Hillary Clinton’s Concession Speech
Enough already with talking heads such as Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews commenting on Hillary’s Clinton’s concession speech and what she did wrong.
Immediately after Hillary Clinton spoke, Olbermann and Mattews began critiquing Clinton on how much time it took her before she mentioned Barack Obama’s name. This amazed me, not for political reasons but because they both are in the business of communication. Each of them missed the number one rule in professional and public speaking.
What’s rule number one Keith and Chris? Know Your Audience.
Hillary Clinton was speaking to her supporters, the ones who had been in the trenches with her and who really wanted her to be presidential nominee. For Olbermann and Matthews to expect her to walk into that hall and not connect first to her supporters as their political leader, was so off base.
As a presentation coach, the first thing I have my clients’ focus on is “the audience”. What do they want? What’s in it for them?
Hillary Clinton’s audience wanted her. On a primal level they wanted to reconnect with her to, to know she was all right and still capable of being a leader. It was appropriate for Clinton to focus on herself and thank all the people across the country who had supported her. If she had not done that and gone straight into endorsing Barack Obama, it would have been too aburpt and would have turned off her audience. They needed to be warmed up as any good communicator knows and that is what Hillary Clinton did.
And as her speech shows, http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/speech/view/?id=7903, she then lead her audience in to rallying behind Barack Obama’s and was genorous in her endorsement of him. Her speech built from there and by then end when she was mentioning Barack Obaman’s name, her loyal supporters were applauding.
What more can Olbermann and Matthews want?
Tags: communication, concession speech, critique, Hillary Clinton, Matthews, Olbermann, presentation coach
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