Great Speaking Coach

Sales Presentations - Customized or Canned?

Sales teams love opportunities to deliver their sales presentations to prospects for new business. When you've got one of these coveted opportunities, how do you make the most of it?

Option #1: Your company has a prepared presentation--slides, speakers notes--that you can upload to your laptop, quickly review, and deliver to the prospect. So quick, so easy, so effortless! Is this what you do?

Option #2: Or, do you Put the Audience First? You'll have to think about the prospect's issues and goals, write slides from scratch and devote time to practicing the new presentation so you can deliver it with confidence. Since there's no guarantee you'll make the sale, do you make this investment?

Any prospect will tell you "Yes, make the investment!" They want to learn how you are going to apply your core competencies to their issues specifically. No one ever generalizes to the point that they give you the benefit of envisioning your solutions as fitting their problems.

You must approach key points with leading materials that reflect the prospect's issues. What springboard story can you tell that helps the prospect believe that you understand them? What testimonial can you quote to show the prospect other similar problems you've solved? What visuals can you use that makes the prospect say "yes that's our situation exactly?"

Put the Audience First and write your presentation around their interests and issues. Only then should you tell a little about your company.

How do you Put the Audience first? Share your tips with us through our comment link below.

Presentation Skills Top Jeffrey Gitomer's List

Presentation skillfulness enables sales people to demonstrate all the qualities of character and skill that make top sales people successful. None other than sales master Jeffrey Gitomer puts presentation skills at the top of his list of 12 characteristics of exceptional sales people.

Visit Jeffrey's column to read it his own words.

What do you think? Post your comments here through our comment link below.

Public Speaking from Tribune's Sam Zell

Public speaking includes written material from corporations in addition their spoken words. What does your written public speaking sound like and mean to your audiences? You can learn some valuable public speaking tips from media giant Tribune Co.

An early step in the company's transition from public to private corporation was the distribution of the handbook that outlines Tribune Co's workplace policies and the new company's values. Sounds likely to be a heavy mix of corporate and human-resource-department speak, right?

Not so in this case. Sam Zell, the new owner, told employees that he had heard from many of them, and that what they wanted most was to eliminate red tape and speed up decision-making. I repeat: he not only heard from them, he listened to them!

As reported in the Washington Post, the handbook is a "reminder not to take ourselves too seriously and have fun."

Here's a sample from the Tribune employee handbook:

• Rule #1: Use your best judgment.
• Rule #2: see Rule 1
• That's it. That is the one hard and fast rule. Unless a serious mistake was made when you were hired, you have pretty good judgment."

Apply this everyday language approach to your presentations and you'll engage and mobilize your audiences. Let us know how you have eliminated corporate speak and made your presentations more appealing. Post your thoughts through our comment link.

Steve Jobs Thrills with Enthusiasm

"Technology industry executive speeches have one thing sorely absent: surprise." So says Rob Pegoraro in his column about the Macworld Expo held in San Francisco. In contrast, Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, was bubbling with an enthusiasm the technology industry too often forgets.

Where would your speeches fall on the 'ennui-to-enthusiasm' scale? Bore your listeners to death with chock full text and graphics slides and deadly delivery? Or pump them up and mobilize them with enthusiasm, energy and expressiveness?

Steve Jobs may lead a company known for its creative and innovative technology and you may lead or work for a company whose products or services seem uninspiring in comparison, but you don't have to settle for giving dull and boring presentations.

Incorporate:

• Media other than slides such as props, exercises and word puzzles
• Well-designed and delivered business stories
• Participation such as answering questions, talking with others
• Toggling the slide software off from time-to-time
• Standing front and center and putting the slides in their proper, supportive, role

You have as many opportunities as you need to pump up your presentations. It may take a while to counter objections from within such as "we always do it this way" or "that's what they expect". Begin with one exciting new element and gradually add others until  your audiences are surrounding you afterward with admiration and accolades.

Do you have a tip or technique that ups the enthusiasm rating of your presentations? Share it will us by posting a comment through the comment link.

Public Speaking Tips - Wow 'em Delivery Style

Public speaking can be exciting for the audience and the speaker. Excitement is created through delivery styles that every speaker can adopt. There are 4 key elements of delivery style for public speaking.

Voice or vocal variety:

• Speed of speaking (fast to slow)
• Volume (low to soft)
• High/low tone or pitch
• Pauses - yes, the absence of sound through a correct silent pause is part of vocal variety

Facial expressions:

Smiles, frowns, eye contact and other expressions are closely related to content and confidence. Be sure you are passionate about your content and that you practice enough to be confident. Your facial expressions will then be attractive to the audience.

Gestures:

Do what comes naturally, except for distracting or irritating gestures. These include pointing a finger and stabbing the air; wringing your hands in front of you; hands behind the back; or any repetitive gesture.

Movement:

Use the whole presentation space and move naturally. Replace bad habits such as pacing and rocking with deliberate movement choices such as a few steps forward--stand still--a few steps right--stand still--a few steps forward--stand still, etc. Don't stand behind a podium or lectern or off to the side while you give the slides the power place in the center.

How do you Wow 'em with your delivery? Share your ideas through our comment link.

Public Speaking Tips - Know Your Audience

Public speaking offers huge returns to the audience and the speaker when the presentation is written and delivered effectively. Too often the speaker thinks of his or her own needs (and nerves or worries) and forgets to focus on what the audience wants to hear.

