Great Speaking Coach

6 Words that Hold You Back

Who are your top business heroes? Steve Jobs, perhaps? Tony Hsieh, who sold his company Zappos to Amazon for $1.2 billion? Honest Tea, a small local company committed to real tea (now Fair Trade Certified) that has become a national brand?

I believe that these people have one particular trait in common. They never, ever said "We always do it that way." Six simple words, too often used to stop innovation, imagination and risky choices from becoming trailblazing, explosive-growth business efforts.

I love imagining the meeting at which Tony Hsieh said to his executive team "I think we need to not charge for shipping, both for purchases and for returns." Jaws dropped open, eyes bulged, and people spluttered "but, but...everyone charges for shipping." Tony must have nodded and then said "We're not going to be everyone." Free shipping began, as part of the the stragtegy of "selling happiness," and the market loved it.

My clients say they are eager to stand out from their competition and yet these 6 words so often hold them back. I advise them that they need to put the audience first and not start a speech with a thank you and a corporate overview. They respond "we always do it that way." Or worse, "everyone else does it that way."

If you do everything the way you've always done it, you will devalue your company and fail to grow. The biggest outcome of doing everything the way you've always done it and the way everyone else does it is that you put yourself in the commodity category. Commodities are readily available products or services for which there is no differentiation. One is as good as another. And someone will always lower their price. You are sunk if that is your revenue strategy: we're a commodity.

Send the message out, repeatedly and to everyone in every setting, that your company does not stick with "we always do it that way." Along with saying this, you must also show it in your own behavior. Step in front of your audiences, internal or external, and begin with an attention-getting opening that the audience has never heard before. They will be captivated. They will also begin to try it themselves. The more you model this new mind-set (also 6 words) "we differentiate and we stand out" the more your colleagues will do it too.

Whenever anyone uses "we always do it that way" as a reason for something, don't accept that. Ask them how they could do it differently and give them opportunities to put into practice the 6 new words: "we differentiate and we stand out."

 

 

 

 

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The Magic of a Feedforward Speech

Marshall Goldsmith's method for helping you get from here to there includes what he calls "practicing feedforward." The essence is that since no one can change what has already happened, people should stop giving feedback and instead look to the future: give feedforward.

I think this is a great practice that every business speaker can use to make their speech or presentation compelling and galvanizing.

Examples:

Corporate history or "who we are." Most sales and marketing presentations, product demonstrations and 'getting to know you' meetings begin with this. I think of this as feedback (looking backwards), and it is really, really not of interest to your audiences. It does nothing to tell the audience how they'll benefit from a relationship with you and your company in the weeks, months or years ahead.

Instead, practice feedforward: "Here's what you can expect when you do business with us." When you're excited about the future and you express this in your word choice and your perrsonal confidence, you'll make them believe. When you begin with feedforward, you're stipulating the past and your solid foundation.

Progress or status reports. Whether written or oral, progress and status reports are a compendium of what has already happened.

Practice feedforward. If you want to capture people's interests, talk about future progress that 's open to them from this moment onward. It will be clear that a foundation has been laid (that's the progress to date). Spend their time looking ahead and planning to meet desired outcomes.

Keynote speeches. How much time has been wasted over the years as keynote speakers review the history of their industry or topic before they talk about where it is going?

Practice feedfoward. Treat the audience as if they are already 'in the know' insiders. Mostly they will be. Ask them questions about what the future could bring, or what they could contribute to the future, or what differences new behavior in the future could generate. Who will benefit? Who will gain in stature and reputation? What actions will you call them to?

As you think more deeply about feedforward vs feedback, practice feedforward in all your speeches and presentations. It's the only way to get from here to there.

 

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Presentation Slides? Less is More

When PowerPoint was unleashed on the world, everyone gravitated to it because of its ease of use compared to the old overhead films and bulky projectors.

Unfortunately, the ease of use lead to a new mindset-that the word 'presentation' became synonymous with 'slide deck.' What was supposed to be a convenient tool became a de facto substitute for actual speaking. Audiences rebelled by complaining about death by PowerPoint. What is strange is that the very same people who hate being killed by dense slides, delivered by a person reading the slides, turn around and do the same thing to their own audiences.

When it comes to slides, less is more.

• Fewer slides
• Less density
• Less text
• Shorter bullets
• More images
• Simpler graphics
• Never, ever read word for word
• Less time spent writing slides, more time spent practicing your speaking

Whenever I'd whine to my mother about doing something because other kids were doing it she'd say, "If they jumped off the Empire State Building, would you do that too?" Obviously doing what others do is not a mature decision-making process.

