Great Speaking Coach

Leadership: Use Stories to Lead

Leonard Downie, who has served as Executive Editor of The Washington Post for the past 17 years, articulated his management approach. It is brilliant and deceptively simple:

"You hire people smarter and more talented than you and enable them to do their best work."

Three of the 7 business story types provide perfect vehicles for talking about your leadership approach in a way that sticks:

1. The story that tells who you are as an individual: Rather than making a statement or declaration, you think back over your career and identify specific times when you did hire a smarter person and stood back to let them do their best work. You may have felt nervous (the crisis) have faced obstacles (a demanding board of directors or the public) and yet you kept your promise to yourself and to the other person and the outcome was positive.
2. The story that transmits the company values: This management approach relates to core values such as integrity and trust. If you articulate this approach when you're hiring people, you must stick to it even when things seems shaky or it would expedient to do it yourself. Crafting a story that demonstrates these long-term, intrinsic values communicates to the audience that when you say core values, you mean core values.
3. A future story: The essence of a future story is that you paint a picture of the future that engages the listeners and helps them imagine their part in the eventual outcome. When you're speaking to senior executives and directors, you can ask them to "imagine a year from now and we are at the top of the list of Best Places to Work. How did we get there? We got there because we hire people smarter than we are and we enable them to do their best work. For example,..."

How do you use stories to create a sticky message about your leadership approach? Post your thoughts in our comment link.

Be a Sticky Speaker

Sticky is good--it means people remember your message and you. Being remembered leads to all the benefits of being a public speaker--enhanced status, career growth and even more money. You never know when a person in one audience will need a speaker for another audience and will call upon you.

How do you become a sticky speaker? Three steps help you stand out from the crowd:

1. Know your audience. When you design your speech for the one specific audience, you up the stickiness immeasurably. The audience thinks, "Ah, this person knows me." When people think you know them, they'll remember you. Speech-Time gives you a good overview of three time frames for getting to know the audience.
2. Be original. This is easy! There's nothing like a unique story or prop or delivery style to help the audience remember you.
   • Your own stories--how you've faced a crisis, overcome the obstacles and achieved positive results--will stand out. No one else can tell YOUR stories.
   • Props--I'm a dressage rider so I sometimes use a top hat, black show jacket and white gloves to help the audience envision what I go through to get ready for the audience, in this case a judge. My message is that they must put their specific audience first, and often people remember me years later as the "horse lady". That's sticky!
   • Delivery style--do what comes naturally to you. One speaker I know often starts out standing on a table. This catches people attention, he connects it to a key point and his message about bringing a light touch to the workplace is sticky.
3. Avoid killing your audience with Power Point. Slides can be a handy backdrop for attractive visuals and help the audience follow your road map, but slides are not an appropriate vehicle for delivering information that should be in a written report. Causing death by Power Point may make your sticky for the wrong reason--and is a sure way to never be asked back.

How do you increase the sticky factor when you're the speaker? Share your ideas in our comment link.

Brain Rules for CEOs

You're stressed about the expectations: increase shareholder value, innovate to satisfy the insatiable market, recruit and retain top talent. So you work long hours, keep in touch 24/7 and become a repository for data, data and more data. That's life as a CEO, you say? You are violating the rules that make your brain your biggest asset in your leadership position.

In Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School by John Medina, you'll learn these rules:

Rules No. 1:  #1 is "exercise." Exercise helps your brain light up and work harder in lless time. Set aside specific periods of time each day for movement (other than gym-based exercise) such as walking a treadmill or around the block during a meeting (2 miles per hour, which won't cause you to break into a sweat.)  Medina's short video about how exercise improves the brain will have you ordering treadmills today.

Rule No. 7: Sleep well, think well. Some key points about sleep:

• The typical fixed work day doesn't meet the wired-in needs of about 30-40% of the population.
• Delivering training or sales presentations in mid-afternoon almost guarantees less attention to and retention of the content.
• Get enough sleep by scheduling your meetings and travel to allow for enough sleep

Rule No. 8: Stressed brains don't learn the same way as unstressed brains. Stress has proved to be counterproductive and costly.

Rule No. 10: Vision trumps all other senses. After 10 minutes of listening people tune out; and they respond far better to pictures than to text-heavy power point slides.

Medina, a developmental molecular biologist and research consultant, could be forgiven for delivering text-heavy slides with lots of scientific language. But his DVDs and videos use illustrations and animation to supplement his own lively and conversational speaking style.

