Superior Presentations 65: Omit Your Hard Luck Story

From George Torok

The audience doesn't care about your hard luck story - unless it's funny. Even if it is funny, don't tell a story unless it makes a point that supports your message.

The speaker began his presentation by telling us that he had crossed three time zones to speak to us this morning. I'm not sure if he was bragging or complaining. There seemed no point to his tale. It didn't relate to his topic. Perhaps he was explaining why his presentation might be substandard. Perhaps he simply wanted a little sympathy.

Curious, he was there to sell his product and he seemed to be groveling.

He continued to relate his travel story by admitting that he instructed the taxi to take him to the wrong hotel. Clearly he had not checked and confirmed details.

There was no point to this story so why did he tell it. Did he believe that this was a good opening? Did he think that he was establishing rapport with this story that illustrated his ineptitude?

It wasn't funny. Instead, it lowered his credibility while boring us right from the start.

Fortunately for him his product was way more interesting than he or his presentation. Yes, sometimes the audience is astute enough to see past the ineptitude of the presenter. But you can never count on that luck.

Recently I experienced my own travel frustrations on the way to a morning presentation. I planned to take the commuter train and arrive about 45 minutes before the start of my presentation.

Because of Murphy (what can go wrong will go wrong) my train was taken out of service and the next train was delayed by a medical emergency. I walked into the packed meeting room as the MC started to read my introduction and began my presentation at the scheduled time.

The audience didn't need to know about my journey. That wasn't why they were there. So I didn't mention the delay to them. I quietly talked with the organizer to dispel his anxiety.

The presentation went well. Part of the reason was that I focused on the audience and my intended message and not on the frustrations of the morning journey.

Sometimes a story from your journey might help your presentation but be sure it does before you tell it.

George Torok

PS: This incident also served as a reminder to have the phone number and email of the contact in my BlackBerry.

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Speak Like a Winner - book review

Speak Like a Winner

How to Be Twice the Speaker in Half the Time

By Akash Karia

This book about public speaking was a fresh approach to a topic that has been written about and spoken about by many. The book was an enjoyable and easy read that took less than two hours to digest. Don’t let those characteristics fool you. I was pleased at the number of powerful public speaking techniques that were thoughtfully covered and memorably reinforced.

The author, Akash Karia, thoughtfully analyzed four speeches from the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking. Three of the four were winners of the final round of the World Championship.

Toastmasters is an international non-profit organization that helps people become better public speakers.

I’ve read many books about public speaking that simply repeat the same tired ideas and sometimes outdated lessons. Akash promised in his introduction that this book would not waste time on fluff. I believe that he kept his promise. The book covered many powerful presentation techniques that took me years to learn. These are techniques that I teach my coaching and training clients.

The author introduces each public speaker, provides a speech excerpt, a link to a video of the speech, a few thought provoking questions for the reader and insights from the author.

This style of teaching seems to be engaging, entertaining and enduring.

This book is ideal for Toastmasters who hope to participate in the Toastmasters Annual Speech contests. They will see a comprehensive approach to public speaking success. They will also enjoy the excitement of the World Championship Speech Contest.

The winners of the Toastmasters World Championship tend to deliver inspirational and entertaining speeches. These speeches are only seven minutes in length. So this isn’t about delivering a training workshop or technical report. These speeches tend to be about one key message delivered in an entertaining way.

However, most presenters can learn effective presentation techniques from this book. A leadership speech must be engaging and inspirational. A sales presentation must persuade people to act. Even a technical presentation must build rapport, illustrate points and reassure the audience. The author points out that some techniques in these examples might appear exaggerated because of the size of the audience and setting. Individual presenters can certainly adapt a technique to fit their audience.

Although each presenter demonstrated similar techniques, they also flourished because of different individual strengths. The point is that you can learn from others and must thrive on your own unique strengths.

The four public speakers featured in this book are Craig Valentine, Darren LaCroix, Lisa  Panello and Jock Elliot.

