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Let me tell you a story …
Make a point, tell a story; tell a story, make a point. That’s an easy enough mantra to follow in speeches and presentations, but what kind of story should you tell?
The three factors that work in story telling are:
1. They illustrate the point and are easy to understand and remember
2. We are all conditioned, from childhood, to like stories
3. They can connect with your listeners’ backgroundsThe first two are fairly obvious, but the third one often surprises people when I raise it during my training courses. Backgrounds?
Let’s take an extreme example, just to make the point. Suppose you are pitching to the owner of a small business. Did you stop to consider why he started that business? One such small business owner told me, only the other day, “I started this business because no one would give me a job.”
Another (geeky) micro business owner told me his technical expertise is such that he is always in demand, and he doesn’t have to market himself.
For people like them, you may want to avoid stories about gregarious situations and talk, instead, about self sufficiency and the virtues of independence. Talk about the injustice of bureaucracy and the triumph of the ‘small’ over the ‘large’.
At the same time, be aware of your own background story, and avoid pleading your own position. Remember, the main purpose of the story is to advance your business case, not to entertain or to beat the drum of self interest.
Think about how movies can touch your own emotions. That’s the power of story telling.Go ye and do likewise.
Phillip
The post Let me tell you a story … appeared first on PKP Communicators.
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Consider the way you sound
Listening to Classic FM as I work, I have become increasingly conscious of the effect of a change of sound. The music itself creates a mood that could be jolly, contemplative or simply relaxed. But there are interruptions. Three in particular.
The first occurs when the tuning on the radio dial slips. This creates a rising tension, despite the smooth, gentle music that may be playing, and I have to rise and give the dial a little twist. Of course this only applies to radios that do not have automatic selection.
When this happens, it forces me to switch my attention from my writing and to the radio. It also makes me consider the lesson it offers: in relationships, if the tuning is slightly off, if we are not on the same wavelength, there is tension even if all the other ingredients are fine.
The second interruption comes from the ad breaks. I have never understood why music stations do not exercise some editorial control over the sounds of the ads they broadcast. In the midst of a programme of refined music, there could be a raucous sales pitch that lowers the tone. Even as I was writing this, a typical example was broadcast!
A similar experience occurs in, for example, networking meetings. You could be enjoying a conversation with an interesting new acquaintance, when someone wanders up and cuts in, disturbing the rhythm of the moment. Are we guilty of such insensitivity ourselves, I wonder?
The third interruption occurs when the programme announcer or DJ (is that what they are called on Classic FM?) speaks at the end of a piece, and introduces the next one, or when there is a break for news. Here too, I notice the quality of the speaker’s voice.
Sometimes this station’s ‘classical’ music is served up by someone who sounds like a pub barman reading out the day’s specials from the blackboard. It jars. And it gets in the way of the information being imparted.
Isn’t that also the case when we hear a speech or business presentation? We may want to hear the information being presented, but the speaker’s voice may get in the way. The voice is the vehicle for our spoken business messages, whether it is from the platform, across a desk or over the phone.
What I do is to make people aware of the importance of the voice, and show them how to sound better. It certainly makes the message so much more attractive.
So if you want to improve the response to a speech or presentation, as well as the message, you may want to consider the way you sound.
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Two nations, common language?
Americans have an interesting way with the English language, and their use of understatement is sometimes misunderstood.
On LinkedIn, someone asked a group if anyone had experience of training virtually. One person replied: yes, I have both coached people virtually as well as conducted webinars. Is there something in particular I can share with you?
I have been careful to reproduce the words exactly, to avoid misrepresentation.
The reply to that was: “Thanks for the offer. I have a lot of experience (myself) …”
Clearly he thought she was offering to share the training with him, muscling in on his client, so to speak. I thought so too, when first I read it. On reading it again, however, I realised that her offer to “share with you” related to the information or knowledge that she had about this training medium.
Far from wanting a share of his assignment (taking) she was offering to share her knowledge (giving).
It’s a strange expression, this “share with you”. It’s an American euphemism that can so easily be misunderstood.
On the whole I think it’s better to speak/write plainly.
However, certain words have very different meanings on both sides of the pond. “Quite” is one such example. In Britain, “quite” is a modifier, usually signifying less than total commitment, as in “I quite like it.” In the US, that same expression means “I like it a lot.”
Where did the confusion arise? Actually, right here in Britain. Consider this: “It was quite amazing!” In this case, “quite” means “very”.
Yes, two nations divided by a common language. But one of those nations is already divided internally
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Who would you trust to sharpen your presentation skills?
Is presentation skills training a waste of time and money?
Sadly, most of the time it is. Presentation Skills courses have attracted some opprobrium because they can be ‘same old, same old’ – routine trudges through PowerPoint slides and cliché-ridden accounts of platform skills. And soon afterwards people return to what they were doing before. (Hand on heart, have you changed the way you present, after being on such a course?)
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Presentations should never be linear descriptions of a business offering, with slides in attendance, however slickly put together. They should be about reaching the hearts of your hearers and bringing about a change in their thinking, attitudes or behaviour.
Not everyone knows how to bring that about. But the best speakers do.
