Patricia Fripp Blog

Emotional Connection

FRIPPMAS Special FrippVT $12 for the first month.

To win over your audience, you must connect emotionally.

With well-chosen words, you can open your presentation and establish an immediate emotional bond.

s a presentation skills coach, when I work with a group, I’ll invite individuals to come to the front and deliver their opening lines. On one occasion, up walked Stephen. He began to tell the facts of his experience of living with deafness since birth. After he spoke, the audience was sympathetic; however, he had not made a connection. He was also missing an opportunity.

I took him aside and suggested he try a different approach. Stephen spoke again saying, “Imagine how my parents felt as the doctor walked into the waiting room and said, ‘I am so sorry to tell you this, but your beautiful boy is deaf.’” He painted a vivid picture of this pivotal moment in his parents’ lives. Whether or not audience members were parents themselves, they were able to emotionally connect with the situation. You could feel a change in the room.

You have many theatrical choices in how you open your presentation.

Remember, to foster true engagement, always let your audience know you have their best interests at heart. Too often, presenters will start with, “I am going to talk about…” or, “What I would like to do first is….” The reality is, nobody cares about what a speaker plans or wants to do. Your audience cares about whether or not your message is relevant to their own interests and concerns.

Craft your opening to establish an immediate emotional connection with your audience.

You can turn the “I want to…” and “I am going to…” statements around. Start with your powerful opening to create emotional connection, and then follow this with you-focused language. For example, “In the next forty-five minutes, you will learn four specific ways that you can transform your organization.”

I recommend that you record your presentation and have it transcribed. What we think we say, and what we actually say, can be very different. When you review your presentation, consider it objectively from your audience’s perspective. Or, even better, ask others to give you an objective evaluation, as I did when I coached Stephen. He had a wonderful story to tell, yet it took an outside observer to help him tell his story in a way that would immediately connect with his audience.

Powerful and persuasive presentations connect with an audience on both an intellectual and emotional level.

Our FRIPPMAS special

Our gift to you. $12 for your first month of FrippVT

No matter what your goals are, or your profession is, one guaranteed way you can get ahead is to become an even more powerful, persuasive, speaker. My FRIPPMAS gift to you is from December 1 to the end of the day December 12 your first month of my highly interactive, learn-at-your-own-pace speaking and presenting online training FrippVT Powerful, Persuasive Presentations is…wait for it $12 instead of $297.

From there the monthly subscription is $29. Come for a month or stay for a year. You will be investing in the best available, presentation skills training. Go to www.FrippVT.com take a trial and then join using FRIPPMAS as your code.

FrippVT is Easy. Convenient. Cost-Effective.

“Patricia, you saved the day! I was summoned on rather short notice to speak as a keynote speaker for our corporate annual sales conference. My task was to relate technical details to a non-technical audience.

Lucky for me, a week in advance I found FrippVT. I worked tirelessly devouring the FrippVT content most evenings until 2 a.m. to perform at the highest level possible.

Can you imagine my excitement to walk off stage and hear, ‘You stole the show,’ ‘Are you a professional speaker?’ and ‘The audience was hanging onto your every word.’ I cannot thank you enough for creating FrippVT. Having your wisdom, advice, and guidance 24/7 throughout my preparation for this speaking engagement. Consider me your biggest fan.”

Scott Lelii, Head of Digital & IT, Volvo Construction Equipment Sales Regions North & Latin America, Sean Youngberg

FrippVT is a state-of-the-art, web-based training platform that emulates live training and coaching. It is almost as if Presentation Expert and Executive Speech Coach Patricia Fripp is sitting in front of you. FrippVT is designed to be immediately engaging and makes it fun to learn. If you are a novice presenter or a seasoned professional, you will find the content both practical and relevant.

“I highly recommend FrippVT to everyone who speaks in public. It just doesn’t make sense to be without 24/7 access to the wisdom and experience of the master of professional speaking that Patricia Fripp is. FrippVT is a must-have resource for all professionals.”

–Pat Lynch, President, Business Alignment Strategies

“FrippVT is an exhilarating way to learn.”

Take advantage until December 12. FrippVT first month $12

–Ursula Bell, Broker, Manion Bell Insurance Brokers

“I am enjoying FrippVT very much! It is a great way to train with master speech coach Patricia Fripp at any time.”

–Bill Fleischhauer, Professional Speaker and Coach

This is the time of the year we bundle up and keep warm. However, that is no excuse to not look good.

This is also a time to look forward to a successful 2023.

May your 2023 be your best year ever.

FrippVT is Easy. Convenient. Cost-Effective.

Lucky for me, a week in advance I found FrippVT. I worked tirelessly devouring the FrippVT content most evenings until 2 a.m. to perform at the highest level possible.

