World of Speakers E.117: Michael Reddington | Mastering Conversational Engagement
Ryan Foland speaks with Michael Reddington, an expert at moving people from resistance to commitment. He is an executive resource, Certified Forensic Interviewer, President of InQuasive, Inc., and author of The Disciplined Listening Method.
In this episode of our podcast series, Ryan and Michael talk about the nature of effective communication and problem-solving, drawing insights from diverse fields such as education, investigation, and public speaking.
Tune in for an interview packed with ideas and tips on maintaining an open, curious mind in communication and problem-solving contexts.
Listen to the interview on iTunes or Soundcloud.
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Transcript:
Welcome to the World of Speakers podcast brought to you by SpeakerHub. In each episode, we interview a professional speaker and reveal their very best tips and tricks. You’ll learn to improve your presentation skills, keep your audience engaged, and learn how to grow your business to get more gigs and make more money.
Here’s your host, Ryan Foland.
Ryan Foland: Hello everyone and welcome to another World of Speakers episode where we connect with speakers across the world to figure out how we can essentially sharpen our craft and then increase the amount of cash that comes in as a result of us sharing our wisdom, our insights, our experience, and ultimately our expertise. Today, we’ve got an expert here for you who is an author, a podcast host, and an executive resource. His name is Michael Reddington and apparently he’s known for being a good listener.
Michael, welcome to the show.
Michael Reddington: Thank you very much for having me. I guess we’re gonna put that good listener to the test.
Ryan Foland: Yeah, so, quiz, what, no, I’m just kidding. Play that back to me. No, I’m just kidding. Wait Ryan Foland, what? I love listening and I always say that leaders listen and I have some courses that I teach and a fun exercise is a fill in the blank.
And so I say leaders blank and you go through 30 different answers and everybody has. a different spin on it. But at the end of the day, leadership really is all of that. Leaders are all of that and listening is a huge part.
But that’s how I spark it. I think that if you don’t listen, well, you probably don’t know what your audience is actually looking for. So we always like to start this show off with some story time.
So imagine we’re in Big Geiger Cove, Catalina Island. I’ve thrown you on my sailboat. we’ve sailed over there, twilight’s coming in, and then you’re like, Ryan, I have a story for you, something that completely shaped my life.
And then you don’t necessarily have to get a flashlight and hold it under your chin, because it doesn’t have to be a spooky story. But what would be a story, a moment in time, an inciting incident, something you reflect on, you’re like, wow, whether that was good, bad, or ugly, it really helped change me to who I am today.
Michael Reddington: It’s a great way to start the conversation. And, brother, if we had time, I could probably find the good, bad, and the ugly. Multiple examples of all of the above. And anytime I’m asked a question like that, how do I answer it without referencing my father or my mother or my brother or some of my best friends who’ve been with me for 20 plus years and have had such an impact on my life?
But when I think about stories that impact where I am now and in the future. what I do now, I think there’s really two that tie for first and I’ll keep them abridged and certainly let you dive in how you want.
Ryan Foland: Well, here’s your challenge. You have two. You got to pick one.
Michael Reddington: I got to pick one. So then that’s the perfect segue. I’ll do it like this. So my career really took a hard left turn in a positive way.
When I got recruited to join a company called Wicklander Zoloski and Associates to the world leader in non -confrontational interview and interrogation, training and advising. And I had the opportunity to work with them for 10 years, running their investigations division and traveling the world, teaching interrogation techniques to law enforcement, federal agents, private sector, HR, et cetera, and also conducting interrogations on a contract basis for organizations.
And when they called me and asked me to fly out for the interview, they’re based in suburban Chicago and I was living in New Jersey at the time. So I had, I agreed to do it obviously and I had to fly into O ‘Hare airport.
And then I had to land and get myself out to the New York suburbs in time for lunch. And then the ensuing interview after lunch. Growing up, my dad had traveled a lot. And so I had heard horror stories about O ‘Hare airport, like one of his least favorite places to ever travel through. So here I am, I have the opportunity to interview. interview for what really at the time was one of my dream jobs and turned out to really fulfill that once they hired me.
And the last thing I wanted to do was make a rookie mistake getting out of O ‘Hare Airport and show up late to the interview. So I called Shane, the CEO, a guy who was still a friend of mine to this day, wrote the four to my book, taught me a lot when we worked together. But I didn’t really know him yet at this point. So I called him, hey, Shane, I appreciate your invitation to come up for the interview. next week. Really looking forward to it.
Want to make sure I’m respectful of everybody’s schedule and I’m not late to the meeting. So I’m curious, what’s the best advice you have for getting out of O ‘Hare over to the rental car center and out to you without being late?
And he said, well, Mike, you’re an interrogator. Figure it out. And I thought to myself, well, on a scale of one to helpful, that’s a zero. zero.
Ryan Foland: Yes, I like it though. I like what he’s doing. This is the interview that started.
Michael Reddington: Yeah, yeah, and it really was. Like in retrospect, obviously, in retrospect, meaning like the moment I hung up the phone, I realized what’s going on here. But that’s a moment that I did figure it out and I didn’t make it to the interview.
And I don’t know, maybe they’re better candidates didn’t make it to the interview, but they hired me and the rest is history. But that one single statement, you’re an interrogator, he must have said you’re an investigator, either way, you’re an investigator, you’re an interrogator, figure it out. That one statement really changed how I approach problem solving. Life is a series of solvable problems.
You can choose to focus on the problem or you can choose to focus on the solution and that’s truly in any context. And to give credit to my dad, he’d certainly tried to teach me that in any number of ways, but with that one statement, now, anytime I find myself in a problem and having to make a decision, there might be a few vulgarities involved if I’m talking to myself, if we’re being honest, but it essentially comes down to you’re an interrogator, figure it out, and then have the confidence to identify a problem solving process and take action.
Ryan Foland: Interesting. Now, your book, tell me about your book. It’s about listening, correct?
