Many of my corporate executive presentation training clients come to me and express concerns about how their presentation will “flow.” They are obsessed with each and every thought connecting in a seamless manner, as if they were writing a work of great literature.
All things being equal, of course it would be nice if every single thought out of your mouth flowed together during a speech. But not all things are equal. There is a much bigger danger for the average corporate speaker than “flow.” The danger s that the speaker is BORING AS HADES!
Your first concern as a speaker is figuring out how you can present information in an interesting and memorable manner. This should be a much bigger concern than whether all of your ideas “flow” together perfectly.
If you have just told an interesting story that makes a point during your speech, there is nothing wrong with simply stopping, pausing, looking at another part of the room and then starting an entirely new point. Your audience cannot judge your “flow” or your connections in the same way they could if they were reading a written report. When it comes to text, flow is critically important. When sentences and paragraphs don’t flow together well, it makes the writer stand out as amateurish, or worse, a poor thinker.
Transitions are not AS important when giving public speeches (note: I am NOT saying that transitions are completely unimportant). This is because people listen differently than they read. When you read, you can stop, go back to the previous paragraph, reflect, and analyze as you go (and take your own time doing it). When you listen to someone speak, you are in the moment. You are paying attention to the words as they come out. You don’t have the luxury of playing back what was just said, or fast forwarding to a later part of the speech. If you stop to critique some part of the speech, you miss what is being said in the present and you can never get that moment back.
Being an audience member is a totally different experience from being a reader.
The master speaker realizes this. Therefore, the speakers who excel spend most of their time making sure their messages and their stories are truly interesting and memorable. Concern for “flow” is not abandoned, but it is given a back seat.
A lot of people like to sit around and complain about boring PowerPoint presentations.
“But TJ, I can’t do anything about it. That’s the way it’s done around here—it’s always been that way.” That’s what I hear all the time.
I can buy this if your boss is telling you that you have to give his PowerPoint presentation bullet point by bullet point to the board of directors, otherwise you are fired. But the reality is that most of us have a whole range of opportunities to influence PowerPoint presentations in our lives.
For starts, if any of your own employees or direct reports have to give you a presentation, you should issue the following edict to them:
“When you are delivering your PowerPoint presentation, do not give me any slides with bullet points on them. I repeat, it will be unacceptable if you have any slides containing bullet points.”
At first, your employees may think that you’ve gone mad. But once they’ve actually delivered an interesting presentation to you and others using PowerPoint slides as visuals, rather than overblown notes for bullet points, they will thank you.
Next, if a vendor is coming to give you a sales presentation, you can and should send them this note in advance of the sales pitch meeting.
“Our policy here at XYX Company is that we don’t participate in sales presentations that are delivered by using PowerPoint bullet points. Do not deliver us a PowerPoint using bullet points of text. Simply give us an interesting presentation by talking to us and, if you like, use PowerPoint visuals to enhance your ideas. We don’t give business to vendors who violate this rule. PS. we aren’t kidding.”
Now some of your vendors or prospective vendors may be shocked and appalled that you would make such a request. So what? You are the customer and the customer is always right. It is your vendor’s responsibility to conform to your wishes, so why not start out the relationship on the right foot?
Again, your vendor might not be initially happy. He or she may have to actually take an hour or two to prepare a new and interesting presentation instead of regurgitating the same old slides with bullet points. But over time, they will thank you.
And even if your clients and employees don’t thank you, YOU will thank you.
Because you have just eliminated thousands of hours of tedious boredom from the next 30 years of your life. Congratulations!
Recently, the CEO-designate of JP Morgan Chase, James Dixon, was asked his opinion about a merger while he was on a conference call with investors. Here is what he said according to the New York Times:
“Forgetting the business logic and the price, there will be options down the road there, I would answer your question about capable and that we weren’t really quite capable yet because our army was doing all the other stuff we had to do, particularly the systems conversions…The army will be capable to do other stuff sometime next year, which is reasonable. Doesn’t mean we will.”
If you are confused by that answer, you aren’t alone.
According to the Times, “A gaffe, a garbled sentence or a muddied articulation of a corporate strategy can not only mar the public profile of a chief executive but also prompt a run on the stock.”
