New York Executive Speech Coach » Presentation Skills Coaching

The Ultimate Presentation Skill

SimsBeth — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:11:19 +0000

All human societies need leadership. A company is a micro human society, therefore all companies need leadership.

Good leaders make good companies, and good leaders are, among other things, good at communicating who they are, what they believe, and who the employees should believe they are. In the end, the final challenge, the ultimate task of leadership is to confer an identity on those the leader leads.

For instance, did Steve Jobs do this? Did he confer an identity on a large number of people? I would say that he did. If you worked for him and his company, I suspect you carried a little voice inside your head that constantly reminded you that you were an Apple person—an Apple-onian; a little voice that made you feel good about yourself. And in your social life, at parties, when you met people, you might sweetly keep your place of work a secret, but when asked, you might feel a little flash of triumph as you revealed, “I work for Apple.” It’s like dropping the H Bomb (the Harvard thing.) It confers an identity on you, for good or ill.

Shakespeare’s Henry V strives for this result in his St. Crispian’s Day speech, when promising his men that they will forever be remembered and honored if they survive the about-to-happen battle of Agincourt.

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

I am very interested in giving our clients a process for creating, designing, and delivering presentations that ascend the step-ladder of value-creation, moving from the bottom rung of knowledge to the highest rung of identity—which includes the ability to convey values, principles, behaviors, expectations, and all those soft intangibles that shepherd us to excellence.

Knowledge and intelligence are necessary, but not sufficient for leadership. We need people who are capable of conferring on us an identity that will help us become our best selves.

Some of us can create such an identity for ourselves, but not for others. Some can do it for others, but not themselves. And some of us create destructive identities for ourselves and others. None of us is perfect, which is why we need laws, and leadership, and cultures. We need shaping to be at our best, and for that, we need people who are more than knowledgeable, more than intelligent. We need them to tell us stories—about who we really are, and who we can become.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

Public Speaking: The story about Obama’s lack of storytelling

SimsBeth — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 13:48:53 +0000

I am usually allergic to buzzwords. When storytelling became a popular metaphor for public speaking, influence, and persuasion I began to feel a little grumpy. But I have been released temporarily from my distemper by an article in the New York Times called What Happened to Obama, by Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University and the author of “The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.”

In this article, Mr. Westen points out that Obama was elected to the presidency and given control of both houses of Congress to do the will of the people, which was to restore the rule of fair play to the American economy, and abolish the golden rule, which stipulates that he who has the gold makes the rules.

Whether you agree with the majority of the American people is not the point of the Times article, or of this post. The point is that we humans are designed to absorb information through stories. We tell ourselves stories about the past (history), stories about what’s going on in the present moment (news and commentary), and stories about the future (setting a course for a more perfect union). And, according to Mr. Westen, Obama has failed so far to tell any of these stories that he was elected to tell.

Stories have heroes and villians, but due perhaps to his conciliatory disposition, our President does not like to name names and point out culpability. He prefers a balanced approach and compromise, even though he was elected to clean up Washington.

Arthur Miller, the great American playwright, pointed out that when we elect our presidents, we are electing an archetype, a great father who will provide and protect, a hero who will create safety for us, and lead us into fights against those who mean to do us harm. In essence, said Miller, we elect a metaphorical killer, someone who is brave enough to step onto a battlefield, whether that be in the halls of Congress, the mountains of Afghanistan, or the bully pulpit of Sunday morning TV, take out our enemies, and come back with their scalps. Obama got bin Laden, but he has not taken the heads of those he was elected to neultralize (metaphorically!).

The present seems to be swarming with intractable problems. The future is a frightening blankness fraught with a range of horrific possibilities. We need and want someone to tell us a story about how we got here, how we can get out of this mess, what the future can be and how we can shape it.

I urge you to read this article. It is relevant to any speaker who is trying to get an audience to do something.

Public Speaking: Tips and tricks, or spelunking?

SimsBeth — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 12:10:52 +0000

Is developing yourself as a highly effective public speaker a journey into your inner recesses and resources, (what I call spelunking, which is technically the exploration of caves), or are presentation skills basically a set of techniques, tips, and tricks that anyone can master, bolt on to their exterior, and remain unchanged?

Let me think aloud. If you bolt the public speaking techniques onto your exterior, aren’t you automatically deepened by the process of using them, or at least changed in some way by the effort?

Or, if you approach presenting as a spelunker, someone who sees the task as a process of personal growth and development, do you eventually arrive at the tips and tricks, buried like treasures in the center of your being, only this time they’re growing from the inside, out?

This idea presupposes that the public speaking tips and tricks are somehow fundamental universal principles that are present in all of us, lying dormant deep inside us.

Maybe if you approach the discipline of public speaking as a set of mechanical techniques they remain just that – tools you use – due, perhaps, to your willingness and ability to see them as tools that you put down once the job is done.

But then you are changed by the knowledge that you have a new ability, a greater power to influence others through your persuasive speaking, which could very well be a self-fulfilling prophecy, since your increased sense of power will give you greater confidence, which could speed you up the steep and thorny path to career success.

However, you may use your new-found confidence to speak lies, half-truths, and ideological blather to your audiences, in which case you have improved yourself as a speaker, but not as a person.

So it all comes down to intention. You can become a better public speaker or presenter through acquiring tips and tricks, or by approaching it with the intention of using your skills for the greater good, but what will determine your personal growth is not your technique, but your purpose.

Which reminds me of this line from T.S. Eliot:

The last temptation is the greatest treason:

To do the right deed for the wrong reason.

The wonders of vehemence

admin — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:42:36 +0000

Just back from a trip to the West Coast, where I was working with people at the top of the food chain in terms of their cognitive intelligence. Yale, Stanford, Notre Dame–brainiacs. My assignment? Help them get presence!

I skirted that word by simply saying that presence is hard to define, but we know it when we see it. So we did not spend any time trying to define it. Instead, we spent time trying to display it.

So far, having dismissed the foggier aspects of the topic as too obscure for our purposes, we are working on vehemence as a behavior that could lead to presence.

We’re not saying that being more expressive is the only way to have presence, but it’s a start. To speak with vehemence makes people pay attention, which makes the speaker more of a presence in the consciousness of the listener.

I am aware of the argument that to speak with vehemence is to assert one’s truth by increasing the violence of the assertion. But I am also aware of the unfortunate fact: if truth were self-evident, eloquence would not be necessary.

We are working on vehemence of purpose, vehemence of structure, vehemence of word choice, and vehemence of speech and gesture. The before and after contrast was astounding.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

Executive Education

admin — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 16:48:20 +0000

Most large corporations have a budget for executive education, and the question becomes, “Where do we spend the money?”

If the choice is between the intellectual/cognitive vs. the emotional/affective, choose the latter.

Reasons Why

Information metastasizes every day. New books, magazines, journals, websites, documentaries, and research are published every day of the year in every country around the globe. Information is a commodity, and too much of it is a brain killer. A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. Executives already have too much information.

Executives need better judgment, not more information. They need to make decisions and predictions based on information brought to them by trusted employees. They need to make better decisions and better predictions based on a limited amount of information. Sending them to acquire more information in an educational program is quite possibly not only a waste of time and money, but could also be damaging to the quality of the decisions the executive makes.

Information is conflicting. Consult with company A and you get one thing. Choose B and you get another. Their methods of gathering information varies, and their methods for analyzing it differs. You might as well choose either one and get to work improving your judgment.

