My Weblog

Your Presentation Is Not What You Think It Is

Too many speakers think because they’ve got a bunch of words and slides, it’s a presentation. Wrong. What they have is a document. It truly becomes a presentation only when it's heard, understood, and believed by an audience.

When presentations don't work, what's often missing is a solid, working knowledge of the audience. Who they are. Why they are there. And what they want and need to hear.

The work of developing a fully-functional presentation begins with the audience. You need to build content around what's going to get them to hear, understand, and believe.

When a presentation really works, it must be a transaction between speaker and audience.

You know this is true because you've sat in an audience -- listening to words and watching slides -- saying to yourself, "I don't get it." The speaker thinks he or she has given a presentation. But your "not getting it" means no real transaction took place.

So the most important word in your presentation development process is "transaction." No transaction, no value –- to the audience or to you.

Let's say you want to make your monthly mortgage payment. You decide to take cash to the bank. So you put the money in an envelope, walk into the bank, and leave the envelope on the island where they have the ballpoint pens on chains. And you walk out -- thinking, "Well, I intended to pay my mortgage. I had the cash. And I left it in the bank."

This is exactly what a lot of presenters do. They show up, at the appointed hour, in the room, with their words and slides. They go through the whole thing. And they leave -- somehow thinking the audience has "gotten it."

What's really happened? Like your misplaced mortgage payment, there’s no real transaction. In fact, it's a loss all the way around. Lost time. Lost money. And, from the audience's standpoint, lost opportunity to get your message. The audience is left with that frustrating, "I don't get it" feeling.

Every year, thousands upon thousands of business presentations wind up exactly this way. No transaction. No value.

As a speaker, you want a robust transaction between you and your audience. You want them to "get it."

Here's how to make this happen. Don't start with, "This is what I want to say." Or by trying to rearrange leftover, recycled words and slides. Instead, go to the white board and make two columns. Column one is your content, point by point. Column two is what the audience wants and needs to hear, point by point. Connect the points in your content with the points the audience wants to hear. Erase everything else.

Now you have the beginnings of a presentation that really is a transaction -- not just a misplaced envelope of money lying on a table.

©2009 Pete Ryckman

The Henry V Leadership Test: Lift Their Hearts

What a time we're in. The economy stinks. Business is terrible. Every day, the news and the numbers are worse. Your employees are concerned -- no, make that frightened -- about their futures.

Times like these are the ultimate test of leadership. When things are good, any windbag can "lead." But tough times separate the leadership wheat from the chaff. How will you respond?

Will you pass the Henry V Leadership Test?

Flash back to 1415. Henry and his army were in France. He was after land, glory, and honor. At first, things went well. Then they went bad.

On a soggy morning in October, he and his exhausted men faced tens of thousands of French soldiers, well armed, fresh, and ready to fight. The English were outnumbered three to one. Henry and his soldiers were about to die. And they knew it.

What did Henry do on the morning of this huge, pivotal battle? He spoke. He put language to work.

When he spoke, did Henry give, as they say in B-school, a "realistic assessment of the problem?" What was the point in that? Everybody knew the shape of reality. Very bad.

Did Henry tell them that everything was going to turn out well? No. In fact, he told his men they might well die that day.

Henry passed the ultimate test because he had that most basic of leadership skills. He lifted their hearts.

Now is the time to lift hearts in your organization. Think long and hard about what is making hearts heavy. Pull together your most thoughtful people for their advice and counsel. Put a really strong speechwriter on it.

There's no one-size-fits-all message -- no template to follow. Your message will come out of your situation, your brain, and most of all, your heart.

Work on your message as if the very future of your organization depends on it. Because it does.

Words matter. Words turn the frightened into the brave. Words change history. Five centuries ago, for Henry and his men, words were likely the difference between living and dying.

Speak to your employees and your stakeholders. Ditch the usual bafflegab. Get down to basics. Be the truth teller. Above all, lift their hearts.

(Listen and watch as Kenneth Branagh says the words.)

© 2009 Pete Ryckman

Is Your PowerPoint Velcro or Teflon?

PowerPoint is a double-edged sword that cuts both ways. Depending on how you use it, PowerPoint can either skillfully clarify or thoroughly confuse your overall message.

When it's used well, PowerPoint is Velcro. Your visuals grab your audience and attach your big ideas to their minds and hearts.

