Episode transcript:

Matt:
So, Alper, so I’ve heard you lately using the phrase resistance from the audience. Tell me more. What do you mean? What do you mean by.

Alper:
Well, when I say resistance from the audience, I talk about how the audience could not want to adopt your point of view. Ask a do not ask, but do what you ask of them, etc., etc.. Basically a disagreement with you. But. But a little bit of background for because in the past several years until a couple of years ago, I used to talk about how how actually to deal with the resistance, how to prevent it in the first place, and how to prepare, how to make your preparation so that you don’t you don’t face it during the presentation.

Alper:
And honestly, my views on the topic have changed recently because now I started welcoming it like actually instigating resistance. When I talk to people who want to deliver a speech or make a presentation because I realized what I mean and why I do that, I realize it’s helps me in in two ways. One, it’s actually helps me gauge whether there is an alignment between my point of view as a speaker and the point of view of the audience.

Alper:
It gives me a very good understanding of whether this alignment exists and this match exists. And the two, which is something that I escaped for years, is it actually speeds up getting a no response from the audience if eventually that will be the case. Okay. So it is one thing to speak, to have meetings, to speak, to do presentations couple of times, several times, you know, spend half an hour, 40 minutes each time, and then even eventually get a no response from the audience.

Matt:
Okay.

Alper:
And it’s another thing to get to know it quickly, not quickly as a couple of minutes, but, you know, in the beginning of the interaction.

Matt:
So So let me stop you there. So what’s the benefit of getting the know quickly? What’s the benefit of that?

Alper:
It’s a good question. I think my response would be, look, what I’m making a presentation to someone. I think we talked about this in in the previous episodes, a major trying to have them see something differently, maybe believe in something differently and or maybe take an action that they would not have taken if I wasn’t speaking to them or if I were informing them, okay, You know, we have this famous marketing presentation example where you are at the end of it, we ask people to take an action either to approve a budget or, you know, increase a team or go with a certain way.

Alper:
If they’re going to say no, if they eventually will resist that, resist to it so much that they will say no. I think it’s better to hear that sooner than later. It’s like in the in the selling process. Where do you go to a client you present to them and let’s say eventually they will say no, would you like to hear that?

Alper:
No. After 3 hours of talking or after 30 minutes of talking. That’s what I mean by I’d.

Matt:
Like to hear it.

Alper:
Again, you know, from the audience. And I soon as possible.

Matt:
Okay.

Alper:
Yeah. Yeah. So that so that I can move on. And it’s okay, by the way. I mean, if the audience if I make a presentation and if the audience does not adopt my point of view, it’s okay. Of course I’ll go back and think why that happened in the first place. But if the answer is going to be no, I would like to hear that sooner rather than later.

Alper:
Okay. I’m just saying the more the merrier, but absolutely the sooner the better. And when it comes to when it comes to hearing, you know, from the audience.

Matt:
So is is getting the know, is that something that you actively seek out now or how. You mentioned you mentioned earlier that you you like to elicit to know you like to if there’s a no lurking out there somewhere, you like to uncover it quickly. So what are some ways that you’re you’re uncovering these days?

Alper:
Well, it’s a good phrase that you use. Is this something that I’m actively seeking? I am actively seeking no response from the audience, but not during the presentation. While before that. Okay. Way before the presentation itself. Because during the preparation I bring up my I bring up my points, I create an outline and in the end, I there is there is a goal that I want to achieve with the presentation.

Alper:
And then I start thinking, okay, why could resistance happen in the first place? Why could the audience resist it? And I’m thinking, well, they may not be agreeing with my point, which I think would be more rational. They may not want to do actually what I ask them, ask of them, which could be an emotional response. And as I mentioned before, there could simply be a mismatch between my vision of how things will be better and their vision of how they see the world.

Alper:
And unless we’re talking about a crisis that happened 28 minutes ago and we need to find ways to avert that, these these things are points that should be worked on way before taking up the stage or standing in front of the people. So, yes, I do actively seek to find a no, but not only once I’m in front of the people.

Alper:
I try to find a way before what I do, the presentation preparation myself, and I have a couple of ways of doing that.

Matt:
Okay, So, so so let me break in here with a question. So when you’re doing this preparation beforehand, are you talking to them in advance to get a note, to get them to say no? Or are you anticipating how they might respond?

Alper:
Well, I’m talking to people, but it’s not my audience. I mean, that would be ideal, but not always practical, especially if you’re going to make a speech to like a hundred people. So it will be pretty difficult to pull every one of them and say, hey, this is what I’m going to talk about. What do you think about that?

Alper:
But what I do is once once I once I lay the groundwork, not the groundwork, but once I lay the outline for my presentation, once my call to action is in place, I usually then go to a coffee shop, take pen and paper with me, not on a computer or a phone. I usually I always almost exclusively do this with a pen and paper, and I start thinking about all the ways that they could object to my point of view.

Alper:
And it usually starts with a dry spell, like, okay, but this is this is a solid proof proposition that I’m making in the presentation. It usually starts like that, but I end up finding at least ten ways that they could They could object to me, they could resist me. Then what I do is, of course, find counter arguments to those counter arguments, which I imagine for my audience in in.