Judgment comes from thinking about thinking. It comes from meta-cognition. The Buddhist tradition might call it mindfulness, the ability to be aware of your awareness. Executives who are not aware of their awareness, or who don’t know themselves, are dangerous to themselves and their enterprises.

Logic does not rule. Psychology rules. Those who are aware of their own awareness, mindful of their own minds, know just how illogical we are. The amount of crazy flotsam that washes up into consciousness from the seething sea of the subconscious is truly astounding. It’s a surreal cinema, and we are both director and audience. To think that the power of this reality does not rule the bulk of our lives is naïve. Most of the conversation in the world is intra-personal and goes on between our awareness and the savage, terrified imagination.

Good judgment about human psychology is powerful.

How science presentations should work, but don’t

admin — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:21:02 +0000

In the idyllic vision of the uninitiated, a scientific presentation tells a story, starting with a clear description of a problem, then outlining a series of steps taken to address that problem, and ending with a special reward: a glistening kernel of new knowledge.

The speaker tells the story using a vocabulary accessible to anyone with a similar breadth, though not necessarily depth, of scientific knowledge so that all in attendance can bask in the final, glorious revelation.

This is an attractive fiction. The ugly truth is that few scientists take the time to describe the situation from which the project emerges, or the particular social or technical problem that remains to be solved, and the consequences of that problem remaining unsolved.

Because of this, many scientific presentations lack drama, and drama is, after all, one of the main reasons why we gather together.

The talks lack drama because they begin with something procedural, e.g., “I am going to talk a little bit about the following nine things.” Or they begin with the protocol, the study design, or the objectives of the study.

This approach is traditional and widely accepted, even expected. Unfortunately, it gives science a bad name, and turns the average person comatose. All drama is about the solution of problems, and to forget this fact, especially in science, is a terrible injury to the most important endeavor of the modern era.

Finally, to grasp what most scientists are speaking about, one must learn a new language. Few speakers that I have heard cease speaking their own language when addressing those who are not familiar with it. There are multiple reasons for this, some of them quite understandable, but again, the habit of doing so harms the enterprise.

I am a communications consultant. I learned a long time ago, and I have to learn it over and over again, that if we want to be heard, understood, and remembered, we must speak to our audience in the language of the audience about what the audience cares about.

Storyboarding your presentation

admin — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:39:11 +0000

I recently came across Lillipip, a company that creates animated videos about your product, service, or concept. Check them out.

They have a simple storyboarding template of four blank squares. In the first, you draw or paste a picture of your client in pain, along with the exclamation that’s coming out of your customer’s mouth. Nice and simple.

Then, you draw or paste a picture of the visual metaphor for your product, service, or concept. For example, a health club might visualize itself as being able to turn a couch potato into an Adonis.

In the third panel, you draw or paste a picture of your client– happy after you’ve removed the pain. Again, you also draw the exclamation that comes out of the client’s mouth.

Finally, in the fourth panel, you draw or paste a picture of you, your logo, or your product, and write one thing you want the client to do or remember.

This is good stuff for presenters too. It helps us think visually. It keeps our presentations focused on our listeners’ problems, and forces us to present solutions. It makes us think about emotions in addition to information. It encourages us to use metaphor, which is the ability to link what is new to something familiar. And finally, it demands that we have a call to action at the end of our presentation.

Plus, it helps those of us who are word people speak the language of picture people, which gives us stereophonic input into the brains of both tribes.

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Over-pursuit of goals

admin — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 17:15:15 +0000

Suppose you went to a workshop and the leader threw a balled-up sock on the floor about eight feet in front of you.

“Visualize the path to the sock, then close your eyes, walk to the sock and put your hand on it,” you are told.

Your fellow work-shoppers watch in silence as you move toward the sock, and miss it completely. You hear them laughing and open your eyes. It’s there by your left foot. And then it’s their turn, while you watch them.

At the end, only two people out of ten succeed in doing it.

The instructor asks, “Who really wanted to touch the sock?” Six hands go up. “Pathetic,” says the instructor.

“When you’re too goal-oriented, focused on succeeding, you’re preoccupied with being perfect. Perfect is boring,” says the instructor.

He goes on. “There’s no story in perfect. ‘She walked across the floor and touched the sock. The end.’”

“But if you walk right past it and bump into the wall, then turn back and search the carpet with your feet, give up and get down on your hands and knees to sweep your arms in front of you, or roll across the floor to maximize your sensory exposure to the bump of the sock against your skin, that would be a story we’d all be telling when we get home tonight.”

Actors do this for each other. They change their reading of their lines depending on how their scene partners deliver theirs.

Cabaret singers look for accidents so they can humanize themselves, and break through the imaginary wall that exists between performer and audience. For instance, a man spills a drink during one of her songs, and she pulls her handkerchief out of her bra and mops up the martini with it.

Performers are always looking for happy accidents like that. Your listeners will remember how you responded to the accident better than they’ll remember all your well-rehearsed and well-chosen words.

I just saw a client giving a live demonstration of web-based software to about 100 people when she lost her internet connection. She called up the technical people to the stage and kept right on going, even while we could see all the screens the techies were trying to fix the problem.

She got credit, not just for the content, but for the qualities of character she displayed in coping with the technical failure.

The lesson? Don’t be so afraid of problems or accidents on the presentation platform. Problems can bring out the best in you.

As Al Gore said, “…defeat might serve as well as victory to shape the soul and let the glory out.”

Ideas for better Investigator Meetings

admin — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:21:26 +0000

You may be aware that I’ve been going to investigator meetings and finding them kind of out-of-date.

We’ve got to get away from what’s easy for the sponsor, and instead move toward what is effective for the investigators and their associates.

What is easy for the sponsor is to have the usual cast of characters give PowerPoint presentations—all day, if need be.

What is effective for investigators and their associates is engagement with the information being presented.

When adults engage with new information, they assimilate it more easily into their already crowded store house of information.

Engagement with the information includes, but is not limited to:

- Spot quizzes

- Small group problem solving

- Case studies

- Competitive games for small groups or teams

- Live enactments with faux-patients and product

- Small group role plays in which investigators and associates play themselves, the patient, and individuals from the sponsor company who will be interacting with them during the course of the study.

- Hands-on experience with data systems

- Social time with sponsor personnel

Not only would investigators and their associates retain more of the information. They would enjoy the experience, and that enjoyment would attach to their perception of the sponsoring organization.

A win-win, right?

What’s the point you’re trying to prove?

admin — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 19:01:32 +0000

Right now I’m sitting in the back of a hotel meeting room near Washington, DC, where two dozen physicians are rehearsing for a presentation to the regulatory authorities. They are debating what point they are trying to prove.

The question has to do with the use of a certain methodology to measure, in clinical trials, the efficacy of a class of drugs.

There is no agreement amongst those currently engaged in the discussion as to what the point is. Does the proposed methodology relate to clinical outcomes? Will it yield usable data? Should it be used only in high risk patients? Should it be mentioned in the label?

These people have been working on this issue for months, and yet here they are, not quite clear on what point they are arguing.

Because the key point in this situation is difficult to understand, and even more difficult to explain, they are instead discussing the relative value of certain pieces of evidence.

Evidence of what they are not sure, but they have evidence, so they are determined to use it. And maybe the debate will lead them to what they can and cannot claim.

It is interesting to consider whether, in situations like this, we determine our point by wrestling with our evidence and beating it into a clear point, or whether we decide what point we think we want to make and then test it against the evidence we have in our possession.

It seems to be me that rehearsal, or debate, is the forum in which we test our hypotheses against our evidence. It is the trial by fire, the stress test, by which we learn if we ourselves, and others, hear the ring of truth in our talk. If we have trouble making our evidence support our point, we must change our point, not our evidence.