The Times reported that J.P Morgan’s stock took a dive shortly after Mr. Dimon’s less-than-inspiring conference call.
The Times also put a spotlight on the CEO of Legg Mason, Raymond Mason. Here’s what Mason said in answer to a question about a recent acquisition during another conference call with investors.
“I’ll try to answer you, but you can’t put a lot of faith in what I’m going to say. I know in one meeting I said if we look at this a year from now it will be clear, or should be clear, you know, what is and what we can do and what’s attainable and how quickly, and I still think that’s true. God knows, I would hope that’s true.”
According to the Times, investors were so under whelmed with Mason’s answers that the stock price dropped 8% within one day.
What’s really going on here?
It’s simple. CEO’s, their advisors, their lawyers, their investor relations counselors and all of their other little helpers are wasting hours and hours writing and re-writing the prepared texts that the CEOs read at the beginning of the conference calls. Everyone wants to get the text just so, because it will be sent out as a press release, put on the web site and distributed all over the place.
There’s only one little problem with putting so much attention on the prepared text: if the CEO of a publicly traded company can’t answer real questions from investors in an intelligent manner, then people lose confidence—quickly! Stupid answers trump boring prepared text every time.
The solution is easy–videotaped or at least audio taped rehearsal question time with the CEO BEFORE the conference calls. Unfortunately, CEOs tend to surround themselves with yes-men and yes-women who are afraid to tell the emperor he or she is wearing no clothes or is in drastic need of having clearer answers to questions. Sadly, CEO advisors are no more apt to tell the boss he must rehearse than a Bush aide wants to tell the President there are no Weapons of Mass Destruction or a Clinton aide wants to say “no, you can’t have another Big Mac.”
If public relations and investor relations processionals ever get serious about exerting influence on their profession than they must become as forceful and as persuasive as lawyers are with theirs. CEOs must be convinced that they are committing an egregious breach of their fiduciary duties if they ever, ever answer questions in a public forum in front of investors or the press if they have first done a full-dress recorded rehearsal.
Until then, expect to see more billion dollar losses on corporate valuations because of dumb CEO answers to smart questions.
There is one big difference between an informative presentation and a sales presentation. In an informative presentation you are also trying to sell your ideas, but in a sales presentation you must do more. You must sell in a more specific time frame, typically sooner rather than later.
In a sales presentation, you must give out data and inform, but you must do more than that. In both types of presentations you must conclude your thoughts.
However, in a sales presentation, you must do more. You must CLOSE. Closing requires a very specific action that you are requesting from your prospect. It does not mean being high-pressured or acting unethically, but it does mean asking your prospect to do something highly specific, such as select your firm over another, sign a contract, or place an order. At some point during the close, you must ask the prospect directly for his or her business.
A surprisingly high number of sales people feel too awkward or embarrassed to ever come right out and ask people for their business. This is a big mistake.
Most people like to be asked for their business. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
If you conclude a presentation by asking people for their business, the worst thing that can happen is that they say no. But if you don’t ask, there is the possibility that your prospects liked you, were impressed with you, were inclined to hire you, but simply got distracted and then you became out of sight, out of mind. Then, you have poured money down the drain.
So don’t just conclude your sales presentation, conclude by closing.
There is one big difference between an informative presentation and a sales presentation. In an informative presentation you are also trying to sell your ideas, but in a sales presentation you must do more. You must sell in a more specific time frame, typically sooner rather than later.
In a sales presentation, you must give out data and inform, but you must do more than that. In both types of presentations you must conclude your thoughts.
However, in a sales presentation, you must do more. You must CLOSE. Closing requires a very specific action that you are requesting from your prospect. It does not mean being high-pressured or acting unethically, but it does mean asking your prospect to do something highly specific, such as select your firm over another, sign a contract, or place an order. At some point during the close, you must ask the prospect directly for his or her business.
A surprisingly high number of sales people feel too awkward or embarrassed to ever come right out and ask people for their business. This is a big mistake.
Most people like to be asked for their business. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
If you conclude a presentation by asking people for their business, the worst thing that can happen is that they say no. But if you don’t ask, there is the possibility that your prospects liked you, were impressed with you, were inclined to hire you, but simply got distracted and then you became out of sight, out of mind. Then, you have poured money down the drain.