How do you help your brain function at its highest level? Share your best practices in our comment link below.

Sales Presentations: Model Blockbuster Movies to Win Big

Winning new business requires that the customer audience is convinced from the first moment that you care about them and have their best interests at heart. This forces your team to focus in a way that seems counter-intuitive: you're invited to show the customer 'what you can do' and yet to connect to them you must talk about the customer at all times. How do you do this?

In the first sentence that you speak absolutely include the word 'you' as in "you, our customer." Never, never start with "thank you for inviting us to tell you about our product or service." That's what they might have told you, but that's not what they want to hear.

The opening sentence must be formatted like this: "You (name or organization) have a mission to (fill this in). This is because you provide X, focus on Y and aspire to Z. We (your company name) have the (product or service) that will help you achieve your goals." They are immediately interested because you're putting them first.

Throughout your discussion of your proposed offerings, keep this format in mind. What you do and what you provide must always be connected to their needs.

You've long ago learned about identifying 'pain' and talking about benefits rather than features. Make this discussion as sophisticated as possible--not through fancy slides embedded with multi-media, but through your honest and customer-focused spoken content.

Model your sales presentation like a blockbuster movie: it captures the audience immediately and keeps them on the edge of their seats through to the closing credits. It's not special effects, it's the story, delivered in a way that grabs them and holds them. Every time you want to repeat your bullets or ex[lain your processes, stop and ask yourself if this is the way a blockbuster movie would do it. Then find a better way.

What techniques have helped you win new business you've competed for through sales presentations? Share your successful practices (or your worst nightmares) through our comment link below.

Sales Presentations: A Winning Combination of Don'ts & Dos

You've created your slides and selected the presenters to speak to your customer. What do you tell your audience during the live presentation?

Two Don'ts:

1. Don't "wing it"
2. Don't copy someone else's presentation content or delivery style

When you wing it you risk getting off the track that will make the very best impression on the customer audience (you do want to win, don't you?)

When you copy someone else you are not being your authentic and knowledgeable self. Your mind is focusing on being someone else rather than being free to let your own knowledge come through.

Three Dos:

1. Use a specific structure to craft your spoken content. I recommend 

• Attention-getting opening--setting the scene (not the title of the slide)
• 2-3 key points. From the slide content select the most important ideas
• Story or example that's relevant to your key points
• Benefit or promise-be sure you articulate the benefit rather than another feature

2. Use index cards to write down the words that will remind you what you want to say. This is your roadmap. It forces you to delve into your knowledge and come up with your own words. It also gives you the freedom to make brief notes rather than write long sentences, which is the trap of the "notes" page in your slide software.

3. Use an incremental approach to practices and rehearsals.

• Talk through your spoken content and get agreement from everyone while sitting around a table.
• Then do a stand up talk through (avoid the terrible concept of 'dry run').
• Once content is confirmed, add presentation style elements such as transitions between speakers, movement, gestures and vocal variety. The first time is a practice, the second time is a rehearsal--full blown, high-energy customer quality.

This incremental approach lets you focus on one element at a time, putting spoken content first and delivery last when your mind is free to incorporate it. A team of 5 delivering a 30-45 minute sales presentation can go through these increments in 4 hours.

There's one more part to this series on Winning Sales Presentations: How to Put the Audience First. Subscribe today so you don't miss it.

Winning the Sales Competition

Ten speakers, three hours, 75 power point slides and many millions of dollars at stake. I recently coached this team to craft and deliver a winning sales presentation. Nothing is accidental or left to chance.

Three key steps make the difference between being the winner and everyone else:

1. Content of the slides
2. Selection of the presenters
3. Spoken content of the presentation

Content of the slides: Include the most important information and only that. In other words, the slide deck isn't an operating manual or text book. Tell your audience the 'what' and the 'why' and save the 'how' for your spoken content and for after you win the work. When you include a process or procedure on a slide, discuss it in terms of what problem it is solving and why it's important to respond to that problem.

Another point about the slides is that they sshould be readable and understandable on some level by anyone who reads them apart from the presentation. The 'what' and the 'why' should be clearly communicated in simple, non-jargon language and graphics.

Selection of the presenters: This team worried about having too many presenters "popping up and down." Thus they wanted to give presentation assignments to people based more on the choreography than on ensuring that the right person would speak to each slide.