But when it's used poorly, PowerPoint turns into Teflon. Audience attention slides right off into confusion, frustration, and apathy. Blackberrys appear. Work comes out of briefcases. Mentally, your audience has walked out on you. The ones in the back are actually out the door.

And here's the worst-case scenario. PowerPoint, poorly used, ticks off audiences. They say, "Why is this jerk wasting my time?" You know this is true. You've said it yourself when you've been in a tortured-by-PowerPoint audience.

So what's the difference between PowerPoint that's Velcro or Teflon? To me, it comes down to one word: synchronicity. Synchronicity happens when related ideas reinforce each other to produce a "1+1 = 3" effect.

Here’s how synchronicity turns PowerPoint into Velcro. When your spoken words and your visual images are in sync, your audience is right with you. They're taking two separate sets of content, one in verbal form and the other in visual form, and weaving them together into a fabric of ideas. They are creating meaning for themselves. Very satisfying.

But PowerPoint turns into Teflon when your spoken words and visual images are out of sync. In the beginning, your audience starts working hard to find synchronicity. They bounce back and forth between what you're saying and what's on the screen. When they can’t find synchronicity, they face two choices.

Choice #1: Audience members who aren't particularly motivated by your message (and that's the largest percentage) just tune out everything.

Choice #2: Audience members who are really eager to understand what you're saying (almost always a small percentage) block out either the verbal or visual channel. They listen to you and ignore the screen. Or they watch the screen and ignore you.

As a speaker, when Choices #1 and #2 kick in, you are pushing a big rock up a steep hill.

Here's an example of how out-of-sync words and images confuse an audience. Let's say you're watching, for the first time, the iconic scene near the end of Casablanca. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman are truly in love. But bigger circumstances force them to say goodbye for the final time. In their last moments together, Bergman's eyes fill with tears. Bogey puts his hand on her chin and raises her face to meet his as he says that great line, "Here's looking at you, kid."

You've watch the whole movie to get to this point. But just as this scene starts, the soundtrack slips out of sync with the image by three seconds. You see lips moving and facial expressions. And you hear words. But the whole thing isn't making sense. You're struggling, on a very basic level, just to understand what's happening. Lack of synchronicity is shredding the fabric of meaning.

As a speaker, remember that synchronicity is absolutely crucial to your success. Your audience needs synchronicity to weave together the fabric of meaning that you want to leave them with. You can have lots of visuals -- or just a few. They can be really well designed -- or just workmanlike. But if your words and visuals are not in sync in the minds of your audience, they're not getting it.

PowerPoint can be a potent tool that pole vaults your audience into really understanding and believing your message. Or it can be an anvil dropped on their toes -- and ultimately on your reputation as a presenter. The difference comes down to a matter of timing.

When You Speak, Define Your Game and Make Big Moves

One of the reasons I watch Wimbledon is that John McEnroe's commentary goes right to the heart of what's happening. When a big-time player in the finals or semis gets off his or her game, McEnroe blasts the player for letting the opponent define the game -- forcing the player into a defensive (read losing) position.

When you speak, you need to define your game. Set the agenda early in your speech. The bigger your agenda, the more influential your speech can be. Nobody gets noticed (or respected) for a humdrum, laundry list speech numbed with copious PowerPoint, the Novocain of public speaking.

When you get the chance, go for the big moves. Don't be tentative. Shake up -- and wake up -- your audience by stating big problems and proposing big solutions. Your audience wants to know where you stand on your topic. Tell them in no uncertain terms what you think should be done.

Our new president may be about to redefine the game with big moves.

I read a provocative piece in the New York Times last week. The lead was, "President-elect Barack Obama’s aides say he is considering making a major foreign policy speech from an Islamic capital during his first 100 days in office." The whole article was about "where." The consensus was Cairo. But not a word about "what."

For me, the tantalizing part is the "what." Clearly his audience will be the worldwide Islamic community. Will he bridge to his audience by bringing into play his Muslim heritage and name? Will he tackle the "great Satan" argument by talking about how Muslims routinely prosper in the USA -- largely free of open and obstructive prejudice? And how U.S. armed services, along with NATO troops, fought and died in Bosnia and Kosovo to save Muslims from ethnic cleansing?

