Stop Re-introducing Yourself

One of the best speaking tips I’ve ever heard was from Dr J. J. Peterson on the Marketing Made Simple podcast. J. J. (The first ever guest at the first ever Library Marketing Book Club meeting) says that when he speaks he doesn’t do any sort of self-intro or description of what he does or anything. He goes right into the problem that the audience is trying to solve.

This is so smart. It completely follows the principles of Donald Miller’s Building a Storybrand in that your audience doesn’t care about you, they want to hear about them, about how you can help them solve their problems.

And someone has (or should have) already introduced you, so why waste time reintroducing yourself?

This is how I start my speech to new employees (I tell them how we do marketing at the Library using the Storybrand framework). I walk out after I’m introduced and say “you all have a problem. You came to work here in an organization that people think is obsolete.” It seems to work pretty well. The audience is immediately engaged, rather than sliding away as i waste my time talking about me and my department and the things we work on.

How do you start your presentations? Give this a try and let me know how it works out!