Have A Point Of View
Often we will hear a presentation and receive a lot of information from the presenter, but we are not really clear on what is their point of view on this subject. We don’t think we need to state our point of view when it is a product, because there will invariably be quite a lot of features which can be talked about. The problem with that is features by themselves are not persuasive enough. None of us buy features, because we are all too busy buying the benefits of the features. It also might be a service. The client wants to know what difference our service will make for their business growth. It is an intangible too, so the purchase decision really rides on the client buying an image of what success will look like. This is where having a point of view kicks in.
We have to tell the buyer how great our solution is. We shouldn’t be thinking all I have to do is present the detail and the client will buy what I am selling. If only it was that easy. Instead we need to be telling them that this is the greatest thing on the planet.
Technically oriented people are particularly prone to understatement. They believe that the data sells itself. This is because often they are very logical types. They didn’t get the email which explained that we all buy on emotion and justify with logic. They need to state their point of view on how great they think this piece of technology or intellectual property or whatever is. If we want the audience to get our message, we have to stand firmly behind what we are suggesting. Don’t make the audience do all the work – tell them this is the greatest whatever.
If we believe there is some imminent change approaching the current state of the market, we should mention that and predict what we think the likely ramifications will be. We may be proven completely incorrect but that doesn’t matter. At that point in time the audience will leave the presentation knowing that you stand for something and there is an internal logic holding that construct together. It may eventually go in a different direction, but there are always so many mitigating factors, it is hard to be held to your incorrect prediction. The key is you give the audience the sense that you stand for something and are not just wishy washy and uncommitted. Better to be proven wrong, than immediately dismissed as someone who can’t commit to anything and just supplies raw data.
We want belief to be demonstrated by our speaker and when they have a point of view backed up with a solid structure supporting their proposition, we see that as professional We may or may not like or agree with what is being said, but we respect the intellect and the delivery. We should never rely on the slide deck or the slick video to do the selling for us. We need to use our voice and body language to show our enthusiasm for our point of view. This is critical because we are more likely to follow your line of reasoning, if you show your 100% commitment to it.
The structure is simple. We explain our point of view, we then spend the next twenty minutes or so, supplying data, examples, facts, testimonials, stories which are the evidence for this point of view. It is all beautifully connected together. We finish by restating our central proposition and call for the audience to agree with this and support that point of view. We now go into Q&A and marshal even more evidence to support what we are saying, this time in the face of people who put up alternative ideas or totally opposite opinions. In the final close we again state our view and call for everyone to support it, this is the last thing ringing in the ears of the audience as they depart the venue.
If we want to be remembered then we need to have a point of view. If we want people to support our product or service we need to sell them our point of view on why they should buy it. We need to back all of this up with passion, enthusiasm and belief. If we do this then we will be successful as a person of influence.
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
If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.
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 podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations 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.
Zen Presenting
Zen study is a way to strip out all of the non-essentials in life. The noise, the distraction, the things that are not so important. People sit around concentrating on their breath cycle or one word or a number of other methods to quiet the mind, so they can get more clarity about themselves and what are their real priorities. As presenters, this is a good metaphor for when we are in front of people speaking.
You would think with all those thousands of years of Zen in Japan, in art, in design, in temples, gardens, in history etc., that the Japanese people would be legends of simplicity and clarity when presenting. Not true! Presenting as an idea only came to Japan around 160 years ago. Fukuzawa Yukichi who founded Keio University and who graces the 10,000 yen bank note, launched public speaking in Japan in the Meiji period. There is an enzetsukan or speech hall still on the grounds of Keio University, where presumably the first speeches were given.
Western society plumbs the wisdom of ancient Greece and Rome, parliaments allowing debate and Hollywood for models on speech giving. Japan has no home grown role model. If the authorities needed you to know anything in old japan, a notice board would have it written there for you. No shogun oratory from the castle walls to the assembled masses. No Mel Gibson Braveheart style speeches before vanquishing the foe in battle. Japan bypassed all of that until Fukuzawa Yukichi decided this was another area of modernization that needed implementation, like wearing ties, boots, hats and petticoats.
No slide deck in those days, but Japan certainly was an early adopter of the technology for giving presentations – the overhead projector, the slide projector, the modern light weight projector, large screen monitors, electronic pointers. Any venue you go to in Japan will be bristling with gear.
Interestingly, the content on screen will also be bristling. There will be 10 graphs on the one page, lurid diagrams employing 6 or more vivid colours, text so small you could use it for an optometrist’s eyesight test chart. Where has the zen gone?
