Persuasion Power Trump Style
Donald Trump isn’t a textbook presenter. He breaks many of the rules of presenting, but nevertheless he has been effective in getting his message across. Love him or loath him as a contender for the Republican Party Presidential race nomination, as the Republican candidate and as the President, he won against the expectations of the vast majority of American political experts. He had large numbers of people turn out to hear him speak. What was he doing right? How was he being persuasive with the audiences who came to hear him. Are there any lessons here for us, when we come to give our own presentations?
He is authentic when he speaks. There is no speech writer grinding away in the background polishing his prose to within an inch of its life. He rarely used those semi-invisible prompters on the left and right to drip feed the polished input. He does have some notes to keep him on track, but he barely refers to them. He likes Twitter because it provides what he likes: brief, simple messages and gets him directly to his audience. This is how he speaks in public.
He is not a highly polished speaker by any means. He digresses, goes off on tangents, gets sidetracked, but the audience understands this is the price for the speaker being non-scripted. He keeps their attention because he concentrates on his audience. So let’s take the good bits of what is working for a guy who only relatively recently started as a public speaker and drop the rest.
Here are a couple of fundamentals we can all safely adopt - be yourself, don’t ape anyone else. Trump is not a copy of anyone and this adds to his credibility with those who come to hear him. So yes, be you, but try to be the professional you. Focus on your audience, not on the technology, the laptop, the big screen behind you or your notes. Having fewer thing to focus on makes the public speaking task easier, so divest distractions. Trump focuses on his audience, he seeks out interaction, the connection. We should look for opportunities to do the same when we are presenting.
One observation is that he has been getting a lot of practice over the last year or so. Prior to this run for the Presidency, he rarely had to make such long public speeches. Like the rest of us, he had to learn by doing. Repetition is key to learning new skills and so seizing every chance to present is needed to improve our professional craft.
Sounds terribly logical doesn’t it. However, many people shy away from presenting because they are lacking in confidence or are too nervous. For a very long time, I was one of them. I avoided public speaking because I was terrified and scared of failing. Fortunately, there are various techniques for overcoming nervousness. These can be learnt and by increasing the frequency of presenting, we gradually become more comfortable with the process. Eventually, I came to enjoy speaking, but I needed to get the practice to tap into the pleasure as opposed to pain zone.
Trump’s messages can be quickly understood. Build a big wall; everyone is more cunning than we are; make America great again; read my Art of the Deal; it’s my own money so I don’t owe anybody; politicians are useless; I am rich and successful; I know how to get things done; I am not politically correct; drain the swamp, etc. He is derided as a demagogue and rabble rouser but as a speaker he presents his ideas such that we can remember them. Isn’t this what we also want with our audience?
Think back though, how many key messages can you recall from the many business presentations you have heard over the course of your business career? I would guess not many or none. Here is the key question - will people remember yours?
When we speak, we need to have clarity around the key points we want to get across, in the time we have available. Taking on too much content (“death by Powerpoint”), nullifies the key messages we want to have resonate with the audience. A major information dump is also a communication killer, especially when quoting lots of data. Overload just destroys the message and the audience are lost.
I notice that diplomats are very much prone to data dump. They have an important role to represent their country and promote key messages. I used to work for the Australian Embassy here in Tokyo. I often thought some of those public speeches were killing the messages by overloading the audience with too much content. The intentions were tremendously sincere and purposeful but ultimately the delivery was ineffective. Did they ever get proper training and improve? No, they just kept on repeating the same error, over and over again. Less is more when it comes to the number of messages you want to get across.
Trump totally radiates self-confidence. Confidence certainly sells and if he had any self-doubt (?) about his new public speaking role when he started, he certainly has not shared it with his audiences. Now, we may not have his same degree of self-belief or his many billions, but we must exude confidence when speaking with our audience. Some people say, “fake it, till you make it”. Remember, in the room, the reality is that there is only one person who knows you are not confident and that person is you. Unless you run around advertising it, nobody else will have a clue. So never apologise for your perceived poor speaking ability, your lack of confidence, nervousness, that you have cold, or whatever – just carry on regardless.
In Dale Carnegie we bolster public speaking confidence through embracing the 3 E’s: We have Earned the right to speak, because we know our subject; we are Excited because of our positive feelings for the content; and we are Eager to share with our audience, because we feel this will help them. You will qualify under all three of these conditions, so go about your task with positive energy.
There is an important cross-over point to become a successful a speaker. That occurs when you stop concentrating on yourself and what is wrong with you and then you start concentrating on your audience. We have to get to that point as quickly as possible. Employ the 3 E’s and you will become confident. Even if we are not super confident at first, never ever show that to the audience – they buy speaker self-belief and our job is to provide it.
Trump tell stories, lots of stories. NBC begged me to do a new season of The Apprentice; Carl Icahn told me he is ready to be my negotiator with China; I saw all of these Japanese cars in LA coming out of the biggest ship I have ever seen, etc. He weaves these vignettes into his speech to highlight his key points. Storytelling works and as he demonstrates, they don’t have to be lengthy stories to be effective. Sprinkle some real life stories into your presentations to make you and the content come alive for your audience. There are specific techniques for that though.
Talk about people, places and emotions that the audience can identify with. Don’t say, “we were having a meeting”. Talk about, ”It was winter in New York and we were in the wood paneled boardroom of the client, on the 36th floor of the Rockefeller Center, having a tough meeting with the CEO Jane Smith and I was becoming more and more nervous.” Now we have taken our audience to the place (New York, The Rockefeller Center, 36th floor company Board room), added in the people (my colleagues, Jane Smith), the season (winter), the atmosphere (conservative décor, tense). This story takes less than 15 seconds to tell, so it is very efficient to draw our audience into what we are saying. Now our audience can clearly visualise the situation in their mind’s eye and like a well written novel, they want to know what happened next. This is how we need to use stories in our talks.
Whether you agree with him or not, it is a simple fact that if a novice like Trump can learn to become persuasive as a public speaker, then we can too. He may become a great President or a disaster – time and your personal viewpoint will tell.
Regardless, take the advice offered here and study successful speakers, adapt what works, hone your skills and rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. The latter, by the way, is the most common error of unsuccessful presenters – they forget to make time to rehearse the speech before they give it to their audience. Some good advice in business is don’t practice on the client and that includes public speaking! Being persuasive is a massive advantage in life and in business and few possess this skill. Become one of the few.
Action Steps
Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com
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About The Author
Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan
In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.
A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.
Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.