I just spent two days with a private equity firm preparing the executives of a portfolio company for a sale to another financial buyer.

As you may know, the practice is standard:  Potential buyers meet with company executives to perform due diligence on the past performance, future opportunities, and to get a feel for the executives themselves.

In this case, an investment bank had prepared the slides.  The first order of business at the meeting where the current owners, the company executives, and the investment bankers gathered was to go through the deck, page by page, and attempt to agree on what should be said on each slide.

It was not pretty.  The executives were seeing the deck for the first time.  They knew their business inside and out, but they were not accustomed to seeing it presented as the bankers did.

A long day of haggling and nit-picking ensued.  Some executives were tongue-tied and frustrated trying to deliver the content as the bankers had drawn it up, and scripting by committee continued into the wee hours.

The prospect of a slide deck making the executives look less than professional and knowledgeable began to loom over the group. And the subsequent reduction in the perceived value of the enterprise also flitted through the collective consciousness in the room.

While there are many lessons here, the simplest take-away is to let the speaker find his own way into the vast terrain of his knowledge.  A deck prepared by outsiders sends him into his own head from a point he’s unlikely to have encountered before.  As a result, he feels lost—a stranger to his own experience.

Don’t start with the slides, unless they ignite your passion and curiosity about the subject.  Start instead from a place that seems right to you, the speaker. 

Some of us prefer a wide angle shot of the topic, a broad overview supported by a deep dive into the underlying information.

And others prefer quite the opposite—a close-up view of one telling detail followed by an explanation as to why that granularity is representative of the whole.

Still others want to speak of their own experience, why they love the topic, or simply give a clear outline of the points they will make.

In fact, there are as many ways of organizing a talk as there are people.  But the way should be suited to the person, not to the third party that wrote it for hire. 

The speaker must find the thread that leads his own mind into the dense fabric of his expertise, and allows him to weave for the listeners a vision of his knowledge.

Once he’s got that, he can prepare the slides.  Without it, he will stumble around in a web of information, with no grasp of a through-line, and create at best a patchy image of the thing he’s trying to describe.

Don’t start with the slides.  Start with what you want to say, and say it the way that makes it yours.

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. 

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.

The arts of music, poetry, literature, and drama have been around so long that each of them has templates.  To dismiss templates is to ignore the wisdom of the ages.

To name a few, music has verses and choruses, poetry has sonnets and haiku, literature has novels and short stories, and drama has setting, character, plot, and resolution.

Templates exist for speeches and presentations too.  Past to present to future is one.  Cause and effect is another.  Thesis, antithesis, synthesis is yet a third. But by far the most useful in the business world is the situation, problem, solution template.

 In business, define the problem first, then argue for your solution.

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.

I am still holding my ground against Ford Harding.  We have been debating the relative merits of raising FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) in persuasive arguments, or GOG (greed, opportunity, and glory.)

For previous exchanges, please click on Fud, Gog, Ethics and Rhetoric and Fud in Public Speaking and Persuasion

Ford seems to think that GOG is better than FUD.  I think they work together, and that one is not better than the other.

I follow what the ancient Greeks taught.  Aristotle taught that speakers need to make three types of arguments in order to be persuasive.

The first is the ethical appeal:  you argue that you are a trustworthy source of information.  You do this by casually referencing your experience or expertise, and perhaps with some self-effacing humor.

The second is the intellectual appeal.  You argue by stating your point and then proving it with reasoning and facts, or you present your facts and reasoning and then conclude with your point.

The third type of argument is the emotional appeal.  You try, through stories, or humor, to arouse an emotion in your listeners.

Cicero, the great Roman statesman, thought the emotional appeal was the most important.  He said, “…tickling and soothing anxieties is the test of a speaker’s impact and technique.”

Ford, please note that he said, “… tickling AND soothing anxieties,” and Cicero was no slouch as a speaker.  He knew what he was talking about.  He seems to be saying that whenever we propose to an audience that they make a decision, we should bring up the pros and cons.

For instance, you might say that if the listeners don’t do what you recommend, A, B, C and D are the negative consequences they might expect.  However, if they decide to do what you suggest, you would argue that they could enjoy X, Y, and Z.

I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, or anyone, that your reasoning should be fair and balanced.  Using FUD or GOG is ethically neutral.  One is not more virtuous or ethical than the other.  It is not our technique that makes us unethical, but our intention.

And by the way, most speeches, articles, plays, novels, and movies are structured in the same way.  They single out a problem, consider its implications, and explore solutions.

Humans like problems because problems resemble puzzles, and we love puzzles.  We derive great pleasure from solving them, and grow as a result.

