Tag Archive for 'taglines'

Craft an Exceptional Elevator Pitch

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A suggested outline for an elevator pitch from Penny C. Sansevieri at Huffington Post

While it is written with a book author in mind, you can apply it to different situations.

Speech Analysis by The One Minute Presenter on Sir Ken Robinson’s Feb 2010 TED speech: Bring on the learning revolution

Published on in Create Your Connection, Deliver with Style, interaction, Memory, produce your message and Resources. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , .

In this follow up to his famous 2006 TED talk, Sir Ken Robinson makes the case for a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning — creating conditions where kids’ natural talents can flourish.

Sir Ken Robinson is a creativity expert and in this talks asks the question, “Why don’t we get the best out of people?” He argues that it’s because we’ve been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies — far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity — are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. “We are educating people out of their creativity,” Robinson says. [Source: TED.com]

Here is my breakdown of the speech. The things that are great about the speech are:

  • Metaphors help make your big ideas easier to grasp

  • Crafting taglines is a discipline in finding simplicity in your (complex) ideas

  • Telling a story that engages is an advanced skill

  • Closing quote can make your message stick

The areas that could be improved include:

  • Making humour work is a funny thing

  • Do you lose credibility if you use shaky facts?

  • Audience interaction is not only about a show of hands

Type of presentation

This is a follow up talk from his highly acclaimed 2006 TED speech and as such the expectations are higher. While well received by the audience, it is hard to imagine that this talk will have as much impact, as the message is lost among the jokes. Well written taglines are the highlight and although the closing quotation is beautifully chosen and delivered it is not exactly related to the idea of creating a learning revolution.

Metaphors help make your big ideas easier to grasp

Robinson uses three major metaphors in this talk, and they all work well.

1. Compares crisis in natural resource with the crisis in human resources (starts 02:30)

although the set up to this metaphor was not accurately made. Robinson says there is a “second climate crisis” when he actually means “ a second crisis”.

This metaphor is followed up later by saying “Human resource like natural resources are buried deep, you have to go looking for them” (04:15). Good analogy.

2. Comparing the education system with fast food. Results are a similar depleting of spirits and energies as fast food depletes the body. (13:00). This really hits home it’s point.

3. Education is like manufacturing (conformity and batching people) (14:35)

What we need now is one based on agriculture … an “organic process” (14:55)

This is a nice comparison and one that is not only easily understood it catches the zeitgeist as organic food is becoming a growing trend, especially among the typical TED talks viewer.

Warwick’s coaching tip: Finding a metaphor or model to frame your ideas on can be an excellent way to convey your message. Vivid metaphors will help the audience remember your big ideas and overall message.

Crafting taglines is a discipline in finding simplicity in your (complex) ideas

Warwick’s coaching tip: Robinson is a thoughtful speaker (in between the jokes) and this reflects the deeper thinking he has done on his topic. A good tip for every speaker is to leave the audience with the feeling that you know a lot more on your subject that you could possibly cover in your talk.

This depth is shown in the clarity and concisely of his taglines or sound bites. Robinson has helped the audience do the thinking by making the complex really rather simple to understand – a significant asset for everyone who wishes to be influential.

Good examples of taglines include:

“this is not a crisis of natural resources…but a crisis of human resources” (02:23)

“we make very poor use of our talents” (02:30)

“that’s simply improving a broken model” (04:40)

“what we need is not an evolution, but a revolution in education. This has to be transformed into something else.” (04:50)

“it’s a single function device” (when talking about a watch) (08:15)

“life is not linear, it’s organic” (08:55)

“we are obsessed about getting people to college\” (09:15)

“human communities depend upon a diversity of talent, not a singular conception of ability” (10:50)

“college begins in kindergarten….[pause]… no it doesn’t” (11:15)

“a friend of mine once said a 3 year old is not half a six year old” (11:40)

“we have built our education system on the model of fast food” (12:45)

Telling a story that engages is an advanced skill

The fireman story (starts 09:20 – 10:40) makes a strong point on the value of having diverse talent in a community.