We don’t need any tech or screens or props or gizmos. We can speak to the audience and enjoy being the full focus of their attention. Many speakers are competing for attention with what is being displayed on the screen. Company representatives love to play the video of their firm or product or service. They can be quite slick, the joy of the marketing department and the pit into which a chunk of money was thrown for the production company, directors, designers, film and sound crew, talents and innumerable others who all got a slice of the pie.
The question to ask though is does this video actually assist the speaker to make the key point under consideration. Often they are like eye candy, but are not on point to the main argument. Unless it strongly reinforces your message dump it. It will only be competition for you the speaker and it will suck up valuable time which could be spent better with you as the man focus.
I saw Ken Done, a well known Australian artist, give a talk in Japan many years ago. He has a very unique visual style and yet he moved around from behind the lectern, stood next to it and just spoke about his art to the audience. It was very engaging because it was so intimate. The Japanese audience loved it. There was only one source of stimulation for the audience and that was Ken Done. This is what we want – to be the center of their world for the next thirty or forty minutes.
Don’t use a slide deck unless there is something in that content and presentation on screen which really helps bring home your argument. If it is for information purposes, then that will work well. If you are there to persuade, then you will be so much more powerful if all the attention is concentrated on one point and that point needs to be you.
In this case we have stripped away all the noise, so we have to fill the void with word pictures. We need to be having the audience see what we are talking about in their mind’s eye. If you have ever read the novel after seeing the movie, you find yourself transported visually to the scenes from the movie, as you read the text. This is the same idea. We have to transport the audience to a place, time and situation that we are describing in words, in such a way that visually they can imagine it.
We don’t always have to have slides or visuals. We are the message, so let’s manufacture the situation so that we are the center piece of the proceedings and all eyes and ears are on us and every word we say. We can Zen our way to speaking success!
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
If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.
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 podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations 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.
Bailed Out By The Brand
My eyes are closing. I am struggling to stay awake. There is something about this presentation that is not working. I thought, it must be me. I must be tired. Later however I realized the problem. I was being lulled into sleep by the monotone delivery of the presenter. Now there was no excuse for this because the language was English. We know that Japanese is a monotone language, so you can sort of understand that this is going to lull you to sleep, unless the presenter is on their game.
The brand by the way is gorgeous. This is seriously high profile, a name that everyone knows and respects. The name alone triggers images that are all first class. The slides and videos he presented were all quality. These people have money and they know about marketing very high end products. They have been doing it for a very long time and they do it globally.
Our speaker had all of this powerful support going for him, yet the actual presentation was sleep inducing. Why was that? The brand is a passion brand, but there was no passion. The brand is a great story, but the storytelling was minimal. The delivery was wooden. Measured, but wooden. The person delivering it comes from a culture that is exuberant, intense, enthusiastic. He showed little of these traits.
Fortunately, despite his lifeless delivery, the brand is so powerful it can survive his attempt to murder it. But what a wasted opportunity. It is not as if this brand doesn’t have competitors. There are many and they are also high quality, high status, expensive, exclusive, well healed. He needed to stand out amongst a very crowded field, infecting that audience that evening with his passion and belief in the brand. He is their guy in Japan, so that is his job, every time, everywhere.
It was a good audience too. These are people who appreciate a good brand, who are influencers, who can spread the message. No one will bother though because they were not receiving any energy from this talk. This is the danger when we have a strong brand supporting us. We can become complacent. We imagine we don’t have to do much because the brand sells itself. The marketing department’s glossy photos and slick videos are enough.
Not true. Brands are being recreated every single day. When the product is consumed that is a brand defining moment. If the brand promise is not delivered when the product or service is consumed, then the brand is that much lessened. If this continues, then the brand will disappear, vanquished by its competitors. The brand doesn’t have to be consumed to define the brand though. We as representatives of the brand, are influencing the quality perception of the brand every time we present. If we give a really average performance then the audience will start to doubt the quality claims of the marketing department about this brand. Never forget, we judge the entire organisation on you and how you come across.
If our man in Japan had given a high energy presentation, extolling the virtues of the brand, that would have been consistent with the positioning of the brand. If you are representing a funeral home however, that would not be appropriate. So obviously we need to be congruent. This brand case though would be a great platform for enthusiastic storytelling and verbal passion for the brand. Where were the gripping stories of high drama and intrigue, as they duked it out with their competitors across the globe and over the decades? Where were the human dimension stories of the customers who were famous and fans. This is a glamour business and yet there was little glamour presented in his talk. The styling is seriously beautiful, but we heard nothing about the design team. We got no insider account of some of the legendary tales from the past. It was flat.
