Anne Miller | Presenting

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Eggs-actly!

Be "Egg-ceptional"

What is the best way to ensure your presentation message or main point in an argument is remembered?

Make your message the last thing your listener hears. Keep it short. Give it a rhythm. An excellent example of this principle appeared in an ad in USA Today, 8/25:

A Message From America’s Egg Farmers

You’ve probably heard about the recent egg recall. As egg farmers, we’re concerned, and continue to work closely with the FDA and USDA to help ensure the safest and highest quality eggs possible. The potentially affected eggs, which make up less than 1% of all US eggs, have been removed from store shelves.

You may be wondering if eggs are safe to eat. Yes, they are. Thoroughly cooked eggs are thoroughly safe eggs, according to the Center for Disease Control and the FDA. Eggs should be cooked until the whites and yolks are firm.

To find out more information on this recall and the safe handling of eggs, please vist eggsafety.org.

And, remember, thoroughly cooked means thoroughly safe. (emphasis mine)

"Eggs-amine" Your Communications

Whether in a formal presentation, giving an answer to a question, or in a conversation across the desk, make it easy for people to remember what you said. Leave them with a short, snappy summary of your main point.

Remember, Short messages last longer.

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Download two chapters Free from my new book, "Make What You Say Pay! Details: www.makewhatyousaypay.com

50+ Stories of how savvy business people used metaphors to win the day from distinguishing themselves in their market to closing a deal to melting resistance to change to making the news.

No one should lead, sell or influence without a command of metaphors!

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MWYSP! will be on vacation through Labor Day. Have a wonderful holiday.

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Execution is everything: Make What You Say Pay!

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Thursday, July 22, 2010

From Dull to Dazzling

I was momentarily thrown by the surprise response I got when I called the operator at the W Hotel in LA this week to order a wake-up call for the next morning. She said, “Hello, Mrs. Miller. This is Terry....

“What is your wish?”

What is my wish? My immediate reaction was, “How about a 40% bounce in my portfolio, world peace, and thinner thighs?” However, I restrained myself, and, in a tone of voice that suggested I was accustomed to talking to tooth fairies every day, I simply asked for a 7AM wake-up ring the next morning.

So, this little exchange made me think about you, the readers of this blog. What would my “wish” be for business people at both large and small companies whose job it is to sell, present, or otherwise influence various groups of people? I think it would be that you get beyond the facts of your information and more creatively use language to bring your products, services, and ideas to life for your listeners. Consider these comments made by William Safire, who, until his death in 2009, was a political columnist for The New York Times, and also known for his popular “On Language” column in that paper’s Sunday magazine section.

“Suppose I’m describing the reaction of baseball fans on that unforgettable evening when Henry Aaron hit the home run that broke Babe Ruth’s lifetime record. I might say, ‘Aaron was given a standing ovation by fifty thousand fans. The tribute continued for at least five minutes.’ That’s accurate. It’s what happened. No doubt about it.

“But compare that description with this. ‘Fifty thousand fans sprang to their feet, clapping, screaming, cheering wildly in a pandemonium that went on for a full five minutes.’ That’s also what happened. Is there a difference?

"You bet there is. The first version tells what happened all right, but it doesn’t involve the listener. There’s no fire, no passion. …The second version paints a word picture that puts the listeners right in the stadium, making them part of the clapping, cheering crowd.”

Grant Them Their Wish

No matter what you sell, use the richness of language to put your listeners smack in the middle of the experience your products, services, or ideas will give them. Let them “see” what it will mean to use what you are selling. Use vivid language to describe the results of what your dry facts, features, metrics, analytics, or processes, mean to them. Let them get excited by the possibilities of that experience. In short, let them see their "business wishes" coming true when they work with you..When you do that for your listeners, then, your wishes for greater success and increased bottom-lines will come true as well

Execution is everything: Make What You Say Pay!

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News: My new bookt Make WhaT You Say Pay! is finally done! It will be available in hard copy as well as in an ebook version. As soon as the finishing touches on the website are done for it, I will let you know how you can sample some chapters and get a copy for yourself.

