to dominate the conversation. Talk less, listen more. With a crowd of many, this really isn't feasible unless you have two hours of material and eight hours of time. Conversation slows the tempo and pacing of a presentation which is why it is so important, when developing a speaking event, to plan out the timing of audience participation.

But before I get too wildly off topic, since one to many presentations almost always necessitate a speaker-driven performance, being present has to look a little different.

It becomes about non-verbal engagement, and mirroring. And not with your entire audience, you do not have to connect with your entire audience. In fact, you will not connect with your entire audience. And I think biggest mistake many presenters make is focusing on the wrong audience.

Believe it or not, like most things, there's an 80/20 rule for audiences. 80% of your audience is engaged, absorbed, and eager to hear what you have to say. 20% are somewhere else. Not feeling well. Checking an email from their kid's school. Skipped breakfast and starving. Whatever the reason, they're not there. Oh well.

What we cannot do as presenters is pivot for or try to force a connection with the 20%. They're a lost cause. Let them go. Instead focus on the 80%. Mirror their energy and enthusiasm back on them. Reward their excitement by giving them special attention. That's the audience you're persuading. Don't miss your shot in the vain attempt to please everyone.

Be Transparent: Suit the action to the word, the word to the action. Being a great performer is about finding alignment between words, actions, body language, and vocal variety. This is why we rehearse. To find and hone that alignment so when we walk into a presentation we are both masterly prepared, while also portraying the illusion of spontaneity.

Be Consistent: Script it. You can wing it but it won't be as good. When people tell me they're good enough to just wing it, all I hear is, "I don't take this presentation seriously enough to prepare."

Script it.

Rehearse it.

Memorize it.

Own it.

Then you have it forever.

Thank you for following this series the last few weeks. As promised, I have a challenge for you. Create a sixty-second video of yourself and put it on LinkedIn, Youtube, Facebook, or any other social media vessel of choice. It can be an ask, a get to know you, a quick video about a book we all need to read, but post it and put yourself out there.

The first five people who post their video and share with me a link to view, I'll send you feedback on what works really well about your video presence along with a couple of quick tips to make your videos even better.

Thanks everyone for reading, this is Christopher Peck with Speak Into Action Communications: helping businesses perform better by training better performers.

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Persuading Crowds Part 3: A Crowd of One

Hey everyone!

Christopher Peck with Speak Into Action Communications.

Welcome to Part Three of this series on Crowd Persuasion, again brought to you by T.S. Eliot's quote: "Business today consists in persuading crowds.”

Today's focus is "A Crowd of One"; what does persuasion look like in 1-2-1 situations? The three principles we used last week for "An Audience of Self", be present, be transparent, be consistent, are the same principles we use when working with an audience of one--head's up, they're the same principles we'll use when we discuss persuading crowds of many.

Be Present: Dale Carnegie was a master at this. If you haven't read it, 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' absolutely has to be the next book on your reading list. 

If you want to persuade you have to be interested and engaged in the other person. Talk less, listen more, ask questions, basically shut up and get out of your own way.

To use a great theatre term, 'live in the moment' with your other. There cannot be anything more important than the conversation you have in the moment. Your other is the most interesting human being in the world. That's the role you play in 1-2-1 crowd persuasion.

Be Transparent: Your other has to believe you, and they're not going to believe you if all you do is say it. They have to see, feel, and experience your energy and enthusiasm about them. And my two favorite ways to do this:

1) Create a box that goes from their shoulder to shoulder and from the top of their chest to the top of their head. This is your focus box and your eyes never leave it. Staying in their focus box forces them to stay in yours which ensures a stronger connection.

2) Your body language and energy needs to move toward them, not away from them. Use your body language to encourage an attachment.

Finally, Be Consistent: The worst thing we can do to ourselves is undermine growth, confidence, and success by reinventing the wheel every time we engage a different crowd of one. I understand every person is different and requires nuance during interaction but nuance and inconsistency are not the same thing. So save yourself the trouble and write a script. If you're not great at asking questions: write them down. Your price presentation is a mess: write it down. You struggle with overcoming objections: write your responses down. Then take the time to memorize and own those responses. The more comfortable you are in your memorization, the easier it will be to adapt the script to fit each different audience.

For those of you who don't memorize well, the first three people who respond with the words 'memorize better' in the comments section, I'll send you my 10-day process for memorizing scripts.

So there it is: Be present. Be transparent. Be consistent. Go kick ass in your 1-2-1 persuasion opportunities.

Thanks again for reading, this is Christopher Peck with Speak Into Action Communications: helping businesses perform better by training better performers.

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Persuading Crowds Part 2: A Crowd of Self

Hey everyone, Christopher Peck with Speak Into Action Communications.

Welcome to part two of Crowd Persuasion, brought to you by T.S. Eliot's quote, "business today consists in persuading crowds.”

There are three types of crowds I want to focus on in the following weeks and this crowd is by far the most unruly, the most obnoxious, the most critical, and the most important.

The Crowd of Self

This is the crowd that shuts us down again and again before we even have the opportunity to persuade others. This crowd has been growing inside of us for decades and reminds us constantly of perceived failures, humiliation, shame, regret, harsh criticism all in an effort to emphasize we are not enough. Not smart enough. Not talented enough. Not attractive enough. Not--insert your own limiting belief here--enough.

And we are never going to be able to present the best version of ourselves and persuade others if we can't persuade ourselves.

