When I was in college, I drove a truck full of modern art from a New York gallery to a museum in Tennessee.  It was October.  The World Series was on the radio. My team, the Mets, were playing, and the signal was irregular and full of static.

It was raining.  It was dark. I was on a two-lane mountain road. I had to deliver the paintings by morning. The windshield washers could not keep up with the downpour.  The road was twisting and I was fiddling with the radio dial desperately trying to tune in through the static to hear how my Mets were doing.

I was an audience of one in the cab of that rented Hertz truck, fighting to hear the signal through the noise.  And I don’t think I’m reaching too far for a simile to say that our audiences are in a similar position when they listen to our presentations.

Our audiences are on a mission to achieve their business objectives.  The market is dark and unpredictable.  The staff cannot keep up with the constant demands.  Our listeners worry about hitting their numbers, managing the budget, and positioning themselves for a promotion.  Plus, their tummies might be rumbling with hunger, or their kids are home alone and they’re worried.

They try to tune in to what we’re saying, but it’s hard.  We may take too long getting to the point.  They get bored or frustrated. 

We may start talking about ourselves, or our product, or our company, and fail to relate the information to what they care about.

They will have to fight through the noise of our talk to hear the information that they care about.  And they only care about information because they have an emotional interest in what it could mean to them.

Does the information you offer make them more successful at their job?  Is it simple and clear?  Does it solve a problem?  Does it save them time, or help them make more money?  Does it make them feel more secure, or less uncertain?  And could it make them look good in the eyes of others?

These are the signals that most of us want to hear.  Your job as a presenter is to boost your signal to noise ratio. 

Do so, and you will make more money, be more successful, reduce your anxiety, and look good in the eyes of the world.

Merce Cunningham

Every great store has a theme.  Nordstrom’s has the theme of customer service.  Starbucks has coffee.  L.L. Bean used to be great when it stuck to its theme of outdoor clothing you could pass down to your children.
 
Sims Wyeth & Co is a store that sells presentation skills, and one item that some customers want to find on the shelf is PRESENCE. 

So, I choose as my theme for a month the idea of PRESENCE.  What is it and how do you get it?
 
If you ever had the pleasure of seeing Merce Cunningham, the great dancer and choreographer, you may know what presence is.  

Johnny Carson had presence, more than Dave, Jay, and Conan combined. 

Bruce Springsteen has presence, even when he’s not filling a stadium with his energy. 

And Roseanne Barr has presence–she radiates mischief.  Sarah Palin too, although her presence comes more from combativeness.

All of these people  have presence—a magical aura that makes them appealing to others.  We suppose they were born with it, they did nothing to cultivate it, and they didn’t have to do anything to send it our way.  It just leapt off them like light off a mirror.
 
I will challenge that notion for the next month, until October 15th.  I will argue that all kinds of people can have presence, that it is a multi-dimensional attribute that can be cultivated, and that it can be thrust upon all of us by the circumstances of life’s ups and downs.
 
So my assignment is to answer two questions:  What is presence?  And how do you get it?

Stay tuned for a month of presence.

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.

The advice was sound for structuring a formal talk, but I couldn’t conceive of an elevator speech lasting three minutes.

I could see an elevator dialogue being three minutes long, but not an elevator speech!

Three minutes in an elevator listening to someone trying to sell me on her business sounds like an eternity.  Three minutes at the water cooler would be half an eternity. And three minutes at a networking event would be long enough to make me look for the guy passing the little crab cakes. 

We all recognize the increasing value of brevity and concision, but three minutes does not feel brief and concise in an elevator, or any other social or public setting.  

I recommend an elevator dialogue that starts with an elevator question.

How about this for a starter after you’ve rubbed elbows with (and introduced yourself to) a VP of Marketing.  You ask each other questions, he finds out you’re an expert in the principles and practices of persuasion, and then you ask him if you can give him your value proposition.

“How long is it?” he’s bound to ask.  If you say three minutes, you’re dead in the water. 

You say, “Short,” and begin. 

“What is the value of your Brand Directors being able to make their plans clear and exciting to the organization?”

The answer should be, ” Uh…that’s important.”

You say, “Why is it important?”

