presentation coach

The information imperative...

When Detroit or Tokyo tries to sell me a car, do they present column after column of engineering and performance statistics in their expensive TV ads? No. They use luscious, vivid, sensual images of beautiful people doing beautiful things in beautiful places. They suggest mystery, style, aspiration to make me want that car, desire that car, covet that car — for reasons other than logic.

When politicians stump for my vote, do they recite economic formula and municipal performance data? Not if they want to survive the primaries. Instead, they talk about jobs and roads and taxes and the education of our kids and the future. About security and freedom. About the sins of the other guy. My rational brain isn’t their target. They’re aiming for my heart, my anger, my passion, my dreams, my fears.

Do not dismiss this process as merely manipulation. Think of it instead as an information imperative.

These people know they have to reach me, whether to sell cars to keep an economy healthy, or to get my vote to keep a political ideology alive. They’re trying to get me to listen, to hear them amidst all the noise of everyday life.

They speak to me in ways that make me want to listen, in terms that matter to me.

Now, there are ethical issues in play here, of course. But that’s the topic of another discussion in another forum. What we’re about right now is understanding the forces at work in a good presentation or speech. Understanding the tools used by the great public speakers to capture and hold and audience’s attention, and to persuade that audience to action.

Here’s what those great speakers know:

Public speaking is about how you use words — and a speaking style — to frame your message in terms an audience understands, feels and responds to. It's about knowing your objective while always working to satisfy the audience's needs. It's about making the information you share vital to someone else.

Public speaking is about being heard.

Common courtesy...

Over the years of coaching and conducting clinics on presentation skills, I’ve tried to calm some of my clients’ worst fears about public speaking by reassuring them their audiences are dependably tolerant and polite souls.

Don’t worry, I say, your audience won’t walk out on you.

I’m beginning to think I’ve been giving the wrong advice.

Could it be bad presentations are perpetuated because we audiences are so polite?

Is our genteel practice of sitting through to the bitter end ultimately giving permission to those who would fritter away our time with content that is pointless, PowerPoint slides that are spectacularly meaningless, stagecraft that is graceless?

What if we, as the audience, did indeed walk out?

Not in a huff, mind you. Just quietly rose from our seats and stepped through the door.

What if we started to make clear that we no longer would tolerate speakers who were blatantly unprepared, unrehearsed or unable to make a point?

I’m not talking about the performance of the painfully shy junior staffer who must deliver a report at the monthly managers’ meeting, or the reticent parent who’s been dragooned to summarize the committee’s work on the neighborhood school festival. For them at these frightful moments, we can only reply with tender mercy.

I’m talking about the folks who ought to know better, who ought to do better, when stepping in front of an audience.

The experts, the elected officials, and business leaders who, by virtue of their position, know they are going to be asked to speak before a meeting of Rotarians or Kiwanians or Soroptomists, or to colleagues at a conference or citizens attending a town hall.

The speakers who ask to be invited to make their case to a group, then consider their work done once the invitation arrives.

The speakers who blow off suggestions of help by declaring “I know this stuff; I talk about it all the time. Put up a few Excel graphs and bullet lists, and it’s a done deal.”

The speakers who seemingly work harder positioning their reputations than preparing their presentations.

So, what would the world be like if audiences gave themselves permission to slip away when threatened by a dreadful presentation?

Well, maybe, just maybe, some folks would begin to invest a little more time and thought into crafting a good presentation, rather than waiting until the last moment and then winging it.

Perhaps speakers would work smarter to prepare themselves (like learning how to use their digital projector, for instance), rather than prey on the gracious indulgence of the audience.

Perhaps speakers would make the effort to read through their remarks (at least once) in advance, solicit the honest critique of a colleague, even seek out a coach to polish some basic delivery skills… do something to protect the interests of the audience.

Perhaps we, as the audience, would get better value for the time we invest attending the presentation.

So, okay, rather than offering gentle reassurances, maybe I should start saying this instead to folks concerned about speaking in public:

“Your audience won’t walk out on you IF you’ve done your best to prepare and can demonstrate your readiness to present…

“IF you’ve structured a cohesive, rational narrative of your points and conclusions…

“IF you use only those graphics that help you clarify your point rather than lard it down with extraneous visual clutter and slideware whizbangs…

“IF you put your audience’s needs first over your own…

“IF you are authentic in the delivery of your message rather than detached and passionless…

“And IF your message is clear, succinct, memorable and not vague, meandering or weak.

