Five Minutes.
This article is part of Finding the Words, a newsletter that delivers practical insights on the day’s issues.
You've just been handed five minutes.
Five minutes to present your big idea to the Board. Five minutes to win over a prospect. Five minutes with the boss to present your case for promotion. Five minutes with a producer on why your organization is worthy of that Sunday feature.
The clock is running. What do you do with it?
Earlier in my career, I believed the answer was to pack those few minutes by getting every good point in before the time ran out. With any luck, I'd say, my audience would hear 'just what I needed them to.'
And while sometimes I got lucky, that was hardly a fail-safe strategy. Because with a few more years of experience, I came to learn that the people in front of me weren't keeping score of how much I said in my allotted time. They were deciding, almost immediately, how I made them feel — and whether they wanted to keep listening.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of communicating in service of an audience. Just as I shared in this post about my recent commencement speech, the most important shift any of us can make as communicators is from "how am I doing?" to "what does my audience need, and how do I want to make them feel?"
That question becomes especially important if you only have a few minutes with the crowd.
Truth is: the first minute is critical. It sets the tone. As my far better half, Brian Fox says, "Win the first minute, and you earn the benefit of the doubt. Lose it, and you spend the rest of your time trying to win your audience back."
So, if your time is short, you have to start especially strong. So, how to make the most of that opening?
Do your homework — who's in the room, what's on their hearts and minds that day, what will you have in common with them?
Read the room as you enter it: Who's the decision-maker? Who's the skeptic? What's the energy? Get a sense of what you're stepping into so you can calibrate your opening accordingly. The worst thing you can do is seem disconnected from the rest of the program. You want to pick up that baton from whoever's got it before you and then get the room moving forward in your desired direction.
Invite the audience in, right from the start. Make them feel your passion, help them understand your idea, and give them a reason to lean in and keep listening.
And don't forget to pause and validate after you open instead of barreling through your remarks. Don't underestimate the power of one good, deep breath at the start to check that you've got the room focused before you continue on.
Just please, oh please, do not, ever, under any circumstance, read a prepared statement from your phone. On the contrary, there is no place more important for your eyes in that first minute than with your audience. (If you know who I'm talking about, you know.)
If you've got limited time, you want to know exactly how your remarks should play out even before you enter the room. Here's the practice I follow, which helps to focus my energy when the minutes are short.
(Pro Tip: This works under any circumstance, regardless of audience or meeting type, to make sure you communicate effectively with your audience.)
First, what do you want them to HEAR? 'Everything' is not the right answer. You don't need to recite your entire pitch deck. You do need to know what your audience should reasonably be able to repeat after you've gone. Say that line, and then say it again. (To see this in action, listen to this bit of my commencement speech for how I share my key lessons and repeat them.)
What do you want them to FEEL? People rarely remember your beautifully crafted sentences. They remember the feeling you gave them. If you want them to feel inspired, then you must inspire them. If you want them to feel energized, you must energize them. As presenters, we have the opportunity to serve as a mirror for our audience. Show up honestly, in service of your audience, and trust me, they'll feel it, and they'll carry that feeling forward with them.
What do you want them to DO? A short presentation that ends without a clear next step is like "the plane taking off, but never landing," as my dear mentor Don Foley likes to say. You've got to know where you're leading the audience, and be clear on what you want them to do when you get there. Don't forget to give them somewhere to go.
If you look back, take note of what these three questions have in common: each one focuses on the audience, not you. Remember the question I shared earlier? It's not 'how am I doing? It's what does the audience need from me right now?'
So the next time someone hands you just five minutes — with the board, the donor, the producer, or anyone whose attention matters to you — don't reach for more words.
Reach for these three questions instead.
What do you want them to hear?
What do you want them to feel?
And what do you want them to do?
It's never really about your five minutes. It's about whether your audience will want to keep listening after your five minutes are up. So, go in prepared to make the most of those few minutes, and your audience will soon stop watching their time, and they'll start asking for more of yours.
This post is part of the Finding The Words column, a series published every Wednesday that delivers a dose of communication insights direct to your inbox. If you like what you read, we hope you’ll subscribe to ensure you receive this each week.