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Wednesday, June 30, 2010

User Friendly Conversations

When it comes to explaining your ideas to others, think women's perfume or men’s aftershave: less is better.

People are drowning in an endless flood of facts, figures, media messages, emails, interruptions, etc. To protect themselves, they are more likely to tune you out than tune you in. Therefore, make your information as user-friendly as possible.

1. Stop putting the burden on people to figure out where you are going with your discussion and start stating your key message upfront in your discussion.

2. Stop presenting laundry lists of facts and benefits and start chunking your Information into buckets. The human brain likes to organize the world in categories. (Are you Republican or Democrat? Doctor, lawyer, Indian Chief? Jazz lover or punk rocker?) E.g.,

-There are three options: The Basic, The Advanced, & The Deluxe

-Your ad would work in any of three locations: in Fashion, Travel, or Leisure editorial

-Given your objectives, we want to look at a mix of Conservative, Balanced, & Aggressive investments

3. Stop trailing off at the end of your conversation and start to repeat your message at the end to ensure retention. People remember the last thing they hear (the old rule of primacy and recency).

If people are going to tune out most of what they hear, make sure it isn’t your message that they are blocking. Remember, it isn’t how much you say. It’s how much your listeners absorb and remember.

Time is Limited: Make What You Say Pay!

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Watch this brilliant video on getting rid of excess verbiage and gobbledygook in communication.

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Recommendation: Check out Ability Commerce for all your eCommerce software needs. Their proprietary software can be the foundation of a profitable web store and their services guide you through the complexities involved with building and maintaining a strong web presence. Contact Tom Walsh (TomW@AbilityCommerce.com / 914-318-0245) for more information.

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Thursday, June 03, 2010

The Presentation Con Game

Has This Happened to You?

I observed a presentation seminar recently and once again felt my blood boil when a participant--asked what he got out of the experience--replied...

“I learned to use my hands more.” Uh? Two days of your time and $X later and you "learned to use your hands more?!" If you have had a similar experience (“I learned to look at people.” “I learned to smile more.” “I learned to stop fidgeting.”), you have been conned.

You have been led to focus on external weaknesses that are really the consequences of missing the core driver of successful presentations. Focus on this core driver and your delivery skills will be just fine.

Many presentation training programs begin with video-taping participants. Naturally, when you are thrust in front of a group and asked to speak, you are going to feel uncomfortable. That discomfort will show up in your wandering eyes (undermining your credibility!), in aimless gestures (there goes your authority!), and irritating non-words (and you expect a listener to take you seriously?).

Now, think how you walk out of a room.

When you decide it is time to exit a room, you do not break down the physical movements of your feet and arms as you leave. You do not think, “I will put down my left heel, now lower my left toes, pick up my right heel, now lower my right toes, etc.” If you did that, you would be so distracted that you would either never get out of the room or trip. NO. You have a mental intention to leave the room and your limbs miraculously cooperate and get you there.

The same thing is true with impressive presenters. They are driven by their intention to get a message across and to move people towards a particular action. They are not driven by a mental checklist of correct body part movements. Thus, they are free to "get to the door," to get their message across persuasively and enthusiastically.

When your content is focused on your listener(s), when you have rehearsed, and when your intention is to get others to see your point of view or share some exciting information with them that will help them in some way, your delivery skills will be just fine. When we are passionate about content, we naturally look at people, use our hands to reinforce our points, and focus our energy out to listeners. Is it possible we may also move our eyes too quickly, or speak too fast, or say too many ums? Sure, but generally speaking, few people are guilty of multiple delivery distractions and any of these is easily fixed. Moreover, when you fix one, the others tend to fall into place. For example, when people strengthen their eye contact, they tend to reduce their non-words as well.

Good delivery skills and good content work together. They are like fuel and your car. Delivery skills help drive your message to where you want it to go, but if you only have the fuel, and no car--your strategically crafted story--you won’t get anywhere.