If you are really serious about public speaking you can visit any or many of the five dozen Public Speaking blogs listed as resources.

I enjoyed reading this book and I’m happy to recommend it to novice and experienced public speakers.

View the book on Amazon

 

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Where to look when speaking to an audience?

Where should I look when I am delivering a speech?

You should look at the people to whom you are speaking.

If you are speaking to an audience of one, that’s easy. If your audience is more than one person then you will need to move your eyes from one person to another while speaking.

Don’t move your eyes too quickly or linger too long on one person.

Deliver a phrase while looking at one person then move your gaze to another for the next phrase or sentence. Look people directly in the eye.

That eye contact makes you appear more confident and truthful.

Do Not

Stare at a point on the back wall

Stare at the ceiling

Stare at the floor

Watch your slides

Constantly look at your notes

Rule of Thumb

Occasionally you might need to check your notes but maintain eye contact with your audience at least 80% of the time.

Be sure to make eye contact with every person in your audience during your presentation. Don’t make the mistake of looking only at the friendly people.

More questions and answers about Public speaking at Questions about Public Speaking

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What to do about a shaky voice?

How to stop your voice from shaking during public speaking?

First consider that no one is as familiar with your voice as you. The first time you heard your recorded voice you were probably surprised. You might even have said, “That’s not me.”

The reason I point that out is that you might notice your voice shaking but your audience might not. They just might not know how your voice should sound. You voice can sound different at different times of the day depending on your energy level, recent meal or emotional state.

Your voice shaking could signal that you are tensing up because of anxiety, anger or exhaustion. There might be other causes but these seem to be the most common.

If tension is the problem the solution is to relax. You can do that by pausing as soon as the shaking starts. Simply pause for a few seconds. Smile while doing that so your audience doesn’t suspect any difficulties.

To both extend the pause and relax your throat you could take a drink of water. It’s best to have a glass of room temperature water handy. Ice cold water isn’t good for your speaking voice.

Take a deep slow breath to help calm you. Roll your shoulders because tension in your shoulders could easily be transferred to your throat. You could slightly change your body stance because tension might have been setting in without you being aware.

When you start speaking again, speak slower. That also relaxes your throat and makes your voice sound deeper and hence more confident.

Get the answers to more questions about public speaking on the site Questions about Public Speaking

 



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You Are Always Selling and Negotiating

The accountant was a partner at a major accounting firm. She was clearly qualified as an expert in her field. She admitted to me that she was quite comfortable talking about her area of expertise to her clients. She was sincerely willing to help her clients.

The point where she ran into difficulty was selling her services to the client. She got anxious when discussing the price and detested “closing the deal”.

Accounting training had not prepared her for the angst of selling your value.

Every presentation is a sales presentation even if you don’t want to see yourself as a salesperson. Every time you speak you must convince people to listen to you, trust you and believe what you say. Most importantly you must convince them to act on what you say.

You are selling your credibility, ideas, services and team. When offering professional services you are also selling your experience, personality, character, strengths and flaws.

Yes, sell your flaws. Tell your audience what you don’t know. And tell them what you can do to get that information. Tell them what you won’t do. That’s more important that you might think. Clients need to you know your limits – and so do you.

I had a conference call with a prospect on a Friday who asked for a response from me for Monday. I told them that I don’t work on the weekend and would have their answer for Tuesday. After a pregnant pause, they agreed. They hired me to train their staff on presentation skills.

In the 1997 movie, The Devil’s Advocate, Keanu Reeves ask Al Pacino (The Devil) “Are we negotiating? The devil answers, “We’re always negotiating.”

When you speak – you are negotiating – you are selling – you are attempting to persuade your audience.

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How to Start Your Sales Presentation

An effective way to start your sales presentation is with a success story. That story should be a true account of how your solution helped a past client. Keep the story as short as possible. Include the obstacle, your solution and the results. Numbers solidify the story. For example I often use the story about how I helped my client close a $10 Million deal.