Scott Lelii, Head of Digital & IT, Volvo Construction Equipment Sales Regions North & Latin America, Sean Youngberg

Let’s look at some not-so-basic story basics.

Stories and examples are best when they come from your experience. Your audience has a chance to relive them from their perspective. Here is an important point to make your stories credible.

Point one, make your story part of your own experience. If you tell a story that belongs to the world—in other words, it is well known from a best-selling book, or they’ve been teaching it for years in the Dale Carnegie course—you lose your credibility. If your stories are in the public domain, your audience is familiar with it and knows it does not come from your experience. Your entire presentation then is flavored that it’s not original, fresh, or leading edge.

Had any good conversations recently?

In this message, we’re going to clarify what you may believe are two conflicting ideas. The point of retelling stories you heard, and the idea of only telling stories from your own experience. If you are retelling stories you heard in conversation, and you make heroes of the people who shared their experience, then great. The assumption is, they are not speakers, don’t work at your company, or will ever address audiences you will speak to. In our world of YouTube, if others are talking publicly about their experiences, and others may have heard them, you need to acknowledge that.

Once you become aware and keep your eyes and ears open, stories that will make great examples are everywhere.

“The Rule of Three” is a writing principle suggesting that a trio of events or characters is more humorous, satisfying, or effective than other numbers.

Audiences are more likely to remember information conveyed using “The Rule of Three.” This is because the three elements provide brevity and rhythm with the smallest amount of information needed to create a pattern. It makes an author or speaker appear knowledgeable while remaining both accessible and catchy.

There are no boring subjects. There are only boring speakers.

It doesn’t matter what your content or topic is, when presented well, it can be interesting and educational and make an emotional connection to the audience.

There are some who claim that public speaking is merely knowing your subject.

They take the attitude that having something to say is all that is necessary. That is not at all true.

You, perhaps, have listened to many speakers who knew their subjects thoroughly, but who, when they attempted to speak, actually bored their audiences. Merely knowing your subject is as far from public speaking as knowing the words of a song is from singing. Knowledge of your subject is vitally essential, yet that alone does not give you the ability to speak interestingly and hold your audience.

A few years ago, I was speaking at a conference for the construction industry.

After my keynote speech, I was delivering a breakout session where I was coaching the participants on their presentations. I made that statement: “There are no boring subjects, only boring speakers.” A gentleman in the third row put his hand up and said, ‘Ms. Fripp, my subject’s boring.’

Well, I will admit that there could be exceptions, however, you know me, I was going to go down fighting for my opinion. I asked him, “What is your subject?”

He said, ‘I teach OSHA rules and regulations for six hours.’

I brought him to the front of the room and said, “Tell me one rule.”

‘You have to wear your safety goggles.’

I asked him, “Please tell me about a time when one person did not wear his safety goggles. Then let’s look at it from the point of view of his wife.”

This was my suggestion on how he could open his presentation in a way to engage his audience.

“Imagine yourself as a 22-year-old wife and mother of two. One morning you kissed your 24-year-old husband, the sole support of your family, goodbye as he went to work on the construction site on the corner of 39th and Main, next to the Kroger store. His job was to drill through concrete to put in a new pipe. Just as he was doing that, a big chunk of concrete flew out and hit him in the eye. He was not wearing his safety goggles. They took him to the hospital and finally brought him home a few days later. You nursed him back to health, but now he has only one good eye. How do you feel when he goes back to work to do the same job, at the same construction site, and you’re fairly confident that once again he’s not going to wear his safety goggles?”

My suggestion was after he had his audience’s attention to transition into the body of his presentation.

‘Welcome to OSHA. For the next 5 ½ hours, we will look at 136 rules and regulations. You know them. You’ve heard them. However, this is to reinforce the importance of staying vigilant and making sure that your crews are aware of and follow all recommended guidelines.’

What you might want to do to spice up a potentially boring subject is to find stories about some of the rules and regulations. Stories can make even the most indisputably dull topic come alive. Find the stories; present them well. You will make an emotional connection, and the audience will remember the stories.

Shep Hyken rehearsing the Fripp, Darren and Mark speaking techniques.

Remember, stories are the currency of human contact.

If you need help, why not open your Amazon account and order my new book Deliver Unforgettable Presentations written with Darren LaCroix and Mark Brown. Shep Hyken, Hall of Fame Speaker and best-selling author, is practicing some of the Fripp opening lines.

Robert Fripp performing with King Crimson.

In the Court of the Crimson King

In honor of the just released documentary about my brother Robert Fripp and his band, we will revisit an earlier post.

