My friend Wick Smith told me about this approach to messaging. Wick has been in advertising for many years, primarily in Asia. He speaks Japanese and is an incredibly resourceful and creative person.

The Wick Smith Approach is based on the four elements in an ad:

The Headline, The Image, The Body Copy, The Logo

Each one has a role to play, and each viewer will have his or her own preference as to which is most important.

The Headline is the big idea or the claim being made by the ad. People who like the big picture and avoid the details prefer to read the headline.  Since people make decisions out of fear or desire, a headline should target one of those emotions.

The Image appeals to the visual thinker. The Image could evoke a problem that needs to be solved, or an aspiration that the viewer has. Either one stimulates the emotions and moves the viewer to action.

The Body Copy is meant to give the reader reasons to buy—some would even say “permission” to buy. For instance, expensive chocolate companies often compose body copy trying to convince prospects that they are “worth it,” and deserve a little luxury in their lives.

Finally, the Logo is meant to build the relationship. It is the identity of the company, and therefore the sign of trust and reliability, or perhaps of excitement (Ferrari) or innovation (Apple), or perhaps luxury (Tiffany).

Speeches and presentations need all four of these elements.

First, the Headline. The speaker should be able to articulate the Headline, or premise of the talk, in one simple sentence. For instance, “Everyone can become a better speaker,” is the premise of this blog (and this article.)

PowerPoint should be used to supply visuals to support the spoken word, or if the speaker chooses to NOT USE POWERPOINT, he can tell stories or use metaphors and analogies to paint pictures in the mind of the listeners.

In a presentation, Body Copy is the proof you marshall under your claims. Each slide should have a Headline that makes a claim, and the imagery or data on the slide should supply the evidence that the headline is a valid conclusion.

It is ill-advised to put body copy on a slide because it is hard for the audience to read slides and listen at the same time.

Much better to put dramatic imagery on your slides and put the detailed narrative in the notes section of the PowerPoint page.

Finally,  in a presentation, the Logo is YOU. You are not a corporation. You are a person, and your behaviors and look should be consistent with the message you strive to impart.

Furthermore, the presentation should be all about the audience, not all about how cool you, your company, product, or ideas are. So, in a sales presentation, I suggest that you remove your company Logo from all your slides except the title slide.  Instead, put your prospect’s Logo on the slides.

Conclusion: Good ads persuade us to buy through four channels of communication:

1.  The claim,  generalization, or summary headline

2.  The details and evidence to prove that the headline is true and valid

3.  An image that enables us to feel the benefit of the offering

4.  A logo, or a branded source of information, that strives to earn our trust in the argument being made.

Speeches and presentations have similar elements: Key take-aways! Data, facts and other forms of proof (such as stories) that justify the key-takeaways! And Imagery on the slides or created in the mind of the audience by the speaker telling vivid stories!

And then there is you, the speaker, the source of the information. Your comfort, confidence and ease on stage help you generate the willing suspension of disbelief amongst your listeners, which allows them to take a chance on you and your idea.

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills andpublic 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.

Henry Higgins was right.  The moment we open our mouths to speak, people judge us.  If we have New York accents, we get stereotyped.  If we speak with a southern drawl, same thing, different stereotype.  And if we speak like a professor, I would bet that many people avoid us like the plague.

Of course, we can overcome these stereotypes with the positive qualities of our character.  We can sound like Tony Soprano and act like Mr. Rogers.  But the lingering effect of the stereotype remains.

In our practice at Sims Wyeth & Co.  we are asked to improve the voice and speech of employees whose are having trouble being heard.  This takes several different forms.

First, there are those who have difficulty getting to the point.  This is most likely a thinking problem and a habit with obscure roots, not a voice and speech problem.

Then there are those who speak English as a second language.  We are a country of immigrants, but when 12 individuals in one department come from 10 different countries, there are many accents and many sets of ears trying to listen to many different pronunciations of English.  If the conversations are crucial to strategic business issues, it’s a problem.

Then we have some good old American mumblers.  These people need to learn how to use their articulators.

And then there are fast talkers, slow talkers, close talkers, soft talkers, and too-loud talkers.  And up-talkers, nose-talkers, and talkers who sound like they have marbles in their mouths.

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.

 

Everywhere on earth man is born with a voice able to rouse households from their slumbers.

And everywhere in business, he struggles to keep his listeners attentive to his presentations.

 

 

Vocal power

We underestimate the importance of the human voice and we do so at our peril. 

Surgeons are more likely to be sued when their tone is too authoritative.  Air traffic control is more apt to keep planes in fatally prolonged holding patterns when pilots request permission to land without expressing urgency. And business presenters, who may be dealing with dry material, are doomed to lose listeners if they cannot set their reasoning on fire with passion and conviction.

Reason with passion

Of course, too much passion may lack credibility, but business presenters would do well to communicate excitement! I often hear from clients that they can’t express excitement because the material is so dry.  And I reply that the drier the material, the greater the need to make it relevant and appealing to the audience.

Think of a pair of scissors.  One blade is reason, the other is passion.  In a good presentation, it is hard to know which blade does the cutting.

The voice that lost the client

One of my first clients was the consulting arm of KPMG now known as BearingPoint.  When they called me, the firm had  lost a major sale because, they were told, the presenters had sounded bored.  The prospect did not want to hire a firm that was not excited about the engagement.   They wanted me to help, and here’s what I did.