So don’t just conclude your sales presentation, conclude by closing.
We re all taught to avoid clichés by our high school English teachers. And this is good advice, when it comes to writing reporters, articles, or even giving speeches. Reporters have also been taught by their instructors to never, ever write or utter clichés in news reports.
However, there is one big exception to this rule for both newsmakers and news
reporters: Reporters LOVE quoting experts, executives and newsmakers using clichés.
Why?
Because clichés are often more colorful ways of making points. Clichés become clichés in the first point because they are a more memorable way of making a message stick in someone’s head.
A journalist’s job is to make new information more understandable and more memorable to readers, viewers or listeners. When a reporter combines new information along side a cliché that repackages old information, the result is often a better understanding and context of the new story.
If you want to be a masterful media communicator, sometimes you have to swallow your pride. You have to realize that you are not the journalist or writer—your job is to get your message out. Your high school English teacher might not be impressed if she sees you quoted while using a cliché, but that should not be your concern. Your job is to get quotes that reflect your message.
“At the end of the day…”
“The bottom line is…”
“We hit a home run when we…”
None of these clichés are brilliant, but they may help you insert your main points into a story.
One of my clients was a financial regulator for the state of Florida. His office often had to shut down fraudulent boiler room operations. His message, after each shut down, was that consumers should be cautious if someone calls them at dinner time and offers to turn $5000 into $10,000 in three weeks in an oil well investment.
That was the message, but how did he get this idea into newspapers, TV and radio?
He said, “Remember citizens, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Same message as above, but because it is a cliché, the news media quoted him. And they quoted him using this cliché EVERY 3 MONTHS FOR 20 YEARS.
Not only do clichés work, but they will keep working for you over and over again.
Remember “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
One great way to get your message quoted by reporters is to state your ideas in the form of a rhetorical question. Why do reporters like rhetorical questions?
Because journalists like to break up the structure of their stories. If every sentence begins with a subject, is followed by a verb and ends with an object, the story can look boring very quickly. An occasional rhetorical question surrounded by quotation marks helps mix up the flow of a story.
“Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”
“Are we going to face a possible bankruptcy next year?”
“When is management going to listen to its own workers?”
“When will the airline unions realize that if they get all of their demands, there will be no airline left in business?”
“Why has the governor betrayed the faith of the voters?”
“Will Microsoft Office revolutionize the way workers get their jobs done?”
The one thing all of these questions have in common is that they aren’t real questions. They aren’t the expressions of one person seeking new information.
They are rhetorical questions, meaning they are simply a way of making a point in the form of asking a question. But they question doesn’t have to be answered in order for the point to still be understood.
Do I think it’s good to communicate your message points in the middle of an interview by using rhetorical questions? Yes I do.
Thousands of years ago, Aristotle wrote that believability is one of the three most important facts in being a good speaker—this has not changed. A speaker must be believable to have an impact on an audience.
This is why it is so important to eliminate obvious issues that can easily destroy a speaker’s believability. Reading from a script destroys believability because your audience doesn’t know if these are your ideas or even if you understand the ideas you are reading. Excessive looking at notes inflicts the same damage. Obvious displays of nervousness also eat away at the perception of believability.
“If he is really so confident of his ideas, why is he shaking like a leaf?” your audience muses.
The single easiest way to come across as more believable to an audience is through your eyes. Give long, luxuriant, and steady eye contact to as many people as possible, one at a time. Do this throughout your presentation and you will be believed.
Far too many speakers attempt to look and sound smart by drowning their audience members in a sea of facts. “More is More” is their philosophy. The problem is that no matter how quickly you speak during a 20-30 minute speech, there is no way you can get your audience to know as much as you do on your area of expertise.
The other reality is that your audience can already get all of the facts on your subject from the internet. People are not suffering from a lack of information or facts. There are more than 100,000 books published every year and, seemingly, another 100,000 blogs run by self-appointed pundits published every hour.
The world does not need more information. Your audience doesn’t really want more information.
Instead, your audience is looking for someone (you) who can sift through all the info they don’t have time to go through and distill for them what they really, really need to know. In short, your audience is looking for wisdom.
Are you providing wisdom for your audience? It would be nice if every speaker could come up with stunningly original and creative thoughts for each audience.