Although if we want, and if we have time, we can look for more evidence to support our point, except in this case—in this room, at this moment—we don’t have time, and we’re still trying to agree on the claim that we want to make.

I think the key point is buried in our pile of data, like a needle in a haystack, and while we can see it glistening through the stalks, we can’t quite reach it with our mental tweezers, or find the right words that would pull it, like a magnet, out of the confusion.

Presenting for Results^SM Update:

We have scheduled our 2nd public seminar called Presenting for Results^SM.If you are so inclined, please join us on Nov 18 & 19, 2010, at the Upper Montclair Country Club in Clifton, NJ, which is on Rte. 3 East, just east of the Garden State Parkway. The program is fun, eye-opening, highly experiential and beneficial to your confidence and career, and thus good for your company as well. Or let somebody who could benefit know about the program. There is very limited enrollment to keep it practical and interactive. Click here to learn more.

Presenting for Results is Reborn

admin — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 17:55:36 +0000

I am excited about the rebranding of our public program, an executive education experience called Presenting for Results^SM.

This is not like other executive education programs. It is creative rather than analytical. It calls on the imagination more than the intellect. It asks that you work from the neck down as well as from the neck up. It demands presence more than subject matter expertise. And it attempts to get you to care more about audience outcomes than you do about how you look.

Presenting for Results^SM is designed to serve our client base in New Jersey and the larger metropolitan area, where so many large organizations must attract and retain executive talent. Talent is considered the scarcest commodity in business, and perhaps the key differentiator.

While I agree with the premise, (that talent is important), I think the statement is missing a qualifier. It would be more accurate to say that “developed talent is the scarcest commodity.” Everyone has talent lying dormant in the cells of their body. It requires effort to wake it up and get it in shape.

Presenting for Results^SM is designed to develop the most valuable talent that a person or a business can have—the ability to communicate well. Most of our careers depend largely on how we speak, write, and think, in that order. But nobody knows or cares what we think until we speak or write, and these days, no one has time to read. (Geez, why am I writing this?)

So speaking is crucial to those of us who aspire to leadership and influence. And speaking not so much about information that we’ve mastered, because information can be gotten in any number of ways, but speaking in order to make people feel something.

Feelings create actions, and that’s what good speaking is about, and what Presenting for Results^SM is about too.

To register, or to download the brochure, go to http://www.simswyeth.com/services/pfr/ And if you know people who could benefit from an invigorating educational experience, would you please forward them this post?

The New is hard

admin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:21:38 +0000

On the first day of a workshop, an accomplished client delivered an effective presentation with verve and style. On the second day, I asked him to reorganize his talk to make it more customer-centric, a challenge he embraced with enthusiasm. However, when he delivered it, he was tentative and less effective. Why?

The simple answer is that the new is hard. Learning to play a musical instrument is hard, as is hitting a golf ball, or hitting a golf ball with a new grip, or getting used to being alone when you’ve been accustomed to being with people, or being with people when you’ve been flying solo for a while.

This is odd when you consider all the recent neuroscience demonstrating the plasticity of the brain. The research suggests that our gray matter can rearrange itself quite readily. Patients with damaged areas of the brain can, in some cases, recover lost abilities because another part of the brain steps in to lend a hand.

I assume the brain responds to demands placed on it. Maybe not right away. You have to keep knocking on the brain’s door before it will wake up and pay attention. But when it does, it gets busy figuring out how to meet your request, and puts together the infrastructure that will allow you to do what you’re trying to do.

The same is true of muscles. You put consistent demands on them, and they get stronger, more efficient. It’s not easy, but if you push yourself through your own resistance, they respond to the challenge.

I had to leave my client while he was still in a state of uncertainty, frustration, and diminished capacity. He was calling on other parts of his brain, and it wasn’t leaping out of bed and rushing to his rescue. He was in pain.

Here’s the $64,000 question: will he continue to try the new approach to his presentation, which I am certain will raise the level of his game? Or will he give up, and drop back to his default operating system?

The new is hard. If he’s like most of us, he will take the path of least resistance and stick with the tried and true. If he’s got an engine in him, he will drive himself into his pain and frustration, and come out on the other side with a sense of self-mastery and a new skill. He will have made the new familiar, and with the awareness that he is able to persist, he will continue to grow.

At least that’s my hope. I’m going to send him this post to light a fire in him.

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Fierce Conversations

admin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:32:21 +0000

I read the following in The Alternative Board’s newsletter today and want to pass this on to presenters and persuasive speakers.

What conversations are you avoiding? Maybe it’s with a good friend you don’t want to hurt. Maybe it’s with a difficult person and you are concerned about their response. Or maybe it’s with a family member in your business.

Susan Scott, the author of the book “Fierce Conversations,” tells us that people want to hear the truth, even if it is unpalatable. There is something within us that responds deeply to people who level with us.

The Seven Principles of Fierce Conversations:

Interrogate reality: Get everything out in the open. Identify the issue, check for understanding and agreement.
Make it real: What are you pretending not to know? Authenticity is not something you have; it is something you choose.
Be in the moment: Simply paying attention to someone, really asking, really listening can evoke a wholehearted response.
Tackle your toughest challenge today: Go directly to the source and confront the person, one-to-one, privately.
Find a way to say the things that can’t be said: Bring some of your private thoughts into the conversation without labeling them as truth, only conjecture to be explored together.
Take responsibility for your emotional wake: Deliver your message without the emotional load – blaming, sarcasm, exaggerating, labeling. Leave every conversation with the other person feeling better than before.
Use silence: Fierce conversations require silence. Ask a question that expands possibilities, then, wait.

The Three Steps in a Fierce Conversation

Make a clear, concise opening statement: Name the issue; give examples; describe your emotions; clarify what’s at stake; identify your own contribution to the problem; indicate clearly your wish to resolve the issue; invite the other person to respond.

Inquire into the other person’s view: Really try to understand their perspective, but don’t be satisfied with defensiveness or surface explanations. Ask for more, saying “I see things quite differently.”

Resolution: What have we learned? Where are we now? Make an agreement and determine how you will hold each other accountable.

What fierce conversations are you avoiding? Or what fierce presentation are you avoiding?

Maybe it’s time for a fierce conversation. Maybe it’s time for a fierce presentation! Thank you Susan.

The autobiography of a speech coach

simswny — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:43:21 +0000

It is Sunday afternoon. My wife is away for a week at a poetry summit in California. No food in the fridge, dishes in the sink, bed unmade. Too much TV.

My daughter is engrossed in the music scene of Brooklyn, hard at work on her new CD. My parents are unhappy in their new retirement home. My sister and I are powerless to make them happier. My Blackberry doesn’t work. I can’t send emails from my home computer. My car had a flat tire last Monday. My lawn is brown. I never know how much money I’ll make. Should I continue?

Nevertheless, I am excited about my work. I have the chance to work with scientists on their scientific presentations, with CEOs on their leadership communication, with consultants on how to move the mountain of client opinion, and with all kinds of people who want to grow and expand their personal and professional horizons.

I have plans for a public seminar, a new book, and I love my office almost as much as I like my home. My assistant is fabulous. All this is good.

I just need to learn how to walk the tight rope between things as they are and things as I’d like them to be. I need to keep my eye on the prize and not look down at the terrifying things I imagine will happen if I misstep.

I am told that I should live in the present moment, and I try. But I find myself lost in thought a good deal of time.

