focus: the key to your audience’s attention.

What do you think is the most important moment in the process of writing a speech or presentation? Some would say the beginning, as it determines the first impression you make. Others would say the ending, as it is the part that most of the audience will remember. Well, both are wrong. The most important moment actually takes place long before you enter the room, before you first put the pen to paper even. It is when you take a step back and start focussing on what you really want to share with the audience.

The importance of focus

Good speeches are written with a clear aim in mind. They wrap around one particular idea and allow the speaker to keep the audience’s attention throughout the whole performance. Unfortunately, this focused approach does not come natural to many. Speakers often start with a long list of everything they want to say and try to fit in many different messages at a time. Resulting in a scattered speech that contains a lot of information, but is very difficult to follow.

In a world filled with distractions and very short attention spans, you cannot afford to go about it this way. It is important to focus on the stuff that really matters and only share information that supports the overall point you are trying to make. Otherwise, you risk losing the audience’s attention in a sea of information. After all, it is better to succeed at making only one point, than to fail at making seven.

Identify your big idea upfront

Before putting pen to paper, you should set a clear aim for the speech. Ask yourself the following questions. What do you want the audience to remember most when they leave the room? What would you say if you only had ten seconds to speak? Once you have the answers, you condense them into the size of one sentence or one tweet. The short statement you end up with is your big idea, the main point around which you wrap your entire story. Everything you want to put into your speech needs to support this big idea. If it does not – it needs to go.

The big idea functions as a filter that keeps unnecessary and distracting information from seeping in. But it not only streamlines your speech, it also provides the building blocks for an easy-to-follow structure. It gives the audience a sense of direction. Something to hold on to when they are being bombarded with new information. The big idea in essence, functions as a coat rack on which you hang your proof points one by one in a logical way until you have wrapped your entire story around it.

The example of Steve Jobs

The introduction of the very first iPhone by Steve Jobs, is still one of the best corporate presentations ever delivered. It excelled in simplicity and had a logical structure based around one single big idea.

At the time, the iPhone was a revolutionary device. It looked nothing like other phones on the market. It had a new type of capacitive touch screen, a dynamic software keyboard, a fast processor, GPS-support, internet connectivity, an iPod, a video-player, an accelerometer … A lot of technological marvels the engineers were undoubtedly very excited to share. But instead of bombarding the audience with countless facts and figures that would end up confusing them, Steve Jobs took a step back and focused on what he wanted the audience to remember most. If you look at all the differences between the competition and the iPhone, it was clear: Apple is making a radical change compared to phones up until that point. So the big idea they focused on was: Apple is about to reinvent the phone.

That was the very core of everything Steve Jobs was about to say. It was the single big idea around which he wrapped the entire product launch. This focused approach resulted in a well-structured presentation that was easy to follow. One by one Steve Jobs started hanging the different proof points onto the big idea, focusing only on points that supported the overall claim. He started talking about how - unlike the competition - the iPhone did not need a physical keyboard. He mentioned how the iPhone – despite having a touch screen – did not need a stylus. He explained how it had an internet browser that was as powerful as the one found on a desktop computer, etc. To the audience it was clear: Apple claims to have reinvented the phone and Steve is now explaining us how they have done it.

The focus on one big idea not only gave Apple control over the audience’s attention during the presentation, it also enabled them to control the narrative afterwards. Because they had given the audience a logical and easy-to-follow storyline, journalists ended up copying it into their articles.  So the next day most news outlets opened with “Apple reinvents the phone” and started summing up all the different novelties about the device, one by one. That is the power of focusing on just one big idea and putting everything to work to make it land in the best way possible.  

Conclusion

In a world dominated by short attention spans and distracted minds, we cannot afford to lose the attention of our audiences. Taking a step back to identify the big idea behind your speech and using it as the backbone of all your content, can make the difference between a speech that sticks and one that is quickly forgotten. It not only gives you control over the audience’s attention, it also allows you to control the narrative afterwards. It is the single most effective way to quickly improve your speech with very little effort.

If you want to find out more about how to bring focus to your presentation, feel free to contact us on hi@spokeninpublic.com.