The example of three year old children being interviewed by “unimpressed panels” with resumes (12:00) hilariously brings out the ludicrous nature of how competitive early education has become.

Warwick’s coaching tip: When selecting appropriate stories and anecdotes ask yourself does the impact part (memorable) of the story align with the main message you want the audience to takeaway.

Closing quote can make your message stick

Choosing a quotation that sums up your message can be powerful technique. Like every tool, it can be misused. The trick is to find as close a match as possible to the quotation’s message and your overall speech message. Robinson chose a WB Yeats quotation (starts 16:40) which was beautifully connected to a powerful closing thought of “tread softly on our children’s dreams”. While a lovely closing, it is a little out of synch with the message of creating a learning revolution.

Overall this was a well received presentation, but there were a few areas which could have been improved.

Making humour work is a funny thing

While some of these jokes got an audience reaction, I did not like them as I felt they were often a shallow attempt at humour that did not develop or carry his ideas forward. Toward the end of the talk, the reaction from the audience dropped.

Example: ‘there is a hunger for videos of me’ (01:00) got a good laugh but really is too self indulgent for my tastes, especially when the set up used shaky facts (see below).

“I only had 18 minutes frankly..” – audience did not react, perhaps because all speakers have 18 minutes. (01:38)

“so as I was saying” (01:40)- again the audience laughed but it comes across as a little self-indulgent when being invited back to TED was an honour not made to many other speakers.

“if you don’t believe there is a major climate crisis, you should get out more” – audience did not react perhaps because the point is not really clear (01:50)

“I divide the world into two groups” (02:55) – while this got a good laugh, his follow up point did not come out so clearly. His point was that there are two groups of people in the world, those that “endure” and those that “enjoy” (03:30)

The joke about American history not being taught in Britain (05:50) while getting a laugh does not really add any impact to this message. And the set up referring to his lack of knowledge of what was happening in American at that time could have been cut out.

“it’s difficult to know what it is you take for granted. And the reason is you take it for granted” (07:10). Not that funny.

The anecdote about receiving his first guitar at the same time that Eric Clapton did worked well, “…it wouldn’t work no matter how hard I blew into it” (13:30)

This uses the element of surprise, self-deprecating humour and exaggeration to get a good audience response.

Do you lose credibility if you use shaky facts?

In the opening to the talk, Robinson explained that 4 million downloads of his 2006 talk had been made, so if you multiply that by 20 you get the number of people who had seen his previous talk. It seems hard to believe that such large groups of people are sitting around watching online TED videos. This multiplier is a rule of thumb often applied to print media which for example if a newspaper or magazine is placed in a library or office would be read multiple times by different people. I am not so convinced it applies to a world of individual downloads.

Warwick’s coaching tip: The opening of a speech should be about building credibility, and Robinson was doing this by sharing how many people had seen his previous talk. Instead of his comment “there is a hunger for videos of me” which seems bizarre, perhaps a better retort would have been to express surprise, shock or amazement. By bringing in some humbleness he would have come across as credible and not self-aggrandizing.

Audience interaction is not only about a show of hands

In this attempt at audience interaction – always a tricky part to navigate in any large conference talk – Robinson uses the “put your hands up” technique. A trusted – if rather overused staple of conference speakers. The problem with this type of interaction is that it comes across as superficial and many people don’t like engaging in this type of interaction due to its overuse.

The interaction starts by asking who was over the age of 25, and wearing a wristwatch. (07:20). The underlying premise is that people under 25 won’t wear a watch because it is a “single function device” [great tagline] and that everyone over 25 wears a watch to tell the time. But do they? Personally I don’t always wear a watch but when I do its more because I like the feeling of being “dressed up” and other people will wear watches for aesthetic reasons or – if you have spent thousands of dollars on a luxury watch– as a status statement. People over the age of 25 wear watches for many different reasons.