Michael Reddington: It is. It’s titled The Discipline Listening Method, How a Certified Forensic Inspection unlocks hidden value in every conversation.” And when we talk about listening and leaders being listeners, honestly, I hope leaders are listeners. I’ve met some leaders that are fantastic listeners and probably like yourself. I’ve met some leaders who title themselves to be great listeners, but listening to themselves only or most often of the time is who they listen to the most.
So the book was… a project really designed to put processes together back by research and experiences and stories to share with the world or to the skills, perspectives and techniques necessary to connect with people in unexpected ways to encourage them to share sensitive information under vulnerable circumstances and in the face of consequences that allow us to achieve initiatives, outcomes related relationships that otherwise seem unlikely.
Ryan Foland: So it seems a little ironic from your pivotal story is that you weren’t even able to listen to him because he gave you nothing, or is that like the Yoda sort of sensei trick where you really did listen to what he said, which was figured out yourself and you really did get the information that you need?
Michael Reddington: Yeah, I think that’s where you’re right. And it gets back to the comment you made when I told the story. Really when I said, well, honestly. a scale of one to helpful, that was a zero. And you were like, well, no, the interview has already started. To a large degree, that’s true. So when I heard a statement like that, there’s two ways to react. One is, thanks, Jerk, that was no help whatsoever. And that’s unproductive to all people involved and likely inaccurate.
Well, now I know if our fact was inaccurate, of course. Or the other is to hang up the phone and say, “Okay.” okay, what’s going on here? Well, if I stop and think about it, I am interviewing for a role that is all about problem solving, problem solving and investigations, problem solving and instruction, problem solving and traveling, probably kids, it’s all about problem solving. So yeah, I need to figure it out. And now I can start understanding where he’s coming from, what that means, what his expectations are, and how I can exceed those expectations moving forward. So yeah. think that’s a great tie -in and a great illustration that anytime we’re in a conversation with somebody, there’s always more going on. It’s not, you know, people listen between the lines, read between the lines. Yeah, but then it’s really about elevating our contextual awareness and tying the interaction to a greater goal or outcome and then understanding how the moving parts interact to make that achievement.
Ryan Foland: One thing I love to talk about is communication. communication. And one thing, I also draw stick figures. And I think of things in little snippets and bytes and draw them with circles, dots and lines. And one I keep going back to is that you can’t not communicate. Even if you are refusing to give an answer, there are all kinds of cues that are communicating why you’re not giving a physical audio answer, but there’s so much there. And there’s so much there. reminds me of it where it’s hard to listen if you don’t think people are giving you things. But if you understand that you can’t not communicate, like there’s no, even if you’re not communicating, you’re communicating that you’re not communicating and there’s the answer maybe that you’re after, right? So I’m curious if you look back to your sort of childhood and middle school and high school, were you the person that was asking questions? Were you the person that was asking questions? Were you the person that was asking questions? Were you the person that was asking questions? Were you the person that was asking questions? Were you the person that was asking questions? Has your investigative gene been there, or is this a more recent revelation?
Michael Reddington: That’s a good question. I think the investigative gene may have been lurking, but I likely arrived at it from a series of circuitous and improbable experiences.
I heard you say sensei earlier, Mr. Miyagi making me paint the fence and not realize that he’s actually teaching me to block punches. Like kind of one of those sort of sets of experiences. And if you’re too young to get that reference, don’t search the new karate kid. Go search the old karate kids. Please have some respect for cinema. But so even to go backwards in my career, so prior to being in interview and interrogation,
I was in customer service and communication obviously was a huge part of what I did and handling escalated situations and common people down to find that likely alternatives was a big part of it. Prior to that, what I thought my whole career was going to be was working with special needs children and adults, children that were either born with cognitive or physical disabilities and adults that either were born with it or had sustained injuries that had impacted their cognitive abilities and all of them had impaired or affected, I should say at least, communication. Let’s talk about learning how to do that, to read nonverbals and people are already communicating and what do they really mean in the power of context? So learning all of those things in ways that I didn’t realize I was before I got officially into investigations, which started out as a part -time job, by the way, it wasn’t something that I ever set out to do. But then to really answer your question and going back to my childhood, yeah, I was inquisitive and I was asking questions, but I was also… awkward and riddled with my own issues that I was trying to understand. So I was acutely aware, probably more so than most and how others were behaving around me all the time.
And that awareness is likely what started setting the stage and priming the pump for lessons and skills that developed into a profession later on in life.
Ryan Foland: And what was the catalyst that brought you to the stage, a stage, virtual stages, using that art form of speaking as a way of sharing these ideas and insights?
What was the, was there a certain flip of the switch? Was it also natural progression? Was it a weird coincidence of things where you ended up on stage?
Michael Reddington: My career started as a school teacher. So I always wanted to be a teacher for whatever reason that gene had always been there, being a teacher and it manifested itself in different ways. So when my investigation career started and I was working for organizations and conducting investigations within those organizations, it wasn’t long until I was asked to provide training classes and facilitate training programs within those organizations.
And with my teaching background, it was an easy transition for me to do. So then when I joined WZ, I mean, their whole business is training and speaking.
I mean, that’s, yes, conducting investigations as well, but the majority of what, it was an investigation company that trained and over time evolved into a training company that also does investigations just based on the evolution of the business model.
So once I joined WZ, it was, I hope you have a great set of suitcases because we’ll see you at the end of the year and spending eight to 10 hours a day in front of the groups of people, three to sometimes five days a week, created that opportunity. So I would say being a teacher from the start helped create that bridge, but it was really a progression of professional opportunities.
Ryan Foland: A progression of professional opportunities. I like that’s got a nice ring to it. Were your parents teachers by any chance?
Michael Reddington: My mom was a school teacher.
