Speaker - October 2007

Cheesy Repetitive Ambiguous Pretentious

that CRAP

You’re boring your audience and losing business

BY DAN THURMON, CSP, AND TIM GARD, CSP, CPAE

We’ve been around NSA a while now, and have seen many speakers both inside and outside our association. We’ve seen speakers who have stretched our perceptions and abilities. We’ve been brought to tears (from

both laughter and emotion), challenged to improve and humbled to feel we’re hardly worthy to be in this profession.

And, frankly, we’ve seen a lot of CRAP. Don’t get us wrong. CRAP has its merit when used sparingly and with discretion. A little CRAP can nudge even the most reluctant buds to blossom. It’s when the CRAP becomes the norm of what we deliver—the mainstay of our offerings—that the presentation . . . well . . . stinks.

Before you compose your letter to the editor, expressing your disbelief that such words would appear in our noble publication, allow us to explain what we mean. Lest we fall victim to a “CRAP trap” of our own design, let’s define CRAP.

CRAP falls into four categories, which conveniently offers us a memorable and pungent acronym for added benefit: Cheesy. Repetitive. Ambiguous. Pretentious.

Here’s the key, if your programs rely on any of these elements, guess what? You are delivering CRAP. And it may seem to be working great for you! But the reality is you are shortchanging your audiences, lessening your impact, and leaving business in the ballrooms by losing valuable repeat and referral bookings. Whether you are a beginning speaker or an established pro, it’s important to establish guidelines that set a higher standard of excellence. After all, that’s what NSA is all about. So, let’s examine these items one at a time.

CHEESY

Cheesy can easily be substituted for another “C word,” namely contrived. When your humor seems forced upon the audience, your stories try too hard or you exude strangely unnatural positive energy, you are performing in a manner that is contrived, not real. You’re being cheesy. And your audience knows it. Sure, they may play along and laugh at the right points, answer your questions when prompted, and even applaud and offer generous compliments. They are being nice. If they were completely honest, they would tell you that they enjoyed it, but didn’t really connect to it. Here are a few examples, in our view, of the “cheese trap.”

1. Kissing up at the beginning of your talk. “What a great looking group” . . . “Wow, you folks are sooooo smart.”

2. Asking for a “show of hands” . . . about EVERYTHING. “How many of you are here today?”

3. Beginning and speaking with energy that is way higher than your audience and most humans. “I’m so EXCITED to be here today!”

4. Crying on command. Please just don’t. We are speakers, not actors. Real emotions happen naturally, not at each program you do exactly on the 235th word.