Ending Thoughts

Words are funny. The meaning depends on where you put the emphasis. No, this post is not about my thoughts as I end a chapter of my life. The title is not ENDING Thoughts. Rather, this post is about Ending THOUGHTS. Or more specifically, ending your on-camera appearance, either in an interview or a stand-up.

Human nature is to continue talking until someone else talks. When you're in an interview, typically the interviewer will wait for you to stop talking to go on to the next question. Particularly in the way we do videos, you don't hear the interviewer in the finished video, so it doesn't sound good for him or her to interrupt the speaker. So when I interview someone, I'll wait for them to stop before I go on. When you are doing a stand-up, you're just talking to an imaginary audience - there's no one there to give you any clues to stop talking. You must complete your thought and stop.

For example, a typical person will say something along the lines of.... "Hi, I'm the owner of This Company and I'd like to welcome you to my website. We can help you solve These Problems and want to make sure you have a great experience doing so. Take a look around and contact me if you have any questions. We are here to answer your questions. We know how difficult it is to shop for Our Services. So look at our website and hopefully you'll find all the answers you need. If not, click on the "contact us" link and we'll respond right away. Thanks for visiting. Hope you enjoy your stay. And don't forget, we love our customers."

That blurb could have ended many times. But most people, when speaking, won't realize that. When getting ready for a stand-up, have an opening line in mind, three major bullets, and an ENDING point. Don't ramble. Remember, if your video is for the internet (as most videos are), people have a very limited amount of time and don't want to hear you repeat yourself. The ending point should be your mission statement, tagline or another strong phrase that sells your product or service. You may need a call to action as well, depending on where you are placing your video and how it is used, so make sure to incorporate that into your ending point.

When in an interview, focus on answering the question. Many people want to go off on tangents and answer every question in one answer. That's great in some situations, but may make it more difficult in editing, and could possibly make the video seem disjointed. A good editor can help that NOT to happen, but if you really ramble badly, sometimes your interview will just end up on the cutting room floor. You don't have as much time to prepare (unless you have the questions ahead of time), but you can still think it through before you speak. Take a deep breath, and think of 3 parts of your answer, the beginning, the middle and the end.

For example, if you are asked "Why did you come to this event today?" Your answer can start with how you found out about the event, then the middle can be your view of the event and you can end with a strong statement of exactly what you expect to get out of the event.

Even if you are focusing on answering the question, and you're not repeating yourself, it still can be difficult to end a thought. Just as in writing, make sure you put a period at the end of your sentence. Nothing sounds like more of a non-commitment than a statement phrased as a question.

"What is your primary function as a company?"
"We solve our customer's problems.....and.....uh.....??"

That statement should have been...

"We solve our customer's problems."

Can you hear the difference? Ok, so perhaps this should have been a video blog post...but you get my point...right?

Ending thoughts - make sure you end your thoughts with a period.