And in the biggest potential move of all, will he ask why Muslims around the world don't rise up to condemn and thwart the evil of Islamic terrorism? Does President-elect Obama intend to make really big moves that can begin to change the game? I, for one, hope he does. He stands astride two belief systems often at odds. He is uniquely positioned to be a bridge.

The lesson for senior executives who speak is this. More than ever, there are opportunities to define the game and make big moves. Read the headlines. The U.S. and world economic games are redefining themselves anew on a daily basis. We have big problems that are getting bigger. We need bigger solutions at every level.

As a speaker, your opportunities to define your game and make big moves are out there. There's no time like the present.

Connect With Your Audience Before Easing into Your Content

We've all seen it happen. I'm talking about the speaker who opens like the start of a drag race. When the green light goes on, he or she jams the accelerator right to the floor. We get the equivalent of screeching tires and clouds of rubber smoke as the speaker overpowers us with a torrent of words, acronyms, org charts, definitions, ideas, and complex visuals. At two minutes into the talk, we're already a minute behind.

To the speaker, all this may seem "energetic and dynamic." To the audience, it's a huge turnoff. Audience members who are out of the loop are in the early stages of "I don't care."

How do you really engage your audience? One sure-fire way is to devote the first couple of minutes to creating a connection and bringing your audience into the comfort zone.

Don't use your script or notes. Instead, just talk with your audience as if you're having a conversation with one other person. Tell them what you're going to talk about. In a few simple sentences, bring out your big idea. Tell them why it's important to you -- and to them.

If you're using visuals, turn off the projector and turn up the house lights. You want the audience to see you. And you want to see them.

Many speakers see this approach as way too low-key and casual. It's not. You're setting up the most important element in your speech or presentation -- connecting with your audience.

In almost every speaking event, there is a subtle but powerful dynamic at work. Audiences are not automatically open and accepting. There's a level of guardedness. Audiences hold the speaker at arms length -- until the personal connection is made.

For more than a decade, I wrote full-time for a high-profile CEO in high-tech. The thing is, she rarely used the words on the first page of the scripts I wrote. Instead, she would just talk to the audience in a casual, conversational way. She would be "in the moment," playing off the audience to spontaneously build that personal connection. And it worked like gangbusters.

Once you've established your connection with the audience, you can begin to use your script or notes, take down the house lights, turn on the projector, and start really getting into your content.

With your audience snug in the comfort zone, they're ready to listen, understand, and believe your ideas.

When "I Don't Know" Is Your Most Credible Answer

The only thing that's sinking faster than the economy is the credibility of leadership at virtually every level.

It seems that everyone with a microphone or keyboard -- including leaders, pundits, the media, and the blogosphere -- "knows" how to solve our problems. Our society is now operating under crushing levels of empty certitude.

There is only one certainty. The global economy is in completely uncharted territory. We've sailed into a raging storm with no weather forecast, no barometer, no map, and no compass. Any leader or commentator who says they really know what's going on is pumping their own brand of sunshine.

For once, I'd like to hear someone answer the question, "What happens next?" with the only answer that makes sense: "I don't know."

As a senior executive, when you talk to your stakeholders -- including employees, customers, partners, investors, and thought leaders -- you need to get comfortable with the "I don't know" answer. When you say it, you put into words what we all know. That's the first step toward improving your own credibility and your organization's future performance.

But these days, saying what everyone knows seems, to some, an admission of weakness or inadequacy. These people are living in a state of dangerous denial. There IS a dead elephant in the room. It's not just taking a nap.

Of course, "I don't know" is only half your message. The other half is to remind your stakeholders of what they do know to be true. Economic cycles come and go. However bad it is now, this cycle will wane. Strong, cohesive organizations that buckle down to work have the best chance in the future. Last year's capabilities, ingenuity, drive, and pride of work remain intact.

So tell your stakeholders this. "We may take a hard hit. We may stagger or even fall. But that's not failure. That's the cost of doing business. In the end, the only thing that really matters is getting up and trying again."

Don't Let Your Organization Get Sucked into a Leadership Vacuum

During big-time, gut-wrenching crises, organizations have a tendency to do one of two things. They jam their Florsheim's into their mouths to the ankle. Or they hunker down, duck their heads, and try to ride out rough weather.

Babbling and clamming up are both huge mistakes.