Ryan Foland: Yes. I come from a family of educators and I think that there is something inherent about, I don’t know, whether it’s a teacher gene or something. But for me, my passion for teaching stemmed in learning similar almost here. And I think in order to truly learn something, you have to teach it. And so the thing that I’ve learned over my experience and things that worked for me, as well as all of the books I’ve read and the people that I meet, it forms frameworks that I felt worked enough to be inspired to share with others.
And it’s always interesting to see what that, I guess, zigzag tic -tac journey is to get to where you are. And I feel like we know you a little bit now and you said you’re a teacher. So I’d like you to teach us some nuanced, investigative, interrogative type of tactics and something that we can bring to the stage to help perfect our speaking.
Michael Reddington: So when we talk about bringing it to the stage to affect our speaking, I had a really interesting conversation about part of this yesterday. But I’m going to start with the curiosity and the authenticity. And I know people talk about being your authentic self and blah, blah, blah, and we’re not going to go there.
Ryan Foland: But I have a book on that. So I talk about it all the time. So we don’t have blah, blah, blah. I mean, it’s called Ditch the Act. And the only way I find that you can relate to people is if you actually ditch the act that you’re trying to put on to impress them and convince them that you’re a lot more like them than they would think.
Michael Reddington: Thank you so much. How many times have you been in a conference trade show, whatever, and you watch another speaker take the stage who’s very clearly standing in the exact. same spot, making the exact same joke with the exact same gesture every single time he or she gives that session. And you don’t have to be the world’s best investigator to see that and to realize it.
So by maintaining that sense of curiosity, as an investigator, if you go into an interview or interrogation thinking I’ve got it all figured out, you’re dead before you go in.
Because there’s always something that we don’t know. If you’re talking about ditching the act, if you go into pretending to be somebody that you’re not or knowing something that you don’t, that time bomb is ticking and it will go off at the most inopportune time.
So keeping that open, curious mind, making sure that honestly, you can apply the investigative skills prior to the engagement. Am I asking the right questions? Am I learning about the audience before I go in?
Or am I making false assumptions? For me, and I’m sure you have something similar and many other speakers do as well. But once we get to the, okay, we’re definitely putting something together, stage of the preparation, the question that I typically lead with is at the end of this program, what do we want everybody walking away thinking, feeling and doing? And then how do we build backwards based on the time that either we can build or the time that we have in order to create those outcomes? And that is extremely analogous to investigative interviewing. The background that I come from is we generally only got called into investigations when there were multiple suspects, no evidence. Everybody had already been interviewed once and now. We have to go in a couple of months later and figure out who did what. So by the time you get there, believe it or not, you’re using investigative interviewing as a morale boost tool for everybody who wasn’t involved in the nefarious activity, and you’re using it as a truth -finding tool for those who were. So by taking that same open mind and that same preparation process of not going in with “this is about me,” but going in that it is all about, and it’s true for the discipline listening method, it’s all about creating the communication experience that other people need to have. in order to achieve the joint outcome. So whether that is an interrogation, whether that is leading a speaking engagement, it’s that same approach. So it’s not just your stereotypical, as you kind of mentioned before we got on the conversation, you know, know your audience. Well, yeah, you know, customize your content. Well, yeah, read the room. Well, yeah, but if you don’t have an open mind and specific outcomes that you’re working to reach, then these observations and this authenticity is likely still going to fall short because as you talk about connecting lines and dots, they’re going to be all over the map. We don’t have the opportunity to start putting them together to create a picture.
Ryan Foland: Interesting. The self -serving versus audience serving is a classic, you know, we versus me a little upside down M turns into a W. The thing that I’ll push back on a little bit is that, and I love this idea of your talk with the organizer or who’s gonna hire you. There’s a few phases of that, right? You’re essentially being interviewed till a certain point and then once you land the gig, it flips. And now you’re the person that is, we always talk about asking questions and interviewing, but I’ve never really thought about interrogating the meeting planner, right?
It just seems like it’s… different level. And I feel like the word interrogation has a context or connotation that the person is either unwilling or hiding or subverting or not bringing the full thing to truth.
I would assume like otherwise it would just be like an interview with the assumption that they’re giving you anything and everything that they need. Is that a correct assumption between those words?
Michael Reddington: Beep it! word interrogation creates an emotional response in everybody that hears it.
Some people hear it and say that sounds cool and interesting. I want to know more. Some people hear that and feel like that sounds really dirty and nasty and I want nothing to do with it.
Ryan Foland: I am not guilty.
Michael Reddington: Yeah. Some people hear it and just walk away. I don’t want to process how it makes me feel. I want to get as far away from it as possible. But really for me, and I speak for my former teammates as well, a great interrogation should feel like a conversation with a drink, no flashlight on your sailboat. If an interrogation feels like Hollywood portrays it, then I’ve likely done several things very wrong in order for it to get to that situation. So for me, any conversation where I am trying to gather intelligence to influence an outcome falls along the same framework as in air quotes that people can’t see, interrogation. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m trying to win or I’m trying to put one over on you. In fact, in everyday life, those same techniques are all about creating a stronger outcome -relationship bond for all in the world.
It’s a counterintuitive place for some of these techniques and approaches to come from. When you think about the investigations that we used to participate in, they were non custodial, they were already screwed up by the time we got there. Nobody had to talk to us. Quite frankly, nobody wanted to talk to us, not just the suspects, but the victims and the witnesses in the companies that hired us didn’t want to tell us what really happened ’cause they didn’t want to admit to screw in and up before they called us. So tie that into event planners and meeting planners and CEOs or HR or whoever’s putting these programs together. They have their plan for the event. They have the things that they want to happen. They have their fears and concerns for things that they don’t want to happen. They have their own emotions that are tied to it.
And for many of us that are out there earning speaking engagements, our qualifications are essentially similar equal to anybody else that they’re considering give or take.
So it comes down to just like a job interview or just like any other dating that analogy has been made a thousand times too. How am I making somebody feel? Now, depending on somebody’s specific topic, what they like to speak of, what their takeaways, what their value are going to be, how you want somebody to feel could be different. But where I come from, people are generally bringing me in to teach their team how to obtain the everyday confession. How do I elevate my strategic observation skills and persuasive communication skills to a level where I’m now solving problems faster, reaching initiatives with less stress, stress, creating better relationships.
