The singer had been given nothing but comprimario roles for two years and realized something had to change. She wasn’t even sure the general director knew her name! She asked for a personal interview with him and practiced on her husband, rehearsing exactly what she was going to say.
Another singer had been given a five-minute interview with a manager. He had liked her audition, but he wasn’t sure she had enough experience, and was uncertain whether he was ready to take her on as a client. She had five minutes to convince him.
Singers are salespeople. Nowhere is the adage, “There is no second chance for a first impression,” more pertinent than in business presentations. Make no mistake: Singers make business presentations all the time, from auditioning, to aggressively asking for lead roles, to asking for management.
In one of the most extreme cases—the publishing industry—salespersons have an average of 18 seconds to convince chain bookstore buyers of the merits of a particular book. That span can increase in other business settings, but usually not by much.
How long do you think a singer has to convince a general director he or she is ready for lead roles? The decision could hinge just on how the singer walks into the room. How long from the moment you walk into the auditioning room and start singing before the auditioners have made up their minds? If you don’t capture your audience’s interest and attention in the first minute, they will never fully join you.
A variation of the previous adage, “First impressions last,” is especially true in the ultimate sales setting: asking for that job, otherwise known as selling yourself. A singer can fail at the moment of the handshake. The canon of advice in human resources—and presentation training—abounds with reminders of eye contact, tone of voice and proper attire—but what you say is of equal importance with what you do.
Luckily, in your role as salesperson—yes, that’s you—you have options for getting and holding your audience’s attention. Here are a few tips that focus on the Seven Classic Opening Gambits that will effectively capture the attention of any audience—when you have the chance to speak to them.
1. The Question. Directing a question to your audience can be an excellent icebreaker because it invites them immediately into the presentation. The question can backfire in one of two ways, however. First, you may get a completely unexpected response that can derail your message and send the conversation off on an unnecessary tangent. Second, your audience may find your question invasive.
For an effective variation on the question that avoids these dangers, ask your audience a rhetorical question that is meaningful and relevant to them, and then promptly provide them with an answer. For example, a singer could begin a conversation with management like this: “If I were to ask if you would like this firm to take in more money, your answer would probably be ‘yes.’”
2. Factoid. Use a simple, striking statistic or factual statement: a market growth figure, or a detail about an economic, demographic, or social trend with which your audience may not already be familiar. Our singer might say: “The most frequently produced operas of the 2002-2003 season were:
• La bohème
• La traviata
• Die Fledermaus
• Carmen
• Tosca
• Don Giovanni
• Madama Butterfly
• Rigoletto
• Pagliacci
• Don Pasquale
(tie) Lucia di Lammermoor
“I already have in my repertoire several of these leading roles, so the chances of my being hired and bringing in money for your firm are extremely high.”
3. Retrospective/Prospective. This is the “that was then, this is now” approach. A retrospective or prospective look allows you to grab your audience’s attention by moving them in one direction or another, away from their present, immediate concerns.
Refer to the way things used to be done, the way they are done now, and the way you project them being done in the future. Our singer might say, “It used to be that singers were taken at the very beginning of their career, but now I understand managers want us to come to them with jobs already in hand. I don’t have the contracts in hand right this minute, but I think you heard in my audition that with the two of us working together, we’ll be able to get the auditions which will lead to contracts.”
4. Anecdote.An anecdote is a very short story, usually one with a human interest angle. An anecdote is not a joke. Leave the jokes to the comedians. The effectiveness of an anecdote lies in our natural tendency to be interested in and care about other people. It creates immediate identity and empathy with your audience.
Ronald Reagan, aka “The Great Communicator,” never spoke for more than a couple of minutes without using an anecdote to personalize his subject. As a way of illustrating his ideas, he was always ready with a brief tale about the brave soldier, the benevolent nurse, or the dignified grandfather.
Our singer might continue with: “My grandmother was a member of the Met chorus and when I was a little girl she used to take me backstage to meet all the great artists. I even ran into….who told me that someday I’d be a great artist. I’ve studied your roster, talked to some of them—and I think I could get there, with your guidance.”
5. Quotation. Cite a relevant endorsement or positive comment about you from a satisfied general director or conductor, or from the media.
At the outset of your presentation, an endorsing quotation can capture your audience’s interest and give you credibility. Our singer might say, “So that’s what I’ve been working towards. I don’t know if you saw this review from The Star Ledger where John Smith writes about my performance in Tosca as being…”
6. Aphorism. Use an adage or a familiar saying that the audience recognizes. Two great examples: A company that designs and manufactures graphic display screens used the phrase “seeing is believing” to express the clarity and fidelity of their products. A company that develops speech recognition technology used “easier said than done.”
Our singer might use this concept by saying: “You can tell from my résumé that I’ve been able to make significant money on my own but in this case, two heads are better than one. We could do much better together.”
7. Analogy. Make a comparison between two seemingly unrelated items that help to illuminate a complex, arcane, or obscure topic. The telecommunications industry often uses the highway analogy. To finish the presentation, our singer might say, “Let’s make a partnership and run with it.”
As a culminating example from the business world, a recent hire at Microsoft told me that he got his job by using the Retrospective/Prospective Opening Gambit for his intake interview. He began by saying, “Remember when ‘Yahoo!’ was something you said when you were happy? Remember when a web was something a spider spun? Remember when a net was used to catch fish? That was then, this is now. Yahoo! is a successful Internet company, the Web connects the world through computers, and .Net is Microsoft’s set of software technologies for connecting information, people, systems and devices.”
He had hooked them, and they were attentive as he continued. Eventually, one of the managers interviewing the man jumped in and said, “Wait a minute! We’re supposed to be questioning him, and instead, here we are listening quietly!”
Shortly afterwards, they hired him.
