Archive for the ‘Presentation Skills’ Category

Winning over executives: what to expect

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

Getting ready to present to top line people? Are you doing the “usual” — amassing a large number of slides, back-up slides, and data points just in case you get asked a hard question? Okay, not bad, but please know this — you won’t get all the time you had expected AND you had better be concise. If they promised you 30 minutes to speak to the board, expect 10 to 15 at the most. Prepare for 2 minutes. Don’t laugh! If you expect to have no time at all and to have an impatient audience, you will be the most “ready” you have ever been in your life!

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The “Color” person on TV — do you have one for your team?

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

“Color” — that’s the person who adds interesting stories, quips, quotes, and comments to make the ball game and the players interesting. When your team gives a presentation, wouldn’t it be more interesting if you had a color person, too? What if you were the color person? Keep it appropriate, though. Don’t make anyone look or sound bad in front of an audience. Enjoy.

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Memorial Services: What works, what doesn’t

Monday, September 19th, 2011

That’s it. I’m not going to memorial services anymore. Why: hearing embarrassing and insulting stories about a 94 year old whom I admired literally to death is NOT what I want or expect from a memorial service. Family members think it’s cute to share the person’s embarrassing moments and poke fun at his or her personality or style. Do they do this to alleviate tension and upset? If so, I hope it works for them. It doesn’t for me. Does it work for you?
Here is what I expect: stories that let you admire their past and how much they made a difference in this world. In fact, the most memorable memorial service (!) was that of my business mentor, whose openness about corporate success and secrets, shared with a female business owner and many others over 27 years, gave me for a large part the success that I have received. He was a top executive at DuPont, a Ph.D. in chemistry, and a man who was publishing books and coaching business people up until his death. Many “funny” stories repeated the theme of his unwanted coaching. And yet, hundreds at the memorial service were there from the business community for the same reason that I was — to honor a wonderful and generous man. The speakers/relatives didn’t mention how he never complained despite painful and frightening paralysis and breaks of his legs, the poignant deterioration of his wife, his giving up of a luxurious life on an estate to be close to his wife during her illness in a concrete assisted living facility, and his quiet generosity and leadership throughout his life.

The next time I am invited to a memorial service, I will make sure to speak at it, to memorialize the greatness of people that possibly receive the most admiration from those with the least need to entertain or complain. Please write me a role in the program, so that I can do this one good thing for a dear business friend, colleague, and coach. I will never forget Dave Holmes, and I miss him and admire him despite the “send-off” I experienced. I guess the family just didn’t know him or could see past their history.

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Posted in Dealing with difficult people and situations, Presentation Skills | No Comments »

What Ads Can Teach You about Influencing

Tuesday, December 28th, 2010

I’m inspired by a very successful ad on TV. It’s purpose is not apparent. Set outdoors on an exercise path, it starts by showing a great-looking guy watching a good-looking girl doing a fast walking exercise. When his eyes land on her sneakers (those thick-soled ones especially designed to build balance…and a well-shaped rear-end), he grimaces, and his glance transfers admiringly to ANOTHER girl doing exercise walking in…normal looking sneakers. Here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWPq6lZUKJU&NR=1 . His glance and the voice-over say, “Do you want him paying attention to your thick-soled, rocker sneakers or to you?” The handsome man smiles after the second woman, who smiles lingeringly and beautifully back, while walking in the more normal looking shoes.

Why did I go to the trouble of describing this ad in detail? Because it’s persuasive for a variety of reasons:
1. It contrasts their product with a whole category of previously acceptable sneaker competition as “weird”
2. It subtlely uses the message of achieving admiration — for wearing normal looking sneakers, and no words were used
3. The message is crystal clear — wear OUR normal looking sneakers, and get the improved rear-end AND the guy.

As you prepare your slides for a talk or your message for a meeting, remember to make a clear contrast between you and competing ideas, make your idea admirable, and be crystal clear.

See how much you can learn from one rear-end improving ad?

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Well, Everyone else is doing it….