Audience profiles help you, the speaker, write your content with the audience in mind. Complete your audience profile first, before you put a single word on paper or screen.

Ask:

1. What are the audience members thinking about on a day-to-day basis? For the next 6 months? For the next 2-3 years?
2. What language or jargon is common in their industry or their company? Using their language tells them you are really focused on them.
3. What will they be able to do after listening to you that they couldn't do before? The answer must be crystal clear and related to the answer to the first question.

You must show them how to make a difference or they will believe you wasted their time.

What questions have you asked your audiences before you wrote your presentation? How did those questions help you help the audience? Post your thoughts on the comment link.

Need help asking questions? Get your complimentary download The Question is the Answer by visiting www.susantrivers.com

Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership is your goal. You're a CEO, director or manager. Your company is struggling with an issue (for example: customer attraction and retention, how to set itself apart in a crowded market, managing increasing costs, or any other.) How could your eye contact help your team innovate to address this issue?

Why is eye contact important? As your meeting begins, you make weighty eye contact with each person. For a group of 6 people, holding eye contact with the pupils of each person for 3-4 seconds will take a total of 24 seconds. Make the time to do this as people enter the room or as you greet each person individually. Saying "thanks for coming today" while making weighty eye contact would be perfect.

Leadership qualities such as eye contact help you connect with and engage each person. You've communicated that each of them has an important contribution to make and that you're expecting them to make it. By the end of the eye contact phase, there will be electricity in the room and energy that exceeds whatever could develop with only verbal commands or impassioned speeches. When you set forth the problem and open the discussion everyone will be primed to think and contribute.

The way any person practices using or avoiding eye contact is a habit. It's been learned from birth, and reinforced over the years by family, culture, and work experience. It's so close to you that it is a box whose edges are very hard to see.

Leadership Style in Eye Contact

Leadership style is strongly reflected in the leader's eye contact. "A person's gaze has weight, resistance, muscularity." Eye contact can force a question, reinforce a sentiment, or tyrannize a person. Learn to recognize your eye contact habits and the results from them.

In "The Importance of Eye Contact" by Tom Chiarella of Esquire Magazine you learn how to improve your effective leadership  style through eye contact.

At the most basic level eye contact--looking directly at the other person's eyes for 3 seconds--tells the other person that you're paying attention to them. Everyone likes being the center of attention from time to time.

What if you take eye contact a few steps further? How can you use it to generate innovation and make the other person or the group feel good and important?

The weighty eye contact that makes a difference requires three components:

1)         You must look directly at the pupil of the other person's eyes. Not at the eyebrows or their forehead or the place between their eyes.

2)         You must hold the eye contact for 3 or 4 seconds even though this seems like forever. During this time think about the color of their iris.

3)         Your voice and facial expressions should be neutral to warm. Otherwise you're an ogre with a mean stare.

When your eye contact has all three components, you establish a compelling connection. Your unmistakable message is "I want to engage with you and I will hang in there until we do." Chiarella says, "The eye-contact specialist gets talked to first, dealt with most promptly, and responded to most thoroughly."

Isn't that high among your leadership goals?

Share your thoughts about encouraging or excruciating eye contact experiences. Post them on our comment link below.

Business Storytelling - Motivational Speeches

Motivational speeches rely on stories that imagine the future. The CEO in his or her keynote speech paints a word picture so evocative that the audience feels, sees and imagines themselves acting in the future scenario.

The motivational story has several important characteristics not found in the other 7 types of stories. The motivational story:

• Non-specific. Details of the future are unknowable and if you make your future story too specific you invite people to argue with you about the details rather than take inspiration to act
• Enables listeners to fill in the details for themselves. Each person is free to imagine the future you have evoked in details that are meaningful for him or her.
• When listeners make your story their own story, the story or the picture of the future becomes a powerful part of their internal library.

What does a future story sound like? You will use phrases such as "Imagine the day when..." or "We shall ..." or "Share my vision of..."

You'll use great language. This is not about finding long, unpronounceable words in the dictionary, but rather letting your mind wander away from the jargon and confines of the every day language you use.

A client of mine wanted to tell a future story about knowledge management. Instead of using that phrase and other technology-oriented words, he asked his audience to imagine a circle of "braves and bravettes." They were gathered around the fire (i.e. the computer lab) with the elder (i.e. the leader). All eyes focused on the elder as he asked them to envision the future--a time when all braves and bravettes would be speaking to each other across time and space, more clearly than  in any language they had at that time.

This story was delivered with vocal variety and a few well-designed slides and grabbed

Leadership from Tiger Woods

Leaders and senior executives--here's a quote that will grab your attention. "I just can't wait until the season starts," said Tiger Woods, who won 7 events last season..."Obviously I've got a lot of room for improvement, which is great fun. My bad shots aren't as bad as they used to be. ...Just imagine if I could hit the ball the way I wanted to."

These words of wisdom appeared in the January 3, 2008 Sports section the Washington Post. Tiger Woods believes that working towards his image of an improved self is fun. And in spite of all his accomplishments, he believes he needs to improve. The article also quotes other highly rated golf pros Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk and Vijay Singh, as having spent time over the winter working to improve the details of their game.

Are you a leader with a passion for improvement? A leader who says "in spite of years of experience, I still have room to grow."

Just think about the message that attitude sends to everyone who looks up to you. It's a message about dynamism,