Maybe that’s a start. To find myself lost is to begin to figure out where I am—which is somewhere in thought, somewhere in my head.

I want to be in other people’s heads, not my own. Which means I have to get busy and do stuff that’s interesting.

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Scientific research on communication

admin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:41:51 +0000

I was steered to a web video the other day by an e-mail from a friend, and found myself in a garden of presentation skills coaches (also on video), many of whom quoted research done by Dr. Albert Mehrabian of Stanford University.

You may be familiar with the data, which suggests that voice and body language carry much of the message spoken by a presenter, while the actual words used carry much less meaning.

I have spoken to Dr. Mehrabian, who is now retired and dealing in antique musical instruments. He is powerless to do anything about this misunderstanding of the findings of his research.

As a professor at Stanford, his research investigated how human beings communicate emotion. His data do not suggest that the fine distinctions needed for strategic plans, legal arguments or scientific presentations are communicated predominately by voice tone and body language.

His data do suggest that humans communicate emotion primarily through tone of voice and body language, which confirms intuition and/or common sense. They do not suggest that the entire meaning of your careful and thoroughly prepared presentation is carried by your voice and body.

How you feel about your content is important, but it’s not the whole story. Of course your delivery is important, but it is in service to ideas made of words that delivery earns its value.

Your speechwriter: How to get the most out of him

admin — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:18:53 +0000

A good speech has a voice. It sounds like an individual—specifically, the individual who is delivering the speech. It should not sound like the speechwriter.

And yet us speechwriters are often given only a brief time with the speaker to determine what she wants to say. From that brief meeting, we are expected to extract the message she wants to impart, and the sound, tone, texture, and rhythm of her verbal personality.

So, if you are a speaker, and you are working with a speechwriter in New Jersey or New York, (or anywhere else for that matter) how can you maximize the few minutes you have with your speechwriter?

Be prepared for the meeting with the speechwriter. Know the DNA of what you want to say. You can come up with this DNA by imagining that an audience member is considering coming to hear you, and asks, “What’s your speech about?” You’ve got less than 30 seconds to tell her. What do you say? Your answer should be one sentence long, and should contain the benefit that the listener will derive. For instance, President Obama might have said about his speech on race relations, “ My speech urges every American to have the difficult conversations about race so that our country can move beyond the historical divisions that have plagued our nation.”

Next, in order to help your speechwriter (and yourself), figure out the question to which your information is the answer. At the heart of what you will say is the information that you have mastered and your own interpretation of its meaning. But you can’t just dump the info on your listeners. You’ve got to figure out what emotional concern drives their interest in your topic. What question would the audience have to have in mind in order to make that information a fascinating, provocative question? Believe it or not, you have to spend about a third of your speech asking the question—even more if they are not that familiar with the topic or the issues. For instance, when trying to raise new rounds of venture capital, a biotech president might have to answer the question, “Why do we have to spend millions of dollars creating a new formulation for the molecule when it already demonstrates efficacy in its current formulation?”

Finally, give your speechwriter plenty of time to ask questions. Encourage him/her to get to know you. Take her out to lunch. Have a glass of wine with him. He or she needs to soak up who you are, what you care about, how you think, what you like and dislike, and your personal verbal style.

Only by inviting your speechwriter into your inner circle will you get what you want and need—a speech that captures not only what you want to say, but how you want to say it.

Creative Public Speaking and Presenting

admin — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:43:53 +0000

Frank Kern is senior vice-president of IBM Global Business Services. On May 19, 2010, he released a new survey of 1,500 chief executives conducted by IBM’s Institute for Business Value. Are you ready for this? According to that survey, today’s CEOs identify “creativity” as the most important leadership competency for the successful enterprise of the future.

“That’s creativity—not operational effectiveness, influence, or even dedication. Coming out of the worst economic downturn in their professional lifetimes, when managerial discipline and rigor ruled the day, this indicates a remarkable shift in attitude.”

Creativity is also important in public speaking and presenting, and in the training and coaching of speakers too.

Many years ago, I heard Kathleen Hall Jamieson speak about the future of public speeches. She predicted that politicians and business leaders would be using music in their presentations—not just as preludes and postludes, but as integral parts of content, just as movies use scores.

We haven’t seen that yet.

And in the realm of training, the standard approach to developing people as speakers is a small group seminar that lasts a day or two in which people give presentations, see themselves on videotape, get feedback, and try to make adjustments.

This is fine, but it needs to be re-invented. Too much training is prescriptive and not creative. Most students are told how to organize their talks, how to design their PowerPoints, and how to stand still and use their hands.

We need to create highly effective speakers and presenters who will become creative speechwriters and presentation developers. And to do that we must create highly effective training and coaching programs in speechwriting and delivery skills.

However, I must admit that when I contemplate doing something new and creative with clients, I get scared. The new and unknown is hard to sell. People resist it. I don’t feel as confident as I would delivering the tried and true.

I feel the truth in what Ghandi said:

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

I want to know how long til the “win” part.

Facts Make the Speech Writer

admin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 20:32:44 +0000

The famed defense attorney, F. Lee Bailey, was once asked what the key was to a successful case. People expected him to say a spellbinding closing statement or a good jury selection process or an impressive cross-examination of a crucial witness.

Instead his answer was “investigation”—knowing the facts of your case up and down, forward and backward.

The same holds true for a successful speech or presentation. The key is research: knowing everything about your audience, about the place where the remarks will be delivered, about everything that has led up to the planning of the event, and then tailoring a speech to those facts.

In his new book Speech*Less, Matt Latimer, a presidential speechwriter, tells the story of how he prepared a speech for President Bush to deliver on National Adoption Day.

The first thing I did [as a speech writer] was consider the audience. I pictured the president standing before a large group of adoptive parents and their kids. I thought about the portraits of presidents that people would see just outside the East Room, including a portrait of an adopted son named Gerald R. Ford and another of an adoptive father named Ronald Reagan.

And then I thought of the large pictures of George Washington that would be just to the president’s left as he spoke. George Washington had been an adoptive father too, raising two children who weren’t his by birth. (They were the children of his wife, Martha.)

Searching the internet, I found a letter that Washington wrote to his stepson while he was in college, complaining about his lack of attention to his studies. (I had our researchers verify its existence.) This led to a perfect joke for President Bush. After reading the excerpt to the audience, the president said, “Come to think of it, my dad once said the same thing to me.”

I noted that Thanksgiving was approaching and so many new adoptive parents and children, including those in that room, would have the blessing of celebrating it together as a family for the first time. That thought made people cry. The president teared up. Even Mrs. Bush, who usually stood motionless while the president delivered his speeches, took an interest. She leaned forward and stole glances at the president’s note card, as if to see how this was happening.

When writing a speech, or in working with a speech writer, spend plenty of time thinking about the occasion, the audience, the location, and anything else that might give you an “in” with the audience.

Do plenty of research, on line or in a library. Ask your speech writer to do the same. Knowing the facts makes your speech more original and gives you confidence. And that feeling can make your delivery livelier, and your audience more engaged.

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

How to work with a speech writer

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 16:38:50 +0000

Senator Howard Baker said that he and his speech writers had a great relationship. “They write what they want me to say, and I say what I think.”

They got along just fine.

The remark points to the essential challenge of speech writing: it needs to be done in the voice of the speaker.

This is important because the speaker will be more effective if the text of the speech is aligned, in style and substance, with the way he thinks and talks.

There are great speakers who can read anything from a page or a teleprompter and make it sound like them. President Obama is good at this, as was President Reagan.