“This isn’t about the audience agreeing with what you say. That’s a function of your persuasiveness in the case you make. It is about the audience sticking around long enough to hear you say it, and that’s a privilege you must earn by respecting their investment of time and attention.

“Otherwise, people will — and should — walk out.

“It’s up to you.”

So, what do you think? Would it make a difference?

Gettysburg...

As a speechwriter — whether you deliver the remarks yourself or ghost them for someone else — you command enormous power.

You can change the world.

Lincoln did it. His remarks dedicating a new national cemetery at Gettysburg, for instance, are widely credited with not only redefining the rationale of our Civil War, but re-framing the very nature and destiny of our nation.

And he did it in 263 words.

Consider this:

There are people in our society — in every society — we classify as opinion leaders.

Are they necessarily smarter than the rest of us? No.

Are they wealthier or taller or cooler than anyone else? Nah.

But they can articulate their thinking with words carefully chosen and themes carefully crafted.

Their power lies in their ability to influence how the rest of us view the world and interpret events.

Pick your topic: Civil rights. Abortion. War and peace. The words opinion leaders use to make their respective case — whether for or against — come from somewhere. They are not casual or arbitrary, but deliberate. Their language is crafted and shaped and honed so that each sentence, each phrase, says precisely the correct thing, triggers precisely the desired response, evokes precisely the intended imagery, invokes precisely the necessary action.

Your message may be weighty, life-changing, monumental … or not. Regardless, the mechanics of good speechcraft remain constant.

Abraham Lincoln knew that, intuitively, from a lifetime of studying the classic orators.

Franklin Roosevelt knew it, too. So did Martin Luther King. And Ronald Reagan.

We know of these people, what they believed and what they expected of us because of the words they used to talk to us. By the structure of their arguments that led us to intended conclusions. By the stories that converted abstract concepts like freedom or justice or national identity into meaningful examples each of us could feel and appreciate and assimilate.

Your words make a difference when you want them to. Whether advocating for global peace or an increase in your department’s budget, what you say and how you say it matters.

Just remember, it’s never a function of how many words you use, but of how you use the words — of the stories you tell, the images you evoke, the confidence you show in your own message and its meaning.

No matter how large or small your world, you have the power to change it.

Monday morning...

Two office co-workers meet while getting a fresh cup of coffee down the hall.

“Hey, how was your weekend?” asks one.

“Optimum,” replies the other. “Our family’s agenda commenced at 6:36 a.m. Saturday when we awoke from our overnight slumber. We then performed acts of personal hygiene, dressed and proceeded to consume foods of varying nutritional value with which to stimulate our energy levels for the as-yet undetermined but anticipated tasks to come.

“We then deliberated our options for how to utilize the remainder of the day and by consensus determined our time would be best occupied with a journey to the river, where we would attempt to capture a water-residing, gilled creature at the end of a filament line…”

Silliness? Yes, of course. It’s a Monday-morning conversation over coffee, after all.

So let’s try it again:

“How was your weekend?”

“Really great! We got up early Saturday and decided we needed to head down to the river to get in some fishing. Fantastic day!”

Same story. Same conclusion. Significantly different character, however.

The first version is pompous, passionless and inaccessible; the second answers a simple question simply, with obvious delight and enthusiasm.

The first reflects the speaker’s concerns with a process of presentation rather than its purpose. The other tells a story.

Which works better for the listener, do you think?

Presenters too often get all caught up in stuffy formalities. They fall into the darkness of thinking the act of public speaking means they must strip themselves of personality, of authenticity, of directness. Perfectly clear, wonderfully appropriate conversational language gets edited out of their remarks and replaced with colorless, passionless, stupefying memo-speak.

These folks approach their remarks in the flawed belief the more bland they are, the more seriously their message will be taken.

They figure, why not be safe by being boring?

Because boring doesn’t work.

Boredom gets in the way of understanding. What enables and encourages understanding, on the other hand, is style. Style engages the audience. It delights them. It speaks to them on a human level.

Style casts your message in a context that means something to most people.

