Speaker - January/February 2012

Casting a reality check on real-world conundrums
Bridging the Generation Gap

It depends on the subject. When I train lenders in their twenties and thirties, they listen to me because of my very deep knowledge of something they really need to know, because I am funny (and bring Legos), because this is not my first recession, and because I am an adventurer and they secretly hope they’ll be as adventurous as I am when they are my age.

I just heard a speaker talk, and he lost a lot of credibility when he said ‘I remember when....’ and ‘New technology won’t replace the bottom-line pencil.’ While he didn’t‘look’ old at the beginning of his session, he looked really old to several of us at the end. I started to wonder: Do our words add years to people’s perception of our age?

Your audience is a different generation.

You’re an expert in your field, but you
feel you are “too old to understand” or
“wet behind the ears” from the time you
show up to even before making your
presentation. What would you do?

—Pegine, MS W, CSP Ne w York, N. Y.

—Linda Keith, CPA, CSP Olympia, Wash.

I am 30 and speak to an industry that has an average age of 56. Beyond your credentials, laughter is the best medicine to bring any audience to attention. I won’t move forward with an audience until I have gotten past the stage where everyone is checking me out to see if I am credible and has moved into the stage where they are sitting on the edge of their seats rooting for me to do well.

For those who were younger and thought I didn’t ‘get it,’ I shared a story of how I had to terminate an employee who was 62 when I was 21. For those who are older, I share a story about having indirect responsibility for the training of more than 5,000 call center reps and some of the challenges that I faced. Audiences want to find out for themselves that you ‘get it’ and stories convey that without your having to broadcast your credentials.

When I get the feeling that I’m not as informed as I should be about the audience, I start asking questions. If they are telling me that I don’t understand them, I validate that I heard them. Then I ask them to help me understand. I listen to them. In my presentation, I mention what I learned and how it relates to my advice to them.

—Sally Strackbein Herndon, Va.

—Monica Wofford, MBA, CSP
—Jared James
Milford, Conn.

It’s not the years; it’s the mileage. Show them your odometer in the first 60 seconds.

—Lois Creamer St. Louis, Mo.

What Would You Do? is a regular column that presents a real-life dilemma faced by professional speakers. NSA members are encouraged to submit a dilemma for possible discussion in this column. Please submit dilemmas to ethics@nsa-speaker.org. NSA reserves the right to edit submissions for length and style. All dilemmas will be anonymously attributed. Opinions expressed are those of the individual respondents, not NSA.

I am a young speaker ( 30) and have been speaking for several years to primarily older audiences. I have some great credentials, which is part of my introduction, but for speakers to connect to any audience, they need to find a balance between credibility and relatability. Relatability comes from conversational speaking and using relatable characters in your stories. Credibility comes from your credentials, but more so from your posturing and content. In this business, you need to know your stuff and be able to communicate it.