Beware the coach or course that tricks you into separating delivery from content.

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Announcement: Getting pressured to lower prices/fees? Attend my “Dealing with Price Pressure” webinar June 17^th 1-2PM, EST, $99. Save $20 with special promotion code: 47fbc9f6. Details & Registration

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Recommended Books:

Snap! Selling by my business pal Jill Konrath. Hot off the press, Jill shows you how to deal with today’s “crazy-busy” buyers. Take a look! It is brilliant.

Start With Why by Simon Sinek. He really nails the difference between those we follow because we have to and those we follow because they inspire us. Lively stories included. Not unrelated to my point in today’s post.

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Time is limited: Make What You Say Pay!

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Friday, May 14, 2010

The Anti-PowerPoint for Impact

In a recent posting, I advocated the power of spontaneous presentations using just pencil and paper and skipping the ever present PowerPoint. A recent seminar participant sent me a brilliant illustration of such a presentation and I’d like to pass it along...

Click here to view.. Notice Simon's passion. Notice how engaged you are with the visual as he creates it. Notice how the pad and marker are indeed "visual aids" and not replacements for him. Notice how impressed you are that he knows his content and doesn't use a visual as a script. This is dynamic presenting. Do it on a napkin over lunch with a client. Bring a meeting in someone's office alive with a yellow pad and pen. Jump up at a small group meeting and tell your story on a whiteboard. Or, as Simon did, hold a large audience on stage with a simple flip-chart or magnified screen and a pen.

Time is limited: Make What You Say Pay!

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Sunday, May 09, 2010

What's the Story?

Oprah, Katie Couric, Mariska Hagarty, Lesley Stahl, among others, all introduced and celebrated women who have made a difference in the communications industry at the recent Matrix Awards luncheon, held at the Waldorf Astoria and sponsored by New York Women in Communication. For anyone who has to introduce an executive at a business conference, there was a common thread to all their speeches worth copyying.

Rather than simply begin by listing the accomplishments of the honoree, each celebrity opened with a personal story connected to the recipient of one of the Matrix awards. Some were touching, some were funny. Some were both. For example, in introducing Gayle King, the editor of O, Oprah highlighted how they had met in Baltimore and how King told her when she was first starting out,, “Yes, you can be Phil Donohue.”

The personalized story engaged the 1600 women at this event immediately in a way that a straight recitation of the honoree’s resume would not.

Lesson for all speakers:Take the time to craft a relevant story about the person you are introducing to pave the way for the serious information that you have to present.

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Announcement:: If you are in the online world, Sign up for my seminar, "Turn Information Into a Stoyr That Sells" sponsored fby the IAB, May 13. Details & Registration

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Time is limited: Make What You Say Pay!

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Tuesday, April 13, 2010

When High Touch Trumps Presentation HIgh Tech

They say when everyone is buying, you should sell and when everyone is selling, you should buy. The same holds true in presentations. If everyone is using PowerPoint, then do the opposite: use plain old paper and pencil. You will have greater impact and be more memorable.

Grab a pen (or two if you want a second color for emphasis) and a piece of paper and draw your value proposition, or your process, or your competitive position as you explain your points. If you can draw circles, squares, letters of the alphabet, arrows, triangles, stick figures, and plus signs (and you can), then, you can draw just about anything you have to present. For example, say you want to position your website to a potential advertiser. You could show a series of competitive PPT slides, which look like everyone else’s, OR you can simply write the letters A, B and C down the left side of a piece of paper, while saying, “Ms. Advertiser, Competitor X gives you A, B, and C” (whatever those features are), “but when you advertise with us” (you draw a plus sign and you say) “You also get D” (your competitive advantage), “which makes our site a more valuable way to target your audience and measure your results.” The simple graphic is easy for your buyer to see; easy for your buyer to grasp; and more involving than set images because you are creating it as you are speaking. Sign the piece of paper and leave it as a take-away. It will stand out from the flood of PPT presentations your buyer will see that day.

