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THE Presentations Japan Series by Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan

THE Presentations Japan Series is powered by with great content from the accumulated wisdom of 100 plus years of Dale Carnegie Training. The show is hosted in Tokyo by Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and is for those highly motivated students of presentations, who want to be the best in their business field.
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THE Presentations Japan Series by Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
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Now displaying: Page 7
Mar 14, 2022

Presentations have a cadence.  Notices are sent out to the mailing list or promoted through some form of media.  Interested people sign up and attend the event.  There is a hosting organisation representative delegated to get proceedings underway. I went into detail on that component last week, so if you have missed it, please go back and listen to that episode #280 on “How To Introduce A Speaker”. When the presentation is over the host organisation has to wrap things up. Usually, in well organised events the role of the MC and the person thanking the speaker are separated.  The MC will call on the person designated to give a vote of thanks to the speaker and then conclude the event once that part is completed. If that is you, it is important you do a good job, because all of this is coming at the end of the event and this is contributing to people’s final impressions.  Those final impressions will also include how they think about you and this will be one of the last things they remember.  Last impressions can be deadly, if we don’t plan for them to succeed.

 

If we have been given that task to thank the speaker, we need to pay careful attention to what the speaker says, so that we can refer to it at the end.  If we can get hold of the slides or the speech outline before the presentation, this will make our job that much easier.

We have to remember that we are in the public eye, when we carry out this role.  This is like a mini-presentation of our own.  Again, these are our personal and professional brands on show, so people are judging how well we can do it.

 

However, it shouldn’t become a complete summary of the speech, so that we come across as wanting to compete with the speaker.  Have you ever seen that?  The person thanking the speaker decides to take this opportunity to promote themselves and they try to hog the limelight. People are mentally heading for the door and their next appointment and here is some windbag raving on, wasting everyone’s time. We need to keep it short, sharp and terrific.  I didn’t pay much attention to the final thanks to the speaker because most of them were very pedestrian or they were a self-centered rendition of this person’s own views on the subject.

 

That changed when I heard Thierry Porte, then President of Morgan Stanley Japan, give the thank you speech at an event I attended.  The actual presentation was a disaster.  The banker giving it had put up his actual text document on screen and was scrolling through it.  The font was abysmally tiny and basically he was reading to us what was on screen.  It was a dagger in the heart of his firm’s brand at that point, because this guy was obviously clueless about giving presentations. Then Thierry, who later became my boss at Shinsei Bank, gave his comments thanking the speaker for his talk.  Actually his short comments were a lot more impressive than the actual presentation.

 

I didn’t know Thierry at that point, so it was my first exposure to him and today I cannot remember the detail of the points he made years earlier, but what I do remember was that I thought they very intelligent and concise.  It was impressive and I recall thinking, “this guy is really smart” and I made a point of exchanging business cards with him. It also showed me the power of being able to thank the speaker in an intelligent way and make an impression with the audience, promoting your personal and professional brands at the same time. The point is to think like that – “this activity is going to add to or subtract from my personal and professional brands”.

 

So how should we carry out this important role?  We have a formula for this we can rely on called the TIS model.

  1. T-Thanks. We might thank the speaker using their personal name if appropriate.

This degree of familiarity will vary depending on our personal relationship with the speaker and the culture we are in.  Japan is a very formal country, so it is more likely we will be using their title or highly polite forms of address like sama instead of san.  So I would say “thank you Suzuki sama” rather than “thank you Suzuki san”.  There is a world of difference in Japan between those two polite forms.  Recently, I attended an online webinar and the person giving the presentation was a bengoshi or lawyer and the person giving the final remarks addressed him as “Sensei”, which is a very polite reference taking into account his prestigious line of work.

 

  1. I-Interest. We pick up one area of the talk which we think would have been of most interest to the audience. This is an important decision because there are probably a lot of fascinating things the speaker was able to cover in the 40 minutes of their talk. We have to be listening carefully to the content and at the same time making a judgement about which particular aspects we think will have resonated most with the audience.  We don't have that much time, because as soon as the applause dies down, we are up on our feet making our contribution to the event.

 

  1. F-Formal Thanks. If the MC is doing their job, then they will take over from us and wrap things up. In this case, we would just thank the speaker and then hand over the baton to the MC.  If it is down to us however, to bring things to a close, then we make a formal statement of thanks for the speaker, using their title and full name.  We ask the audience to join us in applause, thanking the speaker for their presentation.  For example, “May I ask everyone to join me, to again express our warm appreciation for Dr. Greg Story, giving us this wonderful presentation today”, at which point we start applauding to signal to everyone that they should now start applauding too.

 

There are always different levels of understanding of simple roles in a presentation event and the thing I notice is how few people actually understand how to do them properly.  From now on, pay careful attention to how the MC opens and closes proceedings and to how the person designated to give the thanks, carries out their role.  You quickly realise it is very easy to get into the top 1% of professionalism in these areas, because most people are not much good.  What a great opportunity to build our personal and professional brands!

Mar 7, 2022

Today we are going to look at how to introduce a speaker, something which we may not do so often, but still an important facility which we should do well.  I am sure we have all seen the MC introduce the speaker.  I am also sure we have seen very few do a good job of it.  One of the problems is that the MC hasn’t connected this role with their personal and professional brands.  They are mumbling and bumbling along.  Often they don’t see this role as particularly vital and so do a very offhand version of the introduction. 

 

They make a mess of reading the Bio they have been provided by the speaker or even worse they dispense with the document altogether and they freestyle, giving their own half baked version of the Bio.  This is particularly annoying from the speaker point of view, because we will have written that introduction to maximise our credibility with the audience and also to stimulate their interest in the content to come. Having been on the receiving end of these MC introductions, I notice they will often leave important parts out, get the order wrong or make mistakes with the dates.

 

Basically, what they deliver is an insult to the speaker because they are not taking the proceedings seriously enough. Remember, it doesn’t matter how long we have in the public limelight, we are being judged by the audience.  Even if we are an audience member and we ask a question after the speaker’s presentation, we are being judged by everyone present.  If our question sounds stupid or our delivery is awful, everyone present is making a mental judgement about us.

 

The MC role is important because this is how we quiet the audience and grab their attention for the speaker’s message.  We are preparing the audience to accept the speaker into our midst. There is a delicate balance needed here though.  You may have also seen the MC start to take over the presentation.  They begin the introduction and then start telling us what the speaker is going to cover in too much detail.  The MC should be brief and get us to the main speaker smoothly and should intrigue us with their introduction, so that we want to hear more.

 

We can use the TIQS model when it is our turn to introduce the speaker at the event.

  1. T-Topic. We start by referring to the topic or title of the talk.  This reminds everyone what the talk is about.  Yes, the notice went out and everyone signed up but that could have been weeks ago.  It is best practice to again focus on the formal topic of the talk, to make sure everyone is mentally geared up for the presentation.

 

  1. I-Importance. We highlight the importance of the topic. We are reinforcing why it is in the interests of the audience to attend today and justifying this use of their time.  The MC role includes that of salesperson for the talk.  As the representative of the hosting organisation, the MC is selling the organisation’s value in being able to procure such high quality speakers for the audience members and thereby indirectly encouraging them to attend future talks.

 

  1. Q-Qualifications. The well organised speaker will have supplied their introduction.  When we are the speaker, we need to make sure it has been professionally presented. We also have to directly ask the MC to use what we have prepared.  Often the MC ad libs with our content and they don’t do a good enough job.  We need to be insistent they stick to the script we have prepared. When we are the MC the speaker’s document will outline who they are and what they have done.  We should check if there any things which need further clarification before we present it to the audience. The introduction is the chance for the speaker to promote their credentials to be the speaker on this topic.  If the speaker hasn’t done this, then we need to do some simple research to be able to introduce them properly.

 

  1. S-Speaker Name. Having built up some anticipation, we now reveal the name of the speaker.  The audience already knows this, because they have seen the promotional material advertising the talk. Nevertheless, we take this chance to build some buzz before the speaker begins.  We now call upon the audience to join us in applause for the speaker and call the speaker to the stage, to start their presentation.

 

If there is no one to introduce us, then we should do it ourselves and start by stating our name and our organization.  Next, we talk about the topic we have chosen for today.  We now talk briefly about our qualifications to give this talk.  The introduction to the talk is an important element in the event and we need to give it proper care and attention.  Done well probably nobody notices, but done badly it jars and distracts from the professionalism of the event and the talk.  Let’s all make sure this part of the proceedings is a winner, whether we are in the speaker or the MC role.

 

Feb 28, 2022

Today we are going to look at inspiring people to embrace change. Not grumbling and finally accepting change.  Not resisting change, until the bitter end. We are talking about “embracing” change.  This is a big task.  We may have all done that exercise where we fold our arms across our chest, but with the bottom arm on top this time.  It is a simple change, but instinctively we don’t like the change.  If we can’t deal with such a simple change, how hard is it going to be to get people to accept big changes.  

 

How can we persuade people to go for the changes we are recommending?  Here is how we design the talk.

  1. We start with clearly defining what it is we want to change.  We have to make sure this is crystal clear to ourselves and everyone else involved.  If you have ever designed a questionnaire or a survey and haven’t been clear enough on the question, about what you want, then you know it throws the whole effort out of kilter and you can’t use the results. So, the change has to be communicated to people and that means we have to be concise and clear about what the outcome is that we want.

 

  1. This isn’t the order we present the talk in, but for design clarity purposes we start at the end. We need to design two closes. We have to decide how we are going to close the talk before we open up for questions.  The second close is for after the Q&A.   The latter is particularly important. We don’t want some random, off topic question hijacking our audience’s attention and have them forgetting the key point we were making. 

 

Remember we want our recommendation to be ringing in the ears of the audience once the talk is over. So the second close is the last thing they will hear from us and we have to dominate their memory banks with our messaging.

 

  1. We should be anticipating likely questions we will get.  We don’t want to be surprised by a question we are not prepared for.  We can see our own credibility and the credibility of our suggestion about the needed changes crash and burn, if we cannot properly handle the questions thrown at us. 

 

  1. We have to justify the reason for the change.  This has two parts, one being the statement of why we need the change.  We have to be clear about asking for the change so that there is no doubt about what we say we need. The other part is an example why we need the change.  This example has to be clear and compelling.

 

  1. Now we need to come up with three quite viable solutions for fixing the problem we have specified.  We can’t have two ludicrous solutions and one which looks like the perfect idea.  This type of approach will come across as an attempt to manipulate the result and our credibility will be damaged.

 

  1. To demonstrate balance, we need to nominate the pros and cons for each of the three suggestions.  Having chosen legitimate alternatives, there will be real pros and cons and we need to outline what these are in detail.  We want the audience to feel we are being objective in our approach.

 

 

  1. We purposely make the third suggestion the one we prefer.  We know that recency means that the listeners will best remember the last thing they heard.  It has to be the strongest of three strong alternatives. 

 

  1. We need to specify that we are recommending option number three and then provide convincing evidence of why we are recommending that solution.  We have to make sure the audience feels the other two options could work and that this last one is clearly the best option.

 

  1. Lastly, we design the Opening.  As always, the opening has one main task and that is to break through all of the distractions going on in the minds of our audience.  People today are so preoccupied with their phones and social media, that we have a gargantuan struggle ahead of us to pry their phones out of their hands and have them give us their full attention.  This is the hardest time in history to be a public speaker, so we need to be up to the task.

 

So the order of delivery is as follows: 1. Opening, 2. Statement of Need, 3. Example of the Need, 4. Solution One – pros and cons, 5. Solution Two – pros and cons, 6. Solution Three – pros and cons, 7. Our recommendation that we choose Solution Three and why, 8. Close number One, 9. Q&A, 10, Final Close

 

If we follow this structure, then we have a much better chance of people adopting our suggested course of action.  Getting people to make changes is extremely difficult.  Getting them to make the changes willingly is even more difficult, so we need this type of special preparation in order to be successful.