FUD gets our attention on the problem.  GOG drives us toward a solution.

They are the one-two punch of human growth and accomplishment.

Recently, a client of mine, who is also a childhood friend, left me a voice mail saying that he did not think my short article on the power of gesture to create emotion was appropriate for the market I serve. Essentially, the short piece tried to make the point that speakers can alter their inner emotional state by finding a gesture to do (in private) that can move them out of fear and anxiety and into calmness and confidence.

He said that the suggestion seemed too “pop” and “retail” and inappropriate for sophisticated people. To him, it seemed like something he would find in an airline magazine.

I am grateful for his honesty, and for his trust that I would take his comment in the right way. I know he is watching out for my best interests.

I would like to try to make the point again (and here in public) in a way that makes it more palatable to him and those who might think as he does.

We all agree that just as feelings create physical gestures (happiness puts a spring in your step), gestures can stimulate feelings (raising your hands above your head and punching the air in triumph tends to lift a sagging mood.)

As speakers, we want to present ourselves as enthusiastic upbeat people who are excited about our material. If we happen to be nervous, a few fist pumps, or jumping jacks, or whatever, done out of sight of the audience, will serve to prime our emotional pumps.

Also, while sophisticated people may reject the idea that they could benefit from using creative gestures as an offstage tool to create more positive inner states (even though they admire dancers, actors and singers who use just those techniques to bring their material to life) they themselves might more effectively bring their own complex messages to life with a bit more expressiveness.

I taught acting for many years under the tutelage of Michael Chekhov and his disciples, and I now serve on the board of MICHA–the Michael Chekhov Association. Michael Chekhov was the nephew of Anton Chekhov, and he was considered the greatest actor of the 20th century in Russia.

Michael Chekhov disagreed with Stanislavsky about how actors should create the inner life of their characters. Stanislavsky suggested, for instance, that when called upon to cry, the actor should recall his “dying grandfather” or some other sad event, a technique he called sense memory. Michael Chekhov, on the other hand, suggested that creative gesture can stimulate sensation, and that sensation is the vessel into which we can pour our creative feelings.

I think both can work, but I tend to lean toward Chekhov. The technique of sense memory removes us from the immediate circumstances, and asks us to visualize something that occurred, or will occur, at another time and place.

Gesture, on the other hand, gives me an immediate physical and psychological jolt that arouses my vitality and sense of play. I can walk out on stage with an inner feeling that I have the energy and will to do my best.

The body can speak to the inner life, and when necessary, we can use gesture as a tool to create a more appealing and effective presence.

Let’s call her Sheila.  Like many in the financial services industry, she sells with the aid of a pitch book, printed in landscape format and containing information about the history of her firm, her team of colleagues, their range of services, the historical performance of their funds, and their fees. It’s a handsome piece, with beautiful thick card stock for covers, and full color graphs and pictures throughout. It took her firm a year and a half of internal wrangling to produce it.

When we sat down to role play, she directed me to the first page, which was covered with bullet points enumerating the key features and benefits of her firm. I was soon lost in a jungle of terms, ideas, and services with which I was not familiar.

When she paused, I jumped in and asked her if I could tell her about my situation and what I thought I needed. She apologized for plowing through the boilerplate and allowed me to describe the situation I faced.

As I was speaking about the need to get my finances in order and to help my aging parents with theirs, she stopped me and referred me to page 18 in tab 3 to show me her firm’s trust and estate capabilities.

I listened to what she said about their long history helping people preserve assets across generations, but still I felt as though I wasn’t being heard, or I wasn’t hearing what I needed.

I stopped the role play and said that I felt that I was being drowned in information, and that I wanted her to show some bedside manner. I instinctively trusted that she knew about investing–after all, I was referred to her by a friend who used her services–but I did not feel that she had learned enough about me.

As I was saying this, Sheila interrupted me to say that this was just a role play and that of course she would do that in real life. I asked if she was aware that I found it difficult to get a word in. She said no. I began to explain my experience and she interrupted me to tell me that others had told her the same thing.

“What have they told you?” I asked.

“They’ve told me that I interrupt people,” she said.

“Did they tell you how they felt about being interrupted?”

“I assume they don’t like it,” she said. “But some people are just slow. They need to be straightened out.”

“What about your prospects? What happens when you straighten them out?”

“I suppose they think that I know more than they do. That’s what they’re paying me for.”

“To interrupt them? To correct them?”

“Well, I don’t have all day. People shouldn’t be so sensitive.”

I began to ask her again how people might feel about being interrupted when she cut me off to say that she thought I wanted her to use the pitch book–and that was why she hadn’t asked me questions.