So stop making more slides that you spend more and more time on just because everyone else does. Think carefully about what or how a few slides back you up while speaking and turn every presentation into a conversation between you and your audience.

 

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Consistency of Message Should Not Be the Holy Grail

 

A group of executives gather each week to learn how to improve their businesses. I was invited to speak to them about how more engaging presentations delivered by their employees to audiences of customers and prospects would increase their stream of revenue. 

My first point was to 'Put the Audience First' by customizing every presentation and reducing the use of canned content taken from the company's slide library. I've never seen an audience sit at the edge of their chairs, look at the presenters, ask questions and invite them back when the content was a set of slides the marketing department prepared to boast about their capabilities.

Most of these execs argued strenuously with me that consistency of the message delivered by these presenters was critically important. "What if someone says something wrong?" "What if they forget a point?" "What if they go off topic?"

What if they do any or all of these things? Will the world as we know it come to an end? Of course not! In fact, the audience will feel that the presenters are real human beings that they might like to get to know better. They'll never feel that way about a canned presentation written by the nameless, faceless marketing or technical departments.

Here are the top three problems with canned presentations:

1. They reflect a lack of trust by the execs for the presenters. If the executive doesn't trust the presenter, how can the audience trust the presenter?
2. They reflect a lack of internal education on how the company serves it customerrs. There is no substitute for a presenter who speaks authentically from their experience about the value of the company to its customers.
3. They totally ignore the unqiue needs of each audience. No audience has the same needs, priorities, questions, challenges and issues as every other audience. If your presenters can't talk to every audience individually, why would you expect them to do business with you?

Take three steps to stop the pursuit of consistency: 1) trust your people; 2) educate them fully and give them coaching to reassure yourself that they represent your company well; and 3) respect every audience's unique point of view.

Then you can enjoy the stream of interest and revenue coming into your company as a result of these customized presentations delivered by people who feel proud that you trust and educate them.

 

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How in the World Do You Organize Your Speech Content?

"I'm a process guy, so this process really helps." That's what a recent client said with clear relief in his voice and on his face as I explained to him my Write a Speech Now (WSN) process. WSN guides your collection and selection of the content to include in your speech or presentation and helps you organize everything you've chosen.

You'll never again have to deal with cutting and pasting and revising and reorganizing your document or slide deck. You won't feel worried about whether the speech will work. All your content selection and organizing takes place before you write anything lengthy and it provides you with a complete visual image that you don't get from words on a page or slide-by-slide in a deck.

Write a Speech Now starts with the Call-to-action--yes, that's the end of your speech/presentation. When you know where you're going, it makes the choice of other content so easy. You simply ask yourself if that fact, research results, trend, prop, story, example, or quote helps you reach your destination. If it does, great, you can inlcude it. If not, omit it. You'll collect your content with confidence.

There's more help in WSN with your key points. These are simple statements that when added together make the Call-to-Action make sense. Every audience wants to know why they should do what you're calling them to do. Two or three key points strengthen your Call-to-Action. Craft the meat of your speech/presentation with your high impact content mix.

Take a look right now at Write a Speech Now. You'll see exactly what I mean by the visual image of your speech content and organization. It works for all content on every topic and for all audiences. It works without or with slides. If you need help applying it, let me know.

Easy speech or presentation content organization is just a click away!

 

Celebrate the Many Shades of Success

Success is a very popular goal. As I learn about how to achieve success from many speakers, writers and business leaders from across the nation and the globe I see that success is typically defined as one specific achievement, usually couched in terms of 'winning'.

What would happen to your company--your employees, your colleagues, your customers--if you decided to celebrate shades of success? Would people become more inspired, eager to help, and free with their ideas if success was defined in more ways than one?

Through my keynote "One Life, Many Journeys" audiences are guided to visualize success across a spectrum of shades. Leaders, CEOs, business owners, professionals and IT managers realize that they do in fact have layered measures of success but they haven't typically celebrated them.

Here's how you and your company can celebrate the many shades of success:

1) Learn from ALL attempts at innovation. Celebrate the lessons learned from ideas that don't help you as much as you celebrate ideas that do help you. The celebration is like this: "Wow, we now know not to that again. Thank goodness!"

