When she was a year old, I held my daughter Georgia at the closed window of our 30th floor New York City apartment so we could look out over Times Square.

Across the street, stretching the full length of a 40-floor building, was a painting of Dwight Gooden, the ace Met’s pitcher, coiled in his wind-up with his eyes staring straight at us from under his cap.

I had the habit of asking Georgia, “Is it a cloudy day or a sunny day?”  Soon enough, however, it got more complicated, and our conversation evolved.  In other words, sometimes it was not all cloudy or all sunny.  Sometimes, it was both.

So it is with effective communication.  Not in terms of sun and clouds, but in terms of assertiveness and empathy.  We need both—the will to assert and the sensibility to speak into the listeners’ capacity to hear. 

We do the audience a service to be assertive because we give them something to push against, to poke holes in, and thus create a dialogue between our experience and theirs. 

And we do ourselves a service to understand their capacity to listen—to see the world as they see it—so that we can clothe our assertions in terms that will help them see more clearly the validity of our view. 

Some of us lack empathy and find it hard to comprehend what the audience is able to hear. 

And some of us lack assertiveness and find it hard to engage constructively in intellectual combat. 

But those who can do both earn the respect and trust of followers and opponents alike.  We call these people leaders, movers and shakers, high potentials, charismatics, persuaders, influencers, top guns, visionaries, sales stars. 

My daughter and I thought Dwight Gooden was staring at us, but in reality he was staring at the catcher’s mitt, trying to hurl his pitch where the catcher could catch it.

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.

Look at this ad from Microsoft.  It appeared in a newspaper exactly as it looks, I have not done anything to it.

At first glance, it looks like a mistake.  It doesn’t belong in a newspaper or a magazine.  It’s imperfect and unfinished.  It even says, “Draft,” in red at the top.

I read it because I was curious.  I thought I might read something secret and personal.  And for a while, I believed that I was. 

Then I just sat back in amazement.

They put backstage behavior on stage.  They made the rehearsal process the show.  They confessed that they are human, that messages and products are created through trial and error.

They used form to imply content.  They used art and craft to create authenticity.  They made something artificial look real. 

Not only that, they linked the marketing message to both the image and the text.  They even say that their product can’t make a great company—only that it can help to make that happen.

That’s true and honest.  They are not making exaggerated claims.

Makes me think about spoken communication.  Makes me think that our messy eccentricities may be our greatest strengths as speakers.  That our pretense of polish and perfection may be our greatest weakness.

And if not, at the very least, it points us to the fact that if we want to get attention and arouse curiosity in our audience, we must say, do, or show something that is in contrast to what is expected.

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.

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.