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How to make a one-minute speech
The key elements are:
• establish context or commonality
• hook
• theme
• need or problem
• benefit/disadvantage
• offer solution/make a proposition
• outcomeStart by sending out a carrier wave, some way of establishing common ground, e.g. ” We are all communicators here…” or “It’s the question we speakers are always asking ourselves…”
Quickly moved to your hook. In fact, you could use the hook to establish common ground, combing the first two stages, e.g. “This year Americans will pay over 38 billion dollars to hear someone speak. I’ll translate that into English. They’ll pay 24 billion pounds to hear someone speak…”
Then then state your theme, e.g. “I’d like to tell you what you need to become a professional speaker”.
State the main benefit, e.g. “With the right guidance you could qualify for the high fees that top professional speakers are paid.”
Mention a possible obstacle, e.g. “It’s not as easy as you might think, and if you get it wrong it could take a long time to claw your way back.”
Then make a proposition, e.g. “You need to set aside at least one half-day, and preferably two, to learn the secrets of becoming a professional speaker.”
Finally, focus on an outcome, e.g. “If you are serious about a career as a speaker, register now for my seminar, Be Paid to Speak.”
Admin@pkpcommunicators.com
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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. That’s my ‘specialness’.
Phillip
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How to avoid some common mistakes in email
As you know, these days much of our business correspondence is conducted by email rather than the conventional ‘snail mail’. Unhappily, certain conventions have been lost or overlooked in the process, and can get in the way of doing business, especially when there are cultural differences involved.
TYPICAL PROBLEMS:
• Sloppy layout
• Poor spelling / typing errors
• Incorrect grammar or punctuation
• Wrong forms of address
• Lack of formal opening and closing
• Missing reply information
• Wrong tone for the person being addressed
• One country’s conventions not acceptable in another country
• Risk of virus infection
• Divulging others’ email addresses
• MannersSloppy layout: Get professional help to establish templates. If possible, use a header, to make your email look like a regular letterheading. Otherwise how will it look different from the many spam messages?
Spelling/Typing:Â Always use the spellchecker, but also use an English dictionary (spellcheckers are American). Be especially careful to avoid writing “their” when you mean “they’re” and “your” for “you’re”.
Grammar/Punctuation:Â If in doubt, ask someone who knows. Phrases such as “between you and I” will diminish you in the eyes of some clients, and so will misplaced apostrophes. Never use one for a plural. “I received your letters” is correct. “I received your letter’s” is wrong.
Language:Â The phrases and vocabulary you use will pigeon-hole you, perhaps at the wrong level. For example, “some cool stuff” and “Cheers” are not ideal for business letters.
Forms of address:Â When approaching a business contact for the first time, it is unwise to write “Hello there” or “Hi” or even “Dear John”.
Opening/Closing:Â Some emails leave out the salutation altogether. Others omit the name and title of the sender. If you are running back and forth with reply after reply on the same topic, and to someone you know well, it’s all right to omit the salutation.
Tone: Err on the side of caution. Don’t be familiar with a client or someone senior, and never write what you may regret the next day.
Conventions:Â See Opening/Closing. In some countries you are expected always to use a salutation.
Virus & Junk:Â In business circles, it is considered very bad manners to send a virus, so install and regularly update your virus checking software. It is also bad form to pass on chain letters, however well-meaning they may be. And never pass on email advertisements.
Divulging addresses:Â If you send an email to a whole group of unconnected people, use the BCC (blind carbon copy) to avoid exposing others’ email addresses without permission.
Manners:Â Capital Letters in emails are regarded as SHOUTING. Use *stars* for emphasis.
For a confidential course in Business Writing, email phillip@speakingandpresentationskills.com.
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Tell to sell
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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The secret to getting attention
There was a small crowd filling the pavement of the Calcutta street, surrounding two men who squatted face to face at the centre. The bearded one was reading the palm of the other and gabbling in a musical baritone. The audience were enthralled. I listened for a while and realised what was so compelling about what he was saying.
Fade in a different scene. This time it was myself, aged 14, on board the ferry that took the school party from the broad gauge terminus on the banks of the Ganges, up river to where we would pick up the metre gauge train on our way to Siliguri and then Darjeeling.
I sat on my suitcase, surrounded by a small group of younger boys who hung on my every word, and I recalled the Calcutta scene. So what did the bearded man and I have in common? We both told stories.
In New Guinea story telling is a way of life. Knowledge is passed on from generation to generation through stories. In United States, one of the most popular comedians is Bill Cosby, whose monologue routine consists of such hilarious stories as “Noah”.