Now, some folks use boring as a shield, an insulator, to protect them from their own fears of vulnerability. They reckon if they don’t reveal their emotions in any way, if they retreat behind the barrier of memo-speak, then any rejection by the audience will be directed at their remarks and not at them.

They’re mistaken, of course. When you bore an audience, you can expect their rejection to be very personal. After all, it’s you who made that 15-minute presentation seem like an hour. It’s you who made the message unnecessarily complex, the ideas unnecessarily difficult to grasp.

A presentation is not a data stream. It is one human speaking to other humans. Getting a message across is already enough of a challenge; don’t make it more difficult. Tell a story. Tell it simply. Tell it as if it’s worth telling.

And, please, try to enjoy yourself in the telling.

Who are these people? (continued)…

A presentation is a gift.

Your audience is giving you their time and attention. In return, they hope to realize some form of benefit, some value from the information you provide.

So here’s one rule for success when speaking to an audience:

Have something to say that can make a difference in their lives.

Make your talk about them and their agenda, not you and yours.

Consider the case of the sales rep from the seed company. He gets the chance to talk to a room full of new homeowners, potential customers for a new grass seed product. With energy and enthusiasm, he talks about the new seed. He tells how much money the company invested in its research, describes the convenient packaging, relates how the company is poised to dominate the market.

The audience remains impassive to his remarks.

Finally, a hand appears in the back of the room.

“Yes?” acknowledges the salesman, pausing in his carefully crafted narrative.

The homeowner stands.

“Excuse me,” he begins, “I'm glad your product's such a success but I didn't come tonight to hear about your lawn seed. I want to hear about my lawn and what you can do to make it better.”

What’s your topic?

Is it grass seed? Or how it can improve lawns?

Is it a new software product? Or improvements in productivity?

An investment opportunity? Or creating and protecting wealth?

Perhaps it’s advocacy for a social cause. Or why helping feed the hungry or house the homeless can benefit the entire community.

No matter what your topic the principle still applies: Know your audience. Recognize why they are there, what’s important to them, what might stimulate a choice or decision or action on their part.

Then craft your message and engineer your remarks accordingly.

Now you don’t want to push your audience. You don’t want to pull them, either. You want them to journey with you to your destination. You want them to want to go, with willingness and open minds.

How to do this?

It’s not complicated.

Give them a compelling reason. Show how the journey benefits them, meets their needs, solves their problems.

Demonstrate you know the difference between your agenda and the audience’s.

You’ll end up selling a lot more grass seed.

The grand design…

Architects typically don’t design buildings by first assembling the sticks and bricks and then standing back to see what it looks like.

They design buildings by first asking lots of questions to determine what the end result needs to do.

What will be its purpose?

What features does it require to accomplish that purpose?

Who wants it, and why?

Who will use it, and why?

Is there space for a big, leisurely building, or must it be compact and minimalist?

Only after satisfying themselves that their grand, preliminary design meets certain tests do they begin the task of detailed fabrication.

Those who craft the best presentations observe the same process.

What do you want your remarks to do? What task must they perform?

Draft your plan beforehand.

I’m not talking about the outline of content, but about the central message, the theme, the Big Idea.

Here’s a test to apply to your thinking: “When my audience leaves at the end of my remarks, I want them to (blank).”

Now fill in the blank.

Next, determine what it will take to move your audience to take whatever action you’ve proposed.

What’s important to them and their interests?

What facts are appropriate for informing them?

What stories dramatize and humanize your points?

What benefits will appeal to them?

What hazards or risks await them?

Then, finally, what do you want them to do? Do more than tell yourself at this point. Tell your audience. (This is your call to action, and no presentation is complete without it…even if it’s no more than suggesting they think about your remarks over a cup of coffee.)

Whether you’re preparing for a major speech to a national conference or a 5-minute report to your co-workers, visualize your ultimate design before you begin building the structure. Your message should drive the construction process, not the other way around.

In the end, you want a rational, cohesive result that stands confidently in the minds of your audience, not a flimsy collection of bits and pieces that will collapse onto itself with the first challenge.

Who are these people, anyway?

When the books you read about public speaking, or your presentation skills coach or trainer, tell you to “Know your audience,” just what are they talking about?

Are they expecting you to memorize everyone’s name and the names of their children and pets?

No, it’s not about that, or about knowing their birthdays or what kind of car they drive (unless, of course, your topic is about their car).