But this is not always required. You can impart wisdom to your audience by giving it a well-organized perspective on your subject matter. This means you don’t get them lost in a forest of facts. It’s not that facts don’t matter. It’s just that facts without context and priority have no meaning. As a speaker, you can give wisdom to your audience by giving them an overriding metaphor or a new thematic way at looking at a particular problem or cluster of issues. By creating themes or overriding messages, you help your audience interpret some small slice of the world in a more coherent, and hence, more meaningful way.
And when you are adding the value of meaning, even if it is how to make award winning paper airplanes, you will be perceived as a speaker who adds the value of wisdom to your audience.
The surest way to get quoted by the media is to attack somebody, even if it is yourself. Reporters love attacks. Why? Because attacks are a part of conflict and every great drama involves conflict.
The best story to be on if you are a reporter is war. Walter Cronkite became famous by covering WWII. Dan Rather got famous during the Vietnam War. Wars are interesting to cover because people are attacking each other every day.
The second best story to be on if you are a reporter is a national political campaign. Why? Because the leader of one party is attacking the leader of the other party every single day. And vice versa.
When you attack your opponents by name, your competitors, your boss, or yourself, you instantly make reporters excited. The more forceful, pointed, or emotional the attack you make, the greater your chances are of being quoted.
“General Electric is destroying the Hudson River!”
“McDonalds is on a mission to make every kid in America weigh 300 pounds.”
“I hate myself for forgetting to report all of my campaign contributions.”
All of these quotes will make it into final radio, TV and newspaper reports because they contain attacks.
Of course, as always, just because something is interesting to reporters doesn’t mean it is a good idea for you to say it. If a part of your message is to attack government waste, or inequality, then, by all means, attack away. But don’t ever attack anyone or anything in front of a reporter unless you want to see that attack in headlines connected with your name in tomorrow’s paper.
Of all the advice I give to my media training clients when it comes to how to answer questions during a media interview, the hardest piece for people to grasp is the need to communicate all three of your message points in every answer (that’s EVERY answer). When I tell people this, they think I am kidding, or they think that I meant to say “all three message points during the course of the interview.”
That’s not what I am saying. I urge people to try to say all three of their message points in every single answer.
“But TJ,” you cry. “I’ll sound insane! Reporters will run away from me.”
No, they won’t. The trick is that you don’t want to sound like a computer or a broken record. You want to hit all three of your message points in each answer, but do it in a different order, using different examples, and using different words.
If you aim for all three message points and you only get to one or two before the reporter cuts you off or interrupts you, well then you at least hit one or two—not bad.
The mistake many novices make is that they deliver all three of their message points exactly once, near the beginning of the interview. Then, they proceed to answer questions in a totally reactive way for the next thirty minutes. At the end of the interview, the reporter looks down at his or her notes and sees 57 separate message pointes, each delivered exactly once—therefore none stand out.
The reporter then chooses to include a random couple of points from your 57 points.
If you are happy with a 3-57 chance of success, then continue to use this strategy. If you want to increase the odds that the message you care about actually ends up in the story, then you must be more proactive, specifically by trying to interject all three of your message points in each answer.
Bill Gates has never been confused for Winston Churchill or the Rev.Martin Luther King, Jr. But as an orator, but Gates has improved dramatically as a public speaker. At the 2006 Consumer Electronic Show, his keynote address was a solid “B+” in speechmaking, without having to give him any grade inflation just for being a billionaire.
(Watch it here http://www.microsoft.com/events/executives/billgates.mspx)
Gates is smart not to stand behind a lectern; instead he faces the audience unobstructed. This makes him seem friendly, approachable, and confident. Sure, Gates still looks and sounds a little geeky, but he seems totally at ease with himself when talking to thousands of people. Gates kept a conversational tone thought his address. Notes and scripts were nowhere to be seen. Instead, Gates appeared to be talking, as if he were just giving a demonstration to one person in his own office. If Gates were nervous, he didn’t display it in any of the normal ways. He gestured freely, walked around the stage, and interacted with his computers in a relaxed fashion.
