Mick Jagger’s audience management tips transfer directly to the business presentation arena

I have been catching up on some musical memories and in the process discovering Mick Jagger’s tips on audience management, which chime very nicely with the advice I give to business presenters.

To my great delight my son Louis has turned into an even greater Rolling Stones fan than myself, so for his recent birthday I gave him the latest box set of DVDs, amongst which was the Brixton Academy gig that I was lucky enough to attend in 1996. Aged just two at the time, Louis had been young too attend.

Also included was some great documentary material, with Jagger’s explanation on audience management including the following:

“I see it as one big animal and I focus on individuals too to ensure I’m getting close contact. I also do groups because you can spot little gangs and treat them like that. I don’t like seeing friends and family because you can’t be so daft….”

Let’s break that down into separate components:

I see it as one big animal

I say that you have to be sure to address everyone in the room in a business presentation, probably making a special effort to acknowledge those at the back and to your extreme left and right. I urge presenters to spread their eye contact far and wide because it is so easy for audience members to feel left out. If there is no audience available in a practice session and the speaker is struggling to imagine the situation for real, I get out my set of celebrity masks and fix them to the backs of chairs. Then the feedback tends to be along the lines of “much better, but Prince Philip and Sir Alex are still feeling rather excluded”!

and I focus on individuals too

I recommend holding eye contact with individuals for just a fraction longer than seems natural so as to ensure you are establishing close contact. Juan Tamariz, the Spanish hero of magicians worldwide, goes so far as to advise checking out people’s eye colours – again, to ensure you are establishing close contact.

I also do groups

I say you need to establish clearly up front whether you are happy and able to take questions as you go. Nevertheless, you should always seize on any opportunity for direct engagement with audience members, especially in groups.  You can empathise with them and bounce off their energy. Played right, the rest of the audience will feed off and add to that energy and the group members will feel special, be the first to applaud and they will talk about you afterwards.

I don’t like seeing friends and family

The challenge with Presentation Skills training and rehearsals is that you are usually performing in front of colleagues. People expect this to be a safe option and are a little baffled when they struggle. I explain that it is generally more difficult presenting to people you know because there is often some sort of ‘agenda’ between yourself and individuals in front of you. You will be coming to a particular passage and thinking something like ‘I know Sarah/whoever doesn’t like this idea’ so you will steer your eye contact in another direction and hold back a little in your delivery. It is much easier when you have a ‘blank canvas’ in front of you and can proceed unfettered.

Even, it would appear, if you happen to happen to be the front man of the world’s greatest rock ‘n roll band, with more than half a century’s experience under your belt!

Totally Stripped, the latest box set from the Rolling Stones can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/jechpd7

Firsts and Lasts – how Mick Jagger, Michael Caine and the best magicians make themselves memorable

“As long as you make a good entrance and you go out with a big finish, it almost doesn’t matter what you do in between”.  So said Geoffrey Durham, the magician formerly known as The Great Soprendo, as he lectured members of The Magic Circle on the art of stage craft.  Durham’s quote chimed perfectly with my observation that ‘firsts and lasts are remembered’.  This had become Rule 13 in the Rules of Magic that formed the basis of both my training programmes in presentation skills and my book Presentation Magic.

Wayne Dobson was one of the first magicians to bring the Firsts & Lasts principle to my attention.  Having enjoyed huge success on TV and in Las Vegas in the 1980s he is now sadly confined to a wheelchair as a result of Multiple Sclerosis, but he remains active in the magic world as an inventor and lecturer.  It was at another talk one night at The Magic Circle that he shared a detailed description of what for many years has been his opening trick.  He told us how to do it, but more importantly he told us why it features as his opening trick. “I want to get the audience to like me”, he said, “and once they like me, I can do more or less what I want”. 

I soon realized that the principle also holds good with my other great love, which is music. Experienced rock bands know that as long as they come crashing on with a big number and go out with their greatest hit, they can get away with murder in between, committing such crimes as playing the whole of their new album.  And yet people still go away with good memories!

Away from show business, but coming from a movie star, I also uncovered the Firsts & Lasts principle in the catering trade.  “Do you know”, said Sir Michael Caine recently, “the secret of a successful restaurant?  Great bread and fantastic coffee – the first and last things that you experience”.

Feeling that I had unearthed a universal truth, I revealed my findings to Khalid Aziz, chairman of the Aziz Corporation, the executive communications specialists who let me loose coaching some very blue chip clients.  They make a point of coming at communications training from a variety of different angles, so they like it when I get clients doing magic tricks as well as business presentations – it helps to bring their personality to the fore and awakens them to the need for a ‘big finish’ in any kind of presentation.  Khalid brought me back to earth, however, saying: “that’s what psychologists call ‘Primacy and Recency’ and it’s used in areas such as calculating optimum break patterns for exam revision”.  Back at The Magic Circle, I let Geoffrey Durham know that there is an official name for what we had been calling ‘Firsts & Lasts’.  He confessed he had never heard of the term, and the principle had simply become instilled in him through a lifetime in show business. We both felt pleased, however, that the psychologists had endorsed what we had been espousing.

So, if you have a presentation to make, be sure to focus your preparation time on how you open and the way in which you plan to close - that is what your audience is going to remember.

Extracted & adapted from Nick Fitzherbert's book 

'Presentation Magic', published internationally 

by Marshall Cavendish