So for me, whether I’m speaking with speaking agents, whether it is I’m speaking with meeting planners, whether I’m speaking directly with the client, whether I’m interacting with the audience during and interacting with all the above after, every part of that experience has to be walking the talk.
It has to be experiencing that type of observation, that type of communication. communication. And it should be a two-way interview is a conversation. So while they’re interviewing me, there’s plenty of opportunities for me to interview them as well. And when it’s done properly, it should feel just like a conversation. And in fact, from much of my career, I refer to interrogations as conversations, because I’m not gonna say to you, well, hey Ryan, I appreciate you taking a couple of minutes so I can interrogate you. It’s going to be, hey, Ryan, I appreciate you taking a couple of minutes to have a conversation with me.
So it’s kind of getting past some of those roadblocks. And I’ll wrap up this rambling answer with this, regardless — I mentioned it previous but regardless of what anybody’s topic is, using the acquisition process for the engagement, using the engagement acquisition process as a way to demonstrate what you will be doing and already creating the outcomes that you’re going to be asked to generate is another large differentiating factor when it comes to who is going to be chosen and who will not.
Ryan Foland: Interestations, instead of conversations and interrogations, I feel like they’re close enough they should have a little baby word.
Michael Reddington: There you go.
Ryan Foland: Let me even see if we can go a little bit deeper because I believe people will resonate with what you said, but I don’t know if it gives them any more tangible tools during that conversation with the person. We’ve justified the why it’s important, but if we dig a little bit more into the how, things that we don’t know ’cause we don’t have that 10 years of experience in the interstations, but I find when sometimes talking with these meeting planners, yes, they know what they want and yes, they might understand those outcomes, but no, they don’t know what they want to do. they say can very easily just be super top -level generic. I want them to feel inspired. I want them to find the, you know, maybe they say that I want people to work better together, but really what you need to hear is that they want to find the everyday confession.
So it’s like, what are some specific tactics or questions? We understand we have that valuable time. We want to make a conversational. We’re even like showcasing our own skills, style, brand, and authenticity when we’re talking. But how do you get like two or three levels deep and not have somebody, because I’ve had these conversations trying to get the information. And like all I get is what I would have guessed from the beginning. Like I can do the research. I understand what this audience is after. I know what I’m bringing to the table and what they’re going to leave feeling and thinking and wanting to do. do but like sometimes the whether they know it or not. Sometimes they don’t give the crystal clear answer that then really is the difference between them walking away inspired or walking away inspired to blank or just like how do you get more.
I don’t think they’re hiding it from us but it’s really about question hearing so like what are some of the questions or what are some things you look for just at a high level to get the deeper answer away from just the generalities?
Michael Reddington: Yeah, all great illustrations. I’ve got several specific ones to give you, and you raise a good point. I doubt that most of the time they’re specifically hiding it. There might be some occasions, but I doubt it.
Ryan Foland: They don’t have a desire to hide things from you, but their answers might be so surface level, it really doesn’t give what they really need.
Michael Reddington: Yeah. And their answers are likely surface level for a couple of reasons. It’s number one. their job isn’t to know or do all of that stuff.
Their job is just to sign somebody up, check the box, and get on to the next thing on their task list. So they’re not really thinking at that level. So if they’re a meeting planner working on behalf of an organization from either inside or outside, it’s really the CEO or the EVP or whoever else. That’s the one.
Ryan Foland: And you might not have people’s privy to that conversation, right? The CEO might say exactly what they need. But it’s translates into something that like, as the operation game goes, or not operation game, operator game, right? Where each time the information gets passed, there’s a little diluted and a little bit more general.
Michael Reddington: 100 % right. In fact, they’re on top of that. Asking those repeated questions is what makes the conversation feel like an interrogation. Because now people start to become embarrassed. I feel like I’ve already answered it. I don’t have the information to give you. I don’t like the fact that you’re continuing to ask me this. I feel like I’ve already satisfied you, get your foot off my neck.
Ryan Foland: Right, right.
Michael Reddington: Now, from your standpoint, that’s not how this is.
I want to do a great job. I’m really passionate about this. I care about your team. I want to make sure this is all dialed in and you trust me. But passion can be a double -edged sword. And sometimes that passion comes off in a way that can feel more like an interrogation instead of a conversation.
And what we need to land in the middle is you illustrate earlier. So to get back and actually answer your question here, couple of things. I’m a huge believer to steal from my investigative parlance and the concept of illustrate before you investigate.
I don’t ever want to ask a question unless the relationship is substantial. I don’t want to ask a question without illustrating my understanding of the situation first.
Because when I make my illustration, now they’re aligning their self image with my illustration and they start dropping their guard before I even ask the question. So now by illustrating before I investigate, I’m already lining them up to give me a better answer with whatever it is they do or don’t know. And then I can back that up with a stronger set of questions after. So for example, let’s say, you know, whatever, you’re working with an organization and they want people to get along better I’m paraphrasing. paraphrasing, but that’s essentially, I think the example I heard you use a couple of minutes ago. So now I can say, well, you know, often when organizations bring me in to speak it, I wouldn’t even say that. Often when organizations are seeking top resources to facilitate programs at events such as these, it’s because they’re on the search for new techniques and approaches that will not just help their team work together better, not proper English word with me, for the two days after the presentation, but really helps them internalize techniques that they can commit to moving forward. So based on your observations into the organization and some of the conversations that have gone on in the planning stages so far, what would you say are maybe three of the top contexts we can help address or provide techniques for with the time we’ll have together in this session.
