004 – There is Freedom in Structure

Welcome to the remarkability Institute. This is Bart queen today. Our whole focus is around content. It is probably the number one question that executive salespeople, engineers, and technical folks ask me, how do I craft my content guys? Nine times out of 10, they come to me with a deck of slides and saying, here’s what I’ve come up with.

[00:02:05] And I have to tell them you’re doing everything in the wrong order. The never one purpose of any type of visual, whether you’re using a whiteboard, a chalkboard, or a flip chart, is to enhance your content. But most people, when they get directed to create some type of a message, go right to their laptop, and they start cranking out PowerPoint slides.

[00:02:27] One of my favorite executives once said that if you use PowerPoint, you have no power, and you have no point. I don’t have anything. The thing is PowerPoint. I think it’s a tremendous tool, but where I have concerns is how we use PowerPoint. So w with that thought in mind, let me just back up a little and let’s talk about structure.

[00:02:53] On Sunday. I had an opportunity to relax for a little bit, and I caught a national geographic special in this special. They were talking about some of the greater things that have been built in America. The two things they highlighted was the golden gate bridge. And the Hoover dam and they were talking about the importance of the structure and how important that design was to make the bridge viable for a long time and the dam viable for a long time.

[00:03:29] And as I was just relaxing and enjoying the special, the ideas of that structure came to my mind when it comes to our content. So let me use the golden gate bridge specifically as an example; that bridge from point a to point B is 1.7 miles. Now, this is a suspension bridge. But the beams that go across one on the left and one on the right that they built the rest of the structure upon is what carries the cars from point a to point B.

[00:04:07] Now those beams are suspended. But what I want you to realize is because they had those two beams, one on the left and the one on the right that allowed them to do whatever they wanted to do. On the bridge to build the bridge. You and I, or on vacation or going to work or whatever it may happen to be, can go across it.

[00:04:29] And then on top of it, they put the guide rails. There are sidewalks on either side, and then there are small fences to keep people from falling off those fences. And then sometimes they put in a guide rail in the middle.

[00:04:45] But

[00:04:46] Bart: here’s what I want you to realize as it relates to the way you structure your content.

[00:04:51] The two major beams that take you from point a to point B give you the most effective way to take your customer, your client, or your listener from where they’re currently at or what sometimes I call their current state to point B or that vision state, where you’re trying to take them. That adds it is an efficient manner for the listener to go through your content.

[00:05:18] The guide rails, once they’re put on track or top in my mind, are the things that keep you on track. I want you to realize that there are three things you have to control. Anytime you’re sharing a message. Number one, you have to be able to control yourself. Number two, you have to be able to control your content or your conversation.

[00:05:43] And number three, you’ve got to be able to control the situation you’re in or the circumstance in which you’re communicating. The guide rails allow you to take your listener from point a to point B. The safety rails allow you to stay on track. So here’s the principle. I want you to Mark down. Here’s a principle.

[00:06:05] I don’t want you ever to forget. There is freedom in structure. There is freedom in structure. There is freedom in structure. Now I never want you to memorize what you put in the structure. What I want you to memorize is the structure itself. As I walk you through this today, when you get done at the very end, I want you to have a structure you can speak through.

[00:06:30] We’ve all been caught in a situation where someone says, you know, Bart,  I didn’t plan. I didn’t ask you to, but would you mind getting up and sharing about what your team’s been doing? What’s your division has been doing? And you look at that person and say, Oh, I’m not prepared to do that.

[00:06:47] If you have a structure in your head, all you have to do is plug and play. You look like a rockstar. Not because you took a ton of time to plan, but because you had a structure to work through in my mind; structure in your content is one of the foundation cornerstones that allow you to be successful.

[00:07:14] And out of our time today, I want you to walk away with some of the principles that will allow you to build that structure. Now, if you’ll learn those principles, if you’ll learn the structure, here’s what I think you’re going to have. You’re going to have freedom in the way you craft your content in your word choice.

[00:07:34] You’re going to have freedom in the way you work the conversation. And you’re going to have freedom in the circumstance that you’re in to flex and adapt. And that’s all you need to do is to have this conversation. So please remember it’s a conversation. It’s not a presentation. It’s a conversation.