Gates isn’t trying to be Anthony Robbins, but the software billionaire did use lots of positive emotion in his presentation. He spoke of “the magic of software” when unveiling some of the tricks of his new Windows Vista operating system. So much of Gates appeal as a public speaker is because of what he DIDN’T do. Gates didn’t do any of the following:
* Dump excessive Data
* Use abstractions without giving examples
* Use PowerPoint slides with lots of bullet points and numbers
* Use too many PowerPoint slides
* Read from a script
* Attempt to use a teleprompter
* Rock back and forth nervously (as he once did for Justice Department depositions)
* Turn his back most of the time on his audience
* Rush
Gates used his visuals in a compelling way by showing images of a family and a real home. He demonstrated how a real person could use the new software in a real world office, home and car environment, whether using a PC or a cell phone. His ideas were easy to understand, follow and “see.” Because he wasn’t reading a script or staring at notes, Gates appeared to be supremely knowledgeable about his product, and therefore more believable. Gates understands what most software geeks and engineers fail to grasp (for that matter most business people land politicians), that the real power of a speech comes from the strength of your examples. Gates gave example after example on how his product could be used at home, in the car, at the airport and on the run. He never lost the audience and the never got lost in technical details.
Gates understands that everyone knows he is smart on the technical side, so he doesn’t have to prove to people how brilliant he is technologically. Instead he focused on what he thought might appeal to his audience the most. He painted a vivid picture of how his products could benefit consumers.
Whether you are a billionaire like Gates, a pauper, or a second grader giving a class report, one thing remains constant. If you focus all of your energies on what your audience will understand, appreciate, and benefit from, you will be a good speaker.
On January 9, 2006, Howard Stern debuted his new show on the Sirius Satellite Radio Network. It is easy for mainstream business or political figures to dismiss Stern as a mere prankster who panders to the lowest common denominator through an obsession with sex, bodily functions, bathroom humor and more sex. But many others have tried the same road Stern is on and most have failed. Millions of people love Howard Stern, and a lot of people love to hate him. Personally, I am neutral. I find him mildly amusing, but if I don’t listen to him for 14 months, and then listen to him again, I don’t feel like I’ve missed much.
But it is undeniable that Stern has become a major figure in American pop culture. The shock jock has the most zealous fans of any entertainer around. You can not deny Stern’s success. Stern is well on his way to joining the Oprah-Martha Steward Media Billionaires Club. But I believe there are secrets to Stern’s success that are transferable to others (without being obscene!). Here are the 10 key principles that I believe Stern has used as he built his media empire that can be duplicated by others who wish to be powerful communicators:
- Talk about what really interests you. (It’s not as if Stern has to fight a daily impulse to discuss the Federal Reserve)
- Make fun of yourself. (Stern always ridicules his own manhood)
- State your beliefs even at the risk of offending people. (In Stern’s case the FCC documents his numerous offenses)
- Be unique. (Through his dress, style, vocal tone and message, Stern has been different from his competitors for 30 years)
- Consistently communicate a consistent message. (Howard has been doing the same thing for 30 years—he doesn’t reinvent himself)
- Display passion (When Howard is angry or upset, he reveals all)
- Treat your audience like gold. (Howard treats his audience members like they are closer to him than his own family. He even has parties for them.)
- Treat all people equally. (Whether you are a poor person with a handicap or a rich Hollywood celebrity like Alec Baldwin, Stern gives everyone the same level of disrespect.)
- Reveal yourself. (When Howard was going through a divorce, he revealed all to his listeners)
- Work incredibly long and hard hours. (Howard has gotten up at 4:00 AM in the morning for decades and spent every waking moment coming up with new bits for his show)
1. Get glasses that aren’t heavy or thick unless you want people to focus on your glasses.
2. Bow ties make a certain statement. Make sure it is the statement you want to make.
3. A man’s shirt collar must fit perfectly.
4. Have your socks match your pants or footwear. Don’t apologize.
5. If you are a man with even an inch of fat on your waist or are wearing a suit that isn’t 100% perfectly tailored, then keep your jacket buttoned. This will keep your tie in place, your suit symmetrical, minimize your gut and show less of your light colored shirt.
So how did President Bush do in his State of the Union Address? At the risk of being institutionalized against my will, I make the following assessment of this speech: George W Bush is arguably a better public speaker now than were Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and George H. W. Bush in their prime. Such a statement just a few short years ago would have been laughable, but not today.