It’s more elemental.

It’s about understanding the relationships in the room. Being aware of common frames of reference. Respecting the audience’s history, values and traditions. Then using that knowledge as a tool to sculpt your message so it has relevance and resonance for them.

Knowing your audience can spell the difference between a powerful presentation and a forgettable one… between fulfilling your objective as a speaker and squandering an opportunity.

Here’s an illustration:

The publisher and editor of a statewide business magazine came to town one day to promote a new editorial product. As they previously had done in other cities and towns across the state, the pair hosted a breakfast meeting at a downtown hotel and invited what their publication’s data base suggested was the “A” list of local business and community leaders.

There were about 75 people in the room that morning. As the guests sipped their coffee and nibbled on melon balls and croissants, the magazine’s editor stepped up to the lectern, thanked everybody for attending and motioned for her assistant to flash the first in a series of slick PowerPoint slides onto a screen.

With a practiced eloquence, she proceeded to position her new product by lecturing the audience about themselves: Who they were. What was important to them. What sort of choices they were facing in the marketplace.

Then to burnish her own company’s credentials, she took credit on its behalf for bringing so many opinion leaders to this one place so they could get to know one another better.

That was the moment when she lost traction with the audience.

She was from the big city up north. This wasn’t the big city. It was a much smaller town, in a rural corner of the state.

The people in this room knew one another. They had a collective history. They didn’t just do business with each other. They had grown up together. Many had attended local schools together as kids and now their own children played on the same school athletic teams. They sat together on numerous civic and business committees, boards and commissions. They belonged to the same Rotary and Kiwanis and Lions and Soroptimist clubs.

It would not be unusual for them to encounter one another — socially as well as professionally — two, three, even four times in a given business day.

So when the speaker commended them for coming together like this to talk business, she was telling them she did not know her audience.

When she failed to observe, let alone acknowledge, the connections that existed among the people in this room, she no longer was having a conversation with them, she was talking at them.

What made the situation more astonishing was that this was no drive-by sales pitch by lightweights. She and her colleague were people of experience, intelligence and influence. A great deal of time and thought and expense had gone into hosting this presentation.

Yet, they were sending a clear signal they hadn’t done their homework.

Such neglect is a signal of disrespect.

Her audience disengaged. They were courteous, of course, and sat politely through to the end of the program. Mentally and emotionally, however, they already had left the room.

Another outsider coming down here to tell us what to do and think.

And that made her all too familiar to them.

Know your audience.

That doesn’t mean learning people’s names and birthdays and favorite movies before you speak to them.

It means investing the time to determine how the people in your audience relate to one another. What commonalities exist? What burning issues might they be facing?

For an audience to be willing to let you enter their world, you first must demonstrate the thoughtfulness of a good guest. Make inquiries. Do your homework. Then acknowledge who they are and what they value as a community of people.

Neglect to do so, and you may be left knocking at their door, your message unheard, your objective unfulfilled, your opportunity lost.

Droning...

Why do we resist telling stories?

Why do we think that if it’s a “formal” presentation, we must be stale, stuffy, rigid and boring?

There were more than 100 decision-makers in the audience. Bankers and financial advisors. Builders, architects and contractors. Business owners and corporate policy makers.

The presenter's topic was emerging trends for improved efficiency in the building design and construction trades.

He was a knowledgeable advocate for something he believed in strenuously. In private conversation, his obvious enthusiasm for the subject would command your attention. Now he had a chance to turn a few heads among those very likely to be making some big-dollar construction decisions in the foreseeable future.

Did they hear wonderful, inspiring, stimulating accounts of real people dealing with real concerns? A compelling narrative about matters of consequence to their own lives and fortunes?

No.

They received a data dump.

The heard a presenter drone on about statistics while watching a script of banal marketing language projected lifelessly, endlessly on a huge screen in another part of the room.

No drama. No passion. No stories.

A pity.

I cheated. Rather than watch the speaker or the screen, I watched the room. What I saw was an audience that was fidgety and disengaged. They didn’t know where this presentation was going. And few seemed to care. It didn’t concern them, after all. It was about his agenda, not theirs. They already were thinking ahead to their first appointments of the afternoon.

Too bad, because I would guess more than a few had it within their power to make some big choices about what materials and systems they would buy when building or remodeling an office or warehouse or even private home.

