When preparing a talk, ask yourself if your audience wants to solve a problem or capitalize on an opportunity.  Maybe they want to do both.  Whatever the case, they’ll want to calculate the risks.

Solving the wrong problem wastes time and money and leaves the real problem unsolved.  And whenever we pursue an opportunity, there are unforeseen dangers.

To be persuasive as a speaker, diagnose the causes and consequences of a business problem and enumerate both the benefits and the risks of action in pursuit of gain.   Second-guess everything.  Nothing is a slam-dunk.

Many people acknowledge that President Obama is a good public speaker.  At the same time, many note a significant difference in the quality of President Obama’s speech between those occasions when he uses a Teleprompter and those when he speaks extemporaneously.

They assert that his oratorical gifts are actually not as great as they seem because when he speaks without a teleprompter he says “er and uhm” like the average oratorical duffer, and often pauses awkwardly once he starts a sentence, as he seems to re-think how to arrange the thought into words that will not play against him.

While I’ve noticed a certain partisan tone when this distinction is made, I too feel concerned about the use of TelePrompters.  They seem to make public speech more dead than alive. But would we prefer that our leaders step to the lectern and reach inside their breast pocket to withdraw a written speech?

Barbara Tuchman, the great American historian, had a few radical thoughts on this subject.  She suspected that Teleprompters would bring down our democracy.

She said, in an interview with Bill Moyers, that the devices were “the most devastating tool that technology’s invented…” Our public men, “don’t speak spontaneously. You don’t hear them meet a situation out of their own minds. They read this thing that’s going along there in front of them. Words that have been created for them by PR men or by advertisers or whatever. And this is not the real man that we see. And it allows an inadequate, minor individual to appear to be a statesman, because he’s got very good speechwriters. Mr. Reagan! Boy! And to read the stuff off, because he reads it very well. He’s an actor, I guess, a trained actor. … you never know what he’s reading. Nor do you really know this with any of them. They learn it very fast…the teleprompter–is a really, in my opinion, it’s a terrible tool, because what we have is an artificial result.”

Then Bill Moyers says,  ”And yet George Washington had Alexander Hamilton as a speechwriter. The Farewell Address, his final major statement as he exited the Presidency, was largely penned by Alexander Hamilton. Is there a correlation?”

And by the way, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address had help from William Seward, his Secretary of State.

Then Tuchman says, “No, because the teleprompter shows the person in a situation which is not real, and which is phony, and which is deceptive. The thing is, you see, that we’re a public that is brought up on deception, through advertising. From the moment we are children, we learn that some kind of cereal is going to make us strong and win races and one thing and another, and the next thing you know, if you use a particular kind of toothpaste, you’re going to marry Gary Cooper, or at least have a glamorous romance somewhere; all that is deception.”

She raises some questions.
1. Are teleprompters a form of deception?
2. What’s the difference between a teleprompter and a piece of paper with the speech written on it?
3. Do we want our Presidents to speak without benefit of speech writers, teleprompters, or written notes?
4. How important is it that our President be a good “communicator”–meaning a strong advocate for his ideas and for our country.
5. What are the skills, attributes, and behaviors of a good communicator?

These are questions that are worth answering well, and ones that we at Sims Wyeth explore.

Oh!  One more question!  What about PowerPoint? Don’t most of us use it as a teleprompter to remind us what to say?

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills andpublic speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips atwww.SimsWyeth.com.

We are often asked to kick-off meetings.  What’s the best way to get everyone focused on the task at hand, and demonstrate our own capacity for effective leadership?

1. Start on time.  Or, if you must delay, acknowledge those who are present and inform them you would like to wait for a few minutes.
2. Begin your opening remarks by looking at the big picture.  Reframe what has happened in the recent past, or will happen in the immediate future, that makes this meeting necessary.
3. Define the particular challenges, problems, issues, or questions that the group needs to address.
4. Speak about the consequences of the unsolved problems, or the opportunities that exist if the group succeeds.
5. Then do your house-keeping and your laying of the ground-rules.  Typical items include time to end, objectives, items on the agenda, times for each item, and methods to be used to accomplish the goals.
6. Be brief, energetic, and connected eye-to-eye with those seated at the table with you.