I said, “You interrupted me again.”

She acknowledged that she had, but said she had to say what came into her mind before she forgot it.

“But if you do that, you cut the other person off,” I said, “And they feel that you’re dictating the flow and direction of the exchange.”

Our session continued in this manner, and every time Sheila interrupted me, I pointed it out and asked her what she should say.

“I’m sorry?” she asked.

“Yes. What else?”

“I’m sorry? I interrupted you? Please continue?”

“That’s a good start,” I said. “If you can’t change your habit of interrupting right away, at least become mindful of it, and apologize.”

According to a poll conducted by the Gallup Organization, the number one most disliked habit in conversation is “people who interrupt.” The second is “people who use profanity.” The third is “people who mumble.”

And along the same lines, the four biggest mistakes that sales people make?

1. They talk too much
2. They don’t ask enough questions
3. They don’t listen well
4. They are too quick to offer solutions

Let’s call her Sheila, but let’s understand she’s like most of us. We all have our pitch books and boilerplate. We think selling is about talking. We think listening is easy. It’s not, because to listen well requires that we drop our self interest momentarily and help the other person articulate clearly what they have not been able to say so clearly before.

Believe it or not, that’s a great service.

When I ask people to remember three talks they’ve heard or seen recently, most people have to think long and hard.

I asked myself this question a few days ago, and this is the third entry in my response.

I remember Chris Myers, an author and illustrator of children’s books.

He was speaking to honor Jerry Weiss, Distinguished Service Professor of Communication at Jersey City State College.  He began by quoting an ancient saying that when a butterfly flaps its wings, the air moves on the other side of the world.

He then went on to explain that many years ago, his father, Walter Dean Myers, also an author of children’s books, met Jerry, and that Jerry had been instrumental in his father’s career.

Chris’s Dad had taken him to visit Jerry’s classes, and Jerry had been a constant presence in both their lives.

Chris built a link between Jerry’s first meeting with his Dad, and his (Chris’s) own success as a writer and illustrator.

And he concluded with the comment that Jerry was in fact the butterfly who long ago beat his wings and had moved his influence through two generations of artists.

Chris Myers was a good speaker, and a memorable speaker, for several reasons.

1. He was warm, relaxed and engaging
2. He was empathetically focused on his primary audience–Jerry Weiss, the honoree.
3. He packaged his message around a memorable image–a puff of air made by a pair of butterfly wings.

There are men and women who live on the back porch of their souls, and when you walk up on the front porch and knock on the door, they take a long time to open up.  You can hear their footsteps echo as they come cautiously down the hallway of their lives.  They open the door a crack, wedge their faces forward, and ask you what you want.

I spent a day with a thoughtful presenter whose wit and vitality was there, but it was far back in her persona.  She had great depth, it seemed to me, but not much surface appeal.  She needed more surface!

All communication has substance, structure, and surface.  Most speakers have a ton of substance.  What they need is structure and surface.

Surface is a bunch of things.  It’s the look and feel of the PowerPoint slides.  It’s the hair, clothing, and style.  But mostly it’s the ability to manifest on the skin what transpires down in the depths.

“They do not love that do not show their love,” said William Shakespeare, and I say I need to see temperament and conviction in a speaker.

I am not talking about theatrics, or histrionics, or vocal volume, or “sawing the air” and “tearing a passion to tatters.”  What I need to see and hear is a high degree of intention in a speaker–enough intention to warrant my attention.

My client, this wonderful, sensitive person with much to say, was considered very effective in small groups but ineffective in large settings, and her career depended on her ability to connect with large groups.

I asked her to stand still, as though her feet reached into the ground and her head was tangled up in stars.  I asked her to look only at the people in the back row, and look at each one of them for long periods of time.

I asked her to use her voice as a long arm–to imagine her hand on the shoulder of her listener in the back, and tell him what he needed to hear.

I asked her to reach into her mind with each inhaled breath, and only speak when the long arm of her breath had found and grasped the exact words she wanted to say.

I asked her to throw fire with her hands, like a wizard or a witch.  Zeus could throw thunderbolts. Why couldn’t she imagine throwing sparks and beams of light with her intention?  She could make those in the back row feel her gaze (I told her); she could touch them with the intensity and clarity of her thinking.

As someone said to me, we need to make the people in the back row feel as though they’re sitting in the front.

That’s more than arm waving and shouting.  That’s radiating through the skin your desire to get your point across.

Few listeners will care if the speaker doesn’t care.  To paraphrase The Bard, “They do not care that do not show they care.”

We need a surface!