[00:07:55] Whether you’re giving a keynote speech, you’re doing a Ted Talk, Guys it’s a conversation, whether it’s five minutes or 15 minutes, Giving you the confidence to speak no matter what the timeframe is, is what I’m committed to doing is to give you those principles. So let’s take a look at one of the first principles I want to share with you.

[00:08:17]It’s what I call the 75% rule. If I asked you to come into my organization and speak for 60 minutes, nine times out of 10, you will work through enough content to fill that 60 minutes. I don’t think that’s the best approach. I want you to take an approach to what we call the 75% rule. So if I asked you to come in and speak for 60 minutes, if you apply the 75% rule, most of you are going to get, okay, Bart.

[00:08:51] I’m going to craft content for 45 minutes, pretty obvious, but there’s one slight change. I want you to make it. Out of that 60 minutes, before you apply the 75% rule, I want you to back out what you would probably call Q and a time I’m going to call it banter time, conversation time. Let’s say, for example, that I decided to do a 15 minute kind of banter Q and time I’m going to take my 60 minutes.

[00:09:25] I’m going to back out my 15 minutes. That leaves me with 45. Now, guys, I want you to take the 75% rule.

[00:09:36]If you do that, you’re resting it a little bit more than 30 minutes or so. That’s the amount of time I want you to think about filling your audience will much prefer that you end early then go longer. They will appreciate you giving them time back. Now, remember one of the other podcasts I’ve shared with you that the driving force is getting them to say, tell me more, tell me more, tell me more.

[00:10:06] So if you end five minutes early and they say, wow, Bart, this was great. Can you say a little bit longer? Can you answer some more questions? Feel free to stay. Cause now, guys, I’m guaranteeing you that they are engaged in your content, and you are winning. Now they want you to stay. You always want to finish up in respect a few minutes early.

[00:10:29] Now, if you’re doing a keynote type speech or a Ted type talk where you have to meet 18 minutes, and a Ted type talk on a typical keynote that 60 minutes I would get you to in 55 to 57 minutes every single time. The way that I would do that, I would get you to write it out—word for word. Now, in this example, this is the only time I’d ever get you to write it out.

[00:10:52] Word for word, because I need to time the rate that you speak. When I understand the rate that you speak, whether that’s very deliberate, more on the slower side or you’re one of those enthusiastic speakers that speak on a faster rate, that is going to dictate to me the amount of content you can fit within that 55 to 57 minutes, this 75% rule.

[00:11:17] Is one of the checkpoints that will keep you from “show up and throw up.” This will keep you from fire, hosing someone. Your goal is not to tell them more. Your goal is to get them to remember more. And this is one of those checkpoints that will help you. This has saved me many, many times. And guys in those situations, when someone has said, I want you to tell them everything, I want you to tell them everything.

[00:11:44] And I have given into that pressure every single time I’ve walked out, I’ve regretted it. Cause you get tied on time. He ended up talking fast at the end, and then all you do is compromise your content. I never want you to compromise yourself and I never want you to compromise what you bring to the table.

[00:12:04] What you bring to the table is too valuable to compromise. It’s also one of those things that happen when you walk in and the guy says, I know we gave you 45 minutes, but you’re down to 20. And the average person ends up speaking fast. I don’t want you to do that. So let’s say you walked in with ten items to share with them.

[00:12:26] And the man said you’re half the time. Then I would say out of the ten things I would bring to the table, which five are the most important. Now, look at what you’re saying about your content. You’re saying my content is so valuable. I will not compromise it, which of the five are most important. Now, if you and I have done our job, right, they’re going to say that was great.

[00:12:49] We want the additional five. When can you come back notice again? When that happens, you’re winning this 75% rule is a tremendous principle that you want to make sure you implement. Into your webcast to your virtual meetings, to your Ted type talks to your presentations or your sales call, the theme in all of this, around this content is this idea of doing the hard work.

[00:13:16] Keep it simple, do the hard work, keep it simple. And to keep it simple, you have to do the hard work harder on our end, better on your listener’s end. So let’s go to that second principle.