A textbook example of a leadership vacuum is the initial U.S. response to the global economic crisis. Congress fell back on what they do best: empty political theater. The presidential candidates began shooting at the sky -- hoping to hit a bird. Our president entered the witless protection program. And CEOs of financial institutions took, on advice of counsel, the clam up approach.

All this bred a terrifying feeling of, "Who, if anyone, is in charge?" It's hard to imagine more pathetic, craven performances by the very people we place in positions of leadership.

With real money at stake, the results were predictable. Financial markets fell off a cliff. Your September 401(k) and IRA losses show the velocity and distance of this economic power dive.

There's a lesson in all this for you and your organization. When times get tough, ask yourself what your audience wants and needs to hear. And then get out there and talk to them in person. Be a leader. Show the flag and say, "Follow me."

Speak in plain terms about what your organization is doing to weather the storm. Leave out the "message platform" BS and overly-optimistic cheerleading.

Lots of your advisors will urge caution and silence. They'll say, "Let's not jump the gun and say something wrong or something that we’ll have to justify later."

Don't listen to them. In times of maximum stress, tangible, visible, leadership is more important in the moment than being 100% right.

Here's the downside of clamming up. Uncertainty produces fear. Fear, left to fester, produces paralysis. Once paralysis really sets in, getting people moving again is incredibly difficult.

Years ago, when I was a senior speechwriter in a Fortune 100 company, massive business problems began producing real fear across the organization. The company was edging toward paralysis. I was part of a small task force asked to recommend a strategy. We said, "Get the CEO out into the company -- speaking plainly about the problems and taking questions." By the time the roadshow ended, he had talked to tens of thousands of employees. It worked. Levels of fear and anxiety went down -- and people got back to work.

When bad times come, you’ll face the leadership test. Step #1 in passing this test means holding your team together with your presence and your candid, believable words.

Hank and Ben's $700 Billion Failure to Communicate

This blog entry is not about the politics of recent Congressional actions and legislation to deal with our financial crisis.

This is about how a simple speechwriting screw-up almost produced a global economic catastrophe.

As Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke prepared their remarks to the Senate Banking Committee on September 23, 2008, they both forgot to ask two fundamental questions. "Who is our real audience? And what do they want and need to hear?"

Instead, they wrote their remarks for investment bankers and Ph.D. economists -- in other words, themselves. They completely missed the real audience -- Main Street America. This error turned out to have enormous consequences.

Here's how it happened. In mid-September, as banks, brokerage houses, and insurance companies failed, both Paulson and Bernanke saw that short-term credit markets were freezing up. I'm betting their blood pressure and pulse rates went through the roof. They know that completely frozen credit markets are a Marley's Ghost moment -- when the U.S. and global economies look into their own graves.

But in his Senate Committee remarks, Paulson said the words "credit markets" just three times. Bernanke said the words "short-term credit" twice. Neither offered a word about what these markets mean in the big picture.

Here's the problem. Folks on Main Street don't even know that short-term credit markets exist. Why would they? These markets are invisible to the average citizen. But short-term credit is absolutely vital to our economy -- including Wall Street, Fortune 500 corporations, and mid-sized and small businesses everywhere.

If Paulson and Bernanke had really done their homework, one of them would surely have added something like this:

"Think of our entire economy as a human body. I'm not talking just about Wall Street but Main Street and every other part of our economy. Businesses, large and small, are the organs and cells in this body. Short-term credit is the blood. It constantly flows through the economy providing nourishment. For example, businesses routinely borrow to make next month's payroll or buy inventory to fill current orders.

“In reality, short-term credit is the lifeblood of our economy. If it stops flowing, businesses, large and small, begin to lose consciousness, go into a coma, and die. Confidence in our economy has now deteriorated to the point where short-term credit markets could completely stop working within a matter of days or weeks. This is why we need to act -- and we need to act now."

With the best of intentions, Paulson and Bernanke gave the wrong remarks to the wrong audience. They couldn't see beyond their own expertise to the real world that would hear their words.

They failed because they forgot one simple, fundamental rule of public speaking: always know who your real audience is -- and speak to them in terms they can understand and believe.

How to Hire a Freelance Speechwriter

As you know, public speaking is a seasonal activity. Fall and Spring are very busy. They're prime time for conferences, seminars, conventions, symposia, and commencements. During the Summer, too many people are on vacation. And from Thanksgiving to New Year's, audience calendars are full of social events.