Key to minimizing the "popping up and down effect" are practices and rehearsals (do these enough times so that everyone is ready at the exact moment they are needed), as well as transitions between speakers. Every time a person says "and now Roger will speak to the next topic" the fact that a new speaker is coming up is magnified. Instead, craft transitions that set the scene for the new topic or change in direction. "We can have the best plans in the world, but without logistics, they won't happen." Then the logistics guy gets up and the audience never thinks"on no, there's yet another speaker."

Spoken content of the presentation: Speakers must use their speaking time to mostly talk about what's not on the slides. There are 4 elements that help you craft your oral content. These 4 elements are the subject of the next post.

How CEOs Think Strategically about Public Speaking

CEOs receive 3 speaking invitations each week, according to a recent survey by Burson-Marsteller. Amazingly, 37% of CEOs evaluate these invitations based on their own satisfaction compared to 35% who think in terms of business leads or 19% who think about attracting talent through their speaking engagements.

My number one rule pf public speaking is to Put the Audience First. This means that you as the speaker create a call-to-action that is meaningful to the audience, and then craft the rest of your speech to drive to that call-to-action. When you as the speaker think mostly in terms of your own satisfaction derived from the speech, I don't believe you can effectively Put The Audience First.

When you do Put the Audience First, you focus on outcomes--what can they do differently after hearing you? This can correlate strongly with your business goals, such as obtaining business leads. Is this a paradox? Here's how it works:

Lets' say your strategy for speech making is to increase business leads. That seems to be self-focused. Yet when you convey the value to the customer of doing business with you, the customer/audience experiences their investment in the speech as earning a high ROI--while at the same time you obtain what you wanted to get: business leads. If you think only about your own satisfaction--did I feel good delivering this speech, did I get good press, did I fill the room--you may have accomplished all those things but they are only momentary gains--not the long term ones you would get if you thought about Putting the Audience First.

What is your strategy when it comes to accepting speaking invitations? Share how you have met your strategic goals through speaking by posting on our comment link.

Coaching is THE Key to Success

Do you reject the idea that you could benefit from a working with a speaking coach by citing your experience? "I can speak about anything" are how people brush off the idea that that professional coaching is a meaningful addition to their professional development. This comes up when people learn that I provide confidential speaking mentoring and coaching to executives, sales leaders and professionals.

I've struggled to articulate a case for coaching that isn't totally self-serving. And then I got clarity from my own horseback riding instructor and dressage trainer par excellence, Alison Head. "No one can possibly have enough personal experience to learn it all themselves", Alison said. "That's why coaching is a necessity for anyone who wants to excell."

There it is--great coaches study the variety, depth, breadth and nuances of their area of expertise. That's what they do do be great.

This is in contrast to their coaching clients who must get depth and breadth in their own work. The serious and effective professional coachbrings to his or her clients vastly more experience than the client could ever gain and still perform their actual responsibilities effectively.

We all accept that athletes in all sports work with coaches. Why not accept that your business accomplishments will come faster and more brilliantly as a result of coaching? Coaching is not a "frill" you can wait for "until you have the time or money." You can be a magnificent great strategic thinker, or a master tactician but if you don't implement like a pro, you'll miss your mark. Coaching for various special skills will put you at the top of your game.

Share how coaching has made a difference in your level of accomplishments. Post your thoughts through our comment link.

Persuasive Leadership By Example

How do you make a lasting impression on your employees so they will put the past behind them and think about the future?

Jerry L. Gwaltney made sure his employees got the message loud and clear. Jerry is the city manager of Danville, VA, a former industrial stronghold in South Side Virginia that has seen hard times the past decade or more. When Jerry became city manager in 2000 he was committed to turning the fortunes of the city around. How could he send that message in a memorable way to the employees who were responsible for implementing his plans?

Jerry started by holding a retreat. He put a bucket of water, a bar of soap and a towel on the table and instructed his staff to lather up.

"We're going to wash away the past, and we're going to set our sights on the future" Gwaltney recalled saying. "And we're never going to look back."

Did it work? Today Danville is enjoying a renaissance. Several new factories have opened bringing with them about 1500 jobs, and more are anticipated.

Did the soap and water make a difference? One thing for sure is that the message stuck. Danville is focused on its future, which looks better than many would have thought just a few short years ago.

How do you make your message stick? Share your tips through our comment link.