Processes flow up, down, horizontally, or in circles and can be explained as you draw them. Services are organized in groups (boxes, triangles, circles) and can be discussed for their viability with a buyer as you draw them. Trends and performance histories can be drawn as simple graphs, as you talk about them. If you have to use PPT for small groups, then break from the screen and use a flip-chart or whiteboard to create key visuals.

I am not suggesting you eliminate detailed hand-outs or slides where they are necessary (and they become more so with groups), but in one-on-one or iin one-to- two/three situations, at a high conceptual level, nothing beats a real-time pen and piece of paper to make your points and to make them memorably.

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-Time to say good-bye to your laptop? Could be, according to latest report from internet guru Mary Meeker

-What do you make? Compare it to this fellow (thank you Seth Godin).

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Time is limited: Make What You Say Pay!

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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Guilty of "Presentation Babble?"

Here’s a mind-boggling statistic: According to a Global Information Industry study, the average number of words of information that each American consumed per day outside of work in 2008 was 100,000. It doesn’t mean you read all these words, just that they crossed your eyes or ears in a 24 hour period and, no surprise given the internet and mobile communication, that number increases annually.

No wonder it is so difficult to make an impact! I was reminded of this as I coached a really sharp sales rep yesterday for a leading media company. Her visuals were great, her information was compelling, her energy was infectious, but her key points were lost in “presentation babble:” extraneous side comments, sentences that were not really structured to hit home, and segues between points that were choppy or non-existent.

People are only going to listen to what stands out in the flood of information that washes over them daily. That means your words have to catch their attention, relate to them, keep what you are saying interesting, and make it easy to follow. Try video or audio taping your key business conversations: what you say on the telephone to get appointments; what you say when you first meet prospects in their offices; what you say when you meet people in a networking situation; and—absolutely--what you say when you are presenting to win business or gain support for your ideas. Are you part of the information overload problem or does what you say rise above the noise of those 100,000 words and make an impact that gets you what you want?

Time is short: Make What You Say, Pay!

Correction: I had the wrong link for Cliff Atkinson’s new book, The Back Channel. Here is the correct link. www.backchannelbook.com

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Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Must Reads for Communicators in 2010

One thing I love about the internet is all the amazing people I have met who would never have crossed my path otherwise. For example, there is the fellow in Saudi Arabia, of all places, who was the first person to download the ebook version of my book Metaphorically Selling and who sent me a video of his speech to critique his use of metaphors. That would never have happened, pre-online days.

Two others are Cliff Atkinson and Ardath Albee, who live across the country and who constantly add to my professional knowledge base.

Cliff is a presentations colleague and guru when it comes to technolog and presentations. His new book The BackChannel Book is a must read for anyone who presents to large audiences. He explains how with Twitter and social media, your one-to-an-audience presentation has become, whether you wanted it to or not or realize it or not, a one-to-the-world presentation and what you must do to ensure you succeed on this new world stage.

Ardath is the go-to person for B2B emarketing. She is a class act. Her content is solid and she is extremely generous in the depth of the information she provides on her site. Ardath epitomizes "thought leader" and "added value" to her market. Her book Emarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale is also highly recommended to help you get off to a good start in 2010.

What books are you reading to keep you ahead of the curve in 2010?

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Tuesday, December 01, 2009

The Obama-Palin Lesson for Presenters

The Obama-Palin Lesson for Presenters

President Obama probably thought there was nothing to learn from Sarah Palin, but his latest poll ratings, below 50%, and her current celebrity appeal should make him reconsider. Maureen Dowd nailed it in a recent New York Times column when she characterized Palin’s appeal as her “visceral power.” It’s an internal aliveness and energy and concern for people that connects with them in much the same way Presidents Reagan and Clinton did. President Obama had that electricity as well during the campaign, but seems to have lost it.

No presenter – whether pitching to a client or selling a troop build-up to the free world – can hope to sway an audience without a healthy balance between substance and connectivity with their audience. Connectivity without substance merely entertains. Substance without connectivity alienates. Tonight, in his televised Afghanistan speech, Obama needs to remember that connectivity, as well as substance, matters.

