Presentations Take Command Of The Stage

Developing the Next Generation of Rainmakers Presentations: Take Command of the Stage Are you giving a presentation to a business audience any time soon? If so I recommend you take command of the stage. What does that mean? It is easier to explain in the context of a rock concert. The best example I know of was when James Brown took the stage in a concert right before the Rolling Stones. You can read about it in this New Yorker article:  The Possessed: James Brown in Eighteen Minutes. It is the story of a Teenage Awards Music International concert that took place 50 years ago.  As you will see, James was not happy that the Rolling Stones were the closing act. “Nobody follows James Brown!” he kept telling the show’s director, Steve Binder. Mick Jagger himself was hesitant. He and Keith Richards were boys from Kent with an unusual obsession with American blues. They knew what Brown could do. In Santa Monica, they watched him from the wings, just twenty feet away, and, as they did, they grew sick with anxiety. Watch the video and you will see why the Mick Jagger and Keith Richards grew sick with anxiety. James Brown clearly took command of the stage. Ok, other than my admiration of James Brown and my feeling that the 18 minutes he was on stage that night may have been among his best, what can you learn from his performance and how can you take command of the stage? If you are a regular reader, you likely have read some of my presentation ideas before. Here’s how I recommend you take command of the stage. Look, I know you and I will never match James Brown, and I know that a legal presentation will never generate the audience response that a rock star receives. But, that does not give us a license to bore an audience. I practiced law for 37 years developing a national construction law practice representing some of the top highway and transportation construction contractors in the US.