By now, most of you would have been accustomed to a very powerful speaking strategy. And that’s to tell a story and then make a point. For a quick refresher, you can check out the following articles:

6 + 6=Everything You Need To Know About Public Speaking
“How To Create Stories In Ten Minutes Or Less”
Secrets To Story Telling Success”

However like Craig Valentine (1999 World Champion Speaker), most of us make the mistake of telling a personalised “I”-focus story and then making a “U”-focus statement or point. Though this isn’t the worst way to disengage your audience, such a strategy is still not powerful enough to keep your audience at the edge of their seats. The trick is to find ways to focus on your audience before, during and after your story. Else you are going to lose your audience’s interest.

Keeping reading this post if you are keen to pick up several simple yet powerful ways to engage, excited and get your audience at the edge of their seats at all times!

First of all, avoid saying the following statements at the start of your speech or presentation:

“Today I will like to share three pts…” or “This afternoon, I plan to give u three tools that are going to…”. The truth is nobody cares what you plan to do. Instead, we care what WE can get out of your speech. Hence, you need to reword your sentences to make them “U”-focus. For example, “Today, you are going to pick up/receive/achieve…” or “After this talk, you will no longer be plagued by your constant fear of public speaking..”

Remember, use “U”-focus statements. They will get your audience pumped out for what’s to come.

To illustrate how you can engage your audience via a story, you are going to first listen to a short abstract of Craig’s training. Take note of how he adroitly engages his audience and draws them into his story.

Click link to listen to the mp3 version of Craig’s story

Bringing your audience into your story through a “U”-focus question
Notice how he brought the audience into his story. That’s right. Through a “U”-focus question. “Have you ever step on a scale and was forced to face reality?” This rhetorical question got his audience to think about themselves before you lead them into your world. Craig calls this the tap and transport strategy. You first tap into their world with a “U”-focus question and then transport them into your world through the story. However, you will find that most speakers will start off their story with the oh-so-typical beginnings like “I still remember three years ago…” or “Just last Saturday, I met…”

Transitioning from speech to story
A point that most speakers overlook is that they expect their audience to come along with them for a ride when they start their story. However this may not always be the case. Hence, remember that even when you transition into your story, you should still stay “U”-focus. Instead of “One day, my wife and I took the MRT…”, you can rewrite it to “You should have been with my wife and I four years ago…” Feel the difference> In the second example, you are invited to the scene. Instead of playing the bystander role, you are part of the story. You see what I see. You hear what I hear. You feel what I feel. Now that’s a story with the omph factor!

Engaging your audience as you tell the story
In order to continue drawing your audience into your story, you got to search for similarities you have with your audience. In the case of Craig, he found out that almost of his audience have kids. As such he inserted this line “If you have kids, you know what the doctors always measure during the checkup…” It causes his audience to remember about their own experience with their kids, which again keeps them engaged and connected with you. If you do this right, you will notice your audience nodding their heads and you go along.

Craig also noted that they are around people who gave birth which got him to say this line, “I don’t know if you have been around a person who is pregnant..”. Again, the audience would understand what he means and will nod. In their head, they go “Yeah, been there, done that”. Once again, you build connection with your audience by being one of them. Of course, to do this right, you will need to do your research and know the make up your audience. Here’s one of the posts from last year that you can read: (Be) Your Audience

So the trick is to spice up your story with statements like:

As you know…
If you have xxx, …
You should have see what happen…

Continuing to engage your audience even after the story ends
Once the story ended, remember to inject some “U”-focus statements to explain the point of your story. For example in Craig’s case, he shared a benefit of not blaming: “When you face reality, you gain control in your future.” The trick here is to ensure that your statements are “U”-focus with some actionables.

Here’s a quick recap for you!

Before your story: Ask a “U”-focus question or made a “U”-focus statement to get your audience pumped up for what’s to come.

During: Find similarities and build “As you know…” statements.
Eg. “As u know, when one person is not willing to change it, he puts the entire team at risk!”

After: Add statements of benefit to your audience. Remember, keep them “U”-focus.

What’s left for you to do is to test them out. Pick a story that you planned to tell and then follow the before, during, after steps to ensure that you get your audience engaged, excited and at the edge of their seats at all time!

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