Whether you love or loath George W. Bush, you can not deny that he has learned how to read a teleprompter. His smirks are gone. The squinting has disappeared. The nervous rushing trough a speech is a distant memory. Tics are non-existent. The first half of his speech was completely devoid of any stumbles whatsoever. Granted, he did stumble over 10 words in the second half, but none were disruptive.) Indeed, Bush was devoid of Bushisims.
Bush exuded confidence through his steady eye contact and his lack of head jerking. He conveyed emotion without seeming exasperated. For once, he seemed to have spent more hours rehearsing his speech in a week that at the gym.
Stylistically, Bush seemed sincere and was devoid of petty jabs at long-forgotten adversaries like Kerry and Gore. Unless you were a die-hard Bush hater, he didn’t seem smug or arrogant. Instead, his tone was conversational and relaxed.
Of Course, Bush isn’t perfect on technical grounds yet. He got thirsty and his tongue was hanging out of his mouth too often (in search of moisture?) during the second half of the speech. And it probably goes without saying that Bush still can’t pronounce the word “nuclear,” though in his defense, he is not a nuclear engineer (like some previous presidential mispronouncers of the word).
So how did Bush’s speech rate on political grounds? Since this President has the lowest poll ratings of anyone since Nixon at this state of a second term, Bush was in serious need of receiving a boost. Bush sounded the most non-partisan of his presidency. I predict he will receive a short-term boost in his polls from many independent voters who liked his stance on HIV/AIDS or on developing non-traditional forms of energy.
But conservatives must have been disappointed by the least red meat-filled speech of the Bush Presidency. The hard-fought Alito Supreme court victory barely got mentioned (at 3 minutes to 10:00 PM). Bush requesting congress to give him the line-item veto was as pathetically amusing as watching Linus hoping for the arrival of the Great Pumpkin. Did Bush think this fantasy gimmick would fool conservatives into thinking he wasn’t the most fiscally irresponsible president in the history of the world?
Liberals are far beyond being impressed by Bush’s style. In their world, Bush is forever the inarticulate, bumbling, bungling idiot-son-in-chief. There is only one thing that would have impressed them. If Bush had admitted categorical failure in his plan to invade Iraq and then called for the complete elimination of troops from that country. Nothing else would impress Liberals.
Bush is an inspiration for all late-bloomers in life, but his new rhetorical
skills may have come too late to alter his 2nd term political landscape.
Bill Gates has never been confused for Winston Churchill or the Rev.Martin Luther King, Jr. But as an orator, but Gates has improved dramatically as a public speaker. At the 2006 Consumer Electronic Show, his keynote address was a solid “B+” in speechmaking, without having to give him any grade inflation just for being a billionaire.
(Watch it here http://www.microsoft.com/events/executives/billgates.mspx)
Gates is smart not to stand behind a lectern; instead he faces the audience unobstructed. This makes him seem friendly, approachable, and confident. Sure, Gates still looks and sounds a little geeky, but he seems totally at ease with himself when talking to thousands of people. Gates kept a conversational tone thought his address. Notes and scripts were nowhere to be seen. Instead, Gates appeared to be talking, as if he were just giving a demonstration to one person in his own office. If Gates were nervous, he didn’t display it in any of the normal ways. He gestured freely, walked around the stage, and interacted with his computers in a relaxed fashion.
Gates isn’t trying to be Anthony Robbins, but the software billionaire did use lots of positive emotion in his presentation. He spoke of “the magic of software” when unveiling some of the tricks of his new Windows Vista operating system. So much of Gates appeal as a public speaker is because of what he DIDN’T do. Gates didn’t do any of the following:
* Dump excessive Data
* Use abstractions without giving examples
* Use PowerPoint slides with lots of bullet points and numbers
* Use too many PowerPoint slides
* Read from a script
* Attempt to use a teleprompter
* Rock back and forth nervously (as he once did for Justice Department depositions)
* Turn his back most of the time on his audience
* Rush
Gates used his visuals in a compelling way by showing images of a family and a real home. He demonstrated how a real person could use the new software in a real world office, home and car environment, whether using a PC or a cell phone. His ideas were easy to understand, follow and “see.” Because he wasn’t reading a script or staring at notes, Gates appeared to be supremely knowledgeable about his product, and therefore more believable. Gates understands what most software geeks and engineers fail to grasp (for that matter most business people land politicians), that the real power of a speech comes from the strength of your examples. Gates gave example after example on how his product could be used at home, in the car, at the airport and on the run. He never lost the audience and the never got lost in technical details.