Ryan Foland: I love it. That’s the type of strategy that I think is super valuable. This creating an illustration, here’s my best guess and what typically people bring me in for. You’ve had these conversations with the CEOs that are really the ones that are holding the cards of what they want and giving me some specific examples of how that might play out in your workplace that could really get to the answer of where you now can take a story from your shelf, find the relatable lesson and apply it to a specific industry or outcome, or that really sets up nice for, do you have somebody on your team that I could talk to about that specifically? And I’ve done that to where I’ve asked the planner if I can get in touch with one of the people who will attend, so I can ask some pointed questions. and get directly to that. But that takes a bit to build the trust and it’s one more step, but it gets me that deep dive information, as opposed to giving them the illustration before the interrogation, I think that’s great. You got one more in the bag for us?
Michael Reddington: Sure. I tend to just jump on that point you made, which I agree with completely before I get to that, get to it. It’s important to remember that often the number one motivation event planner or speaker coordinators have isn’t necessarily the success of the speaker or the event.
It’s avoiding the negative response after their number one motivation is not to hear he sucked.
Ryan Foland: Not to get fired. Yeah, I’ve heard this before you’re mitigating the risk.
Michael Reddington: Yes. Yeah, that’s it. So there’s been times where I’ve sort of illustrated that I would never say, you know, right? I’m sure your biggest fear is because that’s a great way to ruin a relationship before it ever starts. So I’ve illustrated that before, but at least keeping that in mind. Like the number one thing I need to accomplish in these conversations is to make sure that the person who’s gonna put my name forward believes they won’t get fired for putting my name forward.
Ryan Foland: Preach. And that’s why sometimes at these bureaus, is the top 1 % or the people that have that, reputation that no matter what, even if they’re expensive, they’re 40, 50, 60 grand, I can guarantee they’re going to show up because they keep getting booked. And that’s like, that’s to get into that cycle. People, when they hire you to insure themselves against a bad event, it’s not really about your content. It’s about your ability to not suck. Yeah?
Michael Reddington: Yeah. And that’s where newer speakers have a much different culture. difficult time breaking in, especially if they don’t come from a celebrity background, so to speak, and people can define a celebrity however they want, there’s different ways to do it. But now the challenge becomes finding those opportunities to demonstrate the quality and begin working that bottom-up strategy to get there.
But to get back to the question that you had asked, so we did the illustrate before you investigate, when it comes to actual, to asking questions. I love asking questions like the last one where I’m not asking you about, you know, what’s the issue, I’m asking for the context. What would be the two or three situations? What would be the context? So I want them to be more specific with their answer. Even what the question is there somebody I could talk to, who would be the two or three people most willing to have a conversation prior to the event to ensure that we use the proper terminology to maximize how the content resonates with the audience.
A little bit of a tweak there. My favorite question to ask in general terms is please walk me through. And that can be, you can staple anything after that that you want, but please walk me through. It typically motivates people to share more detail in chronological order, which then gives us more to work with and more to follow up with. So those would be like specific question terms there.
So I think we’ve got asking the questions, we’ve got the illustrate before we investigate and I’ll call out one that was embedded in the last one and you called it out too. But there’s a huge difference between telling somebody, this is what I do and this is why organizations ask me to facilitate. So if I’m saying to somebody, well, yeah, I mean, this is all the really cool stuff that I do.
Have you ever seen a speaker say, “Well, you know what, I don’t know that I’m really good and I don’t know that I can really do that and I’m not sure I’m the guy,” like, “No, this can be their first time ever,” and they’re probably acting like they’ve done it a dozen times before, which is a necessary part of the game, by the way, I’m not insulting that in any way. So, everyone’s going to act like they’re awesome because honestly, they believe it and they should believe it regardless of where they are. So, if I say, “I’m great,” well, I’m supposed to. That means nothing. nothing. But now if I can illustrate often for events like this, organizations are looking for a presentation similar to XYZ title because… So now social proof kicks in, it lands differently. Even when I’m asking questions, I can say during the intercession or inversation, whatever it was that you call it, during that part of the conversation, instead of saying, do you have any questions? Which will get a no 99 .783 % of the time, I can say typically at this part of the process, the questions I’m asked most often are one, two, how does that line up with any questions I’ve created so far at this point in the conversation. So now I’m illustrating that people always ask questions, how come you’re not, and I’m putting it on me, how many questions did I create versus what questions do you have? So I’ve think if you spin all of those together, now you have some very tactical elements to a conversation that I’m sure your audience is already having and they’re successful with because they’re landing speaker engagements to gather more valuable intelligence before you hit the stage to increase how your programs resonate in the outcomes after the fact.
Ryan Foland: I dig it because there is the Hollywood conundrum where you don’t get the gig without the experience in it. and you can’t get the experience without the gig, and your ability to maximize those early opportunities is key in your overall success of building your business.
Speaking of building business, great transition into some thoughts, some good, bad, ugly stories, things that work, don’t work, we can go whichever direction, this enterization that you would like, but typically when people come on the show, they talk about how they are building a speaking business, getting on more stages. And I was trying to use your like real time tactic to like feed out a couple of examples to have you choose from, but it didn’t work. I need a little more practice on that.
So tell us some tips. I was trying, right? I was trying to frame it and I was trying to give you the visualization before I gave you the interrogation but what do you think? How do you think? What has worked for you in building your, your speaking business?
Michael Reddington: Yeah, I got thick skin. You can just interrogate me. It’s all good. When it comes to what is worked, you know, there’s varying challenges at various levels, right? So you got your very top level celebrities making the money you mentioned earlier and their biggest challenge might be deciding which ones are worth getting out of bed for.
And you’ve got the people that have great content and great intentions and lessons to teach it. but maybe nobody knows who they are and they’ve got a whole different series of problems to crack and you’ve got the levels in between.
So assuming that, you know, we’re not that top -level person who’s trying to decide, do I need to get out of bed at all this month?
Ryan Foland: Well, present party excluded, obviously, us as the, you know, as the highly exclusive rock stars where we’re just like, it’s either, yeah. So what do you think? For somebody who’s coming up and they’ve had some success, but obviously we all know it’s an uphill battle. What are some of the things that make that more manageable?