Since each speech is custom-made, your usual speechwriter can't use slow times to build inventory.

Sooner or later, you'll need a freelance speechwriter. Breaking in a new one is a high-stakes game. Think relief pitcher at the bottom of the ninth in a must-win game. Deadlines never move. Execs and staff are always way too busy.

So, what criteria do you use to find a capable freelancer?

A lot of organizations look for an expert in their field. Someone who's already written about their industry. But this misses a big point. Sure, your speech deals with your industry. But more importantly, your speech is about a very specific topic that's tailored to a very specific audience. You are the content expert. The speechwriter's job is to translate your ideas into words, tone, and impact that will work for your specific audience. Perhaps industry experience alone is not the #1 criterion.

If it's a really big-deal speech, you might be tempted to hire a big name -- one with a platinum resume and a sky-high fee. I've seen this work really well. A big name (well-known columnist for Time magazine) writes a big speech for a big fee (north of $20,000 in today's money.) The result? A successful outing that was worth the tab.

I've also seen the "big-name strategy" bomb. A Fortune 100 company gave their chief speechwriter "early retirement" -- and contracted with a Washington, DC, hotshot speechwriter. The script was completely off the mark. The retired speechwriter wound up rewriting it.

Here's a freelance speechwriter selection strategy that works. Ask your top candidate to write a thorough audience analysis -- including the three most important ideas the audience wants and/or needs to hear. Pay for this audience analysis. You're going to need one anyway.

A thorough audience analysis is a window into the freelance speechwriter's thinking, analytical ability, writing skill, interest in your topic, and motivation to do a great job.

Aristotle, who knew a thing or two about writing, said, "Well begun is half done." A strong audience analysis that focuses on what the audience wants and needs is always a good beginning.

What Do Audiences Really Want?

They want, at minimum, three things.

First, they want to connect with the speaker. They've already sat through way too many remote, aloof speeches and presentations. Audiences want a real person -- not a disembodied voice in the dark reading PowerPoint bullets. Authenticity is so rare in business today you'd think it costs $1 million an ounce. It doesn't. To be an authentic speaker, wear your passion for your topic on your sleeve. Look right into the eyes of audience members. And have a conversation with them.

The second thing audiences look for in most speeches is a hint of entertainment. There's no law against being lively, engaging, and interesting. Don't get me wrong. People aren't expecting you to be Jay Leno or Jon Stewart. Your audience doesn't need big laughs to be entertained.

When you speak, lighten up. Show the audience that you're serious about your topic. But also show them you're not overly somber and serious about yourself. An anecdote about you -- plus a little self-deprecating humor -- can lift the proceedings. To audiences, the ponderously solemn speaker comes across as self-important and self-involved.

The third thing audiences look for is meaning. They want you to fit your organization into the bigger picture. Every organization -- profit or nonprofit; private or public sector -- exists to create value. Tell your audience in really specific terms how you create value for them and for our society. When you connect what your organization does with what your audience knows in their hearts, you create meaning.

Connect with your audience. Lighten up. And show them a meaningful big picture. When you do these three things, you open the door to understanding and acceptance.

Looking for a New Speechwriter? Grow Your Own.

As a senior executive who makes public speeches and presentations, sooner or later, you'll need to find a new speechwriter. Things change. Good speechwriters get promoted. Some leave. And when they're gone, a lot of your hard work goes with them.

Finding a new speechwriter isn't something you can completely delegate. You need to meet with candidates and size them up.

The toughest part of finding a new speechwriter isn't the candidate’s content expertise, age, experience, or salary level.

It's chemistry.

Good chemistry with your speechwriter means you're both on the same wavelength. You have the same worldview. And there is that indefinable connection that's the foundation of trust.

Bad chemistry is much harder to put your finger on. It's an uneasiness between two people that makes close, working partnerships problematic. Unfortunately, chemistry is the toughest quality to get a handle on during the candidate interview.

Now there's a way to solve the chemistry problem.

Develop your own, in-house speechwriting talent.

I'm starting a speechwriter training course called Speechwriting 101: Learn by Doing. It's an intensive, hands-on, 14-week program in the craft of speechwriting created for busy, working professionals. For more information, check out the blogsite: http://speechwriting101.typepad.com.

Now you can put one of your high-potential, hotshot communications professionals into a program that teaches the foundation skills of good speechwriting. And they can complete the program while still doing their regular job.