Feb 21, 2022

Today we are going to look at motivating others to action. Actually, this is a devilishly difficult task. Getting anyone to change what they have been doing and take a new action is extremely complex.  We all talk up a storm about this or that should change, but we are not keen about changing ourselves. In fact, we expect everyone else make the necessary changes and we want to stay exactly the same. 

 

In our training on the topic of mindset, to underline the power of our habits, we ask people to make small changes.  For example, put your wristwatch on the other wrist or fold your arms across your chest, such that the arm that is usually on the bottom is now on top.  Try it for yourself and like most people you will feel a bit uncomfortable with the change.  Appealing to others on the level of logic works well, but people need their emotions to be engaged for them to take action.  We act on emotion and justify it with logic. Let’s look at how we can design a talk which will motivate others to take an action we recommend.

 

Here is the design order, which is different to the delivery order.

  1. We start with the end in mind and decide what is the concrete action we want people to take. This action has to be clarified and made not only easy to understand but also made to seem easy to complete.  If the action required sounds complicated and onerous, our audience won’t be motivated to make it a reality.

 

  1. We might think it is a good idea, but will our audience be convinced? This requires some clear benefit to taking action. Everyone thinks in terms of what is in it for them, so we have to supply that component.  It also has to be powerful or the work to achieve the benefit may not seem worth the time and effort.  The outcome of the action has to seem much more advantageous than sticking with whatever it is they are doing now.

 

  1. Telling people what to do will induce resistance. That is why starting with the action is almost guaranteed to fail. Instead, the incident, the context, the background  providing the evidence that this is a good idea comes next in the planning. 

 

Storytelling is so powerful and this is where we have to make good use of it.  There must be some reason we think taking this action is a good idea.  What have we experienced, heard or seen that makes us think that is true.  We need to reach back into our memory and capture the very basis for our belief.  Our job now is to tell that as a story involving the people, the place, the season and the time.  Ideally, we should include these elements in such a way that the listeners can see it all in their mind’s eye.  People they know, a season they can relate to, a location they have seen or can imagine etc.

 

This structure is called the Magic Formula. When we deliver the talk, we reverse the usual order and we start with the Incident, then we finish off with the action and the benefit.  The key here is the majority of the time is spent on the incident, the context and the action and benefit are honed down to the most key elements. 

 

If we have more than one action, we are splitting the focus of the audience and we don’t want that.  If we pile on the benefits, then each additional benefit we add dilutes the effect of the first one and so on.  We must focus on the most convincing benefit and highlight that one alone.

 

One huge advantage of the Magic Formula is it is very hard to oppose what we are saying.  Normally if we put up an idea, we are faced with a room full of critics.  They are firmly fixed on why our idea won’t work and why their idea is better.  By starting with the incident, we are taking our audience straight into the background, the context. 

 

Often hearing the context, they conclude the same thing we have concluded.  By the time we get to the action part, they are already there ahead of us and have concluded the same thing themselves.  This is genius, magic, because we have now secured their agreement to undertake the action before we have even made the recommendation.  If you want others to take an action you want to sponsor then this is the winning formula, the Magic Formula  to make that happen.

 

 

Feb 14, 2022

So how have your New Year resolutions been unfolding?  Change is tough, as is forming new habits by adding in new concepts and at the same time removing old negative habits.  Resolve requires consistency, patience, perseverance and application – all of which need extra energy on top of what we are already doing.  As presenters we have time, talent and treasure at our disposal to take ourselves up a few rungs on the ladder to success every year, if we can break out of the pull of gravitational forces holding us to where we have always felt comfortable.

 

Time is Life.  We know that and what we decide to do with it becomes the summation of our lives.  In all facets and periods of our lives, the ability to be persuasive is the big divide.  We either live our lives according to someone else’s plan or we decide our own way forward.  To be able to achieve that we need the cooperation of others.  Once upon a time, perhaps and it is a big perhaps, we could do it all ourselves.  That is a distant memory in today’s highly complex, global and interlocking world.  Being persuasive brings people with us and we can meet the goals we have set.  The issue is if we are not persuasive, then they may not choose to follow us, but seek someone else who is more persuasive.

 

The beauty of being a presenter is that we are sharply focused on one of the most important business and life skills.  Those like the old me, who will run a mile if asked to present or speak in public are really missing out.  The fear of embarrassment and possible humiliation overrides the ability to plumb the benefits of having this facility.

 

The talent lies within us and the trick is to unleash that talent.  It is not an inborn talent.  We learn how to become a more convincing, persuasive speaker over time.  The biggest obstacle is lack of knowledge of what to do in order to master the art of public speaking.  Those in denial do not sign up for classes, coached by professionals. They don’t purchase the videos, audio sets and books written by experts on the subject.  They don’t listen to the free podcasts available.  They don’t tap into the vast experience of others and so short circuit the learning process.

 

Talent comes from nurture and we have to invest the time to nurture our abilities.  Content marketing has become one of the greatest educational breakthroughs in human history.  Putting out great content for free has never been done before on this global scale.  The intellectual property was proprietary and if you wanted to gain access then you had to pay for it.  The idea of giving away your Intellectual Property for free sounded like nonsense.  Yet today what do we see?  A vast array, in fact an overwhelming array of insight, information, data and analysis sitting out in the public domain at no charge.  If you want to do something there is probably a YouTube video on how to do it.  How good is that!

 

We must invest our time though in a calculated manner, because we are all drinking from the firehose, given that the free content volume is immense.  Educating ourselves in a considered way will help to sort through which content is the most valuable.  Of course, the only valuable knowledge is applied knowledge.  We need to be taking what we are learning and then adopting the better ways of doing things and making them our new default positions, our new habits.

Not everything we need is free and some investment of our treasure is needed. The content marketing logic is that you get to taste the quality and if you think this is what you need, you purchase more of this content.  Do you have an ongoing education budget allocation for polishing your persuasion skills? Where is the best allocation of treasure to gain the most powerful outcomes?  How much do you need to be spending every year to become an outstanding professional?  There is an old observation about do rich people have libraries because they are rich or did they become rich, because they have libraries?  I firmly believe education, however humble or basic, is critical to personal growth.  The more money we can pour into our education, the more successful we will become.  It can’t be an intellectual curiosity in business, it needs to be applied.

 

We have time, talent and treasure to help us become better presenters, more powerful persuaders and boost our personal and professional brands.  No matter if your New Year resolutions went off the rails already, time to regroup and reset for the coming year.  It is never too late to start again.  The second time for us will bring more context and perspective to where we need to apply ourselves for greater success.

 

Feb 7, 2022

Today we are going to look at communicating with greater impact.  So the first question is what do we mean when we say “impact”?  Most talks are totally forgettable.  Test this hypothesis yourself – how many of the many talks you have listened to, can you remember either the speaker, the topic or both?  Generally, we struggle to remember either, because there was no impact for us.  We were not touched emotionally and logically by the presentation.  Logical presentations with really great data and insight are fantastic, but these do not stick because we are under constant bombardment from new data.  Statistics from a year ago are now irrelevant today, because we have moved on.  The content in written form is difficult to bring alive, but when delivered by a trained presenter the same content can be scintillating.  I don’t mean reading it word by word, but taking the content and really being excellent in the delivery of the content.

 

Speaking in a boring manner must be the evolutionary default setting of the human race, because this seems to be the easiest way to give a talk.  The only problem is we might be impressed to be on the giving end, standing up there on stage pontificating,  but those on the receiving end are not paying attention.  They are bored by us and our talk and they escape to the internet to find more interesting things to do.  Two or three clicks on a mobile phone and our audience are in distraction heaven, completely oblivious to us and our message.

 

A monotone delivery is guaranteed to lose the audience and therefore your message isn’t going to resonate with anyone.  That constant same tone is like a version of presenter “white noise” and it makes us drowsy. We need to have some variety in our delivery, which will keep our audience listening to us from start to finish.  There are some simple techniques presenters need to master to avoid being sent to presenter oblivion by our audiences.

 

Here are some points to work on:

  1. Word emphasis – we should try to add extra stress to key words or phrases when we speak. Not all words have the same heft and we don’t want harmonisation across the whole sentence. We want certain elements to stand head and shoulders above their neighbours. This makes a tremendous difference to how our message is received. 

 

Let’s take an example with this phrase: “This makes a tremendous difference”. Say these phrases out loud to yourself and listen to the difference in impact when I stress key words:  “THIS makes a tremendous difference” or “this MAKES a tremendous difference” or “this makes a TREMENDOUS difference” or “this makes a tremendous DIFFERENCE”.  Just be adding some stress to certain key words, we can change the meaning of the sentence. 

 

  1. Pauses – when we stop speaking, that is a “pattern interrupt” and if some people have been escaping from our presentation, this will bring them back to us. When we insert a pause, it creates a contrast between our sentences and it grabs people’s attention.  The next time you give a talk, try doubling the length of the current pauses you are using in a couple of parts of the talk.  It has that pattern interrupt feature and generates anticipation of what is going to come next.

 

 

  1. Pacing – we can really slow words down to give them emphasis. L-E-T-S S-L-O-W   I-T R-I-G-H-T  D-O-W-N  We can also go very fast for contrast, but not for too long or we will lose people.  We are looking for emphasis here to give us impact with the listeners.

 

  1. Modulation – Japanese is a monotone language, so it doesn't have the same natural tonal variety of most western languages. However, it can have differences of speed and strength injected into the delivery to create variety. If a classical music orchestra only played the crescendos or only the softer lulls of the piece, it would be extremely boring.   If we speak with the same strength, soft or strong throughout, we will lose people.  Highs and lows are what create variety. 

 

 

  1. Phrasing – we can use alliteration or rhyme with certain words to create memorable phrases. For example we can go from “hero” to “zero”.  This a good example of a phrase which sticks with an audience.  Look for places where you can create these memory links to you and your talk, so that people won’t forget either.

 

  1. Movement - gestures are super powerful and when congruent with what we are saying, can really add a lot of strength to our statements. Hold gestures for a maximum of fifteen seconds, because after that, their power goes right down and they are no longer effective.  Be very careful about running around, up and down the stage, pacing to and fro – this is a real distraction from your message.  The rule is to move for a distinct purpose only.  Design that in from the start so you know what you are doing and why you are doing it.

 

These six points will create impact with your audience because remember, everyone else is stuck in the same groove like an old vinyl record and they are losing their audience.  You however will be seen as a person of value, absolutely enhancing your personal and professional brands.

Jan 31, 2022

The Q&A is a great chance to clarify any points which were not clear to the audience.  This is an opportunity to really reinforce some points we made in the talk, to make them even more impactful with the audience. We can also draw on our reserve power and add extra content which we couldn’t include in the speech.  Apart from when we were mingling with our audience before the talk starts, this is the next opportunity to interact with our listeners.

 

We have to take some precautionary steps to prepare for the Q&A.  When we are designing the talk, we have to think of the likely questions we may get, so that we are well prepared to answer them.  We also have to understand that the Q&A is like a street fight – there are no rules.  Members of the audience can argue with us, call us a charlatan, debate with us and dismiss everything we have said. People can also ask us anything they like, however off topic. 

 

There are a couple of steps we need for dealing with hostile audiences. From the very start we should clearly state how long we have for questions.  We may find the hostile audience is quite hard to deal with and then we suddenly say we have to go and we look like a coward running away.  Once we have stated the time limit for questions, we can just say, “we have now reached the end of question time” and then we can go into our second close and leave with our dignity intact.

 

After stating the time limit for questions we say, “who has the first question”.  This is a subtle hint that we are expecting a lot of questions. If we don’t get any questions, we just say, “a question I am often asked is….”.  We state our own question and then we answer it.  Usually this gives people in the audience the courage to ask their question because the ice has been broken.

 

The type of people who go after a speaker are trying to show everyone how clever and tough they are.  When we receive this type of question we look straight at the person, but try not to move our head.  In polite society, we sometimes nod when people ask a question to give them encouragement, but we don’t want to look like we are agreeing with them and the thesis of the hostile question. 

 

We look straight at the person, no nodding and just hear them out.  We keep calm because we know we have a sure fire way of dealing with hostile questioners.  Once they have finished, we stop looking at them and now look at the rest of the audience.  We paraphrase what they have said. 