And he says, “Because it saves time and money, reduces indecision, and gets the whole machine humming — it improves the vitality and energy of corporate life.”

Then you ask, “How are your Brand Director’s doing?”

He says, “Okay.”

“What if they were doing great?  What if you could take time and cost out of the marketing process, and at the same time electrify the brand teams?”

He might look at you a little skeptically at that point, but admire you for your enthusiasm.

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” he might say.

And you, taking the bull by the horns, say, “Listen.  Every day, information is sneaking off to make babies with other information.  The world is overrun with information, and it’s only getting worse.  The most valuable thing on this planet is a person who can create a sense of clarity and alignment out of the tsunami of information that demands our attention.  The ability to communicate well is a hard corporate asset masquerading as a soft skill.  It’s the ultimate competitive weapon.  And that weapon can only be developed through training.”

He looks at you, and says, “You really believe this, don’t you?”

You say, “Yes, I do.  I’d like to schedule an appointment with you to show you how my company can save you time, money, and frustration, and give you the one competitive advantage that is hard to replicate overnight.”

And more than likely, he’ll say, “Okay, give my assistant a call and get it on the books.”

How long was that?  A minute and 10 seconds.  And it wasn’t a monologue.  Yes, it had a speechy part, but it was based on asking questions, listening, and asking follow up questions.  And only once, when he tried to dismiss the argument, did you get on your high horse and get salesy. 

The world has hype-fatigue.  Engage in dialogue.  Don’t make speeches in elevators.

Amazingly, they don’t offer any developmental support for people coming into the job.  But she pushed her boss for help, and he relented.

Here’s a rough summary of what I learned about her experience in pharma marketing.  In the spirit of full disclosure, I have not heard this before, and I have been deep into pharma marketing for 20 years.

1. Everyone wants to get promoted.  The easiest way to get promoted is to get visibility in front of senior people.  And the easiest way to get visibility is to present to them.

2.  If you’re not a good presenter, your boss will know it and will be reluctant to stand you up in front of the senior execs.  She could be afraid it will hurt your career chances and her image as an up-and-coming executive who is the fire under a red-hot group of high achievers.

3. Presenting marketing information internally is essentially selling ideas, and if you can’t get listeners to understand and believe in your idea, they are unlikely to see you as a good marketer, even though your ideas may be strong.

4.  Finally, everyone listening to your presentation is so busy that they don’t want presentations to go on for too long, and therefore they don’t ask questions.  They’re afraid of being seen as the “problem” person, or the “know-it-all” who makes everyone else look bad.   She said the preferred method of presenting is, “1, 2, 3…Poof!”

This means that you show your slide, say up to three things about it in a confident voice, and then move to the next slide (as in “Poof.  It’s gone!”)  Everyone will be pleased that you got through your material quickly, and displayed confidence and conviction as you spoke. 

5.  Finally, while every product and market is different, the process of marketing is the same across brands.  This causes many presentations to look and sound the same, i.e., they’re boring.  So listeners like it when you’re articulate, energetic, and concise because you save them from the embarrassment of falling asleep.

She says you’re especially valued  if you have a highly expressive voice.

Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun in this big pharma.  But if you want the rewards–the promotion and the fatter check– you gotta  sing for your supper. 

And the name of the song you have to sing?  “1, 2, 3…Poof!”

My father and I graduated from the same high school, 25 years apart. This past weekend we went to our reunion and watched as one of Dad’s classmates won the lifetime achievement award for his work in cancer research.

The winner was a distinguished gent, a good friend of my father, and a slow, but charming speaker. He told funny stories of his time at the school, and only at the end did he mention his work.

I happen to know, thanks to Dad, that the prize winner’s wife has been a a tower of strength over the years, but he never mentioned her as he recounted the story of his career. There she was, sitting in the front row, but not a single acknowledgment came her way.

The speech was largely well-received, and I certainly enjoyed the stories, but it would have been even better if it had included a gracious and loving tip of the hat to his spouse of sixty-odd years.

Such a remark would have alerted the audience that she was present in the hall, and would have made the remarkable accomplishments of the speaker’s professional life even more salient by drawing attention to his personal graciousness and private character.