In fact, anyone continuously in front of crowds develops a knack for reading text.

But most of us are not up at the lectern every day, and so we need a speech writer who has the ability to collaborate with us—who has a good ear for our speech patterns, and can get our thoughts into the right words.

A collaboration with a speech writer should begin with your thoughts about what you want to say and what you want your audience to think, feel, and do after hearing your speech.

Your speech writer should also explore with you the problem that you are trying to solve for your audience. Audiences like it when your speech is all about how they can solve a problem or capitalize on an opportunity.

Audiences like speeches that are short, humorous, and generously sprinkled with stories. But make sure that the humor is your own, not offensive, and takes a back seat to the point you want to make.

Similarly, the stories in the speech should be your own. A good speech writer should spend time with you talking about your life experience and pull some stories out of your memory. Of course, if your speech writer offers you a story that you can make your own, use it. Just make sure you practice enough so that it feels natural.

For some of us, the chance to speak is rare, and so it leads us to want to say everything. Your speech writer should be firm. You can only say a few things to an audience before they get dazed and confused.

Make sure your speech writer doesn’t use any big words that are undeliverable. Undeliverable is one such word. So is indomitable, which can come out as “indominabubble.”

William Safire, the great speech writer for President Nixon and columnist for the New York Times, was once asked for a synonym for indomitable and gave indefatigable. He was fired on the spot when someone nearby suggested steadfast. Safire says in retrospect that he now sees he was intransigent.

In plain language, your speaking style should never be fancier than you are.

Above all, when you deliver your speech that someone has helped you prepare, you must feel comfortable with it and sound natural. The pleasure of listening to a good speech depends on the connections that can exist between the elements of the occasion.

First, there is the speaker and the speech. They need to connect.

Then, there is the speaker and the audience. The speech should help the speaker create that connection, and not get in the way.

And within the speech, your own thought should connect with the writer’s language deployed to express it.

Finally, the speaker needs to connect with his own feelings, and rehearse enough so he can bring to the occasion, with his voice, gestures, and the vivid words of his speech writer, a full-throated belief in what he is saying.

Defining Presence

admin — Fri, 07 May 2010 19:02:46 +0000

Presence is like pornography: it’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it, or in the case of speech, see and hear it.

Presence is a powerful commodity, one that leaders, entertainers, and influencers of all types would like to have. In fact, anyone who wants to be persuasive on the job or in social settings covets it.

Three questions. First, admitting that it’s hard to define, can we sketch in its elements? Second, can we cultivate it? And if so, how?

What are the elements of presence?

Let’s start with what it’s not. It’s not beauty or physical attractiveness. There are lots of Barbies and Kens who look perfect and lack presence.

It’s not intelligence. The socially inept genius is a cliché.

It’s not talent, because some creative people are dull in person but vivid and electric in their work.

So what is it? Here’s my attempt to describe it. Presence is confidence, composure, and responsiveness. It is the capacity to communicate with others in an emotional, intellectual, and expressive manner.

Can presence be cultivated?

I believe it can be developed through deliberate practice, which is a term that has emerged over the last few years to describe how average people achieve extraordinary results.

Actors, singers, dancers, figure skaters and speakers all try to cultivate it. It’s part of their job. For some, it’s a performance, for others it comes naturally.

Presence could include posture and a self-possessed quality of movement. It could include an appealing voice, a sense of humor, the capacity for intimacy, and the ability to respond to the signals you pick up from others.

Presence can also derive from the perception that you don’t care whether people like you or not. Since we are deeply social creatures, a person willing to walk away from the herd tends to get attention.

How can we cultivate presence?

Be curious. Endlessly curious. Be a good listener. Ask a lot of questions. Sit up straight. Be expressive when listening. Acknowledge what the other person has said so that they feel heard and recognized.

Dress in order to dignify your encounters with others. Have convictions and express them with care for the views of others. Develop your voice so that it is resonant and musical.

Explain your point of view knowing what history and science have to say about organizing your thoughts for maximum persuasiveness. Take such an interest in your audience that you care more about their understanding than you do about the outcomes.

This is an important point. If you have an objective you want to achieve, others sense it, and feel that you are talking at them, not with them or to them. You have to start where they are, and lead them from that spot toward the spot on which you would like them to stand.

In other words, you must be highly empathetic, highly assertive and highly expressive. None of us bats 1000 on all three, but presence is a journey not a destination.

It will come and go depending on the circumstances. For some of us who are shy, or young, and surrounded by those with more power and experience, we will have to fake it ‘til we make it.

But the best way to change behavior is to practice changing behavior. We can behave in a manner that is outside our comfort zone for short periods of time, and when we repeat those short periods for lengthier periods, we begin to find a new way of being.

And that can serve us well.

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills andpublic speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

The purpose of an LP Meeting

admin — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:15:10 +0000

What is the purpose of an LP Meeting?

Is it to inform the limited partners about the performance of their investments? I don’t think so.

The LPs already know the numbers. They don’t come to the meeting to hear the numbers. They come to hear what the manager thinks about the numbers.

There’s a big difference.

Numbers are, we hope, facts about the past. They are commodities—everybody has them, and their value is depressed.

What we think about the numbers are opinions. They have the potential for being unique and differentiated, and their value can be considerable.

When a manager expresses a clear, compelling and fact-based opinion at an LP meeting, he has a chance of differentiating himself and his firm from the pack.

LP meetings have more to do with opinions than with facts. If performance is down, a manager’s opinions about why are important, as are his opinions about the future.

And investors arrive with opinions about the numbers, and with a desire to hear the opinions of the manager.

Not only that. Investors arrive with opinions about the manager and his team, and the manager seeks to use the meeting as a branding opportunity to reaffirm positive opinions about his operation, and alter the less-than-favorable opinions of the fence sitters.

Facts and opinions have to work together of course. Facts are the bricks, opinions the building.

LP meetings are based on facts, but they’re about opinions.

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Presentation Skills for Pharma Sales Reps: 2

simswny — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 21:08:34 +0000

One of the golden rules of presenting is:

“Speak to the audience, in the language of the audience, about what is most important to the audience.”

Your audience is a doctor. Doctors are busy and stressed. They have a limited capacity to absorb information. They have the attention span of a gnat.

Know about the patients who are on your product. Ask questions out of your concern for them, not because I’m telling you to do so. Phoniness will not work in your favor. Ask out of genuine concern.

Keep it simple. Make only one point. Make it several times. In communication math, 1 X 3 = 1, meaning that if you make one point and you make it three times, your doc will remember your one point.

However, if you have three points and you make each three times, the equation looks like this: 3 X 3 = 0.

Go figure! If you say three things, you say nothing.

Presentation Training: Should a presenter ever reveal a weakness in her argument?

simswny — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:47:37 +0000

I was brought up in the full-spin generation. I was taught to make the strongest possible argument in the strongest possible way for my idea, product, or service, and let the buyer beware.

Under no circumstances, they told me, should I reveal any weakness in the product. To do so was to open a door through which the audience or the prospect could drive a truckload of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD).

Suppose you’re writing a letter of recommendation. Is it more persuasive to sing the praises of the candidate to the Nth degree, or is it better to sing her praises but also provide an insight into her shortcomings?

It turns out that the latter is more persuasive. It has more credibility. Nobody walks on water. If you want to get the girl a job, it’s better to be fair and balanced. It’s also ethical to practice full disclosure for the next employer.

This does not mean that you bash the candidate. It simply means that you describe your experience, good and bad, in a way that does the greatest good.