 

We do this in a special way, where we take all the sting out of the question.  For example, if they said, “Isn’t it true that your company is going to fire 10% of the workforce, just before the end of the year, when it is impossible to find another job”.  If it wasn’t a hostile question, we could just repeat it because often people sitting in other parts of the audience couldn’t hear what the questioner was saying.  

 

We absolutely do not want to say, “The questions was, is it true that we are going to sack 10% of the staff before the end of the year”.  Instead, we paraphrase and purposely weaken the invective.  We could say, “the question was about staffing”.  Now we turn back to face our hostile questioner. 

 

By paraphrasing, we have given ourselves between five to ten seconds to consider how best to answer the question.  We proceed to give the first six seconds of the answer, while maintaining eye contact with our questioner.  After that, we never give them any eye contact again for the rest of the event.  They feed off attention, so we now strategically cut off their supply of attention and we look at the other audience members and talk to them.  We keep making six seconds of eye contact with the others in the audience until we finish.  The hostile questioner becomes deflated, because they are not getting any of the limelight and attention they seek.

 

The other people attending the event will be amazed at how professionally you handled the situation, which they know had it been them, they would have had no idea what to do.  Our personal and professional brands have just been elevated.

 

We now say, “who has the next question?”.  If it not hostile, we can repeat the question so that everyone can hear it and we then answer it.  Again, we start the answer by directing our eye contact to the person asking the question and then move our eye contact to others in the room for six seconds each.  If we want a bit more time to think about our answer, we can just insert a pause.  Or we might use a cushion.  This is a brief neutral statement that buys us thinking time.  For example, we could say, “Thank you, I am glad you have raised that point”. We wrap things up by saying, “We have time for one final question.  Who has the last question?”.  We answer it and then we go into our second close. 

 

Generally speaking, we want our answers to be concise, so that more people can interact with us by asking questions.  It is also advisable to be brief because we will get ourselves into less trouble with our answers!

 

Jan 24, 2022

What is a complex subject?  That really depends on the audience.  If they are all experts in that subject area, then the presentation can and must be done at the same high level.  If they are not knowledgeable on the subject, we need to avoid assuming too much prior exposure to related information and not use jargon and acronyms. There are varying levels of difficult themes when presenting.  It is relatively rare that we have to present highly complex content in a standard business talk.  Rather, this type of activity would take place at specialist conferences and at industry events, where the audience are experts or at least dilettantes. This is usually an inform type of presentation, where we are going to clearly explain a technical or complicated matter and pass on insights, data, statistics etc.

 

We have a number of guiding requirements when we are designing this type of presentation.  

  1. We need to develop flexibility in making complex material simple and understandable. We often work inside our own mental framework, where we know what we are talking about and assume that is the same for everyone listening.  We need to step outside our bubble and see the content from the audience’s point of view.  How can we deliver the message in a way which will overcome their barriers to understanding?  How can we communicate in a way which makes the subject seem simple to grasp?

 

  1. We must seek ways to communicate the information in an interesting manner. Storytelling is brilliant for making dry facts and figures spring to life and attain a relevancy which appeals to our listeners.  We should definitely never resort to speaking in a brutal monotone when delving into the bloody entrails of the subject.  Voice modulation, pauses and hitting key words harder than others, will provide the light and shade needed to create variety in the delivery, making it easier for everyone to follow our key messages.

 

 

  1. Let’s relate to the audience at their level. This can be tricky because there is rarely the same level of expertise in the room.  We have to aim for the lowest common denominator and speak at that level, without alienating the actual experts in attendance. 

 

  1. We must follow a logical progression of ideas otherwise the complexity of the subject will lose members of the audience. It is hard enough to deal with difficult subjects without making the delivery hard to follow as well.

 

 

  1. We shouldn’t forget to develop emotional contact with the audience. Well designed visuals can connect to everyone’s emotions.  Like storytelling, the slides can bring a dry idea to life and make it compelling. Showing the results before and after in visual form, especially using photos, is both powerful and convincing. Importantly, we must have one idea per slide as our standard, to make sure the audience can understand the point of the side in just two seconds.

 

  1. As always, when thinking about how to approach the nitty gritty of the talk, we begin by designing our two closes. What is the key information we wish to inform our audience about.  We must work hard to strip this down to the minimum number of words required because that will aid gaining clarity.  The second close can just be a repeat of the first close or we could express the key point in a different way.

 

 

  1. Now we work on the core message. Depending on the length of the talk, we will build a certain number of chapters, each of which provides the evidence and proof to back up what we are telling everyone about our subject.

 

  1. Finally, we design the opening. In the case of complex information we can use an analogy. How does this work?  An analogy is very useful when we are trying to explain complex concepts in a simple manner.  We are comparing the similarities of two dissimilar things.  For example, “designing the corporate strategy is like ordering a gelato”.  In this example there is nothing similar between designing corporate strategy and ice cream.  We are taking two dissimilar things and connecting them to make a point. 

 

  1. Having stated the analogy, we now have to explain what we mean, so that the audience can get the point. We continue, “When we order the gelato, we hope this is going to be what we want and will give us the flavour and taste outcome we want, but no matter how good it looks in the refrigerated cabinet in the store, we won’t know the truth until we actually taste it.  This is the same with corporate strategy.  It may look perfect on paper and the design seems to make logical sense, but we won’t know if it works until we apply it”.

 

Obviously, this is the design stage where we start with the end, but in fact we are going to deliver the talk in this order: analogy, analogy explanation, main body, close number one, transition to Q&A, close number two.

 

Whenever we have a complex subject to present, we need to approach it differently from our usual garden variety talks.  The basics don’t change – we need a good design and an excellent delivery, but the mindset needs some revision before we begin the process.  If we do this then our talk will be well received and we will continue to build our personal and professional brands.

 

Jan 17, 2022

Persuasion Power Eats Everything For Breakfast

Intuitively, we know that people who can command an audience, energise teams, excite customers and secure decisions through their persuasion power are successful individuals.  Did they gain persuasion power because they were successful or did they become successful through their persuasion power.  We know it is the latter.  Given we all know this, then why are so few business people successful as speakers.  I attended a chamber of commerce AGM, which just shocked me.  It hadn’t dawned on me that as part of the proceedings those aspiring for a position on the Board, had to get up and say why they should be selected.  When I realised this prospect was looming, I thought to myself, “this will be interesting”.  There were some very serious corporations’ very serious heavy hitters assembled to joust for seats on the Committee.

 

No Free Pass for Corporate Captains Of Industry

What a revelation.  Almost none of them could string a five minute talk together extolling their own virtues.  I was wondering how on earth they were allowed to represent their brands with such an underwhelming facility in persuasion power?  Why didn’t their companies invest in making them presentation and promotion advocates advancing the brand’s credibility.  As often happens though, they didn’t get the training, they just got the responsibility for their big enterprise’s revenue production.  They toiled long and hard in the engine rooms of their companies becoming outstanding individual performers.  Often they started as technical people, typically engineers, who were excellent in their field of specialty.  Promotion after promotion led them to run the operation.

 

Getting to the top and being able to successfully promote the brand are not the same thing.  The apex of the organisation narrows down to only a limited number of contenders for the top positions.  Those who have the technical skills, the experience and the ability to persuade others will self-select themselves for the top job.  The logical conclusion is to not wait until you get promoted to garner the facility to persuade, but to grab that skill set so that you are the one who gets promoted.

 

Self Promotion That Elevates Personal Brands

Promoting oneself and being really good at what you do are also not a given.  We have to be intelligent, competent, industrious, patient and strategic.  At the same time we should get training and grab every single opportunity to promote our personal and professional brands through presenting.  Once we gain more ability, we will be given more opportunities for bigger events and larger venues.  Being able to present to a large audience is good, but being able to keep presenting to large audiences is even better.  We scale up our capacity to dominate any sized venue, as we learn the intricacies of each step on the ladder.  The chances though of getting a series of large events from the very start are low.  We have to put in the sustained work and build up our presenting nouse, skills and confidence.

 

My recent TED talk was speech number 546 for me, so you would think that would be a dawdle for such an experienced presenter.  What I immediately realised though, was the scale was different.  It wasn’t a typical large venue, it was a vast global audience.  Normally, if you underperform in your talk, only the assembled business people know about it.  If you do a poor job on your TED talk, then you are exposing your personal brand to the entire world and exposing it forever.  In my case, it is even worse, because I teach presentation skills professionally. I also have my global Dale Carnegie colleagues and all of my competitors, watching like hawks.  I also recently published my book on presenting in Japan, raising the bar on expectations.  On the other hand, if you are under the spotlight and you do a professional job, then your brand becomes global and your credibility goes up.

 

The Catastrophe Secret Escape Hatch For Presenters

It looks like there is no safety net with presenting on the big stage but that is not quite true.  Yes, you only have yourself to rely on for the success or failure of the talk.  No one can sweep in from the wings of the stage and rescue you from a self-induced disaster.  What people see on stage is only the tip of the presenting iceberg.  Be it the experienced presenter or the novice, there is one huge escape hatch from speaking catastrophe and that is rehearsal. 

 

This is such an obvious thing, you have to wonder why I even raise it?  What is amazing though is that the vast majority of business talks are given once, delivered to the live audience and that is it.  Investing time and effort into the rehearsals will do more for a person’s personal and professional brand than any other factor.  I teach company presidents how to deliver their speeches and the before and after versions are comprehensive validations for why everyone should rehearse as much as possible.  I am there to coach and provide feedback for them, but any speaker can get valuable feedback in rehearsal if they know how to do it.  Never ever ask “how was it?”.  A torrent of confidence crushing critique will land on your head immediately.  Instead ask, “what was I doing well and what can I do to improve it?”.  Do that every time and you will maximise the effectiveness of the feedback during your rehearsals.

 

“Persuasion Power Eats Everything For Breakfast”

“Persuasion power eats everything for breakfast”, should be our business community mantra.  We know this is true, but are we doing anything about honing our presenting facility?  Hope is not much of a strategy for becoming a persuasive speaker.  Getting professional training, rehearsing and seizing every opportunity to give talks are the keys to success.  With greater responsibility comes the requirement to be highly persuasive.  So let’s get to work and become highly persuasive, fully primed to step up.

Jan 10, 2022

The prediction business is always fun.  We nominate our plans so that God can laugh, according to the old Yiddish proverb.  Nevertheless, we need to make some plans don’t we.  The Gregorian calendar beginning of the year is as good a time as any to think “start”.  The last two years has seen the entire speaking business metamorphise into an online venture for the most part.  Standing in front of a crowd is now somewhat of a distant memory for most of us.  Internal meetings have gone the same way and we chime in from home on what is happening with the results so far this month or quarter or whatever. 

 

The world seems to have sunk into the abyss of the ordinary, when it comes to persuasion power. Meetings have moved from the usual insomnia inducing exercises in the physical meeting room to the online room, but faithfully retaining the insomnia inducing capability.  The best part of this has been the boredom of listening to colleagues drone on, is leavened by just turning your camera off and doing other more interesting stuff in the background, without drawing any boss wrath.  Of course, our colleagues are doing the same thing to us too, when it is our turn to speak.

 

Online webinars have also sunk to the bottom of the ocean, where the crush of the weight of the water saps any life from the talks.  People are so amazingly adaptable.  They have learnt how to move their usual boring delivery online and without any apology.  Once upon time the speaker would only be impinging on the time and patience of a small crowd of people, but with the wonders of Webex, Zoom, Teams, etc., the tech has created a weapon of mass destruction.

 

Is this your plan for 2022?  Are you writing in your organizer, “I can’t wait to bore people to death again this year”?  I doubt that would be the case, but I also doubt that among the many goals being set for this year, becoming a master of persuasion is in there.  How could that be the case?  The complexities of communication have only gone up with the advances in society and business. 