It’s not just the stories themselves, but the story telling – to coin a phrase, it’s the way you tell ’em.
In your speeches and presentations, weave your messages into stories and you will get and hold the attention of your listeners. And you’ll make the message more accessible.
One more thought: consider them to be your listeners, rather than your audience, and you’ll be on the right track.
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The Tyranny of Poverty
Jane is a young widow with three children. Her husband was killed two years ago, and she was left to cope with a two-year old and two school-age children, together with three dogs and a cat. The only money she has is from State Benefits, totalling a little under £250 a week.
When her husband was alive, he registered with the Job Centre and was led to believe that they would pay his gas bill with British Gas. It was a mistake and Jane was eventually faced with a debt of about £4,000, which she has managed to bring down to £2,500.
In the colder months her gas charges are £70 a week, including a £10 debt repayment. Being in debt to British Gas she is on the highest tariff and unable to switch to a cheaper supplier.
She spent many hours and a lot of money trying to speak to someone in British Gas about the problem, calling their premium rate number and hanging on interminably.
Eventually they noticed and called her to set up the repayment scheme.
On the second anniversary of her husband’s killing she had absolutely no money, not even a penny, and therefore could not buy even the smallest bunch of flowers for his grave.
Jane, and probably thousands like her, are suffering from the tyranny of poverty. When you have no money, you cannot easily sort out problems like the one with British Gas, you cannot assert your rights, you cannot deal with the obstructive bureaucracy and mini hitlers that make life even more difficult.
Perhaps the worst consequence of having no money is the effect on your morale. The self-employed will have some understanding of this. When times are hard, as at present, and orders dry up, the dwindling bank balance can be dispiriting and cause a person to lose the confidence to go looking for business. It affects your self esteem when you can no longer afford the things you used to buy without a second thought.
Jane has long since passed that point. She is scratching around to survive and to provide the occasional treat for her children, often compounding her debts in the process.
There are days when she wonders if it’s worth carrying on. So how does she cope? Anti-depressants.
That’s the tyranny of poverty.
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Connecting with your audience
If you believe that a Presentation’s purpose is to communicate information, you need to change your thinking.
If you want to pass on facts, email or snail mail will do the job better.
When you make a live presentation, pass the facts through your personal filter, so that your listeners can understand your take on the message. Tell them what you think about the information, and what you want them to think about it.
As you prepare your Presentation, every time you convey a fact, answer the “So what?” question:
• why does your listener need to know that…
• how is it relevant…
• why is it important…
• what’s the accompanying benefit?
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATIONTo get your point accepted, consider this: the most effective way to persuade is to find out what your listeners want, then offer it to them. But how do you ask them questions during a Presentation? Because direct feedback may be difficult during a Presentation, a useful device is the Rhetorical Question.
It requires no answer, but it makes the listeners feel involved.
Because it is an obvious question, it causes them to nod their heads in agreement, as though you had asked the question for them. It’s the question they wanted to ask.
So, instead of saying, “Let me tell you why this is important”, you might ask “Why is this important?”
At the end of a presentation in which each important section was introduced by a Rhetorical Question, the listeners feel as though they have participated in a dialogue. And that’s far more satisfying than listening to a lecture or a monologue.
If you do not make the effort to engage your audience, your presentation will be one-way traffic, and it will probably fail. All people will remember is that you showed up and spoke.
It’s one of the essential lessons in learning to speak so others will listen.
Phillip
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One answer to the long or short copy debate
Should your sales letter be long or short? Is it true that the more you tell the more you sell? Or are people too busy to bother with long letters?
The answer may surprise you. It arises out of a significant shift in our reading habits, a shift that makes the appearance of a letter (or blog, article or brochure) a significant element.
I realised it myself this week, when I found myself reading a number of blogs in a hurry.
I read them because they were discussions on topics that interested me, and had attracted quite a few comments from well-informed people. However, I struggled with them.
The reason I found them hard going was this: the paragraphs were too long.
And there were too many paragraphs.
In Ecademy blogs, for example, the text is set in 10 point (I think), with a line length of about 110 characters. That’s hard to skim read, and you have to move your head as you read each line. Too much work.
Easy on the eye
In contrast, some online sales letters from the USA run to many pages, but the paragraphs usually consist of single sentences and are almost NEVER more than four lines long. The line length is short too.
Some paragraphs are one-liners like this.
They also have subheads like the one above, to segment the subject matter and break up the grey text.
Why that works
We all suffer from Attention Deficit. It may not be a Disorder (yet!) but it gets in the way when we are at work.