The tone is set by the leader.  This is true of companies, football teams, schools and meetings.  You can do it well, and the more you do it with mindful attention to the above, the better you will be.

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

“Every word uttered evokes the idea of its opposite. “  –Goethe

In other words, when you assert your opinion, your listeners will reflexively search their own minds for a thought that could prove your idea flawed.  

To take the wind out of their sails, and to demonstrate that you have considered other perspectives, speak their thoughts for them, and explain why your idea is superior.

In this way, your talk takes the form of a dialogue between your proposal and reasonable objections to it.

You will be seen as credible and balanced, and your listeners will be more likely to agree.

Meghan called.  She was a high school senior, my daughter’s friend and highschool classmate.  She had a summer job selling for the CutCo Knife Company, and wanted to make a presentation to us in our home. 

I said, “Yes,” although my wife was uncomfortable that she might have to say, “No,” to Meghan.  So she arranged to be out of the house when Meghan arrived.

On the appointed evening, Meghan carried her hefty sales case through the front door and set up on the dining room table.   While she was unpacking her wares, she asked me if I would please get her a glass of water.  I did, and when I returned to the dining room and sat down, she asked me to get the knives we currently used and bring them in.

I went back to the kitchen and returned with the knives.  When she was all set up, she asked me, “How would you describe your current knives?”

“Old, dull and inadequate,” I said.

“Why do you say that?” she asked.  I described how hard it was to keep them sharp, how some of the blades were so old they were worn thin, and how some of the blades wobbled in their handles.

 She pulled a length of rope from her case, and asked me to cut it with my sharpest knife.

“My sharpest?  That’s not saying much,” I said, taking my grandfathers old carving knife that was probably a good 70 years old.  It had a hardwood handle.

Meghan held the rope down on a cutting board that she pulled from her bag.  “Count the movements back and forth,” she said. 

 I began to saw.  It took fourteen saws.

“Now hold it down for me,” she said.  She picked up one of her new knives from a wooden block.  I grabbed one of the lengths and held it down.  “You’re stronger than I am, but count the saws it takes me with this knife,” she said.

 It took her four.

“Let me try that,” I teased her, as if she had done something slick.  I took the knife from her while she held the rope down on the cutting board.  Expecting it to be difficult, I pressed hard with the new knife and sawed through the rope in two strokes.

 I was impressed.

Meghan asked me to bring my best pair of kitchen scissors to the table.  They were also old, and could not make a dent on the rope.  She got out her CutCo scissors, and not only cut through the rope with ease, she also cut a penny in half.

I was pretty much sold.  She gave me information about the steel and the handles.  She showed me the different sets I could buy.  My wife came home and I called her in to the dining room.  She sat down reluctantly, and I asked Meghan to do the rope trick.  She had my wife count the strokes, etc. etc. and I saw my wife change from skeptic to true believer in a matter of seconds.

“Do the scissor trick,” I said.  Meghan cut the rope and the penny.  I saw Sharon’s eyes wander over to the full set of kitchen knives displayed on the table in a butcher block case.

We ended up buying all the kitchen knives and a set of 12 steak knives.  They remain in their butcher block on the kitchen counter seven years later.
                                                         ______

Selling by telling is what most of us do.  But selling by doing is more powerful because it’s active and experiential.  You could say that conversation is also experiential (in that we experience it) but words are more likely to get caught in the filters of the mind and not reach the muscles.  

I know of one law firm that goes to major corporations who are shopping for a new legal advisor, and begins by saying, “We can do the March of a Thousand Slides, or we can have a discussion about your issues so you can get a feel for what it’s like to work with us.” 

More often than not, the clients look at each other and choose to have the discussion.   

An active audience is more likely to be moved than a passive.  Hitler knew this, unfortunately, and had his followers do their “Sieg heils,” throughout his speeches. 

Meghan was trained by a very successful company.  She got me to do things—bring water, bring knives.  She got me to say things, “Old, dull and inadequate.”  She had me cut rope, and compare the old with the new.  It was sensational—literally sensational—in that it gave me a sensation, like driving a new car after you’ve been driving your old one for 10 years.

Plus, she was Meghan, my daughter’s friend, and the daughter of my friend Merrill.  She was in a strong position to win my business. 