Alper:
I mean, those are counter arguments that I bring against those resistance points. And then what I do is I if I and especially if this is a long list of potential resistance points that I could come up with, then I start talking to people not to my audience members, but I talk to my I talk to people around me.

Alper:
I show them my propositions that I included in the presentation and here I’m not. And I ask for their feedback. And in this case, I’m not talking about, you know, the cliché sandwich feedback. I don’t want to push people to have to come up with two positive slices of bread. Just give me a just to be able to criticize the meat I give them.

Alper:
I give them the permission to go straight to the point and I tell them that I’m not going to be hurt. Okay. So those are the ways that I actually do the work before the presentation itself to come up with as much resistance as possible to get to the know as quickly as possible. Like you mentioned before. And then of course, I go back and I recraft my message to to reduce the possibility of that to or to a minimum.

Alper:
It’s not always guaranteed because the audience may come up with something that I had not even been able to think about. But it’s will surely reduce the probability of that happening. So and like I said in the beginning, let.

Matt:
Me let.

Alper:
That happen. There’s no problem.

Matt:
Let me break in here and ask you another question. Okay. So let’s see. So I take this approach and I go to the coffee shop and I’m basically anticipating the resistance that I might get and I build. Mm hmm. Okay. So at this point now, if I stop here, I’ve anticipated the resistance. I haven’t figured out yet how to get by it, but at least have anticipated it.

Matt:
So now I know. Okay, when I go into the presentation, I know what people are probably going to say no about. So I have some time to have thought beforehand how I’m going to overcome their resistance. But if I, if I work all the answers into the presentation before it begins, I’m going to walk into the presentation. Having ironed out all of the nos that I’ve anticipated.

Matt:
And if someone comes up with a no, then I will not have anticipated it and I’m just going to be left standing there speechless like a like a dummy. Is that true?

Alper:
I don’t think so. Well, first of all, let some more background information. Okay. How about how I used to think before I even after doing this work, I would try to make sure that the resistance points would not come up. So if they did, if they wouldn’t come up in the presentation, I would finish it and say, Oh, God, thank God they didn’t come up.

Alper:
But in that case, I will not be purposely, purposefully incorporating the points of resistance into the presentation and talk about them. So I understand when you say, okay, let’s say I came up with five points that they might object. Now what I would do, for example, is actually talking about those five points myself in the presentation before they could even come up.

Alper:
Okay, because in my opinion, that would show that I’m not only trying to push you my own point of view, but I have also considered other angles. Mm hmm. And here is the best recommendations I could. I could come up with towards those points. That could be that would cause some resistance. But if there is a sixth one.

Alper:
Okay, let’s. Let’s talk about it together.

Matt:
Okay?

Alper:
Because I don’t think that would that would force me to stand speechless. I don’t think they will say, See, you couldn’t think of this one. Get out of the stage. I don’t think that would be the case. I think that would be the case if I pushed too hard to try to convince them or to persuade them and I think we either talked about this or we talked about talking about this, about this persuasion.

Alper:
If I tried to do that, yes, they might show even more resistance. I mean, when you think about it, if somebody wants to even slightly push you. Mm hmm. Your first response is going to be to resist that. You’re not going to say, okay, this is not too much, so I’ll just go ahead with it and I’ll let them push me.

Alper:
No, it’s not going to be the case. Okay? I think it’s human tendency. I think it’s natural tendency to to show resistance to something that is coming our way. But it depends, of course, on on how I’m handling that.

Matt:
This kind of reminds me of the of the lower end approach. You know, how he talks about how present what does he say? Don’t present, don’t have I love isn’t it what does he say? Don’t have presentations. Yeah, he says conversations. Is that what he says.

Alper:
Yeah. He said he says two things. One, one thing is he says you cannot present and be present in the same time. Okay. And he’s also advocating getting out of the presentation mode and going into a conversation mode.

Matt:
Yes. So this would be an excellent opportunity for a conversation if like like you said earlier. Yes. If you’ve anticipated five points of resistance and they come up with a six during your presentation, you get that. That becomes an opportunity. You know, you get to have a conversation with them. And in anticipating their five points of resistance. Exactly.

Matt:
You put yourselves or you put yourself in their shoes or adopted their perspective enough to have an intelligent conversation about that. Six that that six item that resisting law. Okay. Interesting. I take this approach.

Alper:
Well, of course, there are no guarantees that I will succeed in, even if I try to anticipate all the resistance points. But I think the main framework that I’m trying to achieve by doing this is giving my audience the perception that this is what I’m telling you, what I’m talking to you about. And and what I’m proposing in this presentation is something that I have thought about carefully, not only from my point of view, but from your point of view as well.

Alper:
Maybe not specifically person to person point of view, but I came here prepared about how my proposition could be objective, and I’m here to have a conversation about that.

Matt:
Okay, So.

Alper:
So if you show me a sixth objection of a point. Okay, let’s go and talk about that. Yeah. This have a conversation about that.

Matt:
So we’re about out of time. So yeah, thank you for, for listening on this episode of The White Rabbit. And we will see you on the next episode.

Alper:
All right. Good talking to you, as always.

Matt:
Good talking to you, too, Alper. Talk to later.

Alper:
Take care.

Matt:
Bye bye.