[00:13:30]When you think about the process of crafting content? The second thing I want you to think about is the five steps in creating that content. Step. Number one, I want you to set your goals. Now, what I work with foes, most of the time, they take a very tactical approach. I want you to be more strategic in your approach.

[00:13:57] If you look up the root word of strategy, the root word is three ghosts. It’s a Greek root word, not a Latin root word. And if you look up the meaning of that, it talks about the art of generals. Now, for those of you who have read the art of war, you know, it’s not the number of tanks you’ve got, the number of hanger needs.

[00:14:18] You’ve got. The number of men you’ve got it’s. How do I out-think the competition. And that’s the approach I want you to take, as you think about crafting your content, take a more strategic approach. Now, when you set your goals when I’m working with salespeople, the average salesperson will put on their goals to get them to buy the product.

[00:14:41] That’s not a strategic goal. That’s a closing action—step in any sales call. I want you to push harder. The strategic goals in that sales call situation are more gain a customer. Have someone become a reference, become a vendor of choice. Those are more visionary, strategic goals that I want you to strive for.

[00:15:06] Developing. Those can be difficult. So once you come up with something that you say, these are the three goals that I want you to ask yourself. So what? Push it one more time. And when you’ve done, that, say so what? And push it one more time. If you will push it two more times, you’ll get closer to those visionary type goals that will take you further.

[00:15:30] So think about Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King’s goal wasn’t to get people to a speech. His goal was until the laws of man are equivalent to the laws of God there will always be injustice. He was striving for this idea that all men are created equal, his talks, his rallies, and everything. He did drove to that visionary goal.

[00:15:54] And if you’ll notice people follow that visionary goal. That is a great example of why 250,000 people showed up in Washington, DC, in August on a blazing hot day. It was because they believed what he believed. They believed in the goals that he was talking about that all men are created equal and led toward that setting.

[00:16:17] Your goals is a crucial step. The second thing is understanding who your listeners are. Now everybody will always tell you, no, your listener know your listener, know your listener, but nobody will take the time to do the hard work. Now here, or just a couple of questions before you craft content that I want you to have at your fingertips.

[00:16:40] Number one, one, what’s the knowledge level of your listener on your topic back on your topic. Number two, the top three things they want to know. Number three, what are the three major pains that they have that you’re trying to help them with? So I want you to remember something. If you craft content, no pain, no value, no value, no business. Don’t walk in and just share a bunch of information if you cannot map it to a challenge, an issue, a pain or a concern, no pain, no value, no value, no business.

[00:17:21] So you’ve set your goals. You understand your listener. The next step is you’re open, and you’re close. These are critical to your success. Now I want you to notice that we haven’t started crafting content yet. I haven’t even got you there. And here’s my reason why when you pinpoint you’re open, and you pinpoint your clothes specifically, the action step in the open and the action step in the closure that becomes your GPS reference points.

[00:17:53] When you get in the car with your family to go somewhere you’ve never been, you plug in the address of the restaurant, the park, wherever you’re going to go. Your destination, your GPS unit, whether it’s on your phone and your car, automatically picks up your starting point. So now if you think about

[00:18:11] it,

[00:18:11] Bart: guys, you’ve got a starting point and an ending point.

[00:18:14] Your GPS unit gives you the fastest way to get from point a to point B, no different than the guard rails that I was talking about in your foundation. It takes your listener from point a to point B that opening action steps in that closing action. Step, give you the fastest way to get there. Now what you’ll find, if you do this, you’ll realize it begins to.

[00:18:41] Slim down your content. And begin to focus on your content. Instead of this vast message, you felt like you had to share. Now you’re getting it down to a focused message, but you’ve got to do your opening and closing action steps. First, once you’ve pinpointed, that should give you great reference points to decide what you’re thinking.

[00:19:05] The idea is that you want to share that step number four. Now

[00:19:11] you

[00:19:12] Bart: finally, are at a place of creating visuals. The number one purpose of your visuals are to enhance your content. But I want you to craft visuals based on your content.

[00:19:24] I want your visuals to reflect your content. Your slides are not your notes. They’re not your notes. And that’s what most people end up using PowerPoint for are their notes. They are purely to enhance your content for your listener. So let me kind of go back through those five steps in the process.

