Booher BanterBusiness Communication Consultant

Last week’s investor meeting in New York is still keeping me awake at night.  (See my April 18 post: “The Power of Summary.”)   Imagine what kind of flashbacks I would be having had I been a CEO-hopeful on stage, spilling my guts and glory before the roomful of investors who’d flown in from around the world to find that dazzling gem-of-a-company to fund through its next stage of growth.

In case you didn’t read my last post, my role there was corporate advisor to a client team looking for venture capital funding.  Each of the 22 companies (out of the more than 100 companies that applied) invited to present their organization to the group had 10 minutes to make themselves glitter and win the gold.

But one by one, the CEOs climbed on the platform, clicked through their presentation slides, and for the most part, committed these same egregious mistakes as we see weekly in our presentation skills training:

1. No clear-cut theme or key message
2. Too much data for the allocated time, leading to information overload
3. Absence of techniques to help listeners retain the information
4. Slides competing with (rather than supporting) the speaker
5. Too many slides for the allotted time
6. No attention-getting opener
7. Absence of a prepared, high-impact close that focuses on action
8. Low energy
9. Difficult-to-understand voice—either rapid-fire delivery or mumbling
10. Boring visuals (bulleted list after bulleted list)

Sound familiar?  If so, consider using the above as your own “thou shalt not” checklist for the next time you take stage or coach a colleague.

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Posted at 3:26pm in Communication—Oral | Permalink | Add Comment » |

Summarize Seriously. Doesn’t quite have the ring of the romantic movie Love Actually, does it? But that shouldn’t tempt you to trivialize the issue that surfaced yesterday in a roomful of investors willing to plunk down anywhere from $5-$100 million on some entrepreneurial business that interested them.

“Remember the 10-minute time limit for each presenting company,” the moderator of the event explained to the group of 22 hopeful CEOs prepared to win his or her share of the available funds. “We’ve hosted this event for several years. And the feedback from these investors seated around you is that they make up their minds in the first 3-4 minutes whether they’re interested or not. So the ten minutes we’ve allotted to tell your story is quite adequate.”

He paused to let the point sink in. There as a corporate advisor to my client, I nodded my “I told you so” to the team. Roger that. They were locked and loaded, ready for launch.

Evidently, many others were not.

Executive after executive of these small businesses stepped to the microphone and stumbled and stuttered their way through 4-6 minutes of their allotted ten before being able to clearly state what it is their company does. Many tried to start with how they got into the business. Some started by introducing their management team (important, of course, for a group of investors—but not for 3 minutes!). Some rambled on about how they came up with their logo, packaging design, recipe, or facilities. Several talked about differentiation. A few talked about how they’d tested their product—clinical data and analysis.

Only a handful—make that a newborn’s fist—summarized upfront ALL the key elements about their business that a group of investors would want to know.

Yet, I bet if you asked any one of these busy executives back on the job how important the ability to summarize is, they’d launch into a sermon about some pet peeve such as these:

So to develop the ability to summarize massive amounts of information well, seek out some good models. For starters, I suggest The Wall Street Journal’s “What’s News?” column.(Readers, if you have other suggestions for great summarizers out there, please feel free to share them here.)

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Posted at 5:15pm in Communication—Interpersonal, Communication—Oral, Communication—Sales, General Communication | Permalink | Add Comment » |

If you’re on the hearing end of a presentation, you may think it all looks effortless—the speaker flows with polished pearls of wisdom, parades across the platform with boundless energy, interacts spontaneously with the audience with great wit, responds to challenging questions with authority, and sways skeptics with genuine personal warmth.

But to put it in the common vernacular:  “Ain’t necessarily so.”

Yesterday, I delivered a keynote for 600 CEOs of small businesses and senior executives of large corporations on one of my typical communication topics.   Since it was one of those rare local events (as opposed to having to jump on an airplane), I’d dashed into the office to link up with four of our staff members, who were accompanying me to the convention center to staff the book table where I’d be autographing books after my session.  

Running about ten minutes later than I’d planned, I suppose I looked a little tense.  On the way out the door, Candy, our production manager, asked a question I’d not thought about in awhile:  “Do you still get nervous?”   

“Sure.  Always.”  I nodded.  Even after more than 20 years on the platform, I still get nervous.  

How nervous?  It just depends on the stakes.   What do I have to gain—or lose—by the keynote or business presentation?  What’s the potential contract worth?   How many potential new clients are sitting in the audience?   Is there another business opportunity hanging in the balance?  What’s the dollar value on that opportunity?  What’s new and different about this keynote—or is just the same ole’ same ole’?

Some of these same issues may flood your mind when you stand up to make business or technical presentation to a boss or prospect or deliver a keynote for your industry meeting.  What do you stand to gain or lose?  What are the differences between those sit-down-around-the-conference-table-conversations and those larger presentations?  How can you become more comfortable in the latter?

During the two-hour program and the two-hour networking event that followed yesterday, here are some of the comments that attendees shared with me:

—“You know, I don’t mind talking in a small group. I’m fine there. But put me up on stage like you were today, and I’m very uncomfortable. I always tell my pastor-father, ‘it’s just not my gift.’”

—“I’m the sportscaster on a local Fox affiliate. I’ve never thought about some of those things. I made notes as I watched. I’m doing a speech tomorrow myself, and I need to be aware of the differences. It’ll make a huge difference.”

—“I always have to have a script and stand behind a podium. Always. As VP, I emcee events and introduce speakers. And we sponsor events like this all the time, where we ‘say a few words.’ But I’m just uncomfortable.”

To these people and all of you out there, here are three pointers that may help you get a kick out of keynotes—delivering, not just listening:

Understand your audience. Nothing gives you more confidence and helps you prepare better than talking to audience members beforehand. Ask them a few questions: What do you want to know about X? What are your biggest challenges in the area of X? What were you hoping I could help you with (or provide more information about)? Tell me a little more about your work—give me a “week-in-the-life-of” overview of your work. And, of course, you’ll want to ask these questions before you arrive on the scene so you have time to prepare to address these issues in your presentation or keynote.

Make your keynote both a conversation and a performance: That is, select a few people randomly in different parts of the audience and direct your comments to them. Make eye contact with them. Gesture toward them. Walk in their direction. (Everyone around them will think you’re looking at them as well.) The “conversation” mindset will relax you. But remember that you’re also delivering a performance; for that, you need energy and polished prose.

Be prepared. “Winging it” is for the birds. Nothing adds to your confidence like knowing exactly what you’re going to say—concisely, clearly, cleverly.

Keynotes can be a real kick if you feel confident. If not prepared, you’re going to want to kick yourself in the seat of the pants the day of the event.

Do we have some success stories out there? Let us hear about them.

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Posted at 4:57pm in Communication—Oral | Permalink | 2 Comments |