 

We operate in the Age of Distraction and the Era of Cynicism.  Social media armed mobile phones have allowed us to spend every second of our downtime endlessly scrolling for something more interesting.  Our concentration spans are being measured in nanoseconds today.  We have become the most distracted generation in global history.  How can we gain persuasion power in this tech induced mess?

 

Our other problem is no one wants to believe anything they hear anymore, as everyone is more anxious about falling victim to fake news.  It isn’t much respite from the pressures on modern communication to know that even if we are getting our message listened to, a lot of people are doubting anything we say.  Science itself is in doubt and now “alternative facts” is a thing. Where will all of this end and what does it mean for us as presenters, persuaders and advocates?

 

There are some sure bets, some certainties that we can rely on though.  These include the fact that the majority of people in business will remain hopeless communicators and persuaders.  They won’t analyse the current reality for opportunities to stand out, to break through the noise and get their messages heard and believed.  They won’t understand that while what we say is important, how we say it is more important to being effective as a presenter.  The ability to wield language and to wield its delivery are potent tools for success in business.  If everyone was well versed in being persuasive, our task would become more onerous and competitive very quickly.  Well, that isn’t going to happen, because our colleagues and competitors will just wander into 2022 and repeat the same mistakes they made in 2021. 

 

Let’s add “I will become a master of persuasion” to our list of things to be achieved this year.  Standing above the hoi polloi isn’t easy, but this is one area where we can seize the advantage.  If we haven’t studied this art of public speaking, let’s commit to doing that.  If we haven’t taken the training, then let’s get that into our schedules for this year.  The great unwashed will do nothing, so let’s take action and differentiate ourselves from those who are either ignorant or lazy or both.  Persuaders of the world, arise in 2022 and seize the opportunity to polish our craft and take success into our own hands.

 

 

Jan 3, 2022

What is our presenter vision for 2022?  If it has any element of success involved (and it would be a pretty rare resolution that didn’t have that), then being persuasive is going to be integral to the success of realising that vision.  If you are trying to climb the corporate ladder, then getting your thoughts sorted and have others listen and agree is persuasion power.  If you are the boss and you want the team to get behind your new ideas, direction, project, fresh business initiative etc., then you need them to follow you and that means having persuasive presence.  If you are a peer and you seek the cooperation of your colleagues from other divisions, then you need to persuade them to elevate your needs up their priority list.  If you want your clients to buy and buy right now, then your persuasion skills have to be excellent.

 

Great.  How do we become more persuasive in business?   Being a force of nature won’t work.  No matter how much belief, passion and enthusiasm we have mustered, the person we are talking to won’t care much, unless they see something concrete in it for them.  We should plan our interactions, so that we get the best result.  That makes a lot of sense, however, we can’t always have that opportunity.  We may be in the midst of a discussion and we suddenly need to weigh in with our idea.  We have no time for careful, detailed planning and scoping of how the conversation should run, because the situation it so fluid.  What do we do?

 

Habit is a powerful tool in business.  It means we can engage in high level activities without needing any preparation time.  Therefore we need to build habits, so that we are in flow, reacting spontaneously without thought.  The habits we choose can be destructive though and defeat us in our quest for persuasion.  Interrupting others when they are speaking would have to be at the top of the “stop doing” list.  This is always a problem, because it says to the other person that what they are saying has no value and we are more important than them.  Finishing their sentences for them would probably rank as number two in the deadly habits list.  It says we are more articulate and clever than they are. We have anticipated where they are going with the conversation and we can get there more effectively than them, because we are smarter than they are.

 

Instead, we need to make CEP our new persuasion habit.  I know everyone needs another acronym like a hole in the head, but they are a handy short form to help us remember the content, so please bear with me on CEP.  The “C” stands for “context”.  We start not with our proposal or suggestion, but with the background.  This is a very strategic choice that guarantees we can reduce rejection and resistance for our idea.  When we leap into our plan or idea, we will face two levels of resistance.  The quick thinkers will be telling us why that idea won’t work or that it has been tried before and failed, etc.  The deeper thinkers will be doing the same thing, but they won’t necessarily voice their opposition at that moment, because the bolshie, assertive few are dominating the airwaves.

 

Starting with the context is genius because there is nothing to disagree with.  The listeners are just hearing the background which has led you to draw certain conclusions based on the details and facts of the case.  The quick thinkers will be racing ahead of you and leaping to conclusions about what should be done.  The deeper thinkers will be doing the same thing, just at a much more substantive level. 

 

The “E” stands for the “execution” that you are recommending to the group.  Our recommended actions won’t be whimsy, accidental or fantasy.  Based on the facts of the case there are some logical things which should happen as a result.  The listeners in many cases will have arrived at the same conclusion as we have or are well on the way toward it.  They will be more likely to agree with our idea, because they feel they have discovered it for themselves independently, based on the facts they have heard.

 

The final “P” is for “payoff”.  The idea of recency says that people tend to remember best what they heard the most recent, so we save the best for last.  They have raced ahead of us to what the execution piece should be. The next thing they hear is the payoff from taking that recommended action, which makes it even easier for them to agree with our idea.

 

The key is to make this process our standard operating behaviour.  Instead of jumping in and blurting out our idea, naked and undefended, we go straight to the context first.  By making this our habitual way of introducing ideas and suggestions, we create a new habit, one which substantially eliminates opposition to what we are saying.  If you make this one decision to adopt the CEP habit for 2022, then your persuasion power will get a tremendous boost.

 

 

Dec 27, 2021

Let’s look at the designing the closes.  Notice this is plural, not singular. There are two closes required when we are speaking.  Usually there will be Q&A at the end and we have to account for that.  We design our first close to wrap up our talk.  We open for Q&A and then we have lost control of proceedings.  Make no mistake.  Question time can become a street fight with no rules. Anyone can ask anything they like, no matter how tangential, irrelevant and obtuse it may be. We cannot control it, so we just have to deal with it. 

The problem is the final question may concern something absolutely unrelated to what we talked about.  The result is the audience walk out of the room with that information forefront in their minds, rather than our carefully crafted, especially tailored key message.  We cannot allow that to happen.  We need to design a second close so that our message dominates the final impression of our speech.  The audience must walk out of that presentation with our key message ringing in their minds or we will have failed in our fundamental task. We can give slightly different versions of the same information for each close.  The key is to prepare two closes at the very start

In the delivery of our talk, we need to end on a crescendo in this last close.  Many speakers let their voice trail off and then just peter out to nothing.  This is a very consistent problem and speakers do not seem to be aware they are allowing this to happen. We know that final impression is key and the point is we determine what that will be.  Let’s have a rousing message at the end and let’s hit that message hard.  Here are some closes we can use:

To Convince or Impress

  1. We repeat the major benefit. We will have a number of take aways for our audience and a good plan is to select only the most memorable and most powerful and repeat that benefit to the audience.  Always focus on the highest priority messages, rather than diluting the key message with a host of other lesser messages, all competing for the listener’s attention.
  2. Use a quotation. We may be very smart and have lots of great things to say.  That is just using ourselves though as the reference point.  Sometimes we will employ the credibility of an established expert or powerful influencer and draw on a quotation from their words.  These are usually very famous phrasings so the audience will recognise the quote immediately.  We can curate pithy sayings and have them ready to go when we need them.  We all run across these at different times so the trick is to keep track of some which we can use in our presentations and have them handy to draw upon.

To Inform

  1. Repeat your key point. In the inform talk we will have been passing along a lot of information, much of it very detailed.  It can be confusing for an audience to know which information to focus on.  We select the one piece of information we believe will be the most important and we repeat it again.  We don’t want to make the audience work hard to follow what we are sayings.  By determining the key points, we do the work for them so all they have to do is absorb what we are saying, rather than having to analyse it for themselves.
  2. Recap the steps of a process or plan. In the inform talk we are often providing so much information that we have to group it into brackets for the audience to understand.  We may outline “the nine steps” or “the four key data points” etc.  This numbered packaging up of information makes it much easier for the audience to navigate through our talk and keep up with what we are saying.  At the end, we select one of the key information pieces and then remind the audience about it.

To Persuade

  1. Present the action and benefit. We won’t be keen to take a recommended action unless we think there is something in it for ourselves.  By combining the action needed with the benefit, it is clear to the audience the value of taking our advice.
  2. Final Recommendation. We select the key course of action we have been talking about.  We restate it at the very end and this makes it very clear what we hope the audience will do from now.

 

The final impression is in our hands, to mould and shape in the way we want it. We must dominate the final message and jettison any distractions which may have arisen during the question time.  The key is to design the close very carefully and deliver it with power and conviction.  If we do that, then our messages will resonate with our audiences and that is why we are doing this in the first place, isn’t it.

Dec 20, 2021

We flagged this point last episode and today we are going to look at the use of evidence when giving presentations.  I often mention the two modern dilemmas of being a presenter.  We now live in the Age of Distraction where audiences will rapidly escape from us to the internet, if we haven’t sufficiently captured their attention.  Sometimes, even when they are interested, they are still multi-tasking.  They are listening to us and scrolling through their social media at the same time.  This habit has solidified and it is a nightmare today to get our message across.  The other dilemma is we are in the Era of Cynicism.  Fake news is now a thing and our audience’s sensitivity to the validity of information has become more acute. 

 

Both of these drivers make our job even harder than in the past.  If we fill our presentations with “editorial” or “opinion” we are likely to lose the attention of the listeners.  They are there to gain some benefit from giving us their attention and as riveting as our opinion may be to us, it may not ignite much interest in the audience.  If we don’t bring some concrete insights, backed up with proof and evidence then the hands will be reaching for their phones immediately.  The Era of Cynicism means the evidence had better be highly credible and employing numerous sources.  Talking about findings from your own research is good, but could be greeted with doubt, if you don’t mention the detail on how the findings were assembled.

 

When we are designing our talk, we have access to some useful tools. DEFEATS is a handy acronym for remembering the different types of evidence we can draw upon to convince or impress our audience that what we say is true.

 

D-Demonstration. This might be something that can be shown physically during the presentation or something that we can show on screen, using software, audio or video.  It has to be congruent with the point we are making and provide a visual reinforcement of our key point.

 

E-Example.  The best examples are those which are most relevant to the members of the audience.  We should try and know who is in our audience and think what would be an example that will resonate with as many people as possible.  If the example is from the same industry and a similarly sized organisation then it becomes more meaningful for the audience.  I attended a talk given by a senior executive from a major organisation, who used examples within that context.  The problem was that the audience were all small to medium sized companies and there was nothing to relate to.

 

F-Facts.  Facts are provable and can be verified independently.  A claim is not a fact.  We need to be able to cite where the fact can be checked, if we are asked.  When we show graphs, for example, we should have the source of the data prominently displayed.  Most people won’t bother to check the data, but they feel better knowing they can do so if they wish.

 

E-Exhibits. This is usually something physical we can show to the audience.  In some cases, it may also be shown as an image.  In both cases we have to make sure the audience can see it easily.  If it is a physical object, hold it up around shoulder height, rather down around the waist.  Also, don’t wave it around – hold it still, so it easy for the audience to see.

 

A-Analogies.  We referred to Analogies in Openings Part One in Episode #264.  We are trying to simplify something complex for our audience. We compare two things which have no natural connection to make the point clearer.  For examples, we compare flying a passenger aircraft and speech making.  There is no natural connection between them.  Now we connect them.  “Flying a passenger plane is like giving a speech.  The take off and landing for aircraft are the most dangerous periods of the flight.  In the same way for speeches, openings and closing determine our impression with our audience”.  This connects two ideas and makes them more accessible for the listeners.

T-Testimonials.  Social proof has become extremely powerful today.  Testimonials are not our primary form of evidence, but they lend credibility to what we are saying.  A recognized expert supporting what we are saying gives our point more power.  In our case, the most famous investor in the world Warren Buffett is a huge fan of Dale Carnegie and often mentions the impact the training had on his career.  We could never afford to pay him to do that, but he does it anyway, because he is a true believer and that make it even more powerful.

 

S-Statistics.  The best statistics are third-party numbers.  If we quote our own research, that is okay, but it is not as convincing as also having an independent organisation’s statistics.