Think of the current Direct to Consumer (DTC) ads for pharmaceutical products on TV. We watch the images of couples sitting in separate lion-paw bathtubs gazing at the sun set, while we listen to the sound track whizzing by at almost inaudible speed mentioning horrors such as sterility, madness, seizures, and cardio-myopathy syndrome, which we don’t know anything about (I made it up) but it sounds scary.

Of course, the fine print makes us think twice about taking the drug, but what would we think if we took the drug without being told about side effects?

I’ll tell you how I’d feel. I’d feel like unleashing the wrath of hell on the manufacturers.

So even if you’re selling consulting services, or elective surgery, you gotta be honest about your shortcomings—about what you can and cannot do or promise. You may lose the business this time, but you will definitely earn their respect for being honest, and that means you live to fight another day. If you take the job and screw it up, the client is unlikely to hire you again.

Even worse, when you screw it up they’re likely to tell a whole bunch of other people, and slowly but surely your karma circles in on you, like a pride of lions 0n a wounded wart hog.

It’s never not also the person – or how you communicate is what you communicate

simswny — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:44:33 +0000

I spend a lot of time in pharma and financial services, where content is king. Smart people with expertise in narrow areas of vast importance spend weeks preparing presentations for MBAs, Ph.Ds, MDs and Pharm.Ds (to name only a few distinguished members of the alphabet glitterati they speak to.)

It is important to have no misspellings on the slides, no inconsistencies between the data displayed and the data verbalized; important to make tenable claims, and demonstrate the sterling methods by which the data were generated; important to argue logically, rationally, objectively, and demonstrate a clear understanding of the difference between fact and opinion.

My brilliant clients do all this. They work long hours to make sure the content is thorough, precise, and accurate. They make no turn without stoning any assertion to test its strength and weakness.

Yet they often disregard themselves and how they come across. By education, training, temperament and culture they dwell on the facts. They know that expertise is necessary for success, and they often act as if it were also sufficient.

It is not sufficient. It is necessary, but not sufficient. Audiences also need the facts shaped into a narrative that holds their attention—one that is clear and meaningful, and flows in a manner that appeals to the mind.

And always, under its breath, the audience is muttering, “Do I trust this guy? Can she make this happen? Does he have what it takes? Would I like to have a drink with her?”

It’s never not also the person.

Personalizing is a presentation skill

simswny — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:53:30 +0000

People are more likely to like your ideas if they like you. And one way to get them to like you is to be open and honest about who you are.

This does not mean you have to hold your dirty laundry under their noses. It simply means that you must give your listeners a glimpse of your private self.

A man came to me selling Long-Term Care Insurance. He was older—in his 70s—and very easy-going. He sat across from me as I sat at my desk, and outlined what he would like to cover in our meeting.

He began with the story of how he came to be selling LTCI. His mother, a single divorced woman at the time, was hit by a car in New York City when she was in her late 50’s. His older brother was alientated from the family, and so it fell to him to take care of his injured mother.

Years of operations, home care, and financial struggle ensued. At the time of the accident, he had been a successful insurance agent for Blue Cross Blue Shield. But soon he saw the need for a new type of insurance—one that could have helped his mother in her difficult circumstances.

And so he left BCBS and joined one of the few insurance companies at that time to be offering LTCI.

I asked questions about his mother and his brother as he told me this story, and learned even more about his life. And when he asked me about my life, and how I came to my work, I was primed to divulge the deeper instincts that drove me to it. Simple to say, I felt connected to him, enough to entrust him with the details of my life.

Did I buy insurance? Well, no…but not because I didn’t want to. He suggested I buy in the future when it would be more appropriate.

It is important to reveal your personal back story with a sense of proportion, lest your presentation become all about you. But a few short personal details can help the audience engage with you and your material. And when you relate your personal details to the larger issue you’re there to discuss, you will be a more effective speaker.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Persuasive communication and the Geico gecko

simswny — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:53:22 +0000

The Geico gecko, the AFLAC duck, and Jared the Subway sandwich guy all have the same job. They are likeable characters who appear in very short stories (ads) on TV.

The gecko is low-key and sensible while his boss, the CEO of Geico, is driven by his irrational exuberance to come up with dumb ideas. The gecko fights corporate silliness and keeps it simple and quantifiable (“you can save up to 15%.”)

The AFLAC duck is also surrounded by idiots who don’t have the common sense to see that the only solution to their problems is AFLAC. His outrage (and his limited vocabulary) are comedic and charming. We want to do business with him.

And Jared is all of us who are concerned about our weight. He has found the simple solution to the problem, and is now living the good life in the company of celebrities and star athletes.

Gecko, duck and Jared are personifications of a brand. They demonstrate the benefits of their brands by successfully struggling to overcome obstacles.

You can use the same technique to make your presentations more persuasive. Your ideas, products, and companies can also be seen as solutions to problems.

You may not have the creative license or budget to create a mascot and an endless series of ads, but you can think about what obstacles your idea or product must overcome, and then describe how your idea, product, or company struggles to conquer those obstacles.

In this way, you are emulating the best professional persuaders in the world.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Rationality and Emotion: How we Make Decisions

simswny — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:34:08 +0000

The Wise Presenter would do well to study how people make decisions (and how you yourself make decisions.)

Jonathan Lehrer is a Rhodes Scholar out of Columbia University, an editor at large for the science-focused Seed Magazine and the author of Proust was a Neuroscientist. He has written for numerous publications, including his blogs at The Frontal Cortex and at his own website. His new book is How we Decide.

Lehrer says he is pathologically indecisive. “It’s not uncommon for me to spend 20 minutes in the in the cereal aisle deciding between Honey Nut Cheerios and Apple Cinnamon Cheerios.”

He speaks about the assumption that human beings are rational creatures and that the “bad guys” in decision-making are the emotions.

Apparently, when the decision is a complex one, it’s best to absorb as much information as possible and then let it seep into your unconscious for a period of time. Your intuition may be your best bet in a complicated situation.

Lehrer references case studies of people with damage to the emotional centers of their brains who become unable to make even trivial decisions.

“Rationality without emotion is a disease,” he says.

As speakers who seek to win the assent of our audiences, whether we’re in sales or leadership, research or product management, Lehrer provides further proof that the ancient Greeks were right: we need both intellectual and emotional appeal when trying to persuade our listeners.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Speech Training: How to Give a Speech of Introduction

simswny — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:28:30 +0000

1. Get the proper information from the person you will introduce

2. Extract the information from the resume and write a short speech of introduction. Do not READ the resume.

3. Show the speech to the speaker for editing and approval

4. Structure the speech of introduction in this way.

- Why this topic?

- Why this topic before this audience?

- Why this topic before this audience at this time?

- Why this topic before this audience at this time by this speaker?

5. That’s when you supply a few TELLING details about the speaker that give him or her the credibility to speak on the topic.

6. You can be forgiven if you bring notes and read the information about the speaker, although it would be good if you could do the first three bullets points (above) without reading.

7. Pronounce the speaker’s name properly. If you’re not sure, ask.

8. Do not end by saying, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Sam White to the podium,” (at which point Sam rises to his feet), “a man who not only is an expert on horticulture, but also knows a thing or two about marketing in the garment business,” (Sam hesitates at the edge of the stage), “and also has an eight handicap. Why, I remember the time Sam hit a hole in one over at Silver Lake,” (Sam sits down), “He was hitting a 5-iron off the 10^th tee…” (Sam waits patiently for you to stop, while the audience suspects that you would rather be the speaker and are jealous of the attention that Sam will be getting.)