Warwick’s coaching tip: A better approach would have been to ask the audience what they thought his daughter called a watch. The answer of a “single function device” would have got a good laugh (as it did when he used it after this interaction) and would have made a clear point on how younger people view the world differently.

Conclusion

This was a well delivered and generally well received talk. While there are very strong aspects to the talk notably the metaphors and taglines used, a greater impact could have been made by making the big idea more visible. What is the learning revolution that is needed? Besides from being organic, how can it be created? Even high level, inspirational speeches need to suggest a direction for the audience to go following the talk. Not as impactful as the 2006 talk. I think this was a 5 out of 10.

To see Warwick’s analysis of Sir Ken Robinson’s 2006 TED Talk speech, click here.

About the Author

Warwick J Fahy

“Warwick helps C-level executives, working in multinational companies based in Greater China, who struggle to get their point across and influence their key stakeholders. Warwick helps the executive project their message with confidence allowing them to express their opinions powerfully and gain respect from senior managers even when under pressure.”  Learn more about who I help here.

Warwick is the author of “The One Minute Presenter: 8 steps to successful business presentations in a short attention span world”.

Now available on Amazon.com.

Sign up to “52 Tips to more confident public speaking” newsletter at www.warwickjohnfahy.com

Senior Finance Executives: Are you struggling to convince your boss in your presentations?

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Learn how to turn your technical presentations into engaging message-based presentations that get your boss’ attention and will cut your presentation time in half

Technical ability alone will not help senior finance executive’s get promoted
Many senior finance executives in China have risen the corporate ladder on the back of their solid technical ability and operational skills. They have been able to ride the massive growth in China over the past decade by combining a strong technical grasp and an aptitude to understand their client’s needs in compliance and financing.

These senior executives are often held up as future country or regional Chief Financial Officers (CFOs). However, one significant obstacle awaits many finances executives – their strength in technical issues. Many senior finance executives are too focused on the details, the process and procedures. So when presenting to CEOs, board of directors or  overseas directors, they are frustrated by their inability to get their point across without being bombarded by direct questions, interrupted constantly in their presentation and feeling of being harassed by senior management.  While technical skills got them to where they are today, they can’t take them any further in their careers.

It doesn’t have to be that way. They don’t need to be stuck here forever.

Senior finance executives who can present effectively are highly marketable
Presentations to senior management often cause nerves and tension in any presenter. Many technical presenters – especially in finance – are naturally introverted and when faced with A-type personalities they are often talked-over or easily interrupted. However, by learning some important skills in presentation creation and delivery, even shy and quiet presenters can learn how to get their point across to their CEO in a concise, crisp and engaging way. Importantly, their presentations can be delivered in a much shorter time – which both the senior finance executive and the CEO and directors appreciate! Having a reputation as a CFO who both understands the business and can deliver sharp presentations is a great asset to career promotion. Once learned, these skills deliver a fantastic return-on-investment year-in, year-out.

So if you are currently stuck by delivering overly detailed technical presentations to a group of frustrated senior managers, you are not alone.

Too much information often kills the effectiveness of your presentation
If any of the above sounds familiar, don’t worry, you are not alone. In fact, you are in good company. Most senior finance people have similar issues. Being technical experts means you are focused on process, procedure, the small nitty gritty details of data. All of which is essential – and desirable – in finance executives. However, when you reach the C-level, these technical skills become less important as the core task of an executive is to make decisions and communicate them throughout the organisation. All highly effective executives are superb communicators and presenters. Today, when hiring decisions are made  on the CFO or CEO role -the ability to engage with internal and external stakeholders is one of the most important competencies.

However, as a finance expert, you can’t be expected to automatically know what it takes to create message based presentations that engage your audience in the shortest possible time – you are not an advertising company. The good news is that help is here and you can learn these skills.

Advice from The One Minute Presenter
To take a step away from being a technical expert and learning the craft of an effective executive communicator, you first need to understand taglines.