There is no fake it till you make it if you don't believe you can make it.

So let's persuade ourselves.

Great performers commit to three principles: Being Present. Being Transparent. And Being Consistent.

Being Present with ourselves means being honest, vulnerable, and authentic. Asking ourselves tough questions. What do we want in life and what are the limiting beliefs holding us back? What do we get from those limiting beliefs? How would our lives change if we let go of those limiting beliefs? What are we prepared to do to live out best lives?

Being transparent means, in the immortal words of Shakespeare, "Suit the action to the word, the word to the action." Once you get present, honest, and vulnerable with yourself, and put your limiting beliefs into words, you now have to suit your actions to your words. What are you going to do about it? What actions will you put into place to persuade yourself you are capable of persuading others?

Finally being consistent means building a repeatable process for self-help and self-motivation. If daily affirmations are a part of your process, you have to do it daily. If learning and development is a part of your process, you have to do it regularly. Make being the best version of yourself a habit.

Because, again, we cannot persuade others until we persuade ourselves.

Have you persuaded your Crowd of Self? If the answer is no, be present, be transparent, be consistent.

What are you waiting for?

Thanks for reading everyone, this is Christopher Peck with Speak Into Action Communications: helping businesses perform better by training better performers.

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Persuading Crowds Part 1: An Introduction

Hey everyone, Christopher Peck with Speak Into Action Communications.

T.S. Eliot once said, "Business today consists in persuading crowds."

I love this quote for so many reasons. As an actor and director, there is nothing more invigorating than influencing crowds through a tremendous piece of theatre. As a Strategic Communication Coach, I get to use the same tools to empower business leaders to persuade their crowds.

But let's be honest. Crowds come in all shapes and sizes.

Some of us are skilled in persuading crowds of one, but we struggle to persuade crowds of many.

Others, myself included, feel much more comfortable persuading crowds of many but find it more difficult to persuade crowds of one.

Still, there are those who find it extremely challenging to persuade crowds of one or many because they haven't persuaded the most important crowd: the crowd of self.

The following is a four-part series unpackaging and nuances of persuading crowds and focusing on a different crowd size each week. In addition, part four will have a challenge for readers and an incentive for those who complete the challenge first.

Persuasion is a crucial component of our business success. But in order to persuade, we have to be exceptional performers, and exceptional performers use a couple of key ingredients to regularly present the best version of themselves.

Follow my blog every Tuesday and I'll show you how to dial in to those ingredients whether you're engaging a crowd of self, a crowd of one, or a crowd of many.

Thanks for reading everyone, this is Christopher Peck with Speak Into Action Communications: helping businesses perform better by training better performers. See you next week!

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'Commitment and Consistency' or 'How Your Business is Like a Rom-Com'

Hey Everyone, Christopher Peck with Speak Into Action Communications where we train businesses to build successful client experiences through organizational commitment and consistent execution.

To best illustrate the need for commitment and consistency in our business practices, I give you a movie review:

As Covid lingers and social isolation continues, my partner and I have exhausted our usual streaming go-tos and had to resort to more off-the-beaten-path programming. Top of the list seems to be true-crime cult documentaries and teenage rom-coms. The two most recent being the wildly successful Netflix adaptation of Jenny Han's best seller, "To All The Boy's I've Loved Before" and the perhaps lesser well known 2010 film, "Easy A" starring Emma Stone.

Watching each for the first time, I was struck by the early similarities. Both movies begin posing a similar question: What would happen if two characters engaged in a fake romantic relationship to further their own personal agenda?

From there, the movies' similarities pretty much end. "To All the Boy's" gently peels away the layers of this question exploring those personal agendas further, the challenges of keeping up appearances, and the kindling of real romantic feelings within a fake romantic relationship, until ultimately boy and girl fall happily into 16-year old love. It's a fun story and worth the watch.

"Easy A" quickly abandons it's fake relationship premise in an attempt to tackle every sort of conceivable high school--and adult--dilemma:

-Prostitution

-Toxic Christianity

-Inappropriate Student-Teacher Relationships

-Mental Health

-School Bullying

-Being Gay at a public high school in 2010

-Date rape

-Nods to '80's romantic comedies

And I feel any of these themes would be worth exploring, and have been in other successful movies, but where "Easy A" doesn't hold up for me is it's attempt to do too much. It wants something for everyone without fully exploring anything. In other words, it's uncommitted and inconsistent.

Too often I see businesses make the "Easy A" mistake. In a vain effort to build an experience which will attract everyone, they struggle to lean into and fully explore an experience capable of attracting anyone.

They offer too much, are consistently pivoting for a new perceived client, always changing their messaging and ultimately creating distrust in the experience of their business.

All of this could be avoided if they established their experience early on and devoted themselves to the relentless commitment and consistency of that experience.

What's the experience of your business?

In theatre, Directors are challenged to summarize the play they are directing in one sentence. So I pose the same challenge to you: write down in the comments section how you help your ideal client in one sentence.

I'll go first: I provide a creative, collaborative, and intuitive approach to helping business teams execute and perform the experience of their business.

Now your second challenge is to remain committed and consistent to the execution of that experience.

You don't have to help everyone. You won't help everyone. But you do have to provide an experience for your ideal client which sets you apart in your industry. Lean into that, and I guarantee 2021 will be your year.

Thanks for reading everyone, this is Christopher Peck with Speak Into Action Communications; helping businesses perform better, by training better performers.

Enjoyed the read?

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