How Are You Going to Get There? 
The Roadmap

You’re off to a good start with your speech. You start with a Bang and make a Big Promise. Now what? What’s going to keep your audience with you? What’s going to keep them engaged and following along so that, in the end, their lives are changed, if only in the area of your talk? Once you grasp the power of the Roadmap, you’ll begin to have a lasting impact on your audiences.

What Is the Roadmap?

First, to give you a sense of the whole, the opening has three distinct parts:

• The Bang
  
• The Big Promise
  
• The Roadmap
  

I talk about the Bang and the Big Promise in separate blogs. The Bang is in your first few sentences; it makes your whole speech and persona pop for the audience — and it relates in some way to the point of your talk. The Big Promise is basically a statement of where you’re going to take this audience. “You’ll get more done.” “You’ll look good.” In other words, you’ll benefit is some way.

Now comes the Roadmap. It basically states how your audience is going to get from where they are now to where you’ve promised to take them. Think of this initial state as the Island of Pain. No speaking engagements, no dates, no sales, whatever it is. Your Big Promise is the Island of Pleasure! Lots of paid speaking gigs, exciting dates in droves, sales in excess of projections.

But without a chart, what are your chances of getting from one island to the other? Well, not so good! There are lots of islands in the ocean and lots of directions that aren’t the right direction. With a map, however, your audience can follow where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. And they can feel assured that they can get there on their own — by following the Roadmap — long after you’ve left them.

Some Examples

The best Roadmaps are short, rhythmic, dynamic. Something the audience can grasp. The Four Agreements, for example, is something people can visualize, as opposed to The Four Strategies, which is more abstract. Craig Valentine talks about The Four R’s to Remarkable Results. Each element of the Roadmap begins with the letter ‘R’, thus making it more memorable.

What about Think and Grow Rich? Or Nike’s Just Do It! They’re like little formulas that encapsulate for the audience the way to their Island of Pleasure from their current Island of Pain. To get to the Island of Self-Awareness, Pause, Play, Pray.

Importance of the Roadmap

The importance of the Roadmap can’t be overstated. If your point, your Big Promise, is worth making, it is worth your audience remembering. What they don’t remember can’t have an impact on their lives. Part of the task of a speaker is to present a clear end goal and to show how to get there. The other part of the task is to make the audience feel that they, too, can follow that path.

I once asked my nephew, then around six, to teach me how to play Mario Brothers. He took the game control, and, making sure I could see him, proceeded to whisk his fingers all over the control in a fast and fluid but incomprehensible tangle. I couldn’t follow what he was doing. I could see from the screen that he was doing well and amassing many points, but I couldn’t do it myself.

It’s the Roadmap that gives your audience the confidence and the skills to do it themselves. It’s the Roadmap that gives your speech longevity — that enables you to change lives for good, not just for the moment. Your Bang and your Big Promise fire them up; your Roadmap fuels that fire long-term.

Developing Your Roadmap

Roadmaps, unfortunately, do not arrive full-blown from the ether. It takes time and effort to come up with a good, helpful Roadmap. There are, however, many different patterns you can follow. Acronyms are wonderful Roadmaps. For example, SMART goals, or RICE. Alliteration is also memorable. The Three R’s of Reading, ‘Riting, and ‘Rithmetic. And the standard 5 Steps to X or 4 Keys to Y.

The important key here is to play with it. Try out different phrases, metaphors, formulas, and so on. Don’t settle for the first Roadmap that enters your mind. Be brave! And perseverant. Seek help! Try out your Roadmaps on friends and family. Make a mess of it all — just so it doesn’t make a mess of you!

And when all else fails, call me.