How to Engage Any Audience with a Boring Topic
Description: Discover how to captivate any audience, even with "boring" topics. In this article you'll learn techniques like starting with the problem, natural storytelling, and embracing your passion. It's time to communicate like you, but better!
"Man, when I give presentations, I never get the kind of enthusiasm or response that you do. I think the problem is that my topic is important, but it just isn't very interesting."
It wasn't the first time someone told me their topic wasn't interesting enough, and it won't be the last. My response is always the same. In the kindest, gentlest way possible I ask them,
"Is it possible that your topic isn't boring? Maybe just... you're boring."
Many solopreneurs, small business owners, and leaders occasionally find themselves giving presentations. It might be an internal company announcement, a pitch to investors, or an external speech for lead generation or PR.
Whether it's to rally the troops, attract top talent, or bring in new clients and customers, it's critical that you captivate and engage your audience. But for some reason, far too many presentations are just... boring. Dreadfully so.
And when that happens, there's always an excuse: "My topic just isn't interesting."
Nonsense.
There Are No Boring Topics
If a topic is worth talking about, it's interesting. You just haven't been trained on how to present in a way that grabs your audience's attention, engages them in the content, and ultimately moves them to action. That's the bad news.
The good news is that powerful communication is a skill that anyone can learn. But make no mistake: if you don't learn how to engage an audience with the spoken word, business is going to be a lot harder.
Today the best ideas don't win. The clearest ideas win.
In this article we're going to explore 3 ways to turn any topic into an engaging presentation, so that you can stop boring your audience to tears and start moving them to action.
1. Start With the Problem
Until you start talking about your audience's problem, they're not listening. And they will stop listening when you stop talking about their problem.
For example, let me tell you about my trip to Minnesota last week.
I had a 6:00a flight so I had to wake up at 3:30 in the morning. When my alarm went off I woke up and expected to be exhausted, but instead I felt great! I got ready, went out to my car where I'd packed by bags the night before, and drove to the airport. The roads were empty and I cruised right there. I found a parking spot in the garage right next to the front door. It was amazing! Then I went in, checked my bags, and breezed right through TSA in less than 2 minutes. The plane was already at the gate and we boarded early. The flight left on time and sailed smoothly-
HOW BORED ARE YOU???
Your brain is just waiting for me to tell you what went wrong. Until there's a problem, you're not interested.
Same with your presentations. No matter your audience or your topic, the first words out of your mouth should be an articulation of the problem, related to your topic, that affects them.
What's the problem? How does it affect them? What's going to go terribly wrong if they don't solve this problem?
Start with the problem and you're instantly more interesting than 90% of all presenters. If you take nothing else from this article, please do this.
Avoid the Knowledge Bias
The key to doing this well is using the audience's language, not yours. Don't fall prey to The Knowledge Bias, which is when an expert finds it difficult to explain their knowledge to an outsider.
You're an expert in your topic. You have language and jargon that makes no sense to someone who isn't also an expert.
Here's the wrong way:
"Today, we're going to address the issue of insufficiently optimized customer acquisition funnels, which is leading to suboptimal ROI on our marketing spend. As you may know, the conversion rate of our CTAs is less than ideal, and this is causing a significant decrease in our MQLs and SQLs. If we don't rectify this, we'll face a dwindling sales pipeline, and ultimately, negative revenue growth."
Here's the right way:
"Today, we're tackling a problem that's affecting all of us: we're spending a lot of money on marketing, but we're not getting enough new customers as a result. Our efforts to attract people and turn them into potential buyers just aren't working as well as they should be. If we don't fix this issue, we'll end up with fewer sales, and our business will start losing money instead of making it."
As silly as this example is, I've heard executives give that presentation almost word-for-word. Don't do it.
Start with the problem and articulate it using your audience's language.
But now that you've got their attention, how can we engage them?
2. Tell Stories Generously
If you want to bore people to tears, give them the facts. If you want to engage them deeply, tell them a story.
This is really hard advice for a lot of presenters, particularly business owners and leaders who are used to fact-based conversations about metrics and the bottom line. I promise you, the reason your audiences are bored is because you're too focused on the data, the numbers, the bottom line.
Instead, tell them a story.
Our brains are story machines. They look for stories, pay attention to stories, and invent stories where there aren't any.
Now, I don't mean "Once upon a time..." Not that kind of story.
My colleague Francisco Mahfuz, a renowned storytelling coach out of Barcelona, once told me that a story is just a real-life example that makes a point.
Example of a Story
Imagine a CFO asked to present the financial report at the quarterly leadership meeting. Instead of putting a ton of graphs, charts, and spreadsheets on the screen which are just going to make the audience feel overwhelmed and, you know, bored, they could tell a story:
"At our last meeting you asked me to investigate the cash flow problems that were impacting our ability to invest in new projects. A few months ago, our Accounts Receivable team noticed that several clients were consistently late with their payments.
We reached out to some of these clients and discovered that they were having trouble navigating our invoicing system. They said our invoices were too complicated, making it difficult for clients to understand what they were being charged for and when payments were due.
So we redesigned the invoices, making them more user-friendly, with clear payment terms and due dates. We also implemented a follow-up system to remind clients when payments were due and to offer assistance if they had any questions.
Since then we've seen a significant improvement in the timeliness of client payments, which means our cash flow has vastly improved. Now we can invest in new projects and support company growth."
What a difference right? Now obviously leadership is going to ask to see the numbers. But now they're actually invested and engaged in the numbers, because they understand the context.
Stories have the incredible ability to captivate and hold an audience's attention. Real-life examples can build trust with your audience and help them visualize what's possible if they solve their problem by working with you or adopting your idea.
Simple Story Framework
If you struggle telling stories, keep it simple: Before, Transformation, After.
First, what was going before everything changed? Then, what changed? And finally, what was the result of that change?
Awesome. So you're grabbing their attention by starting with the problem and engaging them with a story. You're now more effective than 95% of presenters (I'm making these numbers up based on experience, but yeah, it's probably true).
What else can you do to turn a boring topic into an engaging presentation?
3. Lean Into Your Passion
When in doubt, start here: Why do you care about this topic in the first place? Presumably you're passionate about your topic because you've dedicated your career to working on it.
Where did that passion come from? Why are you on this mission?
Your enthusiasm for your topic is contagious. When you speak with genuine passion, it's hard for your audience not to get excited as well.
Speak conversationally, like you're talking to a friend over coffee and not like you're broadcasting to an audience. Lean into the stuff you find super cool about your topic. Explain what's so interesting about it from your perspective, and use stories to help the audience understand how it might be relevant to them.
Ultimately, that's the biggest difference between a boring presentation and an engaging presentation: relevance.
If the audience understands how it's relevant to them, they will engage. If they don't, they won't.
We love listening to people talk about stuff they are deeply passionate about, even if we don't usually care about it. You know this is true because of the popularity of TED talks, Talks at Google, Creative Mornings, etc.
The vast majority of viewers watching those kinds of talks are not themselves experts in the topic they're watching. Instead, they're curious to learn from someone who is an expert, and is capable of transmitting their knowledge passionately in a way that makes sense to an outsider.
Congratulations, you're interesting!
The ability to captivate and engage any audience will completely transform your business. At the very least, it will keep you top-of-mind in an increasingly competitive world.
Start with the problem. Tell stories whenever possible. And lean into your passion. I never want to hear you tell me you have a boring topic.
If your audience is bored, it's your fault.
And if you're a solopreneur, small business owner, or leader who wants to massively increase your ability to deliver powerful and persuasive presentations, schedule a consultation.
At Clarity Up, LLC we help experts and leaders learn to communicate like you, but better.
