Tony's View

How many people do you speak to when you are in front of an audience?  Who actually hears what you say?  Does anyone have a hard time picturing what you say?  Would you like answers to these questions?

You actually speak to three people for every person in your audience.  Each person represents three unique listening styles.  Everyone is one of the three at some time.  People who listen with their eyes are visuals.  Listening to sounds is being auditory.  Kinesthetic listening puts feelings into the equation.  Concentration and the listener’s interest in the subject is what determines how they will receive your message – and it changes at any given moment.

It behooves you to include visual, auditory and kinesthetic material so as to attract each of the three styles in each listener.  By crafting your message to include each style, you can insure the majority of those in attendance will actually understand and act on your message.  They will “hear” it, “see” it, and “feel” it. 

Yes, some will miss the message.  Listeners can become distracted.  Distraction happens periodically for almost everyone during a presentation and it is the speakers’ job to continuously call the audience back to attention. The speaker has a responsibility to the audience, but not for the audience.  Your responsibility to them is the clarity of the message being offered.  Arrange your message to include all three styles and it will reduce the chance of losing those with marginal interest.  Draw them into your message by the way it is structured.  “Picture in your mind…”  “This may sound clearer if …”  “This information is rock solid…”

By varying the same message with the three styles, you provide the listener a chance to regain the desire to pay attention.  Vary the pitch of your voice and use vocal variety to satisfy the auditory listener.  Make the word you use sound like its meaning.  Slow, for example should never be hurried when spoken.  Stretch can be pulled vocally to envision being stretched.  Create word pictures that are vivid and animated to satisfy the visual listener.  “It was a bright sunny day, with a sky that was as blue as I have ever seen it.  The sun was warm on my shoulders and the slight breeze blowing against my face made me feel glad to be alive.”  Use stories to help listeners connect with feelings, or the kinesthetic part of your message.

Segueing between the three styles not only creates more interest; it reduces the number of those who miss the message.  As they hear, see, and feel what is being said in their preferred style, they can quickly assimilate your information and make a more informed decision. 

Give them a chance to test their knowledge early on.  Tell them something they already know before telling them something new.  This gives them an anchor.  When your new material is offered, they have a reference point. When you adjust it for all three listening styles you’ll have a winning message.

The first professional presentation I ever made was in Alton, Illinois a small town a little north east of St. Louis, Missouri. Twenty-five hairstylists gathered to learn a new styling technique. Back then; women used rollers in their hair to form curls. The problem with all the “shampoo & sets” as they were called, was they didn’t last very long, especially in the hot humid weather for which this part of the country is famous. Those who could afford to have a standing appointment in a salon would come once a week to have their hair styled professionally.

Working with several others along with some trial and error, I began styling hair using a simple principal and a setting technique that my audience had come to see. Having glanced down I realized it was only a question of time before the audience realized what I had just discovered; I’d left home wearing two different shoes, one brown and one black.

I started laughing, pointed down to my feet, they in turn became part of the fun and we all had a good belly laugh. It made all of us more comfortable and from that point on, the program was a smashing success. It reminded me that we should never take ourselves too seriously. Take what you do serious but never yourself. And if you are going to poke fun, poke it at yourself.

The technique I was teaching that night took into account the elasticity found naturally in the hair. When the hair is wet it stretches approximately an eighth its normal length. By attaching a small piece of lamb’s wool to the end of the hair and wrapping it around a roller, as the hair and wool dried, the wool would shrink and pull the hair tight around the roller. The result, the curl in the style would last longer. It took a fraction of a second to attach the lamb’s wool and the results were dramatic. I built a fine reputation and a very successful business on that simple premise alone.

When a problem occurs, solutions might be found by attaching new approaches to old ideas. While the roller was well suited to making the curls, it required the addition of the lamb’s wool to maximize its capability.

There is a scene in Apollo 13 where the astronauts are in need of a way to filter out the unwanted carbon levels in their spacecraft. Back on earth they dump all the materials known to be on board the spacecraft on a table and tell the engineers to design a filter from what is available. At first everyone just looks at the pile of stuff, but then working together, they come up with a solution that indeed provided a life saving filtering system. According to Warren Avis, “Nothing is smarter than a group.”

The next time you have a problem, do a little research, ask some great questions, and solicit some help from others in looking for solutions. That is how the hair styling problem was solved, several of us worked together to find a better way. Sometimes we get caught up knowing what we don’t want. That makes it harder to define what we really want. There is one simple rule to follow, know your outcome.

For those of you who have followed my blog in the past, thank you, this is an update. We recently did some reconfiguring of my website and I am happy to report Donald Coy is now heading up our effort to stay more in touch using the web.

Donald comes to his role with many years of experience and will add great value to our efforts. He will also be calling on many of you to introduce new products and services avaliable online in the form of webinars, and also new onsite progams.

Let us hear from you, we welcome your input and comments…

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