1: Hollywood producer Brant Pinvidic was delivering a keynote speech at the National Speakers Association.
“I put a big picture of Katy Perry up on the screen,” he writes in his book The 3-Minute Rule: Say Less to Get More from Any Pitch or Presentation.
I said, “I’d like to introduce you to one of my friends, Katy Perry. I know you know her and her music.”
Next, he put a statement on the screen.
“Katy Perry is the most successful female performer in history.”
The crowd’s reaction? Confused silence.
Then, somewhat shouted out: “Whhhhaaaaaaattttttt!”
“I smiled and asked the audience, ‘Does anyone here not 100 percent agree with this statement?'”
All hands in the room shot up.
“OK, wow, does anyone absolutely and wholeheartedly disagree with this statement?”
Brant noticed an elegantly dressed, older African American woman, Jamilla, “who could barely stay seated. Her hand waved back and forth defiantly.”
Brant walked toward Jamilla. “You look like you don’t agree.”
“Boy, you must be out of your damn mind!” she said.
Jamilla then “launched into a very funny rant about her soul sister Tina Turner and my unacceptable, uninformed, and blatantly wrong statement,” Brant remembers.
The audience laughed.
2: Brant returned to the stage and asked the audience if they’d let him start over.
Once again, he put the photo of Katy Perry on the screen.
“I’d like to introduce you to one of my friends, Katy Perry. I know you know her and her music, but there was a lot about her career I didn’t realize till I spent some time with her . . .”
Brant then shared a brief overview of Katy’s career. As he spoke, he put some bullet points of simple facts on to the screen:
First female to have five number-one hits on one album
Which is a record that’s second only to Michael Jackson’s
First artist to have multiple billion-view videos
Eight Guinness World Records
Record for most streamed single
Record for sixty-nine consecutive weeks at number one
Record for eighteen consecutive number-one hits (no one is even close)
One of the top-selling female artists, over 100 million records
Highest-grossing female artist six times
Brant then turned to the audience: “You know what I’m going to say next, don’t you?”
He walked straight to Jamilla. “Do I even need to say it?”
She smiled and gave him a little fist bump.
“Just think about how much closer you are to my statement now.”
3: Brant’s story highlights why beginning our pitches with big, grandiose claims leads to tremendous resistance.
“Don’t state and prove,” he recommends. “Inform and lead,”
It can feel intoxicating when we find our “hook.”
The hook is “the one thing or element about an idea or story that makes us go, ‘Ah, that’s cool,'” Brant notes.
We want to lead with it and tell everyone about it.
Don’t.
Instead: “Start with the facts, plain and simple,” he suggests, “and let them build to our grand conclusion.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: Do I typically start my presentations or pitches with my hook?
Action: Experiment with Brant’s approach to lead with the facts, plain and simple.
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