A Sure-Fire, Can't Miss Template For Giving a Winning Speech to Credit Unions!!!

By Frank J. Diekmann

Getting a little nervous about an upcoming speaking gig before a credit union group?  Dry mouth? Night sweats? Dry nights with mouth sweats? Well, stress no more!

I’ve attended more than a dozen credit union conferences and events so far this year and heard more speakers than the fence out back of the International Gossip Society. Trying to find some good in all that I have assembled this handy, no-fail, indispensible template for you to use in preparing your own remarks. It’s a snap!!! (Here’s your first tip. Be sure to use lots of exclamation points in your PowerPoint to illustrate how confident you are your audience just doesn’t get it! The best speakers use lots of them!!!)

Ready to get started? Just pick from the plug-and-play menu of choices below and before you know it you’ll be announcing, “Well, my time’s up, thank you so much,” as the crowd leaps to its feet in applause.  Follow this guide and can’t go wrong!!!

Sorry, But Have to be Blunt

But first, I’m sorry but it’s time to be blunt and honest–I may have bad news, as this is absolutely critical–have you mentioned “Millennials” yet? You say you haven’t even started speaking? Have yet to even get to the stage? It may still be too late. At this point, let me just caution you that if you don’t mention the word “Millennials”—ideally before you even take the stage and worst-case scenario in the first two-to-four seconds of your remarks, well, I don’t want to say you’re not relevant, just sayin’ if I’m in the audience you’ve already lost me and I’m checking Instagram. More on this in a bit.

Now, with the tough news out of the way, back to the template: 

Opening Warm Up Joke

1. Ask who was in the bar late last night?
2. Borrow a strategy from Facebook posts with a humble-brag about how pleased you are everyone is there to hear you when it’s so nice outside/there are so many other entertainment options/there are so many other great speakers that you almost didn’t show up to hear yourself!
3. Tell a funny anecdote about a company your audience has only semi-heard of and which took place in a time period no one in the audience lived through so it can’t be fact-checked.
4. If you’re nervous, mention that “picturing the audience in their underwear” thing that only gets better with the 1,001^st retelling.

See how easy that was! You’re already on your way. Now that you’ve got everyone warmed up, you just need to slide right into…

Time To Select a Cliche

Opening Line (select a cliche from below):

1. We live in a time of unprecedented change…
2. The pace of change has never been faster…
3. In our increasingly fast, mobile environment…
4. (Go for it all option!!!) In these times of unprecedented change, where the pace has never been faster and we live in an increasingly mobile environment…

Let me interject a little coaching here: Stifle those doubts! While at least one person in the audience is likely to be thinking, “But, wait, hasn’t it always been a time of change?,” you don’t have time for these Debbie Doubters, as the very best speakers never get caught up in self-awareness, irony, hypocrisy, or anything that might ding one’s self confidence (think politicians). So pay them no mind, because you’ve reached the point where you make that opening statement pop with a supporting PowerPoint slide featuring graphics illustrating historical pace-of-change references.

Can't Miss Graphics

Try these sure-fire, crowd-pleasing graphics showing:

1. Time it took for widespread adoption of telephone compared to time it took for widespread adoption of mobile phones.
2. Time it took for consumer adoption of ATM vs. time it took for consumer adoption of online banking.
3. A slide that gives the strong impression a room full of monkeys with crayons got hold of the Department of Homeland Security’s org chart and created a graphic that no one in the front can begin to decipher and no one in the back can see (don’t forget to mention you don’t have time to discuss the whole chart and what it means)
4. (Time-killing option) Show them all!

Next up, bring your audience into the present with a story about one of the following:

1. How UPS never makes left turns.
2. Southwest Airlines
3. Amazon drone deliveries
4. Uber
5. Several start-up online companies no one has ever heard of but that are definitely the “wave of the digital future” and which are driving the new “unparalleled experience expectations” of your members.  

See how easy this is!!! Now you’re into the meat of your presentation. Regardless of topic, make sure to include these must-have buzzwords among your bullet points:

1. Differentiation
2. Blue Oceans/Black Swans/Purple Cows
3. Innovation
4. Ideation
5. New Normal

Then “take it up a notch” by going to buzz-phrase 2.0 and casually interjecting:

1. Synergy
2. Engagement
3. Big Data
4. Analytics
5. Disruption
6. (Bonus option) “The synergy created by engaging with big data analytics will help you respond to disruption…”

Uh-oh: Time to Get 'Relevant'

Can you believe it? You think you’re practically done! And yet you’re precariously close to being dismissed and forgotten as a speaker, because, again, you’re completely forgetting about “relevance.”

Take it from me, your speaker evals ride on this; the mandatory stipulation that your remarks address the fact most of your audience are old farts scared to death of being left behind and desperate to prove they are still hip, which they aren’t, primarily because they still use words like “hip.” So it isn’t just critical but required by yet another of those onerous CFPB regulations that you spend a bit of time talking about these four key issues:

A) Millennials!

B) Millennials!!

C) Millennials!!!

D) Millennials!!!!

Let me reassure you that yes, you came close to blowing it, but depending on the lighting you should be able to see the wave of relaxation spreading through your audience like the Wave as all the middle-aged white guys simultaneously exhale in relief.  Now, quickly move into no fewer than a dozen slides all about Millennials, including at least one that acknowledges this generation is pretty self-obsessed and narcissistic (which I’m sure has nothing do to with the dozen or so slides you and every other speaker worth his clicker has included that are all about them).

Just About To The Finish Line, But...

Whew! You’re just about done!! But you’re not quite finished yet, and you’ve got to close with a bang, sorry, smiley-face emojis.  Make sure you send them home with a forceful message that repeats your theme and shows you’re a forward-thinker by:

1. Showing yet-another chart illustrating “accelerating pace of change" over next 10 years that 10 years from now no one will ever remember you referenced.
2. Showing a slide with powerful quote from a “futurist” (extra fun option here: completely make up the quote! No one will ever know as no one actually reads those books except other futurists).
3. Slide showing one or all of the Sharks from Shark Tank (no reason, really, people just like to see them, plus everyone in the audience believes they have a million-dollar business idea that’s going untapped and which the Sharks would fight each other to invest in if they ever went on the show themselves).
4. Pointing out in a deeply earnest way that “emotionally connects” with your audience, that “children are our future.” Maybe throw in some emotionally manipulative tale of never having been hugged as a child. Don’t give a second thought to the fact this “observation” would elicit an eye roll from Hotel.com’s Captain Obvious and that it is completely unrelated to your remarks–no one, especially in credit unions, is NOT going to applaud children, the future, or hugs.

Whoa, hold on there American Pharoah! Let’s not be racing off the stage just yet. Have you mentioned Millennials in your closing remarks?

Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief at CUToday.info and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info and @FrankCUToday.