Great Speaking Coach

Value First; Skills Later

Business presentations often serve as a means for a company to attract new clients or additional business. The instinct is to present your skills and capabilities upfront. You think "they have to know who I am. They need to know what our company does; our history; our discriminators."

Did you ever stop to think what the prospective client or customer really wants to know? They've got a problem, a need or a difficult situation and they're searching for a means to relieve it. So they really want to know how you will take care of their problem. Only after you get them believing that you've got a solution for them, will they want to confirm that you have a track record of doing that before.

How do you determine how to open with value to the specific customer first? Ask questions! "What's going on with your company that made you think about calling us? Tell me more..." and so on until you've listened to them for 15-20 minutes. Do not shortcut this conversation. And write everything down. It's especially important to capture in writing their sentiments in addition to their facts. "We need to accomplish X within the next 6 months because we're worried about the competition." The most important part of that sentence is 'worrried about'.

You've probably taken sales training classes that taught you to ask questions such as "what happens if you don't fix this?" or "what is the personal impact to you if you don't address it?" Guess what? Your prospect has learned those questions too. So don't use them. Listen really well and ask your own follow up questions that show you've been really listening.

Once you've thoroughly listened, invite them to add anything else. Keep this very open ended. Sometimes the best comment comes when the prospect feels finished with the mandatory part and they relax a bit.

When you prepare your presentation put everything related to what they told you into the first 3/4 of your presentation. It is not about you, it is about them. Once you've thoroughly covered every way you will help them address their situation, then you can say "you can be sure we can do these things because..." and you tell your story.

This is not the way most companies build and deliver their marketing and sales presentations, but it should be. Be brave and be the first one in your company to Put the Audience First. My clients tell me over and over that that single change in their perspective lead to more successes than any other. Need help? I'll be glad to help.

Does Your Impromptu Speaking Devolve into "All About Me"?

A small-business CEO prepares a presentation to deliver to a small group from a prospective client. He has worked hard to focus on the needs of the audience rather than making his presentation just an oral version of a brochure or website. Then the meeting changes from 'presentation mode' to 'discussion mode'. The audience asks questions and the CEO starts spouting "me" stories. As the CEO in question expressed it to me, he fell back on his old material and in doing so broke the connection he had worked so hard to create.

How do you handle impromptu speaking, especially when you're marketing? You follow the same principle of all presentations: Put the Audience First.

1) Listen to the questions you are asked. Even when the question sounds like "how do you overcome problem X?" they are really asking "how do you help us overcome problem X?" Big difference between how you do it and how you help them do it. Your answer needs to be couched in terms of service to them to help them reach their goals. Your company will contribute Y factor in order for them to accomplish Z goal.

2) Paint a picture of the future. Marketing content, whether spoken or written, often focuses on services and products. Lots of emotion-less language that is known yet is not felt. "How we work" as opposed to "how you succeed." So when you're asked a question, take the time to visualize the results for the client a year or two down the road. Then describe that picture. Be as specific as possible. Even if you can't be perfectly correct, get them to picture the way they will benefit from your product or service over time. They will start to picture this too and that will lead to engaging questions and more excitement.

Presentations and meetings are typically focused on the moment right in front of them. It is a time of severe tension. Speaking in language that moves everyone away from the tension of the moment to a better, happier, more productive future is the best technique for connecting with them during an impromptu presentation or Q&A session.

Need more tips for impromptu speaking? Send your specific question to me for an answer.

 

 

Use Public Speaking Wisely to Market Your Value

Public speaking as a marketing tool is about the audience, not about you and your company. What does this mean?

1. You craft (write) your call-to-action before you write anything else. The call-to-action helps the audience imagine their future using the message you just delivered to them. In one way or another, the call-to-action should encourage the audience to get more out of their lives. Business, personal, health, engineering, whatever--people want to raise the bar from wherever they are. Your call-to-action encourages them to do so.
2. Your key points are about the audience not about your business. What three points drive to the call-to-action?  You first key point could be the current state, or a serious problem, or a mistaken belief. Your second key point could be about the resources needed to move from today to the future. Your third key point is to paint a picture of the future state, when the bar is raised and the level of achievement and satisfaction is building. Notice that none of the key points is about the products or services that you offer.
3. Your leading materials (anecdotes, stories, statistics, facts, exercises, props, quotations, analogies, pop culture, research, trends, and others) prepare the audience to accept your three key points and your call-to-action. It's as part of the leading materials that you can demonstrate the value of your products and services. You can tell stories about your customer's successes. You can use quotes from media sources and testimonials from satisfied customers. Perhaps some people in your company have been recognized as industry leaders, or a customer achieved recognition in part by using your product or service. In other words, you weave information about your company into the leading materials but do not simply deliver a list of what you offer.

To me, marketing is about the advantages and value the buyer will enjoy for themsleves by using your product or service. Marketing is a living thing, not a brochure or a website turned into a slide deck and delivered orally. Help the audience imagine themselves after their decision to buy what you offer. They will want to act to make that vision a reality. That's how public speaking is wisely used to market your value.

Sincere or Conditioned Preference for Certain Speaking Practices?

I read an article about how mass preferences for consumer products change over time because those providing the products influence our perceptions and thinking. What if the same thing is true about what all speakers assume are the preferences or expectations audiences have?

When the Power Point application was introduced it was hailed as a total advance for both speakers and audiences. Easy to create visuals! Easy to see projection! No more typed or handwritten notes or scripts! Add dazzling visuals and later even audio and video and your audience will be captivated from start to finish!

Slide software is certainly an immense improvement over transparencies and those bulky overhead projectors. Yet now everyone answers every request for information with a slide deck and the most common reason given is "that's what they expect."

"They" may expect slides, even for face-to-face meetings and conversations, but do they really prefer them? Or have they been conditioned to expect them? I often hear presenters talk about how pleased they are with their slide deck, but I rarely hear audiences talk about how pleased they are to be on the receiving end of those slides.

Stop equating slides with every request for a presentation or a meeting. Ask yourself how you can best respond to the needs of the audience. It may be that a few slides will be useful, but use them sparingly. Your preference--and most of your time--should be on crafting the content that Puts the Audience First. Then decide on the media for that content--and you may decide that most of the media is you, speaking well! What a concept--a presentation that features the speaker rather than a slide deck.

If you can't imagine any way to do this, seek out a speaking coach who will NOT default to slides but WILL help you with crafting content, practicing and rehearsing--the actual speaking part of presentations. You can condition your audiences to prefer real speakers to slides. Just think, you could be part of the next big speaking thing!