Yes you should have the permission of the successful client to tell their story. For the sake of privacy, you might not mention the client’s name. Instead you might mention the type of business.

Your audience should be able to relate to your client and see themselves in your story. A story about what you did for Apple might not connect with members of a farm co-operative.

After relating the success story talk about this prospect’s situation and how you might be able to help them.

At this point your listeners will either be keenly interested or not at all. In either case you will know what to do next. If they are not interested, pack up and leave. Don’t waste time continuing the rest of your prepared presentation. If they are interested, it might be time for some question and answer.

Notice those simple yet effective two steps to open your sales presentation.

Don’t take the winding yet well-worn path that many sales presentations blindly stumble along.

They start talking about their company, the president, the founder’s story, their mission statement and their personal history with the company.

None of those things are important to your prospects.

Yet many sales presentations are designed that way.

There is likely only one person who might like to hear that nonsense – the president of your company. Too many sales presentations are designed to placate the president and not to capture the attention of the prospect.

Another benefit of leading with your success story is that your presentation can be much shorter and still succeed. The client whom I helped win the $10 Million deal was allotted 60 minutes by the prospect. But my client delivered a 12-minute deal-closing presentation.

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Who are the better presenters? Extraverts or Introverts

When you look at your friends you probably can easily indentify those who are clearly extraverts and those who are clearly introverts. There might be a group about which you are not sure. The most likely reason might be that they are of one color but have learned to adapt their communication style to the other side when required.

I’m biased. I’m an introvert. That means that I see the world better from the perspective of introverts. However, I’ve learned how to express myself both in writing and in a presentation. People in my audience might not believe that I’m an introvert.

Ask an extravert “Tell me about yourself” and he immediately starts talking. “I was born in a log cabin…” When he’s done, he believes that he answered the question better than anyone else. Naturally, the extravert doesn’t ask, “Did I answer your question?”

Ask an introvert, “Tell me about yourself” and she will likely ask you a few questions before and after she replies.

There are exceptions. Sometimes an introvert is so passionate about her topic that she transforms herself into an extravert for that conversation.

Extraverts seem to find it very difficult to transform themselves into an introvert.

Who makes a better presenter? Introverts or extraverts?

Extraverts can be attention grabbing and entertaining. Introverts can learn to do that and more importantly, introverts listen to the audience better.

What could be more important than that?

In my opinion as an introvert – extraverts get out of the starting blocks quicker, but introverts can overtake them. Consider it the race between the tortoise and the hare.

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Guidelines for Presentation Success - Free eBook

When preparing your presentation, consider the things that might go wrong and plan how you might handle them.

Take the precautions to minimize the possibility or impact of things going wrong.

Accept the reality that perfection is not the goal. Being effective with your presentation is the goal.

When things go wrong, appear calm and stay in control of the show. Remind yourself to pause, breathe deeply and smile. This is likely the most important point you can learn from this report.

Never lose self-control. There are many things you can’t control but your behaviour is the one thing for which you are totally accountable. Don’t appear to be angry, arrogant or frustrated. And don’t pretend to be blameless. You can’t control what happens to you but you can control how you deal with it.

When things go wrong, don’t blame somebody else. The audience is looking at you. They are judging your reaction – not the circumstances.

As the speaker you always have the option to end early or take a break.

Sometimes a disaster in your presentation can be a gift because your audience will suddenly perk up and remember how you managed the disaster. Handle it well and you might win their respect and more.

If your audience likes you, they are more forgiving than you think. Establish rapport with your audience early so they are onside when disaster strikes.

Focus your efforts on the portion of your audience that you have a realistic chance of reaching.

Get your free copy of the eBook How to Turn Presentation Disasters into Presentation Success.

Murphy doesn’t hate you. He simply encourages chaos

to watch you squirm.

Torok’s First Presentation Corollary to Murphy’s Law

Click here to download your free copy of
How to Manage Things That go Wrong in Your Presentation


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