Speechwriting 101 is not a three-day training seminar. It's not a standard, butts-in-seats, classroom course. Instead, every student gets customized and individualized assignments and detailed, in-depth feedback from me during our weekly phone conversations.

Writing assignments for your speechwriter-to-be will be built around the big issues in your organization. Your issues, challenges, pain points, and hot buttons. There is nothing "generic, one-size-fits-all" about this program.

As a veteran speechwriter with 24 years of CEO-level experience, I've seen it all -- many times over. Now I'm teaching the next generation.

Send me one of your best. In 3 1/2 months, I'll give you back someone who knows what it takes to write a strong, effective speech.

Open Your Speech with a Fresh Headline

The first minutes of your speech are crucial. During this time, the audience is testing you and your content. Is this worth listening to? Am I going to get anything out of it? Or is this e-mail and surf-the-Web time?

Here's a way to grab your audience by the lapels at the very beginning. Link a big idea in your speech to a fresh headline from this morning's newspaper or website.

Bringing your speech right up to the minute does wonders for audience attention and engagement.

One of my favorite speakers used an offbeat newspaper story to make an important point about his company's financial stability. This was a few years back -- in the days of the Enron implosion, $6,000 shower curtains, and CEO perp walks.

Our speaker summarized a newspaper article from that morning's New York Times about a disgraced executive who used company money to finance cosmetic surgery for the exec’s dog.

He described his own company's conservative financial philosophy. No debt. No "contracts" with the auditors. No tolerance for creative accounting.

Then he announced, "There will be no facelifts for poodles at our company."

Your fresh new story can be precooked to a degree. You already know the big ideas in your speech. Lots of news stories are continuing and episodic. Find someone on your team who’s a current events junkie and can creatively link unlikely topics in an entertaining way. When a target of opportunity pops up, drop it into the opening of your speech.

These days, audiences are pretty jaded. They've heard it all. Give them a surprise and a treat -- a fresh-from-the-oven headline that wraps around your big idea.

How to Jump Start Your Audience: Be Controversial

The next time you speak, how about deliberately being controversial? Audiences love controversy. It brings conflict into the room. It gets people thinking about big, fuzzy issues in personal ways.

Always be controversial on the issues -- never on personalities. Be the calm, rational, clearly-reasoned voice that upsets the apple cart.

Pick the biggest apple cart that matters to you and your audience -- and give it a good, strong shove.

You can challenge a conventional wisdom. Here's one from the headlines: raising taxes increases revenue. Wrong. Cutting taxes increases revenue because growth produces more taxpayers.

You can pick an important, slow-moving target and then strategically drop the banana peel. For instance, we pay tens of billions for public education. But when these young people come to us looking for a job, they can't read, write, or add. How does this make your organization better? How does it make our country stronger?

You can point out a glaring inconsistency. Ask your version of a question like, "Why do we need the Electoral College?" How about counting every vote in every state? The candidate with the most votes wins. Is this rocket science -- way beyond our capabilities? For the sake of the Republic, let's hope not.

The big idea is to get your audience riled up. Throw their self interests right into the middle of the mix. Show them how much skin they've got in the game.

Once you've pushed over your apple cart, jump in with a solution. Make it brisk, clean, and easy to understand. Show point-by-point how your ideas can help turn a problem into a solution.

As you develop your speech, watch out for the obsessively risk-averse voices in your own organization. There are lots of them. For them, a "good" speech is the rhetorical equivalent of a slice of white bread in a saucer of warm milk.

Controversy works. Instead of shying away from it, jump right in -- and bring your audience along for the ride.

How to Survive in the Age of Transparency

A presidential candidate makes an off-the-cuff remark at a private gathering and, voilà, the next day it's the lead story on every news program and website.  Then it moves from being an item in the news cycle to a recurring issue in the campaign. 

This is just one example of how digital information and the Web have turned the early 21st century into an Age of Transparency. 

As a senior executive and public speaker, you need to realize that transparency is an issue for you.  As soon as you say it, everyone can know it.

Contrast our time with the opacity of the 20th century.  Presidential examples tell the story.  Calvin Coolidge was in a deep, clinical depression for the last year of his presidency after his 16-year-old son died.  He slept for 14 hours a day.  No one knew.