Human bag-pipe

The first thing I did was teach them to breathe properly-by filling the lungs and then contracting the  abdominal muscles to drive the breath up and out to strike the vocal cords with force and thus create a full sound.

Sound making for humans is the same as it is for bag pipes.  Pipers fill their goat skins (their bags) with air, and then squeeze the skins to release the air to produce sound.  Same with people-sort of.

We fill our lungs with air, then squeeze our lungs with our lower abdominal and intercostal muscles (those between the ribs) to push out the air and create vibrations in our vocal cords which produce speech.

However, if we don’t take in enough air, or we don’t use our muscles properly, we won’t have enough energy to make our voices rich and powerful.

Uncork the bottle neck

Next I had to uncork the bottle neck.  It’s amazing how many people try to talk without really opening their mouths and throats.  In order to teach this basic skill,  I introduced the yawning exercise, which stimulates the throat to open wide, and the “Floppy Jaw” exercise, which teaches how to open the mouth all the way for each and every syllable spoken.  Both these exercises made the consultants sound like morons, which is very upsetting for people who are 1000% invested in appearing to be highly intelligent.  But the experience reminded them that “to speak is to make a noise,” and noise, like music, has emotional qualities.

“You won’t believe it!”

Then, I modeled the “You won’t believe it,” exercise.  I asked each of them, one at a time, to cup their hands around their lips and call out across the Grand Canyon to their friend Joe.

“Hey, Joe!  You won’t believe it!  I found the most amazing thing!  You gotta get over here to see this!”

“What is it?” Joe yells back.

Here I would coach and say, “More excited!  More amazed! More buzzing with energy!”

The exuberant, long-distance dialogue would continue.

“I found the most amazing consulting firm.  They have this process designed to streamline the financial systems of global companies.  It’s amazing!”

“All right, I’m coming,” Joe yells.

At first, clients struggle with the exercise, but soon they get the picture.  They realize that a significant portion of their emotional impact on others depends on their verbal and vocal expressiveness.

Phone charisma

Most of us think that charisma-that magical appeal that some people exude-has something to do with beauty!   It doesn’t.  It has more to do with communication-the ability to send and receive emotional signals.

It is widely believed that the ability to communicate emotion over the phone, without the support of gestures and facial expressions, is a good indicator of your capacity for charisma.

To explore this, I asked my consultants to team up with a colleague and sit down in separate chairs with their backs to each other, taking turns speaking as though on the phone.

They either improvised a conversation, or used a script like this:

Jack?  This is Jill.  You won’t believe what just happened.  Frank went into Bob’s office and told him he was quitting.  (Listening)  Yes!  Flat out.  He told him everything-that he was sick and tired of Frank’s meddling, that he was tired of being the last one to know, and…(listening) He’s already gone.  He took his coat and left.  Cindy saw him storm out.  He was beet red-I mean crimson!

While each participant took the part of Jack, the other consultants served as Olympic judges.  At the end of each performance they held up papers with scores. The room resounded with lusty cheers for great vocal variety.

On a more technical note

English works best when a change of pitch occurs at every stressed syllable. To address this aspect of vocal expressiveness, I gave them a passage to read aloud . 

Developed in 1941 by a committee from the faculties of Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, among others, it describes a vision of a liberally educated person.

The liberally educated man is articulate, both in speech and in writing. He has a feel for language, a respect for clarity and directness of expression, and a knowledge of some language other than his own. He is at home in the world of quantity, number and measurement. He thinks rationally, logically, and objectively, and knows the difference between fact and opinion. When occasion demands, however, his thought is imaginative and creative rather than logical. He is perceptive, sensitive to form, and affected by beauty.

I found that introducing movement techniques helped with identifying speech patterns.  As participants used their hands to “hit” the stressed syllables, they more readily brought emphasis and meaning to the text. 

In addition to using the body to connect to expressiveness, I also asked them to use their imaginations.  Some people responded to the suggestion that they speak like an eccentric British professor.  Once they allowed themselves the freedom, they began to pontificate with greater color and expression.

And there was one consultant who channeled  a pompous Southern Senator.  It helped him to imagine he was stepping inside the skin of the senator, just as a hand fits inside a puppet. You step into the skin of a good-ole-boy Senator from Alabama, and all of a sudden, you’ve got a voice that can raise the rafters.

Caveat speaker

These exercises are meant for practice.  They are stretching exercises for the voice.  Just as dancers extend their legs at the barre,  and pianists practice scales, speakers need  to awaken their most human instrument-the voice.

And if you know someone who thinks this approach  is foolishness, let me give you a few words of advice.

Admittedly, we have fixed traits-such as shyness, perhaps, or an unflappable reserve. But we also have free traits-behaviors that are outside our comfort zones that we can embrace for projects aligned with our deepest values.

For instance, many professors are introverts, but in order to earn a living, they force themselves to give lectures.  And if they want to attract many students, and not have the dean drop their course due to lack of interest, they may even strive to improve their lecturing skills.  Who knows? They may even try to improve the quality of their speaking voice.

These professors choose to act out of character in order to do their jobs well. One definition of courage is acting out of character!

If your mind is sharp but your voice is dull, your ideas may not cut through the clutter.

Your greatest calling card is a pleasing and effective voice.  I urge you to explore your most human instrument.