2) Reward focused efforts, even those that don't immediately produce valuable results. When people are rewarded--celebrated--for focusing, they'll keep it up. If you consider the focused effort a waste of time because there were no immediate valuable results, you diminish their enthusiasm to keep it up. Just maybe their next intense effort would produce the result that makes a difference.

3) Celebrate speed more than you celebrate lots of hours. I'm always amazed at how much high regard is given to those who spend long hours on the job while not being asked what those long hours produce. Outcomes are what make a difference, not inputs that take a long time. Make a really big deal about someone who generates something valuable in a short period of time. This is a shade of success that really needs to be promoted more.

4) What's the prize for any of these successes? It should be an increase in discretionary time. Smart people who work hard love to have time to let their minds wander and their bodies to be freed from the confines of the office or devices.

Create layers of rewards that increase discretionary time the more valuable the outcome. For a person who has an innovative idea that you learn from ("we won't do that again") the reward is a small amount of discretionary time. As the value increases and the time it takes to achieve the value decreases, make the award of discretionary time greater. (Do not let HR regulations or company policy diminish this!)

Use your own speeches and presentations to promote the celebration shades of success. You can't only speak about it, you must do it yourself. Within your company or your department, within your own small business or professional practice, whether you're an well-established company or a start-up--you will recognize shades of success when you look for them.

Join the movement to celebrate shades of success! Share your story through our comment box.

 

 

 

Focus on Outcomes, Actions Will Follow

Which will inspire you more: visualizing every single step of a half-mile walk or imagining the sense of accomplishment you'll feel when you complete the walk?

The same contrast exists between long 'to-do' lists and short lists of outcomes and the benefits you'll enjoy from those outcomes. Stop making your chores, tasks and obligations the focus of your work. Instead make a list of what you want to accomplish each day and week, and then just do what needs to be done to reach those goals. Achieving one outcome per day will make you feel happier than crossing off a dozen items from a task-heavy to-do list.

Business speeches and presentations are always about outcomes, not about to-do lists. Don't start with a to-do list such as: decide on topic; pick slide format; enter bullets & images; write speaking notes; practice; make sure laptop works.

Start with the desired outcome, which first must be audience-focused: what does this particular audience want to be able to accomplish after listening to my speech or presentation? The answer defines your call-to-action and the rest of your content.

The secondary desired outcome is what you hope to accomplish with the speech or presentation. Your desired accomplishment must be in harmony or alignment with the audience's desired otucome. Keeping this in mind will help guide you as you select your high impact content. For example, using statistics, stories or trends that support your desired outcome will also help the audience achieve their desired outcome.

Once you've clearly articulated the audience's outcomes and your own, you will go ahead and DO what needs to be done. At the end of the work, you'll be able to check off the accomplishment and feel a sense of satisfaction for a job well done.

Focus on outcomes and then take the actions that are natural to achieving the outcomes. At the end of each week, give yourself time to savor 5 accomplishment and the benefits they generated for you.

Share how you feel when you focus on outcomes compared to your feelings when focusing on to-do lists in our comment box.

 

 

'Elite' Shouldn't Be a Dirty Word

There's been lots of talk, social media and press about people who are labeled 'elite'. Athletes, candidates for office, very wealthy CEOs and business owners, entertainment stars. Too often the label 'elite' carries a negative connotation: out-of-touch, too big for their breeches, arrogant, excessive consumerism, outsized ego. The mixed message we get is that being 'elite' gets you lots of recognition, but we don't really think you're a nice or good person. So that makes it hard for many to strive to be elite in their own fields.

I see this manifest most often in the way people use their time. Time is limited, so how you use it will contribute or not to your reputation. Those who want to become elite guard their time more carefully than any other resource and use it wisely. They prioritize aggressively and never use time for activities that don't clearly propel them along the path to elite status. Among the activities that propel them along the path to elite status are those that enhance their strengths. They invest in themselves.

Once you've decided to become elite in your realm, you'll become less 'busy' and more productive. Too often 'busyness' fills your time without propelling you along the path to elite. You have to ruthlessly halt the busyness and use the time for investment.

One investment that will get you to elite is coaching. Do you think that anyone among the elite hasn't worked with coaches of various types? It's easy to imagine athletes being coached, but executives, entertainment stars, candidates for office and others invest in themselves through coaching.

The next time you think you're too busy to invest in coaching, stop and ask yourself what your favorite elite person would do. They'd choose coaching over any other use of their time, because when you're elite, you increase your discretionary time as well as your financial strength. You can spend the time on coaching now or you can spend the time on making up for your weaknesses later.

