A year or so ago, I started offering keynote clients a complimentary "teaser" video to share with their audience ahead of each event.
It serves two purposes.
Marketing The Event & The Headliner Keynote
One, of course, is to aid in marketing, which is always a bonus in these complex, uncertain times. People have so little headspace left to engage in opportunities that the teaser can cut through and get participants interested in attending; or if they are already attending, more excited about doing do.
As long as the teaser video has some genuine food for thought, people will be intrigued, and it will help them commit to coming.
As I learned, working in a big ad agency: sell the sizzle, not the sausage!
Don't do a mini-keynote as a teaser. Do an overview of the story arc with some key intrigue provocations.
Great Keynotes Are About Big Heart Not Being Smart
But the second purpose of this teaser video is more important for the speaker themselves to understand. To get it, we need to understand what makes a power, even transformative, keynote speech.
I used to think the main job of a speaker was to motivate and inspire. I mean, its called #motivationalspeaking for a reason.
I also used to believe that motivation/inspiration came from me being brilliant.
But a few years ago I realized that being brilliant, being smart, being compelling is a cost of entry into the career as a speaker. It is necessary but not sufficient for real impact.
Far more important is having a genuine, emotional connection with the audience: as many as possible (while always knowing some people just cannot go there and not to take it personally).
Speaker and audience need to "see" each other in some way. Not just physically but emotionally, relationally.
To maximize impact, we need to take the audience from thinking, "Ah, just another smart/confident/arrogant motivational speaker," to "This person is a real human being with insights to share because they care."
This means the hardest job as a keynote speaker is not to be brilliant and motivating but to engage with the hearts and minds of your audience—of people who don't know you from Eve/Adam—in those first crucial 5-10 mins at the start.
And this takes a big, open, human heart to accomplish. For being right, being seen as clever, disconnects the speaker from their audience.
Building A Bridge: Forging A Genuine Connection Early
Fail at forging this connection, and you have failed, no matter how "motivational" you are. No one will care on Monday morning.
But touch hearts as well as minds, and the talk can stay with people for years, even decades, opening up possibilities as it unfolds within them.
The "gonzo" teaser video is another tool for helping audience to see me: in my office not on stage. They are NEVER scripted (I make a few notes in prep to shape a narrative arc but I am happy to miss things out or change the order as I flow).
I film them once only. I don't retake. They are definitely not edited. They are imperfect and real.
Here is one I shot recently:
Warm Up & Win The Audience Over Before The Event Begins
The keynote teaser video leverages a psychological technique called "priming." We use the teaser, and the fact that its authentic and not polished, to prime the audience to see the speaker as authentic, committed, and someone who really cares about them and the event,
Some clients don't share them because they are not "perfect". That is their choice.
But in an age where people increasingly want and deserve thought leaders who are not on a pedestal (but on a footstool), the unedited, unscripted teaser video is a way of broaching a real "sympatico" connection with people.
It's an opening gambit that can soften a room and help everyone involved enter a live connection, alive and full of potential, that is the hallmark of a memorable moment in an event.
Ultimately, it is tools like this that help a keynote speaker open up a "portal" to a future world right there, in. the room. That is why keynote speaking can be not just motivational and inspirational but also transformational.
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