Woodrow Wilson was incapacitated by a stroke in his last year as president.  The true scope of his condition was kept secret while his wife and a small circle of advisors ran the country.

As president, Grover Cleveland had a secret, radical cancer operation.  A surgeon removed the roof of his mouth.  These facts were concealed for 15 years -- until after his death.

John Kennedy had Addison's Disease, a serious, chronic condition that required constant monitoring and strong medication.  For public consumption, Kennedy was tanned, fit, and, except for a bad back, the picture of health.

What does this new Age of Transparency mean to you as a speaker?

You've got to tell the truth always -- and do it well.  When you can't, don't speak.

When the facts contradict something you've already said, make it right. 

Get out in front of bad news.  Deliver it yourself and do it fast.  When you do this, your transparency is the story.  When you keep quiet, your opacity becomes the story.

Because the digital world has changed dramatically in less than a decade, you need to adjust your rhetorical expectations.  When you speak, think of your microphone being connected to every computer in the world.

 

When You Speak, the Secret to Success Is Right in Front of You

As a speaker, you want your audience to understand and believe your content.  And you want to be relaxed, confident, and persuasive while you're speaking.

Here's a strategy that will deliver both.  Focus on your audience all through the process.  At every step -- research, big idea, script, rehearsal, and delivery -- think audience, audience, audience. 

Step #1: To develop audience-friendly content, ask yourself these questions.  “What does this audience want and/or need to hear from me?  What can I say that will resonate with them?  During my speech -- in that room, on that day -- what's the biggest audience need I can satisfy?”

Let's say you're introducing a new product.  Remember, customers aren’t buying your product.  They're buying the benefits it produces for them.  That's your starting point. Talk about what customers want and need -- and what benefits your product gives them.

You and your people may want to show off new features and advanced thinking.  Soft-pedal this urge.  Your audience really doesn't care about what's under the hood.  An extended tutorial on "how it works" is about as interesting as what you did on your summer vacation.  If you want to score some competitive points, OK, give them a brief peek at your product's wow factor.

But don't build your whole pitch around what you've done.  Instead, focus on what you can do for customers.

Step #2: Focus on your audience while you're speaking.  When you come right down to it, there is no group.  You are speaking to each individual.

Drop the "I'm giving a speech" voice, persona, and demeanor.  Instead, have a conversation.  Pick out a few people in various parts of the room and talk right to each of them -- as you would in one-on-one conversation.

When you stop focusing on yourself, you free up your attention to concentrate on the audience.  Audiences undergo a magical transformation when they see the speaker's attention shift from self to audience.  They relax.  They listen.  They open up to your ideas.  The audience knows you're there for them, not for yourself.  Huge difference in attitude, receptivity, and audience buy in.

Bottom line: For sure-fire content, a more relaxed speaking experience, and better audience acceptance, put your audience first in all you do.

 

Welcome to the Age of Invisibility

Jurassic Park is a great popcorn movie.  It's got people against nature.  It's got heroes stuck on an island from 65 million years ago.  And it's got an important lesson for public speakers.

This lesson is summed up in a line spoken by Sam Neill when he and the adorable moppets are about to be devoured by a T. Rex.  He tells them if they don't move, the T. Rex can't see them.

We live in a new Age of Invisibility.  It started less than a decade ago and it's accelerating.  Speakers face new problems as media content outlets -- like broadcast, cable, print, Web, blogs, etc. -- multiply at a geometric rate. 

The problem is this.  If you don't speak often enough and to the right people, you start to become invisible.  When you don’t move, they can’t see you.

It's not that your voice is fading.  The problem is that all the other voices are getting louder -- and there are many more of them.

If you stick to your old speaking schedule, you'll begin to disappear -- overlapped and replaced by the flood of new voices and new stories.

How long does it take before you are yesterday's newspaper?  Much shorter than you think.  Six months, a year at most, and you can become, "What ever happened to (your name here)?

So tune up your pipes, punch up your script -- and get out there!

 

 

Delivering the Pitch Perfect Presentation

As a speaker, your first job is to strike just the right chord with the audience and the occasion.  It's all about creating an audience-friendly, occasion-sensitive tone that resonates.  Once you've done that, everything else is much easier.

Years ago, I saw a great example of the pitch perfect presentation.  It was at a gala dinner to dedicate the new, world headquarters of the PPG Corporation.  The event was held in the building's Winter Garden -- a large, all-glass, public space that had been donated for public use by PPG.