Gates understands that everyone knows he is smart on the technical side, so he doesn’t have to prove to people how brilliant he is technologically. Instead he focused on what he thought might appeal to his audience the most. He painted a vivid picture of how his products could benefit consumers.
Whether you are a billionaire like Gates, a pauper, or a second grader giving a class report, one thing remains constant. If you focus all of your energies on what your audience will understand, appreciate, and benefit from, you will be a good speaker.
Public figures get in trouble all of the time and are then forced to apologize. Whether it is TV preachers who claim to know why God strikes some people down or Olympic athletes who brag about skiing while drunk, big shots are often forced into the role of the contrite. Few pull it off well, because they don’t seem to be sincere and they don’t seem to grasp why what they said or did it offended anyone.
Oprah Winfrey, once again, is in a class by herself. Not only is she only the world’s greatest talk show host, but she is a world class apologizer too. Winfrey suffered a rare ding to her public image when she promoted James Frey’s phony memoir “A Million Little Pieces.” She made matters much worse for herself when she defended Frey after he was exposed as a fraud. Winfrey called to defend him on the Larry King Show, saying the controversy was “much ado about nothing.”
What happened next was not the usual treatment for media darling Oprah. She was roundly denounced by columnists, pundits, editors and talk show hosts around the globe for essentially saying that “the truth doesn’t matter anymore.”
Oprah countered several days later on her show when she brought back disgraced author Frey and his publisher Nan Talese. Regarding Oprah’s call to King defending Frey, she said “I regret that phone call. I made a mistake and I left the impression that the truth does not matter and I am deeply sorry about that. That is not what I believe.”
Additionally, Winfrey said that she felt “duped” by Frey and she used the platform of her own TV show to rake Fry and his editor over the coals repeatedly.
So why was Oprah’s apology effective whereas as most politicians and public officials fail in their own apologies?
1. She said she was sorry and that she made a mistake. She didn’t sugar coat things or claim that she had “misspoken.” She didn’t apologize just for having offended people. She apologized because she had made a serious mistake.
2. Oprah didn’t try to minimize her sins. She showed she really understood why people were upset. She spelled out that her mistake was giving people the impression she didn’t care about the truth.
3. She seemed sincere. By spending so much time on her blunder and by giving airtime to her critics, Oprah seemed genuinely troubled by the course of events and sincerely sorry.
4. Oprah tried to take actions to correct the problems. She practically chopped off the fingers of Frey and his editor in order to keep them from writing and publishing again. This shows she takes the issue seriously and isn’t just doing a quick PR spin.
5. By apologizing to her viewers, admitting that her critics were right, and offering no defense for her actions, Oprah revealed herself emotionally to her fans and the world. She also left no other rational reason for anyone to be angry with her or to criticize her. Thus, the only logical reaction left from her audience was to give Oprah forgiveness.
That is a successful apology and that is yet another reason why Oprah is the queen of all media.
One of the biggest problems most speakers have is the tendency to dump too much data in their presentations, i.e., 12 bullet points per slide, 89 slides for a 15-minute presentation. When you try to dump this much data in a speech, all you do is put your audience to sleep. You really aren’t communicating; all you are doing is putting people to sleep.
But if you streamline your speech and focus on just 3-5 key points the way most experts (including me) recommend, you may have some of your colleagues or clients disappointed. They want all the data and now you aren’t giving it to them.
The answer is to give people data in advance. Email or snail mail your audience all the data in advance. Tell them to study it. Ask them to prepare their questions. That way the people who really care will have the data they need.
For example, if someone comes to a half-day or full day presentation or media-training seminar at my studio, I inundate him or her in advance with data. I send them a couple of books, a dozen videos, several CDs, a software program, newsletters and several other learning tools. If they looked at everything they would spend 24 hours examining the data and info I sent them. Most trainees don’t do this, but for the ones who want to do so, it is available.
