Bill Clinton’s Talking to Me!

January 23, 2009 by Jerry 

In my keynote appearance at a University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education event last week, I spoke to my audience, as I do to all audiences, about the essence of the Power Presentations methodology: to treat presenting as a series of person-to-person conversations. And I showed them how to deliver those conversations effectively by describing how to use their eyes, features, head, stance, hands, and arms.

After the presentation, a young woman came up to me to share a personal experience she’d had with the presentation style of Bill Clinton. She described having been involved in the organization of an event at which he was to speak. When he got to the auditorium, he saw that most of the audience had clustered in the back rows, leaving the front rows vacant. (Perhaps the educators were copying students who sit at the back of the room to avoid be called upon by the teacher.)

The former president asked the young woman to invite people to move forward which she did, and then sat in the front row herself. As Clinton’s speech proceeded, the young woman observed his celebrated delivery style with his expressive use of his features, head, stance, hands, and arms. She was particularly aware of his person-to-person approach, and that he made eye contact with her quite often. She assumed that he was paying particular attention to her because of her role in organizing the event, and because of their exchange about the seating arrangements. But after the speech, she spoke with several other people in the audience who reported that they thought that he was paying particular attention to them.

The man who earned nearly $40 million in speaking fees over the past six years, was simply having a series of conversations with every person in that audience.

Bookmark and Share

Filed under: Blogs, Delivery
Tagged:

Comments

If you want to interact, please leave a comment...
and, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!