9. In other words, begin, be brief, be seated, and end your speech of introduction by saying the speaker’s name loud and clear.

Wait for him to arrive at the lectern. Shake his hand. Smile. Then go and sit down.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Hamlet is a Speech Coach

simswny — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:18:17 +0000

Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark in Shakespeare’s play called Hamlet, written around 1603. He hires a bunch of actors to put on a play that he’s written, and he gives them coaching on how to speak their lines.

Four-hundred and six years later, what he says remains good advice for presenters too.

So here’s what happening in the scene. After he’s told them not to wave their arms around too much, he tells them to loosen up, but also make sure that their gestures relate to what they’re saying.

“Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your

tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this

special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature”

To be most effective, and to look natural, gestures should come before the key word you’re emphasizing, or in the middle of the word.

Jimmy Carter had trouble with this on one occasion. He was speaking from the Oval Office to the American people, saying that the economy was “heading up.” Only after he finished the phrase did he move his arm to point skyward. It looked as if his mind was not connected to his body. Or that he had rehearsed a gesture, but forgot to do it, and tacked it on at the end when he remembered.

Finally, Hamlet says to his actors, “Don’t overstep modesty,” or words to that effect. What does that mean?

It means that when in front of an audience it’s best to express passion artfully with your voice, rather than with large, emphatic gestures.

President Obama is highly effective at this. He communicates passion with his voice, even though his body is relaxed and still. The combination communicates power and control.

To read more about Hamlet as a speech coach, go to executivespeechcoachnj.com.

Presentation Training: Presence of Mind

simswny — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:00:11 +0000

I spent last Thursday with Patricia Fripp, a great speech coach and friend of mine. We were at the National Speakers Association, New Jersey Chapter. I can’t get her out of my mind. She is a presence!

Someone with presence makes you pay attention. You don’t have to work hard to listen to them or watch them. In fact, you can’t help being engaged by them. Fripp is one of these people.

She does it in at least two ways: intellectual and emotional.

Fripp says interesting things in interesting ways, such as, “The enemy of the speaker is sameness.”

Then she tells you why she phrased it the way she did. She will say that the last word in your spoken sentence should pack the punch.

That’s a powerful thought, one that will change the way I talk.

To be a presence in someone else’s mind on a substantive level is a good thing. It means you have made them think, aroused their curiosity, and stimulated further dialogue.

Great conversationalists, (I am thinking of Barbara Walters, Leonard Lopate, and Dick Cavett) can carry on a dialogue on a wide range of topics. In other words, they can be present in almost any discussion.

There is more to presence than animal magnetism. We take for granted intellectual presence, yet it is the currency of success for many of our most accomplished colleagues.

Read the first blog in this series: Presentation Skills: Stay Tuned for a Month of Presence.

What’s the Difference between a Speech and a Presentation?

simswny — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:38:59 +0000

Asked to describe a speech, I think most of us would say, “It’s a guy standing at a lectern on a stage reading from notes, a script, or a teleprompter.”

Asked to describe a presentation, we would say, “It’s somebody standing in front of a room with a screen behind her, where she’s showing visuals to explain something to the audience.”

So what’s the difference?

First, the similarities are pretty obvious. Both involve one person talking to a group of people. The people listening are sitting down, facing the speaker, and passively listening. The person speaking is working hard to say something to the listeners, and has probably worked hard to prepare her thoughts and materials.

The first difference is that we don’t see visuals in a speech. The speaker strives to paint a picture in the mind of the audience, but he’s doing it with words, not with images on a screen.

The next difference is the degree of formality. Speeches are more formal than presentations. They date back to 500 BCE and maybe even further, beyond our historical record. Great speeches have rocked the world. They are about (or should be) about big ideas, values, and concerns.

Presentations are more informal than speeches. We associate them with more technical, mundane circumstances. They have their roots in education, the military, and the practical trades, such as building and engineering. They tend to be about facts and figures.

Speeches are given to larger crowds, and therefore must to appeal to the emotions. The larger the crowd, the less complex the material should be.

Presentations are generally given to smaller groups, and therefore can be more detail-oriented. The smaller group should always be given a chance to discuss the material, ask questions, and engage with the speaker. This is not possible when thousands are listening to a speech.

Speeches are made in suits and tuxedos, presentations in shirtsleeves and slacks. Speeches require broad vision, whereas presentations often require a deep, narrow focus.

Speeches can be made to persuade or entertain, but not to inform. Presentations can do all three — inform, persuade, and entertain. Occasionally, someone gives a presentation that accomplishes all those goals simultaneously.

Just because you’re good at one, it doesn’t mean you’re good at the other. Speechmaking is a different muscle, requiring development. Likewise the informality and accessiblity of presenting can be hard for those accustomed to the lectern and the teleprompter.

CEOs and thought leaders give speeches. Managers and technical experts give presentations. Of course this is an oversimplification, but it evokes the distinction I’m making.

Someone once said ( I forget who) that the only reason to give a speech is to change the world. That’s a tall order, requiring the speaker to ratchet up her degreee of intention.

Presentations require clear thinking and organization, but do not often demand that the speaker light the world on fire–just throw a little light on the subject at hand.

Persuasion and Influence: Competing for Internal Resources

simswny — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:27:40 +0000

Suppose you work for a large pharma company that historically makes its profits from blockbuster primary care products, and you work in oncology.

When you present your plans to the senior people, it’s evident that they don’t understand your specialty, and what’s worse, they don’t seem to care.

They grew up in the company selling the old stuff. They still have their eyes on the big prize–the next big thing–and they hardly notice what’s going on in the more remote corners of the company.

How can you get them to pay attention, take an interest, and develop an understanding of the complexities and importance of the oncology market?

More selfishly, how can you preserve and grow the franchise within the company?

1. Develop a demographic and psychographic understanding of senior management. Who are they? What do they think and do now? And why do they think and do as they do?

2. Define your goals. Where do you want them to be when your campaign is over? Don’t assume you’re going to convert them to a drastically different point of view. Can you “de-activate” some of their attitudes and beliefs? Can you educate them? Can you raise the shadow of a doubt in their minds that they may be missing something?

3. Develop sticky messages. Sticky messages are messages that are simple, emotional, and filled with surprising specifics. They are also vivid–they paint pictures in the mind of the listener, and they most often come in the form of stories.

4. Develop your proof statements. Make sure that any claims you make about the value of the oncology franchise are credible.

5. And finally, seek out opportunities to get your points across in a powerful manner.

Presenting is the number one tool of influence and persuasion, because when you get people in one room at one time to think about one thing, you have the greatest chance you’ll ever get to change their minds and move them to action.

David slew Goliath, and small pharma franchises can earn the attention and respect large enterprises with the right combination of messaging and personal impact.

Public Speaking Excellence: Creating an Experience

simswny — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:42:31 +0000

At a recent meeting with a potential client, we discussed his desire to transform himself from a reader of scripts to a creator of experiences.

He said that in the old days, one gave a speech at a business symposium in order to have the text of the speech distributed to the media after the event.

Now, the speech is a video, and it goes on Youtube. If you’re lucky, it’s interesting enough to get people to watch. And if it’s really good, you get invited to deliver the talk at many other meetings.

A speech is always an experience for an audience. After all, they live through it.

But an experience that is not surprising, or unexpected, or emotionally moving, is soon forgotten. It is a plain vanilla experience, and settles to the bottom of the mind.

An experience for the audience that is novel, exciting, and memorable is what he’s after. He reminded me that we are all in the experience business.

So true. So simple. And so “not easy.”