[00:19:46] Number one, set your goals. Number two, understand your listener. Number three, you’re open in your close, your GPS unit to take your listener from point a to point B, developing your key ideas. And then creating your visuals.  So now, let’s dive into a little bit more detail on a couple of those posts points.

[00:20:47] As far as your structure is concerned, I want to bring in what I call the simplicity factor. This is where I want you to break out of that idea that you’re presenting everything we do as a conversation, just with people you’re not talking at people, you’re talking with people. Anytime you’re communicating.

[00:21:10] get to the point. This is not a time to be verbose. This is a time to be very concise in what you’re saying, whatever you decide, the main messages. I want you to say it over and over again. It’s what I call that seven-factor phrase. Now, remember, for the listener to remember something, you have to say it seven times.

[00:21:32] So, if we’ve done our homework properly, you’re at one message that you’re going to drive through your talk up to seven times.  I realize you may not be able to say it seven times in 10 minutes. Maybe you say it three times, but three times is better than one time, five times better than three times.

[00:21:52] You want someone walking out of your message, going down the hallway, seeing a colleague, and saying. I was just with Bart. And here’s the number one message he said if you can get them to repeat that you win every single time. And the last point I want to make around the simplicity factor it’s got to be clear.

[00:22:12] That means it has to be simple. So remember, a confused mind will always say no, a confused mind will always say no. I want to add one more thought here, if by chance if by chance you’re doing something virtually, I want you to remember this principle. If you’re doing something on zoom, you’re doing something on WebEx.

[00:22:33] You’re doing something on Microsoft teams. If your audience is large, let’s say you’ve got 50 people or more on this session. The complexity of your content has to be low. The simplicity of your content has to be high, but if you’re doing some type of a virtual session where you’ve got five people on your call,  the complexity of your content can be higher.

[00:23:04] Why? Because you can do more banter. If you’ve got 50 people on your call, you’re most likely not going to have an opportunity to spend a lot of time having a conversation, answering questions. It’s going to be more of a one-way communication. So if you’re doing something virtually, please remember if the group is large, you have to keep it simple.

[00:23:28] If it’s a smaller group, you can be far more complex. All right. Let’s continue through these ideas around the structure of your content. It’s, it’s really what I call the four H’s. I want you to remember this principle. People buy with emotion, and they verify with facts. people buy with emotion and they verify with facts, so I can’t encourage you enough.

[00:23:55] You need an opening emotion and a closing emotion. Let me give you an example. So if I talked to a group of CFOs, maybe my opening emotion is an angst concern or fear out of something around a regulatory issue. So our banks Sarbanes, Oxley Bazell too, but at the end of my content, I want them to be more excited.

[00:24:21] People buy with emotion, and they verify with fact. We see this time after time after time; I’m sure if you think about it, , you have bought something somewhere and then you got buyer’s remorse. The very first horse I ever bought that happened to me. My hand went up, I ended up buying this horse, and the guy goes, you don’t even have a place to keep the horse.

[00:24:45] And then that’s when the regret me started to set in. Now the four H’s that I want to mention to you, the first one is help. You’re there to solve pain. Number two, I want you to bring your heart to the table. You have to be able to captivate their emotions. Number three, you want to bring hope. You want to inspire them.

[00:25:06] You want them to realize that you can overcome the obstacle. You can get rid of the challenge. You can increase their performance, whatever that. Particular pain is that you’re trying to solve. You’re bringing hope. Remember that you’re there to empower them. Most people, when they communicate, walk in with a perspective of I’m here to impress you.

[00:25:27] And when you try to impress people, it’s all about what, you know, nobody cares what you know, but if you walk in with an attitude of how do I make your life better, how do I empower you? You walk in with this idea that inspires them. And when they feel like you’re there to help them, they want to know what you know, but until they know how much you care, they don’t want to know what you knew.

[00:25:52] Then that last H is just humor. I’m not talking about jokes. Jokes are high risk, low return. You have to be very, very careful with humor. I’m talking about self defacing, humor, natural humor. A story about one of your children, something that happened to you on the way to work, those kinds of natural humor pieces that are relevant to what you’re talking about.

