Speaking in front of the masses – Pitch or Teach? Teach!

I was at a conference last month with a friend who’s in another industry, and noticed something very unusual about the keynote speach…

He had a good reputation in his industry and was known for doing amazing presentations and delivering high end content. Everyone was pumped up to hear this guy talk about his experience in the industry and what has worked so well for him.

The event started with a little (big) meet and greet at the convention center. People were huddled around,like a Meet Market at Affiliate Summit, except there were no tables. Companies were just bunched up in various corners and talking about their products with people that were walking by.

The event had began and everyone was pulled into the theater. First up, the keynote speaker. Arguably the most famous person in that industry. He wasn’t necessarily the most successful, he had a lot of success in the industry years ago and actually has been pretty quiet since. There was some buzz going around that he was hurting a bit financially.

His keynote speech started off pretty well. He gave his background and experiences in the industry. That’s when things took a turn for the worst. He started pitching the audience on a new product that he was doing that would benefit them all. Normally, I’d say “eh, no big deal, it happens… people pitch stuff” but there was a big problem with the WAY that he was pitching it. He was being very aggressive, “old school” sales tactics from the 90s that a lot of these people were aware of. I literally watched over 20% of the audience get up, all at once, and walk out. The remainder of the audience looked like they were about to do the same.

He wasn’t in relationship with the audience. He was just talking AT them using an age old sales technique that I guarantee not 1 person or company in the room would fall for. It sounded like a really bad infomercial.

Next thing I know, a man is up on stage with him slowly walking over to him. I figured they were going to throw him off stage. However, the man simply walked up to him and whispered something in his ear then marched back off stage.

All of a sudden, the speaker got really emotional, turned as if he was going to walk off stage too but then stopped dead in his tracks.

He looked at the audience for a good 15 seconds before speaking and began giving one of the most heartfelt speeches I’ve ever heard in my life.  He started giving out some great tips on how he became so successful in the industry. Those tips were mostly about talking to potential customers, rather than trying to hard sell products. Exactly the predicament he was in a few minutes ago and exactly what everyone was there to hear from him. He went into much more detail with how well he has done and what he thought made him so successful.

People actually started coming back in that had walked out. Later after the event, some of those same people that walked out from the sales pitch in the beginning had formed a line to ask him questions. I even overheard one of those people ask him more about what he was pitching earlier. The person that approached the keynote speaker re-affirmed what I was thinking and told him that he could have simply mentioned it at the end after his heartfelt speech rather than trying to hard pitch something in that industry. The speaker agreed and said he had no idea why he did that.

I managed to track down his son and ask him what on earth he said to his father. The son said that his father has a form of Alzheimer’s and that he forgets who he is. The son said that he walked up and said, “You are {dad’s name}! You don’t need to sell these people!” and just by hearing his son tell him his name, he remembered his own principles that have served him so well in the past and began actually speaking to the audience from the heart.

It goes to show that sometimes (most of the time) you can do a lot better by proving yourself and giving out high quality content for free in order to get someone sold on YOU. Then you can sell them whatever you want after you’ve done that. Rather than the other way around.