 

When we are designing our main argument, as we get to the key points, we should be trying to match them with hard evidence to prove the point.  If we do that, then we will have a much better chance of keeping the audience with us right through to the end of our presentation.  If we can do that in today’s distracted and cynical environment, we will  have been highly successful.

Dec 13, 2021

In some recent episodes we looked at how to open the presentation. Today we are going to look at designing the main body of our talk. The design process of our talks is counterintuitive.  We always start with the end, then do the main body and then the opening last. The close defines the key message we want to impart to the audience.  The opening breaks through all the competition for our audience’s attention. The main body is made up of the chapters of the talk.  In a thirty minute to forty minute speech, we can probably get through three to five key points, to back up our key assertion.  This is where we make our case, so it has to be well planned.

 

In the main body we need a lot of evidence.  We will deal with evidence in much more detail next week.  The key is to focus on the strongest supporting arguments to back up our key message.  There will be many choices about how to make the main argument, but we have limited time, so only choose the strongest possible content.  I support the Japan Market Expansion Competition (JMEC) here in Japan.  I advise teams on how to write and present their business plans, in order to win the competition.  Often, I notice that there are real gems, actual diamonds in their main body, but they are being trampled into the mud and you have trouble noticing or appreciating them.  We have to identify our strongest points supporting our contention and then give that evidence pride of place, so that the listener gets the point immediately.  We should never make the audience work hard to understand what we are saying.  Audiences have decreasing levels of concentration, so we need to get the gems up the front, to hook the listener’s interest. This keeps them with us for the rest of the talk.

 

Like a good novel, the chapters need to logically flow one into each other.  We have to make sure the audience can follow our line of reasoning.  The way we navigate the story for the listeners is critical. Using stories to illustrate our points is a must.  Dry statistics and facts are not enough.  People won’t remember them, but they will remember a gripping story.  Try to get people, places and seasons into the story, preferably those already known to the audience. Our objective is that the audience can picture the scene in their minds.

 

Remember, we are all being fed a steady diet of videos, films and novels where the power of the story is taken to the greatest heights.  In the visual media, writers for these works are often crafting away in high powered teams and getting paid a lot of money to find ways of drawing us into the story and keeping us in their grip throughout. Then we occasional speakers turn up to give our little talk.  We have to understand we are competing with the professionals and the audience is expecting us to be professional as well.  If we cannot match their expectations, then our personal and professional brands are damaged.

 

The unveiling of the main body has to be well thought through.  Each chapter needs a change of pace.  It might be raising our energy or going the other direction and lowering the tension.  It doesn't matter which way we go, but we cannot keep going at the same pace throughout the whole talk.  We need variation to keep people with us.  In sales, we talk about designing hooks to jag the interest of the buyer.  Presenting is the same.  We need hooks that will jag the interest of the audience and they will be wanting to know what comes next.  This doesn’t happen by chance.  We need to carefully design these hooks.

 

For example, we might start a chapter of the main body with a statement, “Losing ten million dollars was the best education I ever received in business”. Everyone hearing that wants to hear the rest of the story.  What happened to you?  Why did you lose the ten million?  Why was it such a great education?  What happened next? This is an example of a power hook.  We need a series of these scattered throughout our chapters. If we can do that, then the main body will never be a drag on the attention of the audience. If we do it well, they will be on the edge of their seats, eager to find out what we are going to say next.  If we don’t, the audience will be reaching for their phones, to escape to the siren call of the internet.

 

The main body does all of the heavy lifting to make our case.  It is also the segment which occupies the majority of the time for the talk, so it must be crafted extremely well.  Break it down into segments or chapters and pile on the evidence. Don’t just read out a bunch of dry data points.  Get the data assembled into stories which will resonate with the audience.  I once had to read the Australian Ambassador Ashton Calvert’s speech in Japanese, when I was Consul General in Osaka, as he couldn’t make the event.  These types of speeches are prepared by Embassy staff for the Ambassador.  It was a classic tale of trade statistics and no stories.  I was giving this speech, thinking to myself, we could have done a lot more with this content to make it more engaging and grab the emotions of the audience.  Departing from the script in that type of case would get you fired, so you have to do it word perfect.  An opportunity gone begging, was my conclusion and a good lesson for me when preparing my own talks.

 

The main body has the advantage of following your grabber opening, so you have everyone’s attention.  Don’t blow it.  Keep the hooks coming in the chapters of the main body and keep the audience with you right through to the end.

 

 

 

Dec 6, 2021

This speaker has it all.  You are sitting down the back of the room, yet you can sense their inner energy, confidence, surety of what they are saying.  You feel they have charisma, that compelling attractiveness as a presenter.  You want to be like that too, but how?  Let’s see how you can increase your presence and appeal as a speaker. 

 

What the audience won’t see you doing is rehearsing on them.  This sounds infinitely logical, yet so many speakers deliver their talk once. They are practicing on their live audience.  Is this what professionals do?  Of course not.  Professionals walk on stage after they have given their talk many, many times in rehearsal.  They have worked out the correct length, the high points, the cadence, the humour and every small detail needed to make the talk a success.  For feedback, they never ask, “what do you think?”.  Instead, they ask “what was good?” and “how could I make it better?”.  They use video and audio review to improve.  If they are travelling to make the talk, they know that with the lights out, a hotel room’s windows become mirrors, so that they can check their delivery.

 

Fully Prepared

 

When you get to the venue, the speaker is already there and in fact has been there an hour earlier checking everything is ready.  They get a sense of the room.  They sit in the cheap seats and see how they will appear up on stage.  They make sure their slide deck is loaded and working correctly.  They know how to work the slide advancer correctly and have worked out the sound levels for the microphone.  You never see them bashing the microphone and asking “can you hear me down the back”.  They have told the venue crew to leave the lights up and not dim them down to suit the screen.  While waiting for people to arrive, they have diplomatically instructed the MC to read their introduction exactly as it has been crafted to project their personal brand.

 

They are standing near the door as people arrive, introducing themselves and asking what attracted them to today’s topic. They are working the room before the event kicks off. They give each person they engage with 100% of their attention, listening quietly, never interrupting them, finishing their sentences nor jumping in with their own clever comment.  They are building tremendous good will with as many people in the audience as possible before they get anywhere near the stage.  They remember your name and the main details of what you said.  They are genuinely interested to meet you and find out what you are doing.  They have demolished that invisible barrier between speaker and audience.

 

They are perfectly dressed for the occasion.  They look the part of success.  Every detail has been thought through.  They don’t allow bright ties, puffy pocket chiefs or big scarves to compete with their face.  They know their face is a million watt power source and they make it the main reference point for the audience, rather than being dominated by the slides.

 

Dominate The Space

The MC calls them on to the stage, after reciting their turbo charged credibility resume, exactly as requested.  They walk to the center of the stage and start immediately, spending no time switching computers and loading their files.  They have arranged for such pedestrian logistics to be handled by their support crew. They have purposely freed themselves up to absolutely nail the first two seconds impression window.  They know that we live in the Age of Distraction and the Era of Cynicism and all we have is two seconds for the audience to decide their first impression of us.  They don’t waste that opportunity.  Their opening is a real grabber that cuts through all the competition for audience mind space. They reference a couple of the people they were speaking with earlier in the audience.  “Mary made a good point about….”, “Bill had a wonderful insight on today’s topic….”.  They are broadcasting to everyone that we are all one unit today and there is no longer any space separating speaker and listener.

 

They are projecting their ki bouncing it off the rear walls, pumping out high energy to their audience. What they say is clear, concise, well structured, supported by slides which are on point and Zen like in their clarity.  The key message is crystal clear and their evidence is unassailable.  They are engaging each individual audience member in six seconds of eye contact creating the feeling that the speaker is talking directly to them and no one else.  What they say and how they say it is totally congruent.

 

Control The Final impression

They finish the talk with their first close and smoothly transition to Q&A stating how many minutes for questions. They paraphrase the questions, so that everyone in the audience can hear what was asked.  As they answer, they give the questioner six seconds of eye contact and then work the room with six seconds of eye contact each for the other members of the audience. They don’t try and duck difficult questions.  They mention, “I don’t know, but I will find out and get back to you. Who has the next question?”.

 

At the end of question time, they seize back the initiative to focus on their key message.  They don’t allow the talk to finish with a question which may be totally off topic.  They use their second close to repeat their key point and have that ringing in the ears of the audience as everyone departs the venue.  They determine their final impression with the audience. They have organised their schedule to be able to invite audience members to swap business cards and chat after the talk. They are gracious and charming with everyone and cement their fan base for the next talk.  They have it all, they are charismatic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nov 29, 2021

Reading this headline you might be thinking, “Oh yeah, this guy says he is an expert?  Is that really true?”.  In this fake news world, that is an entirely reasonable caution.  Would the following qualify me:  this TEDx talk was my 546th public speech, I am a Master Trainer for Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan and I am a certified High Impact Presentations Instructor having taught thousands of people how to present over the last twenty plus years and I am about to publish my book Japan Presentations Mastery?  I thought it might be interesting to pull back the velvet curtain and reveal how I prepared for this talk, expert or otherwise, but at least someone with substantial public speaking experience.

 

TEDx has certain restrictions around what you can talk about and how long you can talk for.  The TED mission is to research and discover “ideas worth spreading”.  I needed a topic which was a fit for the format and I had up to thirteen minutes to deliver my talk. There are many things I could have addressed on stage, but I thought “Transform Our Relationships” would have universal appeal, because TED talks are broadcast all around the world.

 

The first thing to consider was how to end the talk.  I needed to clarify what was the central message I wanted to impart.  The title was the central message, so “transform your relationships for the better” became my choice of the close.  I also linked the close back to some remarks I made right at the start, so I was able to tie a neat bow on the talk. There are no questions in the TED format, so there was only need to design that one close.

 

I next did some research on what others were saying about transforming relationships.  I found a report entitled “Relationships in the 21st Century”.  When I read the report, I thought the findings were rather unremarkable and that it would be perfect for debunking at the start.  Even a slightly controversial start can be an attention grabber. I left the final design of the opening until the end though.  The start has only one aim and that is to grab audience attention to listen to what it is we have to say.

 

I had the end clearly in mind and a vague idea about the opening, so now I needed to build chapters for the talk.  Thirteen minutes is quite short, so every word is gold.  I thought Dale Carnegie’s human relations principles were the perfect tool which I could pass on to the audience to apply in their own relationships.  There are thirty human relations principles, so that was too many.  I selected seven. 

 

Each principle formed a chapter, so that made the construction of the talk quite easy.  I needed some flesh on the bones of this skeleton of the talk though, so I selected some easy to access examples of how to use the principles.  Some of these story vignettes were created to make the point and some were actual examples from real life.

 

I needed a bridge between the start of the talk and the Dale Carnegie human relations principles, which would set the scene for what was to come.  I drew on some well known influencers – Mahatma Gandhi and Isaac Newton.  I wanted to make the point that the secret of achieving a transformation was to start with yourself, rather than expecting everyone else to change to suit you.  Gandhi’s quote is well known: “become the change you wish to see in the world”.  Perfect. 

 

Also, every high school student has studied Newtonian Physics and so remember his proclamation that “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”.  Perfect.  I could make the point that if we want to transform our relationships, we can change the angle of approach with others and we will get a different reaction.  This was extremely easy for an audience to grasp as a concept to transform their relationships.  I made this a core message linking each chapter back to the central thesis of “start with changing your angle of approach”.

 

My final design task was to go back and polish the opening, so that it would grab attention.  I selected the conclusion from the report and then denounced it as too obvious.  By doing so I have now engaged the audience to anticipate what I am going to say, if I am not accepting this report’s conclusion as sufficient enough to understand relationship building in the 21st century.  I wasn’t doing this for dramatic effect. I honestly thought it was all too obvious.  If it had delivered some earth shattering insight, then I would have used that instead as an authority reinforcement. 