Monday, December 27th, 2010

We are always looking for ways to help people to be more persuasive, even compelling. Sometimes those ways show up in research on advertising that works or making messages that “stick.” Thank you, marketing consultants. At Rae Cook & Associates, we scan “data” for patterns and outliers, and one pattern that is showing up in advertising is the approach/mesage: “everyone else is doing it, so you should, too”. Surprisingly, this method doesn’t just work with kids and teenagers, but even with adults. One study looked at ways to convince hotel guests to use fewer towels to avoid unnecessary washing and environmental impact. Hotel managers put signs with dire warnings about climate and environment preservation. Those didn’t work. So they switched to a message that basically said, “OTHER hotel guests were being sensitive to the environment and replacing their towels on racks.” After changing to the “everyone is doing it” message, the cooperation rate for this environmentally sensitive behavior rose over 25%. Hmmm.

Energy utility companies tried a similar approach. USA Today recently printed a finding that 25 US utilities who provided their customers with reports that compare their energy usage to their neighbors’ usage encouraged up to a 3% reduction in energy consumption. We DO want to keep up with our neighbors and other “respectable” people. That fact makes us think that when we want to persuade, we need to consider the “everyone is doing it” approach. The old approach of making projects, products, or services stand out may not be as effective as making them fit in…to the norm. So, if you previously tried to sell by saying you would be the “only one that ….”, you might want to consider selling it as “we will be in the pack with the companies that everyone respects.” I know, it’s not nearly as exciting a message, but sometimes the inelegant “persuader” is the best!

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What am I missing?

Saturday, December 18th, 2010

People prepare to present to senior leaders by compiling huge amounts of data and lots of slides. Here’s a surprise. Senior leaders are more interested in what you are missing than what you have for them. They have to assume that you did all the work that you claim to have done. It’s what you as a company might miss that fascinates them. In fact, be ready to provide the QUESTIONS that your work raises rather than just the facts, and you will sound less like a subordinate or middle manager and more like a leader yourself.

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Posted in Career Advancement, Executive Communications, Presence, Presentation Skills | No Comments »

#1 Criticism

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

Criticism in corporate life seems to follow trends. The latest trend — criticism for not being supportive or not consciously building relationship. Not everyone is a relationship-oriented person, and I’m not saying that a driven, task-oriented person has to turn into someone who is artifically interested in people. Try this: Start and end your speaking, even in a hallway, with THEIR needs before talking about your own needs and ideas. End with their needs, followed finally by a “We…” or uniting statement.
Here’s an example: “You told us that you were concerned that our pricing might not be competitive. As a result, I looked into several data points. (Explain), (Ending:) Do you think that these ideas will help us to price our product more competitively? If so, I’m glad our group could help. We’re all trying to put our company into the best position we can.”

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No Time to Practice

Friday, June 25th, 2010

 

Yes, yes, don’t tell me again that practice makes perfect

I’ve just scanned an armload of presentation skill blogs, and they all start with the recommendation to “practice.” That’s nice. However, in my experience, most of my clients don’t have much time to practice, and before they met me, they would practice at midnight the night before the presentation. What tension does *that* cause? OR, they practice as they did in high school for an oral presentation — going over slides again and again.
What a waste of time and energy. How out of date is that?

How Grown-Ups Practice Presentations

Better: Take a blank piece of paper, and quickly list all of the slides you have in order. Then compare your list to your actual slides. Did you get them all? Did you transpose some slides in your list? Make your list again and again, until you get/remember your slides. Oh, and BTW, if you transpose or omit the same slides over and over, then the problem is with your slides (or their sequence), not with you.

Practice Bites

Also, you can practice your presentations in small bites in everyday life without anyone knowing. Just bring up a topic related to your slides in casual conversation, explain briefly, and lo and behold, you just practiced your presentation! Example: during a spontaneous conversation in the hallway, you might say, “You know, I’m giving a talk to Jack and the executive committee on Tuesday. I’ll be showing them that the numbers are better than expected.” The other person says, “Really? What happened?” You say, “Let me explain….” and you do, and you practice.

Isolate and Get to Know the “Troublemakers” in your Presentations

Finally, practice the key junctures that trip up speakers. Practice your opening, your closing, the toughest slides, and transitions – getting from slide to slide.

So, stop having anxiety about not practicing. Don’t practice in a rigid, old-fashioned way. Get serious about practice,  but get real, too. No more excuses for not practicing, and no more beating yourself up or skipping practice altogether!

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