Michael Reddington: So one piece of advice that I got a long time ago that gave me pause for thought and it contradicts a lot of things that I hear in other places, but to a degree did pay off for me.
You know, this is one man’s experience and one man’s opinion. So people can take and leave whatever they think will be helpful for them is especially in the early stages, create the opportunities you can with you can.
So if we’re just whale hunting right out of the gate, how long does it take us to get a whale? And often we don’t necessarily know or understand who is one handshaker, one phone call away from saying, “Hey, Ryan was great, Mike was great, you should bring them in.” So we got to start somewhere. And not only do we have to start somewhere, but there are no reps like live reps.
So we can start somewhere. figuring out what worked, what didn’t work, what sounds good, what flopped, you know, all these other things as well. And so when I’m currently living in North Carolina and I moved here from Illinois.
So by the time I moved to North Carolina, I’ve been all over the world facilitating programs. I get to North Carolina where the only person who knows me is my wife and she moved here with me.
That’s fast, not gonna be super helpful. So it was weird running like two different businesses at the same time. I’ve got the established business from all of the places I’ve been and all the clients and networks that I’ve got.
But here in North Carolina, I am no different than any other person walking down the street. So the advice that I had gotten years ago from an extremely intelligent, successful guy in San Diego was ringing in the back of my ear. And one day I was at the chiropractors office and I heard the chiropractor and his assistant talking about having difficulty with conversations with their teenagers and when they were done with my adjustment I stood up and I looked at them and I said you’re going to think I’m crazy ask them this question when you get home tonight and tell me next week how it went and I walked out they had no idea what I do for a living I’m just a guy with a crooked back right so I come in the next week and I get like assaulted how did you you know that was gonna work? Where did you come up with that idea? They’ve never talked to us like that before. I’m like, wow, wow, wow, wow. So I end up, you know, here’s my background, here’s what I do, whatever. So a couple of visits later, I think, hey, I got an idea. You guys have business people that are coming in here all the time, they can go to any chiropractor within a 25 minute radius. What if we do a free value add? I’ll come in for 45 minutes and teach your clients the same lessons I just taught you. You provide them with coffee or donuts or something in the morning and everybody wins. So I took two hours out of my morning that I probably wasn’t going to be doing anything else with anyway.
I had an audience, an astounding, impressive audience of maybe 12 or 14 people, but I got three leads from it.
And then those leads began other leads. And I haven’t looked at it in forever, but there was a time where I could trace somewhere in the neighborhood of like 20 of my first 25 or 30 clients here in the Carolinas back to that session.
And a lot of times, you know, don’t do anything without getting paid. Don’t do anything if it’s not the right stage. Don’t do anything if it’s not the right audience. And hey, plenty of people made plenty of great careers by living by that. But if we’re in a situation where we got to make our own opportunities, go out there and make them. And then the other one would be once you have those opportunities, maximize them. What are you doing different? What are you doing extra that the other speakers are not doing?
Are they showing up, shaking hands, doing their things, kissing babies, and then sending the invoice? Are there additional materials, additional links, additional links? resources? Can you introduce them to other speakers?
Well Mike, why would I do that? Well, because if you’re confident enough to say I’ve identified another opportunity and I know somebody else that might be able to come in and help you, imagine what that says about the quality of the work that you do.
So being able to take some of these extra steps, you mentioned building trust. Trust is built on evidence, faith is built on hope, all religious connotations aside is I’m going to show you a little bit of what I’m going to talk about. So the next thing I’m going to do So the next thing I’m going to do of what I’m going to talk about. So the next thing I’m going to do or the second challenge becomes, what are we doing to go above and beyond and provide that evidence that there’s way more in this tank and way more people that we can help?
Ryan Foland: Evidence is interesting. I like that. And the energy was great there because obviously you hate what you do and you don’t like to inspire people at all.
I do want to know, I want to get back to the evidence in a second, but what is the question? I don’t have a teenager. I have a sailboat, but what is the question that is a magical opener?
Michael Reddington: So in that particular situation, and we’re going back about 10 years now, so if my member is not spot on, please forgive me, there was a teenage daughter that was having some social interaction issues that she didn’t want to talk to her parents about.
And one of the things people in superior communication positions often do is they jump into the entitlement trap with both feet. So they wanna help so badly that they feel entitled to the information they need in order to help.
Therefore they ask for it in a way that embarrasses people and reinforces the fears they had to begin with, which are the reasons why they haven’t already told you. So it honestly gets back to the illustrate before you investigate matrix, if that’s the right term for it that we talked about earlier, where we start by giving an illustration not saying I understand, because nobody wants to believe that you understand them, whether you do or don’t. So if you say I understand, you’re going to create more disagreement than agreement. So by opening and saying, you know what, I probably can never understand what it’s like right now. Back in the day, these things happened, it felt like that. And here’s how I wish it went. And so it’s first, I couldn’t understand. then it’s the back in the day story. And now when we ask the question, we ask it in a face saving way, not an accusatory way. A question that starts with the word why is gonna feel like an accusation. A question that starts with did you, didn’t you, could you, couldn’t you? Those are all gonna feel like accusations and they’re gonna confirm fears and shut people down. But now if I can do the, I could probably never understand and back in the day it used to be like this, it’s gotta be different now. So I’m curious how many times have you wished we could have a conversation about this, but I haven’t created the opportunity.
And now it’s on me, it’s not on them. And when you get this, let that sign, let’s sit for about five to six seconds, and then come back as empathetic as possible without being cheesy and say, how can I create the opportunity now?
Ryan Foland: Boom, there you go. I can see that playing out with a, you know, selling a gig too.