There was little or nor energy being transmitted to the audience. When we speak we have to radiate that energy to the listeners. We need to invigorate them. We do this through our voice and our body language. It is an inside out process, where the internal belief is so powerful it explodes out to the audience. They see we are convinced, we are believers and they become believers too.
It is interesting that we have a client company we do training for and the external image of the brand is over the top. Yet the people who work there are very muted, very low key. The contrast is quite jarring because it goes against what we would expect. This means that if we are representing a dynamic brand we had better be dynamic. Our speaker was not dynamic at all. He put me to sleep. No brand consistency on his part and that is just not allowed.
Let’s raise our energy levels up when promoting our company in a public presentation. Make sure our voice is using all the range of highs and lows to get full tonal variety. No monotone delivery please. We need to punch out hard certain key words and phrases, like the crescendos in classical music. We need our body language to be backing this up, our gestures in sync with what we are saying. We need to lift the energy of the audience through our personal power. None of this happened that evening and the brand will survive, but the brand elevation opportunity was totally missed. If he keeps doing this, over time, it will be to the brand’s detriment. I wonder if the leaders of his organisation have a clue about any of this?
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
If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.
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 podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations 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.
Crazy Things Smart People Say
Education can be a barrier to intelligence sometimes. This is often the case with people educated in very hard skill disciplines. They are asked to absorb vast amounts of complex information and to follow strict procedural structures. The rote learning aspect becomes paramount. This is fine and will get you graduated out of varsity and into the real world. With so much invested in technical knowledge other skill sets are not fully appreciated enough.
Soft skills, such as communication, are not highly valued. The thinking is that this is rather fluffy stuff. Serious people are knowledgeable about deep technical subjects and how they transmit that knowledge isn’t all that important. The quality of the data or the advice is considered to the key thing, not the delivery. Anyway the delivery bit smacks of conmen, carnival barkers and dodgy sales types who talked you into buying that timeshare you never use while you were on holiday.
I was reminded of this recently when talking with a very highly skilled technical person. I have actually seen this person present and he has vast amounts of data at his ready command. He is steady, reliable and a bit dull. Normally being a bit dull mightn’t be a problem, except in his profession the competition for advice is fierce. Gathering potential clients together and giving them a snapshot into how brainy you are is a great prospecting tool in his profession. You would think that intelligent people would be able to work out that the delivery of all that brainpower was a competitive edge. An edge that needs to be really finely honed and maintained.
In the course of our conversation I was suggesting that he could do some presentation training and this would help him stand tall amongst the weeds. There was a need but only a low recognition of the advantage that this would give him relative to others, who also claim they have big brains as well. This is a common blindspot for technical professionals. They confuse having the knowledge and big brains with being automatically awarded the business by clients.
Today, across all industries, buyers are much better educated and informed. They have access to global information, at a speed unimagined in decades part. “We will gather our big brains together and they will come” did work for the longest time but not anymore. All professionals have to be highly knowledgeable and persuasive. The persuasive part requirement hasn’t been universally grasped by the technical experts as yet.
Our reluctant hero asked me what the presentation training would cost and then proceeded to tell me it was too expensive. This was shocking to me. His profession has no hesitation in charging vast sums to clients because they see the cost through the prism of the value they provide. The actual amount of money was a peanut, in fact, yet he was reluctant to invest in himself to become a dominant player. I am sure if there had been a global conference on his key subject matter, he would have jetted off without hesitation and spent a considerably larger sum to attend the event.
I was shocked not because of the money involved, but because of his inability to grab the chance to become well recognized as THE expert in his field. Participants leave his current presentations lukewarm. They are not salivating at the prospect of working with him. They are not highly motivated to sign him up as their advisor. They are still guarded and unsure. He could switch that whole thing around easily by investing in himself to extend his abilities.
Are you like this too? Are you in denial about the reality, that in this better informed world stocked with your competitors, you need all aspects of your skill set working for you? Brains, experience and the ability to communicate to potential clients that you have both are fundamental to the new order of business.
You have built it, but we won’t come because we are going to the other guy who invested in himself and became a fully rounded professional. That “expensive” peanut is costing my friend and others like him a lot of money but they haven’t worked it out yet. Don’t be like them. Invest in yourself and learn how to work every audience into a passionate belief that they need you and your services right now.
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
If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.
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 podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations 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.