Talks
“The Power of Fallibility: Why Audiences Trust Imperfection”
SUMMARY: It's the legacy of the social media era. The speaker who wins over the crowd today may not be the most polished but the most authentic, displaying their human fallibility for all to see.
Social media trained audiences to spot a performance from a mile away. Decades of staged ads, scripted speeches, and corporate messaging built a public that reads polish as a warning sign rather than a credential. The unboxing video that flops, the influencer who admits the recipe didn't work, the founder who posts about the deal that fell through — these moments are proof of a live human being in the room. Now AI raises the stakes further: it produces flawless, error-free copy on demand, which means flawlessness itself has become the new tell of something manufactured.
In this breakout session, Michael Barris shows why fallibility, handled with composure, builds more trust than polish ever could.
OUTCOMES: At the end of this session, you will understand that:
- You don't need to be perfect to arouse a crowd if you make your stumbles part of a consistent and authentic onstage persona.
- Nothing mesmerizes audiences like the exhibition of personality onstage, with quirkiness an asset.
- It's important to let yourself feel fear in communication situations rather than trying to fight it.
- Why audiences forgive almost any mistake except the appearance of trying to hide one.
- A simple onstage technique for turning a mistake into a moment of connection instead of a moment to recover from.
"Crafting Connections: How to Tell Stories That Seal the Deal in Sales"
SUMMARY: The world's greatest sales professionals are master storytellers. They know how to create a personal connection with the target audience by listening closely and arousing them emotionally; which gets prospects to trust them, to open up and to disclose what kind of problem they are having that the salesperson’s business can fix for them.
If you don't know how to deliver a story with charisma, captivation and clout, you're going to struggle to come across other than as someone who is too eager to befriend your prospect.
Michael Barris talks about how sales champs do it - and what the rest of the pack stand to lose if they don't follow suit. This highly interactive presentation, which includes group story composition and delivery work as well as individual feedback from Michael, is designed primarily as a breakout session.
OUTCOMES: By the conclusion of this talk, attendees will:
- Develop stories to achieve several different goals, including gaining trust, establishing authority, promoting the credibility of staff and leaders, and closing deals.
- Learn storytelling techniques they can use to arouse prospects emotionally so the prospect feels inspired to reciprocate with their own narrative, paving the way for a meaningful sales conversation and a conversion.
- Receive group and individual feedback on how to deliver stories to create personal connections and conversions.
"How Weird Became Cool: The Rise of Quirkiness"
SUMMARY: In a culture that values authenticity, communication quirks that once seemed like liabilities can become strengths.
For decades executives trained themselves to sound the same: polished, careful, and interchangeable. Today, market research shows 90 percent of millennials want authenticity from leaders and brands — and quirkiness is about as authentic as a person can get. As AI floods every inbox with smooth, forgettable prose, the executives who let their rough edges show in the form of the verbal tic, the odd metaphor, or the habit of trailing off mid-thought before landing the point, are the ones audiences remember.
In this breakout session, Michael will show how allowing your quirks to show helps set you apart from the sameness of unfiltered AI communication.
OUTCOMES: Attendees will learn:
- How to identify the communication quirks you have been trained to suppress, and which ones are worth keeping
- Why sameness, not imperfection, is now the bigger threat to a leader's credibility
- How to avoid oversharing, so quirks land as identity rather than distraction
- A simple method for testing whether a quirk is your edge or a habit worth dropping
- How to build a communication style AI cannot replicate