 

Rehearsal is so critical in giving talks. I soon discovered I had too much material for the time allowed, so one of the human relations principles had to be jettisoned overboard.  I had organised the talk into chapters, so each one was complete in itself.  Rather than trying to water down the other chapters to squeeze in chapter seven, it was better to keep the others powerful and reduce one chapter. I then took all of that content and then wrote it up a complete script.  I don’t normally do this step. However, I knew there was no way I would remember every single word of a thirteen minute talk, but this script gave me the core content to draw on.  Obviously, I wasn’t going to read it to the audience – that would be a fake expert! I recorded it and played it over and over to myself about ten times, until I had absorbed flow of the talk in my mind.

 

I did another three live rehearsals with the cut down materials and kept editing to make sure I could get through it in under thirteen minutes.  At the beginning I had toyed with the idea of no slides so that all of the attention would be on me.  In the end, I decided that slides would help me with the navigation.  This talk goes around the world, so my personal and professional reputations were on the line here, especially when you go around saying you are an expert on public speaking.  I thought it was better to be smooth in my delivery and not to lose my place or have a brain whiteout while on live streaming camera, especially as that means no edit rescue capability.

 

Once I had selected the slides I wanted, I made sure I owned the use of these slide images.  I could have just taken some images down off the internet, but there is a copyright issue right there.  We all need to respect the IP of the owners of those images.  I also made sure I had pictures with people in them where ever possible. This is always of more interest to an audience.

 

On the day before the talk, I did five full blood, full power rehearsals and recorded them, so I could check how I sounded.  On the day of the delivery, I recorded ten full power rehearsals at home, one after another, checking the time to make sure I didn’t go over the thirteen minutes limit.  Full rehearsal, full power, with many repetitions is key.

Of course this was very tiring, but I didn’t worry about peaking before the event.  I knew my nervous energy would kick in once I was on stage under the lights, facing the live streaming cameras and the assembled audience.

 

On the day, there was a technical issue with the screen in front of the stage.  It is located so that the speaker can see what is being displayed on the main screen behind them.  I wasn’t worried.  I had confidence thanks to my rehearsals, that I could do the talk without slides, if I needed to.  For whatever reason it worked perfectly for me, so I reproduced my delivery as I had practiced it over and over and over.

 

In the Green Room I didn’t chat with the other speakers.  I concentrated on slowing my breathing down to make sure I was calm and quietly read the full script again.  When I was being wired up for the talk, I made sure the head attachment microphone was pulled out away from my cheek and mouth, because I knew I would be pr4ojecting a lot of power to my audience. I didn’t want any audio dissonance from my being loud, to find its way on to the recording. 

 

As it turned out, four seconds before I was due to go on, they needed to fix a technical issue, so they decided to show a TED video instead.  Naturally I was fully psyched up ready to go and then had to stop everything.  This type of stop-start thing can throw your equilibrium off balance.  I had had this experience before when I was a karate athlete in competition finals, when there was an interruption and a sudden delay before you go on to the mats to fight.

 

I immediately moved away from the people there in order to keep my concentration at full peak condition.  I happened to notice there was a mirror around the corner of the back stage area.  While they ran the video, I began quietly starting my talk while looking at the mirror, so that I could see my gestures etc., as I got ready to go on.  We cannot allow anything to cause us to lose our concentration or peak energy levels, before we hit the stage.

 

I walked confidently to the round red carpet, which was my spot from which to talk, paused to enjoy the applause and create some anticipation. I then hit the opening hard with a strong voice and a big double arm gesture.  The rest of the talk went pretty close to my plan.  The key thing to note is, only I knew what the plan was!  At the end I bowed, stayed there to receive the applause and then unhurriedly, I walked off, again showing confidence.  First and last impressions are being formed as soon as we move to and from our positions and we have to have those planned as well.  Someone rushing from the stage leaves a different impression to someone staying there momentarily and then walking off with purpose.f

 

 

Nov 22, 2021

Today we are going to look at Part Two of Opening our speech.  In the last episode we used an analogy, the startling statement and starting with some good news.  We also covered the dos and don’ts of how to use questions with the audience.  Here are two more openings we can apply to our talks - storytelling and using compliments.

 

Start with an incident

 

Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools in the speaker’s toolkit.  Every day we are bombarded with stories.  It could be dramas on television, novels we are reading, movies we are watching and even the news programmes.  When we were children our parents read stories to us at bedtime and so we are incredibly open to stories, in a way we are not open to hearing opinions or statements.

 

Stories do not have to be long.  Today, with an abundance of impatience, massive distraction everywhere and people’s ever decreasing micro concentration spans, the opportunity to tell a long story in business is gone.  We can tell a short story and still take our audience with us employing their mind’s eye to be with us in the location, in the season, with the people and absorbed with the drama of the situation.  Let’s look at some varieties of stories we can employ for a business context.

  1. Personal experience. This is the most powerful story because it is real life. We love to learn from the successes and even better, the failures of others.  Which speech opening would grab your attention more, ”Let me tell you how I made my first ten million dollars” or “Let me tell you how I lost my first ten million dollars”? 

I think we would all want to hear how I lost the ten million, because that sounds more dramatic and we can learn from other’s mistakes.  Relating corporate victory after victory and outlining the perfect coalition of circumstances to explain what a triumph it has been for our organization is reeking of propaganda and our audience cannot identify with what we are saying.

Telling them war stories of failure and redemption tend to work extremely well, because in exposing our failures, we have shown we are like everyone else and the audience can more easily identify with us.

  1. Third Party. We have a limited number of personal experiences to draw on, but we have unlimited experiences available, if we include those of others.  Sometimes we prefer to use a third party, if we need some strong evidence or credibility.

 

We are exposed to third party stories all of the time, but we let them slip away.  It may be something we saw on the news, or in documentaries or we read in magazines or in biographies. We come across a great story, but we just move on without thinking, “well that will be a great story for a talk, let me capture that and store it away for a future speech”.  We should be trawling through whatever we are reading with a part of our brain looking for speech material and having a good system to be able to access it easily at a future point.

 

  1. When we add our personal experiences, the experiences of others and then the entire history of experiences in the world throughout history, we have an unbelievable resource available to us to draw upon.  There is an avalanche of material coming to us down through the ages, where people have faced similar situations to what we are facing today.  We are often accessing this information, but not capturing it.  We should capture it for our talks.

Pay a compliment

 

  1. We can relate our topic to all of the people in the room in the audience.  For example, “Have you heard that most people are scared of public speaking? This is only because they have not received any training.  No one is born a gifted speaker, it is a learnt skill.  If you get the training, then your fear of public speaking will disappear completely”.  Every person has been scared of public speaking at one time or another, so they can immediately bond with us when we bring it up.  They will be all ears to hear what we have to say on the subject

 

  1. We relate our topic to the broader organisation, rather than to individuals. For example, “Your organisation has such a phenomenal reputation for excellence. Let me tell you why”.  When you hear that opening, you are very interested to hear what comes next, because you like compliments and you are also keen to make sure what the speaker says is accurate.

 

  1. We can relate what we are saying to one person.  For example, “I was chatting with Tanaka san before we started and she made a very insightful comment”.  Everyone will want to know what Tanaka san said and Tanaka san will be delighted with the recognition.

 

The speaker first impression is vital.  We have to plan to make it a success and there are many tools available to us. Try the tools I have included in Parts One and Two of how to open your talk. Remember public speaking has never had this degree of difficulty ever in history. The internet is a click away and people will leave us in a heartbeat, if what we say doesn’t sound interesting or valuable.  The way they determine if it is worth listening to, is from how we start.  We must get the design right or our messages will not transmit to the audience and if that is the case, we have missed a great opportunity to build our personal and professional brands.

Nov 15, 2021

First impressions are now down to seven seconds or less.  Our opening begins from the moment we are introduced, even before we get up on stage or move to the center of the stage.  We must walk briskly, confidently and elegantly to our speaking position.  I remember seeing US President Biden on television, walking very swiftly to convey he was still dynamic, despite the years and the grey hair.  He was trying to control a narrative about his suitability to be the US President. He understood the power of first impression.  As speakers we must understand the speech starts well before the speech.  What we write for the event information and what we hand over to the MC to read about us on stage, all are setting up a first impression. The conversations we have with the attendees before we speak are all building a first impression.

 

What we do on stage is important. If there is a logistical change over of laptops or files, try to get someone else to do that, so that you can straight into your opening.  We are wasting valuable “first impression” seconds with our head down looking at the laptop screen, rather than looking at the audience.  We need to be able to move straight to the center of the stage and get going with our well designed opening.  We have to be able to stay the hands of the restless in the audience to not go for their smart phones and disappear into the world of the internet.

 

The first words out of our mouth have to grab the attention of the audience, so we must raise the vocal strength of our opening, to break through the mental distraction of our audience members.  We should walk to center stage and then purposely pause slightly before we begin.  This raises the anticipation level of the audience and quietens any chatting that may be going on in the background.  How can we start, what should we say, how do we do it – let’s explore some techniques.

 

The captivating statement technique uses three methods to get the audience engaged.

  1. This is where we can try to make complex subjects more easily understood by comparing two things, which have no natural connection, with each other. For example, “Launching a strategic initiative, is like driving a car. Learning to drive a car looks easy, but in fact is quite complicated. Launching this new strategic initiative looks easy on paper, but we need to expect it will require a lot of good preparation in order for it to be successful”.  We open with the analogy statement and then explain the analogy to make the point clear for the audience.

 

  1. We use this to grab attention by introducing a pattern interrupt with our audience.  We provide some information which is not only new, but potentially shocking.  For example, “The latest statistics are clear - we are running out of young people in Japan.  If we don’t get busy planning to win the war for talent, we will go out of business”.  This will get everyone’s attention.  People are vaguely aware that we are seeing a decline in the population in Japan, but here we are connecting it to the very survival of the organisation.

 

 

  1. Good news. This relaying of some good news will lift the positive feelings of the audience for the talk to come.  We mention some industry statistics or consumer trends or R&D breakthrough news.  There is always a lot of doom and gloom in business, so going the other direction is also a great way to grab attention. They are now anticipating this will be a valuable talk. 

 

  1. The question technique has three aspects.

 

  1. Gain information. We can ask a real question which requires an answer by having the audience raise their hands.  This gets audience involvement, which is good, but we shouldn’t overdo it. 

 

  1. Get participation. Raising hands, calling out answers, getting people to stand are all good physical actions to have the audience feel part of the talk.  Again, don’t overdo it.

 

 

  1. Create agreement on a need or interest. We could also ask a rhetorical question which doesn’t require an answer from the audience, because we are going to supply the answer.  This allows us to get everyone engaged with their thoughts on the topic.  We ask it in such a way that it is easy for the audience to agree with.

The opening has to be planned carefully.  We only have one shot to make a good first impression and this is where we do that.  We will continue in the next episode with other techniques we use to open our talk.

Nov 8, 2021

Every time we speak, we are representing our professional and personal brands.   People judge us and then they project that same judgment on to our organization.  If we are very professional, then they see everyone in our organisation in a positive light. If we are bumbling and disorganised, then they see our whole organisation the same way.  If we want the audience to believe our message, then they have to believe in us first.  This is why having credibility is so important when speaking.

 

If we overstate our organisation’s capabilities, it arouses suspicion and damages our credibility.  Remember this is the Era of Cynicism and fake news. Any time we make a statement, then we need to back it up with evidence.  The evidence has to resonate by being vivid, interesting and memorable.  We have to show the benefits of what we are suggesting because facts by themselves cannot be enough.  In particular, we need to show how they can apply these benefits in their own organisations.

 

We want to present a positive image of our organisation but how do we do this without it being rejected as corporate propaganda?  Being confident when we deliver the key messages makes a tremendous difference.  Uncertain speech, hesitation, struggling for words, using filler words like um and ah, all conspire to defeat our efforts to appear confident in what we are saying.  Fluency in delivery is what we need and that takes practice.  We don’t have to memorise great chunks of content.  We can use the slide deck for navigation purposes to guide us through the flow of the talk.  We just talk to the point of the slide, because we have designed this talk, so obviously we know what we want to say.