Variety says, “In the Court of the Crimson King is really about as good as any rock documentaries get, in capturing the essence of a group of musicians and how they relate to each other.”

The Next Time You Sit Down to Dinner Reflect

Early in his career, my brother Robert Fripp enjoyed international acclaim with his band King Crimson. He later felt a great need to leave that world and spend time on spiritual self-reflection. Brother went into a retreat with philosopher J.G. Bennett. That experience made a significant impact on Robert and is still reflected in the way he lives his life and influences others, including me.

At the retreat before meals, which they prepared themselves, they said grace. Many decades later, we both enjoy sharing it with friends and gatherings of all faiths.

“All life is one, and everything that lives is holy.

Plants, animals, and people all must eat to live and nourish one another.

We bless the life that has died to give us food.

Let us eat consciously, resolving by our labors to pay the debt of our existence.

Amen.”

Are you losing sales you feel you deserve to win?

Are you confident that everyone on your sales team can deliver your company story well?

Are you making the fatal flaw that many sales managers make?

You may like many of my clients before I work with them. You have great products and services, perhaps complicated and technical in nature, and they require an incredible amount of trust to sell.

Watch Your Use of “Basically” and “Simply”

Many of my clients offer complex solutions to solve their customers’ problems, streamline their businesses, and protect their valuable assets.

Yes, it makes me want to scream! Because “super” is not really super.

It appears that a huge amount of the population has come to believe that everything even slightly pleasant, wonderful, important, revolutionary, impressive, or valuable is now super. How about super-exciting, super-good, or super-great?

Our language is full of hundreds of descriptive words.

We have an abundance or plethora of choices. Please, put yourself on a non-super diet. Be more creative.

One of my clients held a four-day sales meeting. My role was to hold interactive sessions to improve the sales presentations with the relatively young sales teams.

As my client, Greg explained, “They are mostly in their 20s and early 30s. For most, it is their first or second sales job.”

Naturally, I sat in on all the General Sessions where we heard from their middle-aged executives. For four days, I heard no other adjective except “super” from the stage. Everybody was super excited. The new programs were super. The sessions were super.

It felt as if the middle-aged executives were trying to sound young and hip to their young audience.

Shouldn’t they have been role models of the best way to communicate? In my opinion, every leader at every level has a responsibility to demonstrate how to look, act, and speak if you want to advance in your career. This is how you are more likely to build rapport and drive the sale forward with customers of all ages.

Do you agree that too much “super” is not super?

Two virtual engagements where you can Patricia speak in October.

Saturday, October 15, National Speakers Association of Northern California (Small charge)

Your First Thirty Seconds: Secrets To Open Your Presentation With Impact

Saturday, October 29, District 101 Toastmasters (No charge)

How To Deliver Unforgettable Presentations…Frippstyle

Two virtual engagements where you can Patricia speak in October.

Check out Patricia’s new book with Mark Brown and Darren LaCroix

Deliver Unforgettable Presentations, Fripp, LaCroix, Brown

Expert Advice about Presentation Skills from Patricia Fripp

Emotional Connection

With well-chosen words, you can open your presentation and establish an immediate emotional bond.

You have many theatrical choices in how you open your presentation.

Craft your opening to establish an immediate emotional connection with your audience.

Powerful and persuasive presentations connect with an audience on both an intellectual and emotional level.

Our FRIPPMAS special

FrippVT is Easy. Convenient. Cost-Effective.

This is the time of the year we bundle up and keep warm. However, that is no excuse to not look good.

This is also a time to look forward to a successful 2023.

FrippVT is Easy. Convenient. Cost-Effective.

Let’s look at some not-so-basic story basics.

Had any good conversations recently?

Once you become aware and keep your eyes and ears open, stories that will make great examples are everywhere.

“The Rule of Three” is a writing principle suggesting that a trio of events or characters is more humorous, satisfying, or effective than other numbers.

There are no boring subjects. There are only boring speakers.

There are some who claim that public speaking is merely knowing your subject.

A few years ago, I was speaking at a conference for the construction industry.

He said, ‘I teach OSHA rules and regulations for six hours.’

My suggestion was after he had his audience’s attention to transition into the body of his presentation.

Remember, stories are the currency of human contact.

The Next Time You Sit Down to Dinner Reflect

Are you losing sales you feel you deserve to win?

Watch Your Use of “Basically” and “Simply”

Yes, it makes me want to scream! Because “super” is not really super.

Our language is full of hundreds of descriptive words.

It felt as if the middle-aged executives were trying to sound young and hip to their young audience.

Do you agree that too much “super” is not super?

Recent Posts

Categories

How to Present and Teach in the Virtual World...and More

Expert Advice about Presentation Skills
from Patricia Fripp