Too bad, because it was genuinely a great topic and worthy of attention.

It was opportunity lost, however, because the speaker evidently felt safer retreating behind numbers and projected narrative instead of engaging his audience about a topic he really knew and understood well.

A teachable moment squandered, regrettably, because the speaker centered his remarks on the details of his topic rather than on the information needs of his audience.

He droned. Not on purpose, of course. He stepped in front of his audience with every good intention to share something important. But rather than have a conversation with them, rather than make a compelling case and spark their imaginations, he instead donned an insulating cloak of deadpan formality, stitched together with a lifeless PowerPoint display of talking points.

Style and substance are not mutually exclusive. You don’t get points for boring an audience in the flawed belief that the more bland you are, the more important your message.

Boredom is not a safe place. Don’t go there. It gets in the way of understanding the message you are attempting to convey, while it is style that enables and encourages that understanding.

Style has a voice. It’s you. Don’t be afraid of it.

Getting it right...

How many people do you know anticipate attending a presentation by saying on the way over, “Boy, I sure hope it’s a long speech that I really have to work hard to understand!”

Do yourself a huge favor: Critically examine your intended remarks. Look at them closely from a perspective other than your own.

Is it something you would want to hear? Be honest.

Could you flood your mind with thoughts about the rest of your day, appointments to be kept, calls to be made, kids to pick up later from practice, and still follow what you were saying?

Evaluate your purpose in speaking.

Make your point. Quickly, efficiently, memorably.

Build your case in tight, uncomplicated steps.

Declare your theme unambiguously, and then revolve all your content around it.

Shape your words and examples to reflect what the audience cares about. Regardless of the topic, it is not about you or your problems. It’s always about the audience and the benefits your message can offer them.

If it appears your audience will have to work to understand your presentation, then you have more work to do right now.

Time versus need...

You've been asked to report on your project.

It isn't a seminar. You haven't been asked to teach anyone anything, only to provide a snapshot so your colleagues or investors or peers can get a sense of what you've been up to, and why it matters. And because of the nature of the speaking event -- a business luncheon, for instance, or a conference break-out session -- there is a rigid time limit.

For many occasional presenters, this is a very tough assignment.

Regrettably, some begin planning their remarks with the wrong question:

"How much can I say in the time available?"

Thus they sabotage their own efforts before they even begin.

You see, a good presentation is not a function of time.

It is a function of need -- the audience's need for essential information, not your own need to impress everyone with the volume and scope of your efforts.

So the question becomes:

"What is the one thing, the Big Idea, I want my audience to remember, and what will it take to express it in the time available?"

Think about it like this:

Your audience watches television news.

They're used to hearing and watching about the destruction of entire cities by earthquake in a 60-second report.

They're accustomed to learning about the rise and fall of national economies in 30 seconds ... and with just a single graphic.

Entire political platforms or changing health care policies are reduced to 90-second essays.

Despite the brutal brevity of it all, TV audiences generally come away feeling like they've gotten much if not all of what they absolutely need to know on a subject.

They are thoroughly conditioned to expect a succinct, cogent, efficiently paced delivery of information. (Complete? Perhaps not. Enough? Arguably, yes.) It is these same audiences who are expecting you to be good, interesting and to the point in as few words and little time as possible. Unfamiliar with the grand orators of the past, modern audiences typically will not tolerate rambling dissertations or intricate examinations of a complex topic.

If as the speaker you are asking them for an hour of their concentration, you are asking for something unnatural. Their minds will drift. You will be talking largely to yourself.

Challenge yourself, therefore, as you plan your remarks: What does your audience need to know to satisfy your objective as a speaker? How can you most efficiently convey your message in a manner that is memorable and persuasive?

Does it really take 30 minutes to make your point? Or can you do it in 13 ... or three?

Now, a disclaimer is in order. As a frequent speaker about various complicated issues, I agree that audiences' expectation for brevity often is lamentable. Some topics are complex and deserve detailed elaboration. There are times I would cherish the luxury of taking a whole hour to describe something and make my case.

But that's not realistic.

So the questions I must ask instead are what is my specific audience's presumed level of interest? What content satisfies that interest? And how do I tell that story with the greatest efficiency?

I must always remember ... less can be more.