We must project tremendous enthusiasm.  I am thinking of two speakers who surprised me with their total lack of enthusiasm for their own amazing companies.  One was a luxury marque car brand and the other a resource captain of industry.  Both had phenomenal sagas of defeat and triumph, of business breakthroughs and of spectacular R&D success.  It would have been much more interesting if they had included these in their talks. They managed to replace these exciting stories with the bland and boring.  If they had spoken as if possessed with total belief in the righteousness of their company’s contribution to the world, they would have had much greater impact with their audiences.  They would have attracted fans for themselves and their companies.

The structure for a talk to impress an audience about our organisation looks like this:

Opening.  The opening has only one purpose. That objective is to create a positive impression so powerful, it breaks through all of the distractions occupying the minds of the listeners.  The first sentence out of the speaker’s mouth has to command our attention and interest. Pithy quotes, grabber statistics, total killer stories, will all do the trick.

 

Message.  We need to clearly state the key messages.  Within the first five minutes of the talk are the audience clear on where we are going with this speech?  Have we honed our key messages down to the bone, to eliminate psychobabble, pap and make sure we have eliminated our data dump proclivities.  We need to reiterate the most important message in the speech close, before we bridge to the Q&A and again, during the final close at the end, after the Q&A.

 

Evidence.  We must establish credibility and inspire trust, respect and confidence in what we are saying by using powerful evidence.  So often speakers make sweeping statements and audiences are left to ponder whether that statement about their company is true or are we listening to a re-incarnation of Joseph Goebbels, one of the most evil and notorious propagandists in history?  Carefully inspect every utterance where you are making a broad statement and then check to see if there is sufficient evidence accompanying it.  You will surprise yourself with how often we make statements and offer no proof whatsoever.

 

Closing.  As mentioned there are two closes.  Close number one, prior to Q&A is designed to capture the essence of your message, in order to reinforce its potency for the audience. The second close for after the Q&A is designed to leave the audience with a favourable, memorable impression of you, your organisation and your message.

 

The impress talk structure is not complex, but the delivery requires a lot of rehearsal.  Practicing on your audience is self delusion in the making.  So many speakers give their speech once – when they are in front of the assembled mass of sceptics, doubters, critics and cynics.  Anytime you are talking up your own organisation, then you are really asking for trouble.  Get the required fluency in the delivery, so that you are radiating confidence and credibility.  If you do that your message will be bought by the audience.  If you don’t, your personal and professional brands will take a big hit.  The choice is embarrassingly clear.

 

Nov 1, 2021

Are we clear enough about our message? There are some common problems around getting the messaging right. We have no clear message and the audience don’t quite know what to make of the talk. Or we have so many messages, the audience are confused and cannot attach to any of the messages. This is an exaggeration, but we should be able to write our one key message on a grain of rice.  The point is to make the message clear and get it down to the minimum number of words to describe it.  This is really tough.  Rambling and waffling on are easy, whereas being precise is hard work.  This explains why most talks haven’t boiled everything down to one clear message and the presentation fails or misses the mark.

If we are thinking of a topic to speak on or if we are asked to speak on a certain topic, the first major effort will be to find the key message.  This sounds straightforward, but there are so many angles from which to approach a topic, we need to select the best one and then clarify it.  The best one will be determined by our audience analysis.  Who are we going to be speaking to and what message will resonate the most strongly with them?  If we don’t know who our audience is we need to find out. In episode number 260 we went into more detail on just how to do that, so please go back and listen to that episode.

Getting the key message clear is also important when it comes to promoting the talk.  Our title will get sent out to the prospective audience and if we have done our audience analysis well, then there will be a high degree of resonance with our target group.  Getting the title right makes such a difference and we all know that.  We respond to certain titles more than others.  If we can hone in on the key interest, then our audience numbers will fill up and we will set the stage to deliver our message.  I was attending a talk recently and there were only about 30 people online.  Given the speaker and the quality of the content, it should have been 100 people at least.  The title let the talk down and didn’t grab attention, because the message and the audience analysis hadn’t been given enough attention.

Once we have crafted our one key message, we need to look for content which supports that key message.  These are like chapters in a thesis.  When you write your thesis, you have your central proposition, your key finding from the research and the rest of the document is set about backing up what you are pontificating about.  We need evidence – hard evidence rather than broad statements about what we think.  Nobody cares what we think.  In this Era of Cynicism built on a fear of falling for fake news, evidence has become even more vital than in the past.  A speech is a similar situation. We have a number of chapters in the speech which are crammed to the gunwales with evidence proving what we are saying is true.  Inside these chapters there may be some sub-messages, again providing hard evidence, which when added together validate our one big key message.

The usual problem with messaging though is too many messages.  We teach public speaking and we have a tool called the Magic Formula where we provide the context, background, data, proof, evidence, then the call to action and the benefit of that call to action.  I notice that our participants are always adding and adding points to bolster the benefit, rather than grabbing the most powerful benefit.  The effect is the key message about the benefit is being diluted by what follows.  This is the Age of Distraction and when we pile on the detail our audience gets lost and loses interest. We need to make sure the sub-messages are supporting and proving the main message and not competing with it. 

This is where pruning a speech becomes very important.  We need to ask if we can reduce the content by 10% to see if the message becomes clearer.  This is a lot harder than it sounds and I am as guilty as anyone in this regard. What we normally do is keep adding to the speech.  We find a great slide and we add that. Then we find another and add that.  We keep adding more slides or more messages and we create confusion for our audience.  Being forced to chop out 10% is a good discipline to force us to be as clear as possible.  This is painful, but it will improve the whole presentation by adding more clarity to what we want people to absorb.

So have one central message and look for a number of ways to get that one message across. If we can do that, then the audience will absorb what we are saying and we can count the talk as a success.  Go for quality rather than quantity of messages when presenting.

 

Oct 25, 2021

Before we tackle the purpose of our presentation we need to understand who is our audience. We covered this in Episode #260, so please go back and review that episode if you haven’t already heard it. Basically, don’t put pen to paper or start assembling a slide deck, until you are crystal clear on who is going to be in the audience.  Once we know what level to frame the content, we can get started on the next step and that is being very clear on the purpose of the talk.

 

Perhaps it is an internal presentation.  An All Hands Meeting, a Town Hall, a regular weekly report on your division or section’s numbers, the update on the marketing spend results, etc. It could be for an external audience drawn from your industry, a speech for the Chamber of Commerce, a benkyokai or study group, a public gathering, etc. 

 

There are four things to consider regarding the type of talk we can give.

  1. Inform - This is a very common structure for internal and industry presentations. These are often rich data and deep insight talks. We will have statistics, expert opinion, the latest research findings.  We have our finger on the pulse of the industry trends and what our company’s outcomes have been.  We want to provide value to the audience and so we try to bring something to them which they didn’t know or hadn’t thought about. 

 

These types of public talks will often have titles such as, “The Top Five Things Regarding X”, “The Latest Research Results on Y”, etc. There will be detailed case studies from the front line that cast light on what is and isn’t working. The question is which data and how much data.  We have to be careful, because we can quickly become data dump junkies. We are always tending to cram too much information into the talk and this can dilute the impact of the messages.  Choosing what to keep and what not to use can be very difficult, but we must be disciplined.  Always go for the gold and leave the silver and bronze to question time as reserve power.

 

  1. Convince or Impress - As speakers we often think the task is selling our message. I am sure you have had this experience.  You toddle off to hear a talk and the speaker is a dud.  They are completely hopeless and can either barely string two words together or they read the text or the screen to us, or even worse they do both! Sub-consciously, we have now extended this buffoonery to the entire organisation and have developed a lack of confidence in this entire group. 

 

We are musing that if this is who they put forward to the wider public, they must all be stupid and so how can you trust a company like that? Remember every time we stand up to speak, we are also selling ourselves and by extension our section, division or company.

 

We must believe that what we are sharing is important and we want our audience to think that too.  Sadly, audiences today are living in the Age of Distraction and the Era of Cynicism, so as presenters  we have to work super hard to overcome both.  We need to be excellent presenters, really professional presenters. Plus, we also have to prove what we are saying is true. We have to show the value and we have to emphasise the importance of our message.

 

  1. Persuade or Inspire to Action - This is a particular skill always needed by leaders. We may have a message which we think is very important and we want our audience to benefit from it.  To do so they need to change what they are doing now or start doing something new.  We want to get them to take some specific action.  The only tools we have are our delivery excellence and our content relevancy and quality.  Unless we have really assembled a quality content offer and have delivered it in a highly professional manner we won’t be persuading anyone to do anything, be that internally or externally. 

 

Prime Minister Winston Churchill was the keynote speaker to Harrow, his old College, in October 1941, as Britain alone faced the Nazis domination of all of Europe.  He said slowly, “Never, ever ever ever ever give up”.  Those seven words were electrifying.  Now that is persuasion, that is inspiration.  We are all facing Covid’s war on our companies, on our businesses, on our livelihoods.  Are we rising to the occasion with our persuasive, take action presentations to our troops?

 

  1. Entertain – do we have to be stand up comedians? Great if you have that facility, but it is not required for speakers.  Humour is a very difficult thing to master for an amateur business presenter, who only speaks a few times a year, at the most.  We can bring passion to our talk and transfer our positive energy to the audience.  If we say something and the audience laughs – write that down baby, because that is humorous, even though that may not have been our intention.

Know who is in our audience, craft the talk to match that audience and decide what is the purpose of our talk.  Once you have that sorted, then get to work on the detailed design of close #1, close #2, the main body with tons of evidence and finally the opening and design it in that order.

Oct 18, 2021

Before we do anything, we need to ask just who is going to be in our audience?  If we don’t know that information, then we are thrashing around in the dark, trying to find the light switch. It may be an internal group we are speaking to, so we will have a pretty clear idea who will be in the room.  It might be an industry association talk, so we can expect there will be people similar to us in the audience.  It might be a public talk, sponsored by a chamber of commerce and so there could be people from many different industries gathered to hear us speak.

The key point is to try and find out who will be in the audience, by asking the organisers, if you are not sure who is coming.  If for privacy reasons, you cannot get a list of attendees, then at least ask for as much detail as possible around age, rank and gender.  A benefit of going to the venue early is usually all the name badges of the audience are lined up outside the room, so you can spend a bit of time seeing who is coming.  The name badge will give you the company name but it won’t give you the rank or the status of the individuals.  There is a simple solution for this issue.

Position yourself at the door and then try to greet as many people as possible. Japan is great, because handing over all your key private information is acceptable, because we exchange our meishi or business cards.  You can see the position they hold and looking at their face, you can guess the age bracket.  As you engage them you can ascertain why they have given up their time to attend, so you can gauge their motivations and interests. We can make adjustments on the fly in terms of our angle of delivery with these insights.

I heard a talk on Personal Branding, which completely missed the mark.  The speaker was talking about how she elevated her personal brand in one of the biggest companies on the planet.  Her audience were not in that company size bracket, so there was little to relate to.  If she had spent time talking to people beforehand she would have realised she needed to make made some changes in order to accommodate her audience.  Sadly that didn’t happen and the dry chicken for lunch was the only reward for attending.

Here are some ideas for preparing the talk, taking into consideration the likely composition of your audience:

  1. Knowledge – are they novices on the subject or are they veterans? It is hard to know beforehand, so it is always a safe bet to assume there will be some very knowledgeable people in attendance and prepare on that basis.
  2. Expertise - if we can understand the level of knowledge of the audience, we can pitch the content at the right level. We don’t want to go too high or too low with the complexity of what we are talking about.  If we get this wrong, we can alienate our listeners and they will tune us out and even worse, escape to the internet to fill in the time remaining.  When we have a mixed audience, it is a lot more complex, so we need to search for the right balance.
  3. Experience-are the audience members theoreticians or are they people from the field? Experience in the laboratory is quite different from that of the practitioner on the front line.
  4. Bias-strong views can lead some people to have a particular bias regarding the subject we are addressing. If we know what those biases are, it will help us when preparing for the Q&A.  This is where “working the room” as people arrive is important, to flush these out before you start.
  5. Needs – As mentioned, when we arrive early and spend some time mixing with the audience members, we can get a sense of what some of the needs around this subject may be. We want to leave them with some valuable take-aways which they will find useful. This needs to be baked into the design before we get there or we need to focus in on some key points based on what we heard when asking people why they came.
  6. Wants – Needs and wants are not the same. We again use our pre-talk audience informal survey, when chatting with the early arrivals, about what are some things they would want from the talk.  As a result, we may only need to change our delivery by a few degrees, but it can have a tremendous leverage benefit for resonating with our audience.
  7. Goals – when we start planning the talk, we need to think what might be some of the goals for the audience members, which are inspiring them to make the effort to attend the speech. How can they apply some of the insights we are going to impart, the experiences, the data, the detail?