NY Voice and Speech Training Helps Overcome Fear of Public Speaking

simswny — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:03:25 +0000

Busy executives who want to improve their public speaking skills now have a new opportunity to master effective speech and public presentation techniques with “Training the Speaking Voice”.

We are judged by how we speak, write, and think-in that order. That’s why it’s crucial that professionals speak their thoughts in a manner that is easy to understand, and inspires trust and respect in their listeners. Training the Speaking Voice, is a developmental process customized for each individual and group to achieve targeted outcomes.

We created the program after an increase in demand from executives and professionals seeking ways to improve the clarity and impact of their sound and enunciation, or with those who speak English with a regional or foreign accent.

The program is excellent for public speakers or executives looking to enhance their professional opportunities with dynamic speaking capabilities. The exercises open up new possibilities for self-awareness as well as professional and personal growth.

Typical voice and speech training issues include:

speaking too softly
speaking too quickly
lack of expression (monotony of pitch, volume, and speed)
vocal fatigue
too many “ers” and “uhms”
an accent that makes the speaker hard to understand

About Training the Speaking Voice

Training the Speaking Voice is an Executive Education Program, customized for each individual and/or group, to achieve targeted outcomes.

Candidates for the program include those whose clarity or personal impact is impeded by an accent, or by less than optimal voice and speech habits.

The program follows an intuitive path.

First, we record & identify the voice or speech challenge.
We introduce exercises to address the issues.
The candidate receives coaching in person, and practices on her own.
We measure the change, report the results, and provide guidance for continuing growth and awareness.

To support the face-to face instruction, we provide easy to use written materials, customized recordings for home (or car) study, and web and phone tutorials.

More information is available online at http://www.simswyeth.com/services/voice-speech-training

Public Speaking Success Tips: Accoustics Setup

simswny — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:25:36 +0000

Bad Accoustics Distract From Speaker’s Message

I recently attended an event in a school auditorium where I listened to three speeches. While the hall itself was elegant, the acoustics made it difficult to hear the speakers.

What could have been done to make the speeches more accessible to the audience? Here are some suggestions on proper accoustics setup for public speaking:

1. Reduce the echo in the room. For this, I suppose one would have to hire an expert in acoustics.
2. Get a better public address system, with more speakers in more places, with a sound engineer constantly adjusting the quality of the sound to make the most of the voice doing the speaking.

3. Teach those doing the speaking how to speak into a microphone so that their vowels and consonants will be heard. This can be taught by a private speech coach.

Part of this is voice projection, which comes from breath control. Part of it is enunciation, which comes from training the muscles of the tongue and lips to shape each sound like an Olympic figure skater. And part of this is simply learning to stand still and find the proper distance between mouth and microphone.

I was impressed with each of the speakers, but I had to work like a mule to hear what they had to say.

Speaking Anxiety: Stage Fright in Front of the Boss

simswny — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:33:22 +0000

I recently received a call from a regional sales leader who said that he was unable to express himself to senior management.

He speaks effectively to his peers and his direct reports, but said that he has trouble organizing his thoughts when speaking to his boss’s bosses.

I did not meet him in person, and did not try to figure out what was bothering him over the phone. I suggested he shop around. But I am curious. What’s going on and what can he do about it?

What’s Going On?

Let’s speculate.

He’s projecting an image of harsh, judgmental authority onto the senior leaders, which is causing him to tense up with anxiety.
He knows that some senior leaders have a reputation for being tough on presenters–they may use presentations as a stress test for “separating the men from the boys.”
He is not taking possession of his own strengths and feels like a child standing before angry parents–in a word, powerless.
He knows he is comfortable talking about his accounts, but lacks the ability to speak in broader terms about long-range strategic issues.
He can speak about his accounts, but worries about the Q&A.
He simply hasn’t spoken to them often enough to get comfortable in their presence.
He’s over-reacting. Everyone is nervous speaking to senior leadership. There’s much at stake.

What Can He Do about It?

First of all, get a basic check-up on his presentation skills–how to organize his information to appeal to his audience, and how to project himself effectively.
Rehearse his presentation with simulated real-world pressure. This means getting people to sit and listen to him stumble through his first efforts.
Rehearse enough so that he transfers his knowledge and delivery skills from his cerebral cortex (which is good at learning new stuff) to his cerebellum (which is good at orchestrating lightning fast physical and mental tasks.)
Get some support from his immediate boss. If the company believes in him, they should help him break through this challenge.
Get to know some of the senior leaders. This could be difficult, but who knows what would happen if he called up one or two of them and asked them for some career guidance on how to make the presentation most useful to them. They might see it as enterprising and thoughtful.
Do some visualizing of the senior leaders as normal, fun-loving folks–people who have his best interests at heart, and who want to see him succeed.
Develop his self-esteem and confidence. Read this article on bnet.com for some insights on how to do this.

It’s hard for many of us to step in front of an unfamiliar audience that we imagine knows more than we do, has more money and education than we do, more power, and in fact, could make or break us (or at least it feels that way.)

This guy was up-front and honest with me, and I respect him for that. He’s out there trying to solve his problem–to take his skills to another level. Actually, this is one of those instances when the word “skill” may not be the right word. This might be more about personal growth.

Presentation Coaching: Structure your Presentation

simswny — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:44:23 +0000

Structure your presentation as though you were solving a fascinating puzzle.

Start by describing the complex situation the audience faces, and the problem within it. Then, paint a picture of the benefits if only the puzzle could be solved. Ask the question, “What can we do?” or “How can we get there?” and then offer your solution. The bulk of your presentation would be your explanation of your solution.

In this way, you create attention and interest in your topic by linking it to our primordial fascination with puzzles and problem solving.

NJ Presentation Skills Trainer Says You Can Speak As Well As Barack Obama

simswny — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:11:41 +0000

Executive speech coach, Sims Wyeth, helps dissect the nature of Barack Obama’s public speaking skills to show others how they can enhance their own on-stage performance. Sims Wyeth is a noted resource in the world of high stakes presenting, providing training and coaching to some of businesses top executives for almost 20 years.

According to Wyeth, “Obama is a master at grabbing and keeping his audience’s attention, which is the number one goal of any public speaker. “ In a recent article published by Sims Wyeth, Wyeth offers public speakers five key lessons from Obama’s rhetorical playbook, and tips to master his style.

Sims Wyeth helps individuals and companies succeed by providing tools and training on the principles and practices of effective, persuasive communication – those approaches that have been proven to work across history and cultures. His work is not only a collection of do’s and don’ts; his knowledge and teaching is based on the science and psychology of how audiences absorb information.

Sims Wyeth & Co. offers customized presentation skills and public speaking seminars, as well as executive speech coaching. Sims assists high stakes presenters with speech writing, effective use of PowerPoint, presenting data, increasing sales, relating to diverse or difficult audiences, improving personal style, confidence, and image.

”The greats all learn from other greats,” says Wyeth, “so don’t hesitate to study Obama’s repertoire, and use what you can to improve your own public speaking.”

To read the article, go to http://www.bnet.com/2403-13074_23-290100.html?tag=homeCar

Presentation Skills: What Not to do With Your Hands

simswny — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:04:25 +0000

My grandmother used to take me to the Central Park Zoo in New York to feed peanuts to squirrels.

The squirrels were tame, and stood on their hind legs begging with their front paws hanging in front of their chests.

I see speakers with squirrel paws—limp-wristed hands devoid of life—and no matter how bright the speaker, I am not impressed.

A squirrel-paw speaker doesn’t look like a person who can get anything done.