Let me ask you this: if you were looking for some tennis coaching, would you prefer to engage Roger Federer or someone who qualified through a tennis academy? I would choose Federer in a heartbeat, for two reasons:
1. Roger knows everything that a tennis coach can tell you
2. In addition, he knows what it takes to winAny number of coaches can teach you technique. A champion can give you something extra. Technique is something you need to practise, anyway, if you want to be good. What you get from a champion is insight into what it takes to be ‘special’.
Business presentations should be designed to achieve results. They should also project that certain ‘specialness’ which lies at the heart of your business proposition. If you’d like to know more about that, give me a call.
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Making good contact with your audience
It was the Final of the annual Anglo-Irish public speaking contest. A long-standing Toastmaster with a good record in these contests took to the stage, and the largely Irish audience pulsed expectantly.
It was a brilliant text, full of clever linguistic jokes, puns and even verbal pictures. But one minute into the speech, the audience’s expectations had been replaced by a sympathetic tolerance, as they disconnected from the speaker and waited politely for him to finish.
What went wrong?
Two things: first, it was a written text, not a spoken one. The text that’s written to be read is not the same as the text that’s written to be said.
Secondly, it was a recitation from memory. The speaker spoke AT the audience, not TO them. They sensed it and reacted accordingly.
The language was too clever to be received and understood on the run, at 150 words a minute. Some of the vocabulary was unfamiliar, the sentences were long, and the meaning of some sentences was obscured by subordinate clauses. It’s like telling a story, and breaking off in the middle to give some background material that adds nothing to the story, but gets in the way.
The speaker had written the text, and on the stage he was focused on recalling all 900 words (or thereabouts) in the right order. You could see it in his eyes. That’s one of the biggest dangers of delivering a speech from memory.
The next speaker started by throwing fortune cookies into the audience, which engaged their attention immediately. He then related his message to the message in his own fortune cookie, speaking to the audience in terms that they readily understood and could relate to. So of course he won.
To help you avoid a misconnection with your next speech or presentation, when you are preparing your material just imagine a member of your audience asking you these three questions:
1. What exactly do you want me to understand and remember?
2. Why should I care about that?
3. Why do I need to hear that from you (and not someone else)?When you are delivering your speech, imagine that same person sitting somewhere near the front, waiting for you to answer those 3 questions.
As you address that person, you will ‘feel’ a connection with the audience. It will make a huge difference to the outcome.
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The 5th Level of Competence
I was talking to a Sales consultant recently, and he was asking me about my special skills. It’s a conversation I have had before, when I was exploring the skills of a friend or colleague. Now the boot was on the other foot.
At some point I said, “I don’t know what I know.”
I explained that I could articulate the subject matter of my training courses, as I have done on my website and in promotional literature or ads promoting specific courses, but that would not really explain my special skills. It’s a common problem, and one that you must have encountered yourself.
Think about situations when you have been training or helping someone to solve a problem within your area of expertise. Under pressure, you come out with insights that derive from a deep understanding of your subject – wisdom that you’d find hard to explain or call to mind out of context.
You could call that the fifth level of competence. It’s what distinguishes the true expert from the specialist.
The other four levels are well known:
1. unconscious incompetence, when the person is unaware of a deficiency in knowledge or skill
2. conscious incompetence, when the person realises that deficiency, perhaps when trying to apply it
3. conscious competence, when the person can apply the skill at will, recognising the level of competence and noticing how it improves with practice
4. unconscious competence, when the skill or competence becomes automatic and second nature, like driving a carSome people progress further. Their knowledge of their subject moves to a higher level, so that they understand the principles underlying it, and can enable others to cope with any problems within it. Unconscious competence is about being able to carry out the skills themselves. The fifth level is about becoming expert and developing ‘wisdom’.
Think about medical consultants, or lawyers who can find unexpected interpretations of the law. They, too, would find it hard to tell you what they know, but it’s much more than the stuff you’ll find in text books.
When it comes to communication in business – speaking, leadership, presentations, sales letters and such like, I don’t know what I know. But I know I’m at the fifth level of competence.
Phillip
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What’s the story?
Make a point, tell a story; tell a story, make a point. That’s an easy enough mantra to follow in speeches and presentations, but what kind of story should you tell?
The three factors that work in story telling are:
1. They illustrate the point and are easy to understand and remember
2. We are all conditioned, from childhood, to like stories
3. They can connect with your listeners’ backgroundsThe first two are fairly obvious, but the third one often surprises people when I raise it during my training courses. Backgrounds?
Let’s take an extreme example, just to make the point. Suppose you are pitching to the owner of a small business. Did you stop to consider why he started that business? One such small business owner told me, only the other day, “I started this business because no one would give me a job.”
Another (geeky) micro business owner told me his technical expertise is such that he is always in demand, and he doesn’t have to market himself.
For people like them, you may want to avoid stories about gregarious situations and talk, instead, about self sufficiency and the virtues of independence. Talk about the injustice of bureaucracy and the triumph of the ‘small’ over the ‘large’.
At the same time, be aware of your own background story, and avoid pleading your own position. Remember, the main purpose of the story is to advance your business case, not to entertain or to beat the drum of self interest.