So when the day of the training comes, I don’t stand up to do a data dump for eight hours. Instead, I focus on just a handful of concepts and speak for less than an hour. That way, my trainees get to spend the majority of their time speaking and being critiqued.
Whether you are conducting an eight-hour training or just delivering a 15-minute quarterly sales summary, you have the power to control how you disseminate the data. Always use the option of data dumping in advance (or after the meeting), so that you can use your actual speaking time focusing exclusively on your key messages.
Sure, the news media can be negative and even nasty on a regular basis. But every so often a favored politician, entertainer or sports figure is subjected to the “puff piece” where the rules are different. In a puff piece, the subject is puffed up with nothing put positive facts, quotes and examples on his or her brilliance, creativity, and humanity.
The February 5, 2006 New York Times Magazine ran a puff piece bordering on idolatry on Duke University head basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, who now also charges between $50k-100k per speech he gives. I happen to think that Coach K deserves the praise because I find him devoid of all of the sanctimonious platitudes that take over most successful basketball and football coaches (and I thank him for the entertainment he gave me for four years when I sat just a few seats behind him in the student section of Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium).
But here is what struck me about the New York Times article:
“Rather than standing behind a lectern, he (Kryzewski) paced at the front of the stage. He used no notes. The house lights were up because he likes to find a few faces to focus on, ‘to make eye contact,’ he says. He always looks for a few women because ‘they’re more emotional, and when I talk about those things, they get it. They’re right there with me.’”
The author had just spent several paragraphs making the case that Coach K is more authentic, more sincere, and more honest than other people. How did the author make this point? By pointing out that Coach K doesn’t read his speech and that he faces his audience directly without hiding behind a lectern.
The implication is that Coach K is braver than others, because he risks exposure directly with his audience. He is authentic and therefore not the typical insincere phony that reads other people’s words off of a PowerPoint screen.
We can’t all be wildly successful basketball coaches, but we can all learn how to give a speech without reading a script, staring at PowerPoint or hiding behind a lectern. If you want to give reporters (and others) a nice hook for writing and saying nice things about you, then you should follow Coach K’s example—not on the basketball court, but on the speaker’s platform.
Excerpts from the February 7, 2006 New York Times coverage of the Coretta Scott King funeral :
Of the four presidents, Mr. Clinton was the obvious favorite of the crowd. A huge cheer went up as he reached the open area near Mrs. King’s coffin, and the crowd gave him a thunderous standing ovation when he approached the microphone with his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
He (Clinton) delivered the longest speech of the four presidents, apparently without notes. After former President George Bush lost some of his prepared remarks, he told the crowd, “It may be your lucky day, I’ve lost a page.” As they cheered, cameras caught the current President Bush laughing heartily in the background.
We can debate all day on whether there is a left-wing or a right-wing bias in the mainstream media (just kidding, please don’t send me your opinions on this tiresome issue), but one thing is beyond debate: the news media has a definite bias in favor of speakers who don’t read speeches and a pronounced bias against speakers who work from fully prepared texts.
The clear-cut implication of this article is that Bill Clinton is loved by the audience, in part, because he comes across as sincere and likeable because he can simply talk from the heart. Former President George Bush, on the other hand, is out of his element and awkward, as demonstrated by his losing a page of his speech. Granted, the
New York Times still showed Bush in a positive light — he was able to make fun of himself. Still, one former president was able to communicate messages of profound emotional importance, while another former President was cast as an amiable nerd who has to be content with making fun of his own failings as a communicator.
Which message would you rather convey?
Note that the New York Times wrote that Clinton spoke “apparently without notes.” As I teach all of my clients, it is very easy to use notes while speaking in a way that is undetectable to an audience, as long as you keep your notes to one page and never have to pick it up.
Bush blundered on several accounts:
1. He should have personally double checked his speech right before going on to make sure every page was in order.
2. He should have condensed his notes to a single sheet of paper so as to avoid the problem of missing or mixed up pages.
3. He should have been familiar enough with the messages he wanted to convey at the funeral so that he could have adlibbed though the missing page without ever calling attention to his missing page.
Former President Bush does not have a reputation as a vain, self-aggrandizing politician, but in this case, he took the spotlight off of the dead and the mourning process and put it on himself. And that’s the last thing you want to do if you have been invited to speak at a funeral.