Who's your favorite 'elite' and how are you going to emulate them so that 'elite' is no longer a dirty word? Share your thoughts in our comment box.

 

Key Words AND Creative Words Help You Speak

You're making notes on index cards to help guide you through the content of your speech or presentation.  The notes should consist of 'trigger' words, words that prompt you to speak from your passion, inner knowledge and expertise.

You've crafted your speech or presentation following the 5 Steps to Transformative Speeches and Presentations, which means you have an attention-getting opening, high impact content, key points and a call-to-action. Here are three pointers about what you should write on those note cards:

1) Key words: one word that reflects the subject of each specific element. If your attention getting opening is a story, your key word would be the one word that triggers your mind to focus on that particular story. Perhaps it would be the location, the event, or the predominant feeling the experience generated.

For high impact content such as a quote, some trends, an event in the news, or some statistics, your key word might be the person who said the quote, the topic of the trend, the familiar name of the news (e.g. Hurricane Katrina), or one remarkable number.

2) Creative words: these are triggers to your interpretation of the key word. For your story, the creative word could be the emotion the story elicits, a question you want to ask the audience, or the surprising outcome. For your high impact content, the creative word also could be your interpretation, the question you want the audience to consider, or what it is an analogy for. The creative word notes remind you to make the content your own, which is what the audience values most highly.

3) Vocal Variety notes: The best crafted content will be enhanced with the addition of some variations in your voice. Include notations about the vocal variety effect you want to associate with your high impact content. The easiest and most effective vocal effects are: speed (faster or slower than your normal speed); volume (louder or softer than your normal volume); and pauses (to create anticipation or to give the audience time to process what you just said). When you make notes about vocal variety, you don't have to worry about remembering them. After a few practices, they will become second nature, but having them in yournotes will give you security in front of the audience.

If you aren't in the habit of using index cards for notes, I strongly recommend that you get in the habit.

 

The One Critical Habit for Speaking Preparation

Is there actually one critical habit for preparing to speak that will make you a better speaker/presenter? Yes, there is!

Handwritten note cards.

Let's take a look at how they make a difference to speakers and presenters and their audiences.

1) They separate you from pages of text or slide decks. Note cards (4"x6" index cards) force you to extract the essential content from the written text of your speech or from the details of your slides.

2) This is good for your audiences because audiences hate being read to. If the audience is happy with your delivery, you will gain in reputation and status.

3) Note cards give you confidence. You realize that you truly know your content and can speak it under any circumstances.

4) Note cards help you add 'oomph' to your delivery. With just a few words per card there's room to make notations about delivery style, particularly vocal variety.

5) Note cards make it very easy to practice and rehearse. You just have a handful of cards, with a few words on each one, so you can practice anywhere. You can practice without slides because the note cards remind you of the order and emphasis of your speaking content and you realize you can make sense without defaulting to the slide. The more practice, the better the perfromance.

6) Note cards help you listen to yourself as you practice. Having just a few words to glance at frees your mind from the writing and allows you to focus on the speaking.

7) Note cards allow you to repeat your practice on the sticky spots. When you hear yourself getting stuck on spots here and there, you can extract those cards from the bunch and repeat your practices until you've smoothed them out.

Many business speakers tell me they never use, or can't use, or won't use note cards. They have all sorts of reasons but I haven't found one that stands up to, and outweighs the benefits of, using them.

• Can't read without glasses but don't want to speak with your glasses? Make the notes large enough, or learn your content so well you don't need the cards at all.
• Get confused going between the text or slides and your notes? Forget the text or slides and rely only on your notes. That's what they're for.
• Think you look like an amateur with note cards? You look much more like an amateur when you read from a script or read from your slides. Speaking is not theater. Audiences want good content delivered well that makes a difference to their lives. Note cards allow that to happen.
• Don't have the time to make note cards? That means the time you do spend on the speech or presentation will be wasted altogether because your delviery will be poor and the audience will dislike you. Spend the time on note cards to make all the prep time and the actual delivery beneficial to the audience and thereby to you.

Only speaking is speaking. Reading about speaking isn't speaking.Talking about speaking isn't speaking. Writing about speaking isn't speaking. Writing your speech or presentation isn't speaking. Only speaking is speaking. Using handwritten note cards is the one critical habit for speaking preparation that helps you speak. Only speaking is speaking.