You have limited time with people - Make What You Say, Pay! Anne Miller

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Friday, November 13, 2009

I'll Have What She's Having

I once heard a speaker begin his talk with “As that great philosopher (dramatic pause) Peter Pan said, “I don’t wanna grow up” and then he seamlessly linked that surprise opening to his message about the

need to get serious about the challenges facing his industry. There are many famous lines from movies and plays that you can use to get attention to your public and business presentations, particularly if your message is controversial or dry. Watch this entertaining video with over 100 examples from the movies including “Star Wars,” “The Godfather,” “The Al Jolson Story,” “Dirty Harry” and “When Harry Met Sally,” which is the source of today’s headline. How many do you recognize? Which can you use?

Watch the video.

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Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Ask, Don't Guess

Imagine you are presenting to three prospects. Suddenly, one starts to check his watch. The other gives attention to her Blackberry. The third just shifts in his chair. What do you do? Some people in my seminars say, "Ask a question. Get them involved." Fair enough. So, you do that and you get only perfunctory responses, no real interest. Some say, "Just keep going and hope they come back to you." Others say, "Speed up, get to the end, and get out!" I suppose that's a plan of sorts, but hardly a profitable one.

My response to the group is a question, "If you are having a conversation in a social situation and suddenly the person across the table becomes quiet, what do you say? Yes, you might ask a question. But suppose that doesn't bring them back to the discussion, then, what? Inevitably, the next answer is, "Ask what's wrong?" YES, my point exactly. That is the human thing to do. Respond to what you see. Similarly, in selling, don't play guessing games. You're dealing with people, flesh and blood people, who just happen to be buyers. When something seems suddenly amiss, you cannot fix it, unless you know what is wrong.

So, ask. In a nice way.

That could be as simple as, "I have a sense that what I'm talking about is not of interest to you now. Is that right?"

Possible answers: 1. "No, this is fascinating. Please continue." 2. "In fact, we are more interested in X" - in which case you can easily jump to that topic and regain their attention. or, 3. "No, it has nothing to do with you. I ate something that is making me ill," in which case you can ask if they wish to reschedule or not.

We live in an age of spin and manipulation. How refreshing to be treated with honesty. Ask. Be authentic. Clients will love you for that quality.

Great Book Recommendations.

Speaking of authenticity, grab this new book by Sharon Drew Morgan, "Dirty LIttle Secrets: Why Sellers Can't Sell and Buyers Can't Buy." It will radically change the way you think about how you deal with clients and how you develop business.

Need to write proposals that sell business? Take a look at Neil Sawers’s new book, How to Write Proposals, Sales Letters, and Reports. Limited time to also receive additional value added material.

Overwhelmed by how to market online? Emarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale by Ardath Albee is the book to read. Ardath is the expert, bar none, on this topic. Take your business to the next level with the wisdom and practical advice in her book.

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Friday, October 23, 2009

Recession-Buster Presentation Offer

Recession-Buster Presentation Offer
Personal Review, Critique, & Recommendations for Your Presentation
(Work Online & By Telephone)
Normally $375 – Now, for a limited time, only $149 – Good until November 15

Is your PowerPoint presentation a story that sells, engages & gets results?
Is your message memorable?
Does your content flow?
Are the visuals working for or against you

ARE YOU SURE???

As Lee Iacocca said, ‘You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t communicate them successfully, they aren’t worth anything.”

Make sure you are communicating your ideas successfully right up to closing business or making the impact you want on your audience.

You are a phone call away from a winning, high impact presentation. (Offer ends November 15.)

Contact me today for details: Call 212 876 1875 or email amiller@annemiller.com.
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“Needed feedback on a big presentation that had to be good. The end result was a presentation that unfolded more like a story and kept people’s attention, with key messages that couldn’t be missed. And it worked. .... invaluable personal coaching just when I needed it.”
Diane Roddy,
Consultant

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