Month: May 2013

Actually, this is PART II of Trainers Who Talk, Talk, Talk with Nothing to Say…

This is a good example of a blog that ran away with itself, or a writer who lost control or became too passionate. It started as a way of demonstrating presentations or training had to have substance and at the same time–something besides buzz words and slogans. You might say I grew a bit long-winded. At any rate, I saw a way to remedy that. My blogs tend to be long anyway, but this one really became two separate topics, so here they are. No changes really, except editorially just not as big a chunk to read when you are looking for snippets of information or opinion.

According to Peter Watts, Writer, Coach & Trainer, and author of The Presenters’ Blog: “Every time you make a presentation, you commit a blatant act of opinion, and that’s good. That’s exactly as it should be. Opinion makes challenging. Opinion makes distinctive. Opinion makes memorable.”

The case Peter makes in his article makes very good sense, but it is still public speaking. Hopefully, his tips can help the experienced presenter, business presenter, speaker or trainer each do it better.

Opinion certainly makes us more interesting, especially when it is backed up with facts. Since I teach at a university as well as coach clients, I know my students hang on my every word as long as I’m not boring as a textbook. However, I don’t think it is only opinion that makes me an “interesting” speaker; however, it is an amazingly large part of who we are–along with attitude, experiences, personality, sense of humor, etc. My buzz words in public speaking: know your audience, know your subject, and know yourself.

I definitely think the business presenters need to include the audience and themselves (let their personalities shine through) and opinion is where you’ll find it in the presentation. One caution though, I had a colleague once who inappropriately gave his opinion to the wrong audience, federal government to state government and the state government was insulted; my colleague was pretty much censored after that and was very lucky he wasn’t fired.

It’s fine to “stick to the facts,” as most business presenters do, however, you can go too far. If one of my speech students did that without any attempt at audience analysis or bringing him or herself into the speech that student would be lucky to get a “C.” Even business presenters need to pull their audience in with a smile and keep their attention. So often these business presenters want to blend in the background of their material and I would bet they are that way in the office, too. I would also guess that, like most of the population, this presentation is about the last thing they want to do, but they have to. This is where bringing a successful speech coach or trainer in from the outside makes a difference. In-house speech coaches or trainers don’t usually have much effect because of the very fact that the coach – trainer is in-house puts more pressure on the employee to succeed. Speaking to an audience is an intensely personal thing–even if it is for work.

I alway tell my speech students, my clients, as well as any other presenters and trainers to own the space and control the room. They know what it means to own the space. How do you control the room? I make my students responsible for handling the audience during their assigned speeches. That is the speaker’s job. Nothing like a little pressure to keep you focused.

You’re the one standing at the front of the room and speaking, while everybody else is sitting down and listening, so you already stand-out. While you’re up there, why not enjoy it? With experience, that initial nervousness will one day turn into a rush. Trust me.

Peter says, “I’m going to argue that exercising and owning your opinion is a vital part of presenting. That it’s an unavoidable aspect of presenting. And that when something is unavoidable, it’s best embraced in a great big hug. That’s my opinion anyway!”

He goes on in his article to discuss why presenters and others don’t feel it wise to share opinions. I find that most common with university students, not so much with my executive clients. It certainly may be true of business presenters; I know it was true of government presenters who even though they did it badly, it meant visibility and that meant promotion. Some opinions become more embedded with maturity.

While I don’t squash opinions, everyone’s got one–even in my class. If I want a great speech or presentation (and you know I do), I’m going to see if my student’s or my client’s opinions are backed up. It doesn’t matter which; we are talking about speaker credibility–another topic for a blog. When you are on stage with a business presentation or any presentation, for that matter, remember the egocentrism and ethnocentrism of your audience. Share both sides of the argument before giving your opinion and why.

According to Peter Watts, “First, accept that merely by choosing the facts you will present and the order in which you will present them, you have already committed an unavoidable B-list act of opinion. Who wants to be a B-lister? Let’s go for the A-list and add some spice! Here’s how:”

1: Own It – It’s Not “WE“, It’s “ME”

Unless you are taking part in a team presentation, make sure that the pronouns “I” and “my” are front and center. There’s a sound reason why the sound of I’s and My’s are good things to go for: Skilled job interviewers are trained to listen-out for candidates who continuously say “We” rather than “I”. “We” is used to conceal either a lack of conviction or a lack of evidence. After all, it’s not “me” that’s saying it, it’s “we” that’s saying it.

2: Have an Emotional Intent

What is the emotion that you want to convey with these facts? In business presentations, your goal is to persuade others of a course of action, and the driver to action is emotion. Facts seldom drive anything. It’s the emotional interpretation of those facts that creates intention. Therefore don’t be afraid to use emotional words when presenting.

Share your feelings. If an opportunity excites you then say that you are excited. If a set of results delights you, then say that you are delighted. If a negative forecast concerns you then say that you are concerned. And if outstanding performance has amazed you, then say that you are amazed! Words like these give emotion, and emotion is spice. Spice is color. Color is paprika, bright red with a fabulous flavor. Flavor is opinion!

3: Bring Your Face Into the Act

If it’s good news, smile. If it’s bad news, frown. That might sound like common sense, but when we stand up to present, that urge to blend opinion-less into the podium can lead us to adopt a passionately bland expression. Many Chief Executives, completely unbeknown to themselves, will go onto the stage with their faces meticulously locked into neutral. They think they are expressing powerful opinions, and indeed, their scripts often do express powerful opinions, but the fact that the faces delivering those opinions remain as blank as storefront mannequins will rip the plasticky stuffing right out of the speech.