Michael Reddington: The same thing. My wife and I have an amazing relationship. I can hear her eyes roll when we are making large purchases, when we are talking to the administrators at my kids’ schools, when we are in any of these social or business conversations, approaching them with literally the same strategies and techniques that we would apply in non-confrontational interrogations, provide similar and astonishing results where now people feel comfortable committing, not complying. I don’t want to force someone to comply to share information or change their behavior.
I want them to commit to doing it. So, with that being said, thank you very much. in mind, these same techniques apply across the board.
Ryan Foland: So I want to dive, it’s great stuff. I want to dive back into this idea of evidence. You said something like trust is based on evidence and faith is based on hope.
And you might or might not have an answer, but I’m sure you have an opinion on this. Questions that are asked by audience members and or helping to create interaction with with audience members doing some interasations with you or because it makes me think to I love the free note and I’m a big fan of it right and that is a great way to get up to get practice and as you said the best rep is a live rep and today was leg day so if I would have thought about legs it would be totally different than actually doing the squats but I don’t know if this played out in the lead from 12 to three people or if if this is played out in other ways or forms.
But I would just love to know your thoughts and opinions on how to engage the audience from a question, interasations standpoint. Do you set them up for it?
I’ve heard things like, “Oh, I stop halfway through and ask questions,” or, “I stand at the door and ask questions.” How does questions and listening from the audience help from a getting a referral to maybe be one of those three out of 12 people that like I want to dissect that a little bit more.
Evidence is easy to say and you want to build trust, but are there any again of these like tactics that you can think of?
Michael Reddington: Sure. And it’s a lot of it’s going to start in prep. So we’ll go like before, during, and after the engagement, right? So when we’re preparing for the engagement, we should be preparing to get more business from the engagement. If I’m just preparing to go deliver this speech that I’ve rehearsed a thousand times and I’m just gonna go rehearse it in front of a live audience now, well congratulations, but I don’t know how many new opportunities we’re necessarily gonna generate from that, unless it happens to land, it’s like a cold call. It lands in front of the right person at the right time and okay, here we go. So as I researched my audience, the event, the organization, the attendees, now I wanna start asking myself, “Okay, based on what I know, I’ve been asked to deliver.” how are the people that I’m going to present this to apply it in their world?
Are they going to apply it directly themselves? Are they going to lead a team who’s going to turn around and apply this? What situations or context are they going to apply it in?” And now, I want to start working.
So I’m a huge believer in scripts because scripts give us freedom. If I can memorize, and I can share the last time I memorized really anything, but if I can memorize a presentation, so to speak, I’m not gonna give the entire presentation memorized. The memorization gives me the confidence to be able to ad lib and know where I need to get back to.
So it’s not memorizing for the sake of, I’m gonna say every word and pause for every joke, exactly where I planned it and when I planned it. It’s for me I typically do more of like a set list mentality.
Here are all the points I know I want to make in the order I want to make them. So if I get off track, I can get back. But within that, now having that down, I’m free to think. And because I’m free to think, I’m free to observe. And because I’m free to observe, I can now interact with the audience at a higher level. So if I’ve done a better job preparing, and I know the specific situations that they’re going to be applying this in.
Now I can cause the material to resonate more. And when you know this, when they’re listening to your talk, they’re not just listening to you going, “Oh, this Ryan guy is really awesome. That sounds pretty smart.” It’s, “Oh, this Ryan guy is pretty awesome. That sounds pretty smart.” How would I use that? So let’s just start there. Let’s reverse engineered from there. Let’s start with the how I would use that.
And early on in my session, I’m going to be getting those examples right out of the gate. I’m gonna give them evidence that I have at least a dangerous level of understanding what they’re doing and how this applies to their world.
So within the first couple of minutes, they’re going, well, damn, this will help, this will work. He gets me, he understands me, he knows what’s happening here. And it just takes a couple of examples for that to work. It doesn’t have to be super detailed.
So now, by demonstrating, demonstrating up front that I can answer the how am I going to use this riddle? Now it causes them to start thinking of more questions.
Anytime I see somebody who peers like they have a question, I’ll just stop and look at them and say what’s up. I’ll do it from a giant stage in front of a huge crowd. I’ll do it from the floor in a conference room in front of a couple of dozen people.
And usually the first time you do is someone looks at you like, Oh, “Oh, I don’t know, I want to be vulgar on your podcast.” I’ll be careful. Oh, shit. Yeah, that’s exactly what their face says. And not with a smile on my face,
“Well, so how can I help?” And then whoever asks the first question, I look at them, I look at the audience, I look back to them and I go, “Yo, thanks for breaking the ice.” And now everybody knows that this should be a conversation.
And then one of the other techniques that I use, actually two of the other techniques that I use, is we already do. did. And I’ll do them live in the middle of a session. How many questions have I created? And then typically during programs like this, the first two questions I’m asked often are one, two, how do they line up with questions I’ve created today? Those are my leadoff hitter and two -hole advocate most of the time, if they become necessary.
The number one reason why most adults will sit quiet is the fear of embarrassment. embarrassment. So my job is to take the fear of embarrassment away as quickly as possible.
Once I’ve done that, the floodgates will open. Then the problem becomes, well, how am I gonna get all my stuff in in the time that I’ve got? Because now these people are asking all of these questions. And then after the fact, if I identify specific people in the audience that might be more likely for a referral or for follow-up conversations or additional business opportunities, I won’t be able to answer all of these. I wanna make sure I take the time to have a conversation with them when it’s an opportunity ’cause it’s not always. But when I do, that conversation has to be based around what I observed from their comments or questions, not what I can do for them. If the conversation starts with Ryan, I really appreciate your question. And if I told you the amazing work I do with sales teams, I’m gonna be shut down right there. But yeah. yeah whatever dude. But now if they say I really appreciate you asking that question and generally when sales teams are experiencing that it’s typically because of these three other factors that they may not be considering.
Schedules are crazy if you’re in a conference you got some time for a cup of coffee I’m happy to sit with you if not I’m happy to schedule a video call or we could even do an old-fashioned phone call and talk through some of those factors as well. And now that person just went, oh, wow, took a question, connected those dots and lines a little bit deeper, created a new picture I wasn’t thinking of, maybe this is somebody I should have a conversation with.
