The Left Brain Needs the Right Brain
Wake up and Smell the Roses
Here’s a tip on how to wake up and smell the roses for all the left brain dominated, innovative geniuses dedicated to improving the human condition.
Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts is considered a hub of innovation — if not THE hub of innovation in the Boston area. A hub dominated by the biopharma industry. Yesterday, in Kendall Square, I observed a sales and marketing workshop designed for start–up companies. The presenter logically and carefully laid out — what many seasoned marketers believe to be — the best approach to getting your message across to someone else about what you’re planning to do. He focused on the importance of how to quickly make an emotional connection with the audience and succinctly present your idea in one to three minutes.
Question Stunned Us
The presentation followed up with a question-and-answer period. After several questions the next question stunned many of us in the audience. The questioner could not understand how the approach presented to us for over an hour could work for his particular research.
His research was so complex that he doubted anyone could understand it without a full detailed exclamation right from the beginning. He found time and time again after he presented his work, especially to venture capitalists, they couldn’t comprehend what he was trying to do. Making an emotional connection, for him, with his typical audience at the beginning was a waste of time.
The questioner went on very logically, analytically and sequentially, with lots of data trying to convince us of his point in typical left brain fashion.
Right Brains Respond to Left Brain
The right brain thinkers in the audience quickly and simply synthesized the problem. The collective response was “you weren’t listening. Facts and information or feature function right at the beginning of a pitch rarely get a standing ovation — particularly, if the facts aren’t clearly presented.” Conclusively, the creative thinkers believed the questioner was possibly presenting to the wrong venture capitalists. DUH!
To smell the roses for start-up success the questioner needs to loosen up, think outside the left-brain box and tap his imagination and creativity and recognize the options.
More Left Brain Right Brain blogs from Larry can be found here.
As a coach, trainer and consultant, Larry Blumsack partners with people and organizations on the move and those already there to accelerate their communication, presentation and speaking skills to be on par with their ambition. Through one-on-one coaching and group training Larry helps leaders and aspiring leaders elevate their presence and communication skills to influence more people, sell more products-services-ideas and inspire others more successfully than they ever imagined.
Larry is the bestselling author of Face-to-Face is The Ultimate Social Media and founder of Zoka Institute and Zoka Training®. Zoka Training® — Mind/Voice/Body/Mindfulness in sync — is the result of Larry’s 45 years as a coach, acting teacher, actor, voice-over artist, theater and TV director/producer, radio & TV commentator and show host, speaker, trainer, serial entrepreneur, and syndicated columnist. Larry was a founding member of the theater department at Northeastern University.
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