“You are your opinions, and your business presentations are expressions of those opinions.”

“Own them. Enjoy them. Let them bring the spice that propels your presentations direct to the A-list.”

I chose to leave Peter’s three major points together. I did take some of the wording out for length purposes. I apologize to him and anyone else who feels I changed the meaning by doing so. Everywhere Peter is highlighted is a link to the original article. As I continued to study Peter‘s article and my take on the subject matter, I came to realize we may have been talking about the same thing, although I have a much narrower definition of opinion. It could be the fact that I’m American and Peter is from the UK. I still feel Peter’s point of view is interesting to hear the way he expresses it. My blog has seen guest writers from all over the world he is welcome to write on training topic of his choice anytime.

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

A final reminder: I do have a website where you can find other items I have written, including coupons for my best selling, The Cave Man Guide To Training and Development and my novel about the near future, Harry’s Reality! You might even get them for free. Happy Training.

Trainers who have nothing to say aren’t really trainers. They may be entrepreneurs really. Quite frankly some have just learned how to make a buck with social media in particular and are good at jingoism. Or, to give them more respect, they could be speakers and even trainers who have sold good training tools, depending on how rich the content.

Let’s not confuse these people with people who have 30 plus years of experience and know how to handle an audience. The ones I’m talking about are people with a gimmick–a slogan–a buzz word–a challenge… I like this one “a secret” for success in doing something. When I hear “a secret” I always hear Charlie Brown’s sister, Sally, singing from his musical, “Why are you telling me” from “My New Philosophy.” It almost makes sense in a perverse way. If it is a secret, why tell a room full of people and advertise for more people. Well, of course, it’s the mystery of it all, the drama. It’s the same reason, we put numbers in our titles: to promote simplicity in today’s busy and complex world. A total fantasy.

Now, let me tell you what this is all about and you’ll see why my opening paragraph fits as well. I was going down a list of “entrepreneurs” on LinkedIn talking about their training sessions, the titles of which sounded like something you could learn in a conversation. There has to be more to this. It must be me who has lost touch with the real world, you see.

My most basic of presentations is on presenting. In the title, I use what my audience can’t imagine possible, tell them it is very possible and more when we’re finished, but I don’t promise them the world. There is mystery there and a hint that it will be more than the basics, which it is. It’s catchy, but not jingoistic. I can’t display it here for copyright reasons.

In a way, it’s as if social media has changed the art of selling what we do as the film trailers we see of blockbuster films. What we do is about as content filled as some of those blockbusters, filled with a lot bang instead. They are trying to reach the most audience possible. Whatever happened to target marketing? I guess it’s still there. After all, I see these ads.

So, it’s a tough line. We want to sell our products so how do we compete with those above; they do seem to be doing a bang-up business. They seem to have this social media thing wrapped up. We have to do the same thing. How can you tell the good ones from the bad ones? You can’t. But now you have spend as much as they do on social media, including web pages to sell your training products or services.

For those you have followed or read my blog before, you know that I comment on everything training and sometimes other subjects. Okay, I speak my mind, but I put myself in the same category: trainer or speaker, at least most of the time. I’m going to share some of the words of another blogger, Peter Watts, (Writer, Coach & Trainer, and author of The Presenters’ Blog) who I found interesting. He believes using “I” and “holding firm with your beliefs” will help your sell their product or service. Essentially, he’s talking about your boss’s presenters. More of Peter in PART II.

How many times have we seen the boring business presenter? Again, I’m not talking about the famous speaker who has a 30 year track record. And the company so proud because he or she gave out so much information, while audience is scratching their heads hoping for an e-mail address for a follow-up. I had tried for years to make a case for a subject matter expert along side a facilitator – trainer – communicator to make the presentation manageable. “Too expensive,” they said.

The other way, of course, is to train the SMEs to be better presenters. “You can train the SMEs for a presentation next week,” the managers said. Yeah, that’ll work. Or, even better, they completely ignore the trainer they have and hire one of those jingoistic people who will spew a lot rhymes, alliteration and buzz words rather really teach memorable techniques.

That doesn’t happen very often anymore since I retired. Besides university students, I have company/corporate executives who travel a lot and would like help tweaking a speech or performance. My clients believe company/corporate image is important, even internationally. Normally, I will travel to an office, usually a conference room, and watch a dry run of speech, or we may sit down and look at the wording of his or her speech. I’ll ask my client about his or her audience and see how my client addresses them. Often we smooth out language to make it more conversational.

I apologize for talking in generalities; however, my client list is confidential. I do have a similar example that might work instead. A true story as well.

When I moved to Portland, Oregon after visiting Japan, the local media kept calling me asking if the President was in trouble with the Japanese when he literally lost his lunch on a Head of State visit to Japan. Of course, I didn’t work for the President, but I had recently been in Japan and studied the culture since I was debating taking a job there. (I had sent out some news releases upon my return to do communication training.) I’m sure his own people told the President not to worry. In fact, the Japanese were more embarrassed than he that it happened on their turf. — End of PART I

Note. You may have read this blog article in its entirety earlier, but in hindsight I saw that it was much too long to be a single blog and made it two. There aren’t many changes, other than editorial to make it work this way.

Click here to continue directly to PART II, which talks about…

How to Enhance Business Presentations with Opinion, or How to Give Content Rich Program a Personality

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

A final reminder: I do have a website where you can find other items I have written, including coupons for my best selling, The Cave Man Guide To Training and Development and my novel about the near future, Harry’s Reality! You might even get them for free. Happy Training.