The after-dinner speakers -- corporate executives, public officials, etc. -- droned on.  But at the end of the program, one speaker redeemed the whole evening.

He was Philip Johnson, master architect and creator of the PPG Building and the Winter Garden.

Instead of standing behind the lectern, Johnson stepped forward and casually leaned on it.  He was saying to the audience, don't worry, I don't have a script.  This isn't a speech.  I'm just chatting with you.  He was completely relaxed and spoke in his normal conversational voice. 

As he chatted about designing the PPG Building, it was clear that the Winter Garden was his idea -- and the part of the project that he really loved.  There we sat, in this wonderful space, as he told us the story of how it came to be. 

Although he spoke for just a few minutes, he was in complete command of the audience and the occasion.  That evening was almost 25 years ago, yet I remember the tone of Johnson's remarks as if he had spoken last week.

As a speaker, aim for the pitch perfect presentation.  It's one that puts the audience and the occasion ahead of everything else.

 

Use Video in Your Next Speech or Presentation. It's Easier Than Ever.

Here's what happens when you use a thirty-second video clip of a happy customer or a successful project in your speech.

• The audience will be recharged and refreshed because the video "opens up" your speech.  You'll take them out of the room to the scene of the action.
• When you do it right, this can be very rich content.
• You’ll gain third-party credibility.  "Here it is folks!  This is real!"

Producing video used to be a big deal.  Expensive and time-consuming.  But the game has changed in very big ways.  It's now much easier to produce original content.  And you can do cut-and-paste editing on a low-cost, laptop program.

Video equipment is now super cheap.  Check out the Flip Ultra camera.  Here's David Pogue's review in the New York Times.  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/technology/personaltech/20pogue.html?pagewanted=2&sq=Flip%20Video%20camera&st=cse&scp=1.

Give your sales reps small, easy-to-use video cameras -- and a tip sheet on how to shoot footage that cuts together into an interesting story.

Video is more cost-effective than ever because audience expectations have changed.  They don't dismiss rough-and-ready production values.  The new video aesthetic is YouTube and cellphoned stories from TV foreign correspondents.  Now, informal = authentic.

Instead of just telling your audience, show them.  Expand the impact of your speech with a short video clip of an enthusiastic customer or that just-completed project.  Your audience will remember and believe. 

 

Want to Become a Much Better Speaker? Take an Acting Class.

You want to really boost your public speaking skills -- but you've hit the ceiling on help available from books, training DVDs, and speech coaches.

Raise your sights by taking an acting class.

Your goal isn't to become a good actor -- or even a so-so one.  Your goal is to stretch your idea of who you are and who you can be to an audience.

Great speakers –- Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, MacArthur, and JFK -- had a touch of the actor in them.

In most acting classes, you'll be the fish out of water.  That's okay.  You have your own big picture strategy.

Take the acting exercises seriously and work at them.  You'll have an opportunity to see how other students convey emotion and create mood.  Good actors create a strong, emotional connection with the audience.  This is exactly what you want to do to become a really effective speaker.

Acting is a journey out of yourself to somewhere else.  Think of it as therapy, with an audience. 

When your acting class is successful at making you a better speaker, you'll probably never be able to quantify what happened or why. 

Your logical brain can only carry you so far.  But your whole brain can work wonders when you let it out to play.

 

Thank you Francisco, Tony, and Olivia

Before last week, I didn't know a living soul in Portugal or New Zealand.  Now I do -- thanks to the networked world that's erasing distance from our everyday lives.

I was interviewed by Portuguese blogger, public speaker, and Toastmaster, Francisco Saraiva.  He's a marketing and PR executive for the Port of Leixoes.  Check out his English-language blog at http://franciscosaraiva.com.

On the other side of the globe, 12 time zones away, in Wellington, New Zealand, Tony and Olivia Mitchell included me in their "Review of top 10 speaking blogs at Alltop."  The Mitchells do presentation training and consulting for New Zealand speakers.  Their blog is www.speakingaboutpresenting.com.

Twenty years ago, when I thought of visionaries who were predicting the future we're living today, the names Alvin Toffler, Marshall McLuhan, and Tom Peters came to mind.  Who knew that those cuddly Disney characters singing "It's a Small World After All" were also foretelling our future?