As always, the key is to plan the talk in detail and not just spend all the time on assembling the slide deck.  Rehearse, record, review.  Listening to yourself, is what you are saying valuable or is it pap?  Is it corporate propaganda or is it beneficial, practical, applicable?  Plan with the audience reaction in your mind and things will go much better.

 

 

Oct 11, 2021

They are usually a bunch of strangers attending out talk.  We may know one or two people in the audience, but generally we have no clue about most of them.  The feeling is likewise.  They may have perfunctorily glanced at our introduction in the blurb advertising the event but who are we as a person?  How smart are we, how useful is this time allocation going to be, can we speak well, are we adding any value to them?  Here are twelve ideas to build rapport with the audience.

 

  1. Consider ourselves honoured to be asked to address an audience and say so. However, don’t do this at the start of the talk.  You hear this all the time, “Thank you for inviting me today, it is a great honour to be able to speak to such a distinguished audience”. Boring!!!  Design a powerful opening to grab everyone’s attention and only then thank the organisers and the audience for the chance to speak.

 

  1. Give our listeners sincere appreciation. Arrive early and meet some members of the audience and thank them for coming to listen to you.  At the end of the talk, we can also express our appreciation for their attendance.  Don’t make this the last comment though.  We reserve that for our final close, where we make sure our key message is reverberating in their ears, as they walk out of the venue.

 

 

  1. Mention the names of some listeners. Getting there early allows us to meet the guests and then when we get up on stage we can refer to a conversation we had before the start of the speech.  For example, “I was chatting with Suzuki san and she made a very interesting point about….” There is an invisible wall between the speaker and the audience and this connecting with people in the audience breaks that wall down and we feel as one unit.

 

  1. Play ourselves down – not up. Nobody likes someone who is egotistical and acting superior.  We should always be humble and never talk about ourselves, as if we were something special, just because we are the speaker.  Yes, you need some degree of ego to stand up and speak to an audience, but let’s keep the full dimensions of that ego to ourselves.

 

 

  1. Say “we” not “you”. When we use “we”, it is inclusive language and we want to have our audience to feel as if we are one united team. “You should do…” doesn’t work as well as “we should do”, when we want to appeal to our audience.  Let’s remove all barriers between ourselves and our listeners.

 

  1. Don’t talk with a “scowling face an upbraiding voice”. I never do that you say.  Really? Check the video. When we are concentrating, without knowing it, our face can look like we are scowling at our audience.  Smiling is a great way to make sure we are not doing that, as long as the smile is congruent with what we are saying.  If it is a serious topic, then our face should be serious.  But a scowling face is too much, because it looks like we are angry and admonishing our audience.

 

 

  1. Talk in terms of your listener’s interests. We might have a great love of a subject and we get a lot of satisfaction from talking about it, but are our audience members interested. We need to design the talk, looking at things from their point of view and their likely interest.  What is in it for them?  What can they take away from this talk which they can apply in theIr world?

 

  1. Have a good time delivering your talk. If we look like giving this talk is killing us, it will make our audience feel uncomfortable and will have a very negative impact on our personal and professional brands.  If we are nervous, we can come across as a wounded animal on stage.  Best to mask that wounded animal look, as much as possible.  Keep all of that type of “I’m nervous” information to yourself.

 

 

  1. Don’t apologise. This is a very common way to start talks in Japan, but we should start with a well designed opening that breaks through all of the competing distractions for our message and grabs the listener’s attention.  Apologies are all about us, when we should be totally focused on the audience and not ourselves.

 

  1. Appeal to the nobler emotions of your audience. People turn up to hear us speak on the basis they want us to succeed. We should assume that and then be very sincere in our preparations, so that we can match their high expectations of us.

 

 

  1. Welcome criticism instead of resenting it. If some audience member takes issue with the logic of what we have said or the conclusions we have drawn from the data, we shouldn’t get into an argument. We should just say “thank you” and say we will take that on board and have another look at our assumptions.  If we are receiving some feedback on the delivery of the talk, then we should not allow our emotions to get involved. We should just take it as helpful feedback so that we improve.

 

  1. Be “a good person skilled in speaking”. The most clever criminals around the world all have something in common- they are good talkers. We want to be better than just being a smooth talker.  We want to have our audience’s best interests upper most in our minds at all times. They will feel the difference.

 

Try these twelve ideas when you are preparing for and delivering your next presentation and you will do a much better job of connecting with your audience.

Oct 4, 2021

We all stumble into public speaking in business.  We don’t start our first job with a grand plan for our future public speaking career.  We just work as hard as we can.  If we knew at the start how important this facility was, we would definitely plot out the path forward, corresponding to each stage in our careers.  However, we are left to our own devices and we have no guidelines for presenting.  Let’s fill in that gap in our business education and take a look at some useful guidelines on the basis it is never too late to start becoming a better presenter. 

 

Here are nine guidelines to adopt.

 

1. Make brief notes in the order you want to mention them. 

This is your navigation and could be on notes sitting on the podium or you might place a big sheet of paper on the backwall, behind the audience and use code words that only you understand.  There is nothing wrong with quickly consulting your notes if you need to.  Audience members will not jump to their feet and start denouncing us as frauds just because we took a peek at our notes.  No one cares that much.

 

2. Unless absolutely necessary for legal reasons etc., do not read your speech. I have had the experience of representing my boss and reading his speech word for word.  So painful. Yes, preparing the whole speech as a document is fine to help you practice. Just don’t read it to us.  You can send it by email instead and we won’t need you or your presentation.

 

3. Never memorise a speech word for word.

This is no fun doing it this way because of the enormous mental strain it places on us.  A thirty minute speech fully recalled from memory is pointless. We should enjoy giving talks so let’s not burden ourselves with that massive memory expectation.  Just have the key points you want to cover and talk to them.

 

4. Use evidence to substantiate your points

We have to be very careful with general sweeping statements we may make. We will attract skepticism from our audience and we may find ourselves under attack during the Q&A.  Always back up what is being said with evidence, proof, statistics, expert testimony, etc.

 

5. Know far more about your subject than you can use.

We don’t know what we will be asked in the Q&A, so we have to make sure we can answer any reasonable question, otherwise our personal and professional brands can be damaged.  If we can’t answer a relevant question on our topic, then people will immediately doubt our credibility as a business professional.

 

6. Rehearse your presentation in front of your professional associates.

However, never, ever ask them “what do you think?”.  All you will hear will be annoying negative comments that will ruin your day and your confidence. Instead, ask them “what was good” and “how can I make it better?”.

 

7. Use visual aids where appropriate.

We don’t automatically need slides.  If they add value then absolutely use them. Visual aids are helpful because a picture is worth a thousand words, as we say.  Pictures with people in them are the best. Also the visuals provide our navigation through the content of the speech, so we don’t have to remember all of the detail.  We only have to talk to the information or the point on the slide and this is much easier.

 

8. Control “butterflies” in the tummy by taking in deep, slow, lower diaphragm breaths.  This will help lower our pulse rate, reduce body heat and calm us down. We can also do some strenuous walking around, out of sight, to burn off excess nervous energy. For other people, they may need to lift up their energy levels, by giving themselves a pep talk.

 

9. Don’t imitate others: be yourself

It is tempting to copy other speakers, but we don’t need to do that.  Life is short, so why try and become a facsimile of someone else? Be you every time and be the best version of you possible. If we work hard on the design, rehearsal and delivery of our talk we will develop our own natural style.

 

These guidelines are not exhaustive by any means, but they encompass some basics we should apply to our talks. I ran away from public speaking for my first thirty years.  Why?  Because I didn’t know what to do. I had no guidelines, no training and no clue. Even worse, I didn’t understand that I should go and get the training.  I got there eventually, but I wasted so much time and opportunity by being in denial.  Don’t be like me – don’t wait, go and get trained.

 

We all stumble into public speaking in business.  We don’t start our first job with a grand plan for our future public speaking career.  We just work as hard as we can.  If we knew at the start how important this facility was, we would definitely plot out the path forward, corresponding to each stage in our careers.  However, we are left to our own devices and we have no guidelines for presenting.  Let’s fill in that gap in our business education and take a look at some useful guidelines on the basis it is never too late to start becoming a better presenter. 

Sep 27, 2021

Usually for most businesspeople we don’t really know what we are doing when it comes to presentations.  We grow up in business concentrating on our tasks and getting the work done.  As we rise through the ranks, we start to give updates on the results or project progress reports.  As we rise a bit further we may start reporting what our Section or Division has been doing, or introducing the business strategy to senior leaders.  In some cases, we may be presenting to shareholders, the media, chambers of commerce or industry groups. 

 

Along this continuum we just bumble our way along, copying what our bosses are doing.  They actually had the same presentation education we have been getting – none.  So we have the blind leading the blind, generation after generation.  Nobody inside the company thinks that people moving into leadership positions need to become powerful persuaders and influencers through their communication skillS.  These are attributes that somehow those rising through the ranks have to pick up for themselves.  If the company said, “You need to get presentation training and you will have to pay for it yourself, because we are not going to”, that would be one thing.  Unfortunately, that conversation about need is never breached and there is no guidance whatsoever.

 

In the absence of any hints from senior leadership, on what we need to be doing around getting better at presenting, here are some starters:

 

  1. Know your material so well, you feel you own it.

We should be an expert in the area we are talking about.  That means we have gained experience, have read the relevant materials and have been active in this field.  Whenever we present we should feel we have reserve power, to be able to add additional information, respond to questions during Q&A and demonstrate that we know our topic in great depth.  We are limited by how much time we have to speak but we should always over prepare. There is nothing more embarrassing than being shown you don’t know much about your talk topic. You will see your credibility fall off the podium and shatter into a thousand shards before your very eyes.

 

  1. Have a positive feeling about the subject you are about to present.

You may have experienced this at School or University, where some Teachers and Professors are just going through the materials in a very perfunctory, detached way. Others however were on fire with real passion for their subject. Naturally we all gravitate toward those with massive passion for their topic. 

 

The audience won’t remember all of the detail of our talk, but they will remember our passion for the subject and therefore they will remember us.  That is what we want in business isn’t it – to be differentiated, memorable, admired. 

 

If you have to present on a topic which doesn’t particularly excite you then try and find some elements which are interesting and bring your passion to those parts.  It is not great but better to have flashes of passion than a continual, consistent, humdrum, boring  delivery.

 

  1. Project to your audience the value and significance of your message.

If we don’t sound convinced about our message, then there is zero chance anyone listening will be convinced.  In sales we say, “selling is the transfer of enthusiasm from the seller to the buyer”. Presenting is where we sell our information or our ideas.

 

We have done the hard work to master our subject area.  We have worked on our delivery skills as a presenter.  We have every right to be talking on the subject.  We should also be excited by the topic and enthusiastic to share all of this wonderful knowledge and information with our audience. 

 

Our listeners can feel whether we are positive about our content or not.  They can tell if we are just going through the motions or not.  We have all seen speakers like this.  They have been told to give the talk and they have no interest in doing it and are just following orders.  It is painful to be in that type of audience. We are trying to bring value to the audience and we have this uppermost in our mind.

 

If you become important in business then you will need to become an excellent presenter.  You can become important in business and be a crap speaker, but you will always be eclipsed by those who have invested the time to gain the fundamental skills.

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