According to Robert Cialdini and others, there are at least 25 proven Principles of Persuasion.  Meghan may have invoked 7 in her brief visit to our dining room. 

What can we as business speakers, and as sales professionals, learn from this exchange?  Stay tuned for more. 

A report to a senior executive group is not a conversation, although it should sound conversational.  It is a communication designed to facilitate a prediction or a decision.

In order to sound conversational you need to be relaxed.  Ironically, relaxation comes from the tension of hard rehearsal.

Get to your recommendations as soon as possible. Don’t make them wait to find out why you are there.

Describe the benefits of your recommendations, preferably in quantitative terms—such as gross margin, time to ROI, or % of market share. Best case, base case, and worse case scenarios also add clarity and credibility.

Describe the costs, positioning them as reasonable compared to other similar projects that you can identify.

Include the downside if they decide not to follow your recommendation.  A favorable statistical confidence interval on your estimates of upside and downside will help.

As usual, occasionally get out of the abstract and into the concrete.  Illustrate the benefits of your recommendation with stories about other companies.  Likewise, dramatize the cost of not accepting your recommendations.

Senior executives tend to be big picture people.  Keep your remarks as short as possible.  They probably have to listen to a number of presentations at one sitting.  If you tell them everything they’ll remember nothing.

Don’t read bullet point slides. It’s the #1 thing people hate.  After all, why go to the trouble of a meeting if all the speaker does is read.  The senior people need to see you bring your idea to life, and demonstrate the character traits necessary to make it happen.

In terms of delivery, this is not the time to display your wild passion.  Just be extremely clear about what you want to do, why it’s a good idea, and how you plan to get it done.

Take away:  help them make a decision or a prediction.  In the fewest words possible.

Needle in a haystack

The audience will be drinking data from a firehose.  The savvy presenter recognizes this peril as an opportunity.

To capture attention—do something that stands out from the environment.  The opposite of getting attention is camouflage. Being attention-getting is not a quality; it is a contrast.

Trying too hard

Lots of people will be trying to stand out, and they’ll make the mistake of telling jokes, displaying cartoons on the screen, or trying to connect with the audience by telling stories about themselves.

Don’t do it.  The audience is content driven, results oriented, and time pressed.  They have limited space in short term memory.  Eliminate all extraneous information.

Not setting the scene

In an effort to get to the point, many speakers will forget to remind the audience of the back story—the space in which their molecule competes, and what the unmet medical needs are.

Your drug is the hero of a story.  It is stepping onto a stage to overcome important obstacles and bring health to sick people.  Set the scene so your drug looks like it has an important job to do.

Offending the experts

Analysts and other savvy investors may curl their toes in agony if you spend too much time on the big picture.

Set the scene quickly, then summarize in a fair and balanced way the achievements of your compound before you walk them through the data.

Using the word, “Robust”

The term “robust” has become a meaningless buzzword, especially in a scientific context.  Be the first presenter to dispense with using it.

Instead, make a statement that is meaningful, such as, “The data are promising,” or, “The data suggest…”

Going down rabbit holes

If you leave information on your slides that you don’t plan to talk about, you are inviting savvy listeners to drag you down into the weeds, which will choke your message with irrelevancies.

Unless there is an ethical reason that the audience needs to know it, keep it off the slide if it does not support your argument.

Not making an argument

There are some presenters who believe their job is to deliver information.  This approach leaves too much room for the audience to draw their own conclusions.

A good scientific presenter should make an argument for the quality of the study, the validity of the data, and the implications of his conclusions.

Blowing Q&A

It’s easier to make a slick presentation than it is to handle a room full of skeptical and insightful questions.

Brainstorm with colleagues to come up with all possible lines of inquiry, and practice responding to the most penetrating and damaging assaults.

Lack of conviction

Finally, your delivery stands guard over the material.  Great data poorly delivered at a high stakes venue is a huge waste of resources.

Rehearse, and where you falter, alter.

Things come in threes.  

First Representative Williams of South Carolina yelled, “You lie!” at the President during his speech on health care reform.

Then Serena Williams went off on a line judge at the U.S. Open.

Then Kanye West lost it at the Grammy Awards Ceremony.

The Serena thing is understandable—she’s out there fighting for her life and is all pumped up.  John McEnroe did much worse and is now a distinguished elder statesman of tennis.  Let’s give Serena a break.