Every day, we are all assailed by huge numbers of messages and calls for our attention: radio, TV, emails, newspapers, magazines, advertisements, posters, tannoy announcements, traffic, phone calls, conversations, meetings …
We cannot cope with more than one thing at a time, so we have developed the ability to switch off. In fact, it’s a reflex that kicks in very quickly.
So what’s the answer?
The answer is to deliver your information in small bites. Like this blog. Make it attractive to the eye and it will be easy for the reader take in each new idea or piece of information. It will increase your chances of being read all the way down the page. And page after page.
Phillip
phillip@pkpcommunicators.com
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The language of lies
In marketing by mail and email, there is an unfortunate tendency to use language to deceive, confusing manipulation with persuasion. Those who do so use weasel words (terms that imply or suggest more than the reality), and even lie outright. My email inbox regularly receives examples of verbal deceit.
There is one chap who sends me emails with things like “Facebook message” in the subject line. The email itself has nothing to do with Facebook. It’s just a crude device to get me to open the email.
To my mind it falls in the same ditch as the person who says, “Sex! Now that I have your attention …” Astonishingly, there are still some folks who use that cringingly awful “Hook”, either in writing or in speech.
I promised myself that the next time I heard a speaker open with that I would rise and leave the room in a marked manner. And I shall.
Another devious device is to offer something free, and then renege on it. Here’s one I received last week:
Im (sic) giving this away Totally FREE!
But when you click on the link, this is what you get:
==============================
Regular Price $197
Today only $37/mon
ADD TO CARTTODAY’S PAYMENT: $44.40
Includes the first month of service===============================
It goes from FREE to $37 PER MONTH! and on to $44.40 (per month) without missing a beat.Let me now turn to weasel words. They are terms we use to imply something more than the reality. The intention is to deceive.
One of the most common examples these days is “You have been approved”. It implies a selection that never took place, other than inclusion from the database. It even suggests that you have applied in the first place.
A close relation is the long-standing “Three Stage” copy approach favoured by Reader’s Digest, which states, “You have come through two stages of selection and are now in the final of the Prize Draw.”
The first two stages actually consist of selecting names from the database (known to be interested in the product being offered) and the allocation (automatically by computer) of six numbers in the Draw. There’s nothing illegal or even immoral about this approach, but I think you can see how the wording implies more than what actually takes place.
Another favourite involves a sealed envelope that you have to tear open to see if you are a lucky winner. The weasel words in this case will be, “Find a Lucky Six for a chance to Scoop the Jackpot”.
Once again the implication is that there is an element of chance, whereas every sealed envelope contains a six. The key word is “Find”. For a genuine element of chance there would be the word “If”, as in “See if you have a lucky six.”
A poor copywriter will either lie or come close to deceit. The skilled copywriter will raise hopes without being untruthful. Direct Marketing is salesmanship in print, so it must use the stratagems of a professional sales person, and (usually) follow the AIDA sequence (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) of persuasion.
Deceit is not the best basis for starting a customer relationship, so my advice is this: Always tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating!
Phillip -
One of the main reasons why sales letters fail
This morning I received a prospecting letter from an insurance specialist. They want me to switch my home insurance to them, and they have a good proposition, but it’s poorly put.
On the first page there are 11 short paragraphs, no less than nine of which begin with either “I†or “Weâ€. It’s a common failing in mail shots from SMEs, and may be the main reason why they fail.
Here are some of the most common openings in such sales letters:
- We at XYZ Company believe …
- At XYZ Company we …
- We believe …
- We are …
- We offer …
- I know …
Returning to this morning’s letter, its most powerful motivator is on the back page! Not only that, it offers an incentive to ask for a quote, but places it near the bottom of the front page! Easily missed. What’s worse, they spoilt it all by adding (Terms and conditions apply) immediately afterwards.
Ordinarily I would have discarded the letter within seconds of opening it, but it has provided a useful example for analysis.
These are the things I would recommend:
- Lead with the strongest benefit
- Focus on the reader, not yourselves
- Minimise the use of I and We at the start of paragraphs
- Make it easy on the eye. The back page is so cluttered, it’s hard to know where to look
- Link your incentive to the call for action
- Get your grammar right
- Line up the benefits in a sequence that grabs attention and builds up the excitement, instead of the current higgledy piggledy display
- Keep T & C and similar distractions away from the sales pitch
Most of these points would be addressed by a professional copywriter. Sadly, too many clients write their own sales letters, or they use a copywriter without a background in selling or direct marketing.
This is part of a short series of practical tips on Direct Marketing. Next time I’ll deal with the blight of ‘weasel words’ – those which appear to offer a benefit, but don’t.
PKP