[00:26:17] Humor is the best way to relax an audience. Now if, if you feel like it’s something you want to master, take a comedy class, go to your local community college, and learn some of those principles that will assist you in the crafting of your content. Remember, our theme today is to do the hard work.

[00:26:37] Keep it simple, do the hard work, keep it simple. Alright, so let’s go to the next idea that I want to make sure you can work with as you’re crafting your content. It’s what I call content drivers. There are three drivers that I want to make sure that you remember that should drive how you craft your content.

[00:27:01] Number one is what’s the purpose of me sharing this content. Now I’m going to give a couple of examples is my purpose selling is my purpose awareness building is my purpose, education, or teaching. That should begin to help you craft how you want to do your content. If I’m an associate mode, my action steps are different from those in a teaching mode.

[00:27:30] If I’m just to build awareness around a solution tool or product, I’m going to offer ideas

[00:27:36] that

[00:27:36] Bart: will help them see how they can apply it to what they’re doing. That second principle comes back to the audience. Now I mentioned this earlier, the greater the complexity. If it’s a more one-to-one or small group, the larger group, it’s got to be simple.

[00:27:53] Audience size is a driver. If you’re doing one-on-one lots of conversation, if you’re doing one to 5,000 and the information is just. Awareness building, then keep your information at a higher level. If it’s one to one, go deep into the complexity of your content, but that has to be driven by audience size.

[00:28:21] And then the goals that you set up, what’s the goal that I’m trying to achieve when it’s all said and done. When you finish with your five minutes, 10 minutes, 50 minutes, or 90 minutes, whatever it may happen to be or even let’s say it’s a full one-day teaching program you’re trying to accomplish.

[00:28:37] I want you to be able to answer three questions, question number one. What do you want them to think when you’re done? So envision yourself after one day of training, and they’re walking out the door, what do you want them to think? Secondly, what do you want them to feel? Excited, inspired, concerned. The last thing I’d want them to feel as overwhelmed.

[00:29:04] You don’t want that. That’s what will happen. If you get a data dump, what do you want them to feel? And then this last one in my mind is most critical. What do you want them to do? Your job is to drive the listener to action. Let me say that again; your job is to drive the listener to action. For example, if your audience walked into a sales call and let’s say, they’re negative about you and your company.

[00:29:32] So my goal would be at the end of this sales situation is at least to drive them to neutral. But let’s say they’re walking in the door and they’re neutral. I haven’t heard from you. They don’t know much about your solution, tool, or product. And guys, you should be driving them to positive. And if you’ll think about that, it drives you to craft your content.

[00:29:54] If I’m trying to take you from neutral to positive, I will share great examples of success. I’m going to talk about the benefits that my company, my solution, my tool in my product, or myself can bring to the table. If you will think through what you want them to think, what do you want them to feel, and what do you want them to do and relate that to content.

[00:30:15] You will find that that will help you craft what you want to accomplish. All of these things are to get you to be focused on your message. It is not a data dump. It’s a focused message.

[00:30:28]Now we’ve covered a lot of content today, guys, and these are just. Some principles that will give you the structure to what you want to say. I can’t come back to the idea enough that content structure is the foundation of everything that you’re going to build. Whether it’s five minutes, it’s 50 minutes, whether it’s a sales call, it’s a keynote speech, or it’s a Ted type talk.

[00:30:55] What I want you to do is take these principles and begin to implement them into anything that you’re crafting. I want to make sure that you have the freedom in the content in your word choice. I want to make sure that you have freedom in the conversation. And I want to make sure that you have the freedom to adjust to any situation that gets thrown at you.

[00:31:20] If anything that will set you apart, it’s the way you craft your message. You craft the message for yourself, but what ends up happening for your listener? It is seamless. It’s like walking the listener through a park, a step at a time from point a to point B from one side of the bridge to the other side of the bridge.

[00:31:46] Guys, it’s been an absolute privilege to be with you today. Don’t forget. Do the hard work. Keep it simple. This is Bart queen with the remarkability Institute.