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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.