Ryan Foland: Interesting, it’s almost like you are the one, like if you’re on stage, you’re kind of technically being interrogated and knowing how to interrogate, you’re essentially feeding the evidence that you know that they’re looking for. And this is cool. I’m speaking in a couple of weeks at the CEO retreat for the UCLA, like CEO forum and whatnot. And I had a great conversation with the actual planner and it went from initially wanting to speak on one day to now speaking on two.
So I have this unique opportunity and a sort of retreat with these CEOs are fully focused on what they’re able to get. I love this idea of taking the evidence that I know they’re looking for and dropping that in because this is the type of event where each one of these CEOs could be the high ticket keynote that I’d be after.
Just the idea of helping to illustrate and feed them the evidence that they know that they need, making them more comfortable to ask questions not being the person that says, all right, ask any questions if you come up, and there’s never a window or a gap for it. I like the point of, I always tell people, don’t memorize, but prepare and improvise very much in line with what you’re saying.
I mean, the rabbit hole obviously goes deep on this, which is cool, and it’s been fun to hear your insights and even just sort of like see, and for those not watching, listen to the energy and there’s just sort of, if we could graph your volume and cadence, it would probably correlate exactly with the best points in this and maybe there’s an AI app, we could figure out how to do that. But I think that you possibly represent a lot of our listeners in that their careers may have gotten them to a spot where they’re passionate and they have domain expertise and speaking might be something new, but it’s exciting. And I think you helped to frame this in a way that really comes down to the best thing you can do is not just listen, but interestation them to a point where you’ve got the evidence to build trust and you’re able to still be authentic in sharing what you have just applied in a lens that will be more clear to your specific audience.
And you do that correctly over time. and start with your chiropractor office and three turns into something, turns into something. And there you go. So I think this has been a lot of fun and I’ve been consciously trying to listen more instead of talking more just in theme of what we’re talking about.
And I’ve gotten some good nuggets for people who like this enough to want to find more of your evidence and build trust with you so that they can have the outcomes that you want to see. you already know can happen based on the illustrations that you’ve seen.
How does somebody get your book? Where do they get in touch with you? What’s the best platform to connect with you on? How do they continue this interestation?
Michael Reddington: Thank you for asking. I appreciate it. And I’m certainly happy to continue the conversation with anybody that’s interested.
So the book, The Discipline Listening Method, is available online, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. You can get it at both places. If you’re interested in learning more about it before you buy it, you can go to disciplinelistening.com and sample a chapter and check into the book before you actually invest the money into the FATU thing.
I don’t do a whole lot on social media, which is probably another problem I need to rectify, but whatever. They can find me on LinkedIn. So Michael Reddington, the CFI on LinkedIn would be the best place to connect with me. And if you’re looking to find out more about the work that I do, MichaelReddington.com would be the best place to way to see me personally. If you’re looking to find out more about my organization, my company Inquasive, and the types of programs that we offer for our clients,that would be at inquasive .com. I -N -Q -U -A -S -I -V -E.com.
Ryan Foland: What does Inquasive mean?
Michael Reddington: Well, you like mashing up words, brother. Inquire persuasive.
Ryan Foland: All right. I knew there was something there. I knew there was a reason why I liked it. Well, thank you. I think there’s a lot of nuggets of inquasive and interesation-ness that we can pull from.
And I would also encourage you to check out SpeakerHub if you haven’t already. Speaker Hub has been powering this world of speakers podcast for over five years now and we love them. It’s one more place to be found and they’ve got a cool call for speakers engine where you can search and people can find you.
There are a lot of places to be online and this is one that is catering specific towards a speaker and we’ve got a lot of great content to help people just like this learn as they go. So shout out to SpeakerHub and if you’re out there and you’re on the fence, why not check it out? It’s something that can maybe help land that first free note or can land a large digit keynote, free note keynote, it’s all about the notes. And I’ve got a lot of notes here in front of me.
So I’m gonna dissect this and apply this and I hope everybody else will as well. And for those of you who like my style and wanna meet with me or wanna have a conversation or learn more about the work that I do, all you have to do is remember my name, Ryan. And obviously you’re gonna go search online. So if you can find everything about me at ryan.online, I’m the only one there.
So Michael, this has been great. And my wife loves the FBI and CSI and all those interrogation stuff. And there’s always the dramatized scene. So we’ll be looking at a little bit closer.
I’m going to see if they’re creating the visualization before the interrogation and seeing the different tactics that they play out.
Michael Reddington: Yeah, they probably won’t be, but enjoy the drama.
Ryan Foland: All right.
Well, thanks again. And I encourage people to reach out and check your book. I think I’ll grab this too, because at the end of the day, leaders listen. So thanks for all your leadership in the space.
Michael Reddington: Thank you for having me. me.
I enjoy the conversation. Thank you very much.
Ryan Foland: All right. And that’s it, everybody. If this is your first episode listening to the world of speakers, there are over a hundred of them. Feel free to start from the beginning. And more importantly, don’t just be a one -time listener. Be a subscriber, find and follow the podcast where you like it, share it with your friends and enjoy the journey because guess what? Being a speaker is a part interrogation and it’s part of the process a lot of things, but it is not easy. It is a grind, but if you’re passionate about sharing your experience and the lessons that you’ve learned, you’re a teacher and so go out there and speak.
And when you teach, you actually learn and it’s all an amazing cycle just to help everybody stand on your shoulders because the most that the richest place in the world of the graveyards with all that knowledge that’s gone.
So let’s tap into it while we’re here and we can feed and breathe all these different ideas. Thank you, Michael. We’re out. We’ll see you next time on The World of Speakers.
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World of Speakers is a bi-weekly podcast that helps people find their own voice and teaches them how to use their voice to develop a speaking business.
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