But the other two guys stepped way over the line.  Screaming at the President and hijacking a microphone at a public ceremony are disruptive and rude behaviors.

It’s interesting that it got them both a lot of attention. I suspect that was Kanye’s motive.  I think Representative Williams is just a guy who is used to speaking his mind and lost the gyroscope on his social skills.

And that’s what can happen to us as presenters. 

I know one guy who was questioned about his marketing plan by an executive committee.  They wanted to know how he came up with his forecast number.  He told them and they said it didn’t seem right.

After a lot of going back and forth on his methodologies for determining the forecast, he got impatient and said, with his hands on his hips, “Well, if you don’t like the number, what do you want the number to be?”

You can imagine the silence in the room.  The President of the company took a breath and said, “Randy, why don’t we figure that out later.  Thank you for your time.”

Randy did not get sent to Siberia, but almost.  It took him years to earn his way back into the good graces of the executive committee.

Think two or three times before you let your temper get the best of you when you’re in the public eye.  Staying calm under pressure demonstrates maturity and leadership. 

More than communicating information and ideas, presenting is also a demonstration of character. 

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

It’s better when there’s no static on your radio, right? 

Same with presentations.  It’s better for the audience when you tell them right up front what you want them to do, or what your point is.

For instance, I saw a Seth Godin video on the web recently entitled, “Why Marketing Technical Products is too Important to Be Left to Marketing People,” (or something to that effect.)

When Seth was introduced, he displayed his good manners and then said, “Marketing technical products is too important to be left to marketing people.”

We all knew what the signal was.  There was very little noise.

Similarly, when clients of Sims Wyeth & Co. are presenting new drugs to the FDA for approval, they often begin in this way.

 “We intend to prove to your satisfaction the following points:

1. There is an unmet medical need for drug XYZ.
2. XYZ is active in disease ABC.
3. Its safety profile is tolerable and manageable.
4. The data support the use of the drug XYZ in disease ABC.”

The audience knows what to listen for, and knows the route to be taken.

Lots of signal.  Very little noise.

And then of course there’s your delivery.  If you look like you mean it and believe it, that’s another strong signal.

If you’re nervous and hemming and hawing, pacing back and forth, or twiddling your thumbs, that’s noise.  It’s distracting your listeners from what you want to say.

Boost your signal-to noise-ratio, verbally and non-verbally.  You’ll look good, make sense, and win the respect and loyalty of every audience you face.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

If you are present in a conversation or a meeting, you demonstrate your engagement by listening, responding, and then paying attention to how the other person receives your response. 

I have found a technique called Motivational Listening (ML) to be helpful in sales conversations and in talks with clients I am coaching.  The technique comes out of psychotherapy, and is designed to help the other person think about their thinking. 

ML techniques are represented by an acronym:  OARS

O stands for Open-ended Questions, questions that cannot be answered with a “Yes,” or “No.”  For example, “Why do you say that?” or “Can you tell me what you mean when you say ‘concerned’?”  Caveat:  don’t ask more than two or three questions in a row: It makes the other person feel interrogated.

A stands for Affirm.  Affirm the feelings that are either overtly expressed or implied.  For instance, “You seem proud of that accomplishment,” or, “I hear your frustration.”

R stands for Reflect.  This means you simply repeat the words back to the speaker.  For instance, if my prospect says, “I need to have leadership presence,” I could say right back to him, “You NEED to have leadership presence,” and then stop talking.   He will most likely jump right back in and say, “Yes, that’s what I want, and what my boss wants me to do.”

S stands for Summarize. When you get to a point in the conversation where things seem to be wrapping up, you do your listener a huge service by summarizing the gist of what he’s said.  For instance, “So your boss is concerned about your presentations.  You think you did well at the sales meeting, and you are frustrated that he keeps insisting that you need to develop more leadership presence.”  And then be quiet, and let the other person respond.

One of the deepest needs we have is to be heard.  When somebody “gets” that they have been “gotten,” they feel good. 

Using this technique, you are present in the conversation, not as the subject of the discussion, or as an equal participant, but as a witness for the other guy as he sorts through his thinking.

Read other blogs in this series:  Presentation Skills:  Stay Tuned for a Month of Presence, and Presence of Mind.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.