Think about how movies can touch your own emotions. That’s the power of story telling. Go ye and do likewise.
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15 Top Tips on Public Speaking
It seems to me that the main reason why people get anxious about speaking in public is that they are not sure what is expected of them. Here are 15 tips to help dispel that anxiety by making sure you are well prepared.
These tips will help you feel confident that you know your stuff, and also that you know why and how it will be relevant to your audience.
Tip 1: Imagine you are speaking just to me and answer this question: What do you want me to know?
Tip 2: Why should I care about what you want me to know?
Tip 3: Why do I need to hear it from YOU? What’s your special connection with the message?
Tip 4: Would you pay to hear YOU speak?
Tip 5: Record your voice and ask yourself and some close friends if your voice is attractive.
Tip 6: What’s your reason for speaking? Money? Influence? Ego? Passion? Just be clear about it.
Tip 7: When you have credible answers to tips 1-6, write your Core Message (the ‘carry away’) in a single sentence.
Tip 8: Develop your message in 3 streams of argument or thought, e.g. Problem / Consequence / Solution.
Tip 9: Decide on your call to action. What do you want people to do when you have finished speaking?
Tip 10: Create an opening ‘Hook’ — something unexpected or dramatic that grabs attention right at the start.
Tip 11: Write out and learn your opening and closing paragraphs. Just use prompts for the rest, to sound more natural.
Tip 12: Decide on the ‘point of arrival’ or climax of your speech or presentation and build up the energy to that point.
Tip 13: Practise in front of a mirror or camcorder. Watch your gestures and body language.
Tip 14: When you are confident of your text, answer (aloud) the questions in Tips 1-3.
Tip 15: Unless you are in a speech contest, don’t try to give a world class performance. Just be sincere and passionate.
For more detailed help, go to www.pkpcommunicators.com or call 0845 165 9240Â Â Â (local rates).
Phillip
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What exactly is Database Marketing?
Small businesses don’t always have a Marketing Plan. And when someone suggests Database Marketing, they often ask:”What the heck is Database Marketing?” or, if they know what it is, “Isn’t Database Marketing only for the big boys?”
The answer is No. You do not need an expensive system to set up a Database. You can use a simple spreadsheet to record the essential information about your customers.
These are the details your system should record:
Recency: date of last purchase
Frequency: how many purchases made
Money: total spend with you so far
Average order: Money divided by Frequency
Trend: are the Frequency and Average rising or falling?
Your marketing should focus on Recency, Frequency and Money – the RFM factors, as they are called in Direct Marketing.
Those who bought from you recently, and often, are the ones most likely to buy from you again, because they have accepted you as a preferred supplier, and do not need much reminding of the benefits of doing business with you.
And those who buy frequently could quite readily be persuaded to shorten the gap between purchases or to order something new between their regular purchases.
The total money spent with you will also determine how important they are to your business, and how profitable.
Obviously, Recency, Frequency and Money will have different values in different businesses.
For example, the gaps for buying computers will usually be much greater than for consumables like stationery. You should monitor all gaps and learn what is normal for each type of product, not only among your own customers, but in the industry.
It adds important information to your Database – information that can guide your Marketing decisions.
The other factor to consider is creativity – copywriting and design. Start with an email to phillip@speakingandpresentationskills.com“>phillip@speakingandpresentationskills.com or call 0845 165 9240 . The initial consultation is free.
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When is a Yes not a Yes?
When I introduced Michael to Derek, a Methodist minister, the conversation turned to ethics and morality. “Are you allowed to lie?” asked Michael, a little aggressively.
Pausing just fractionally, Derek replied, “In certain circumstance, yes. It’s called Situational Ethics. That’s when your answer is simply a way of saying Mind Your Own Business.”
Michael was not satisfied. “A lie is a lie,” he maintained, “and a clergyman should set the example by never telling a lie.”
A lie is defined as telling an untruth with the intention to deceive. However, if someone asks you a personal question, when they are not entitled to know the truth, do you have to answer truthfully? Do you have to empower them with the knowledge?
Now imagine a situation in another country, somewhere in the Far East, for example. Your boss has written an article and asks your opinion of it. To tell him the truth would not only upset him but cause him to lose face. You are, after all, less senior to him, and it would be presumptuous to indicate that you could do a better job.
What would you do? Would you lie? Of course you would, because you would be giving him the respect of his position, and you’d want to avoid hurting his feelings.
In every case, telling an untruth carries the intention to deceive, but it may be to avoid empowering the other person or to prevent discomfort or loss of face. It may even be to protect someone from the person asking the question.
The philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that lying is always morally wrong. In the examples I have given, you may feel that there are exceptions, but some will argue that there is a change in the moral climate that makes lying more common these days. They may also claim that lying corrupts the process of free rational choice. A third consequence may be that it subordinates a person through fear of the questioner.
In cultures that avoid saying “No” the distinction may be less well defined. In the Bahasa Indonesia language there are a dozen ways to say “No” and many ways to say, “I’m saying Yes but I mean No.”
And when I’ve been training in cross culture abroad, some other nations have said they feel that way about Britain and ask, When is a Yes not a Yes?