What is a tagline?
Taglines are short catchy marketing phrases which sum up the promise of a brand (or product or movie), and are designed to be memorable and easily passed through a target audience. A good tagline can stand the test of time and become synonymous with a company or product. The 1975-2005 “Don’t leave home without it” from American Express and the 1988 “Just do it” from Nike taglines show how the power of taglines can carry over into building the world’s most valuable brands.

What is your tagline?
Take a look at your next presentation. Use these steps to form your tagline:

1. Write down your happy ending in 25-50 words. In other words what do you want to achieve at the end of the presentation. What do you want the audience to think, feel and do. Be as specific as you can.

2. Take a break and come back to this paragraph.  Highlight key words or phrases. Now imagine you only had time to deliver one sentence to your audience. Keep the value and meaning of your message. Rewrite it in 10 words or less.

3. Put this aside for several hours or longer. Come back and see which words really sum up the essence of your message. Pick out your key words or phrases.

For The One Minute Presenter, our nine word tagline is “successful business presentations for a short attention span world”.  We use two key phrases: successful business presentations and short attention spans.

You now have focus in your presentation. This will help you structure your presentation framework. You can check your supporting points, and choice of visuals (charts, graphs, statistics) against your key words. Ask yourself, “How does this support my key words?”
With practice, you will be able to quickly get to your key words(s) in a shorter time. It will be a challenge the first few times you try this exercise. Stick with it. You need the focus to capture and engage today’s audiences. The clearer your message, the more effective your presentations.

Be aware when you present your ideas
Make your message tangible. Don’t make your audience work it out. If you make them think during a presentation, then while they are thinking, they cannot be listening to your subsequent words. Dr. John Medina, author of Brain Rules, vividly demonstrates how the human brain is ill equipped to handle two processing tasks simultaneously. “Driving while talking on a cell phone is worse than driving drunk.” This is because the human brain uses something called the attentional spotlight. The attentional spotlight, according to Dr. Medina, cannot multitask which means cellphone-talking car drivers have the same reaction time (when stopping) as a drunk driver. So don’t make your audiences think! Do the thinking for them.  Know where you want to take them, shape a clear concept of your overall message, use stories to engage and bite-size your content with slogans, soundbites and taglines. Puzzles are great for long train and plane journeys, but not for successful business presentations.

Many CFOs have benefited from The One Minute Presenter coaching
I work with many CFOs from multinationals around Greater China. Just recently, after helping one senior executive  to understand how to create a message-based presentation from their technical data, she told me that her presentation to the board of directors went much more smoothly and took less time than previous years. Importantly, she was interrupted much less with sharp questions. She is now able to apply these skills in other areas of her work, such as conference calls, client meetings and internal senior manager briefings.

So what now?
If you are ready to take a step up in your career, and want to learn how to be a more powerful communicator, then visit www.oneminutepresenter.com and download a free chapter on how The One Minute Presenter system works to help you develop more executive presence.

About Warwick J Fahy
Warwick works with high-potential senior finance executives who struggle to get their point across and influence their key stakeholders. Warwick helps the executive gain respect by quickly and powerfully expressing their opinions – even when under pressure.

Warwick is the author of “The One Minute Presenter: 8 steps to successful business presentations in a short attention span world. Warwick can be reached on  +86 21 6101 0486.

CFOs: Do you find it challenging to express yourself clearly and concisely when your boss asks you a question?

Published on in Create Your Connection, executive presence and treasure your audience. Closed Tags: , .

You can quickly and powerfully learn how to express your opinions to important stakeholders –  even when under pressure.

Effective communication holds back most senior finance executives
If you are like most of our clients the skills that have made you successful in finance are often holding you back from being successful as an effective communicator. You feel nervous when you have to present to a group of senior managers. You have been told – or you have a feeling that – you often talk too much without getting to the point. You have been told that your future career prospects depend on improving your communication skills. You are good at preparing detailed slides but are not sure how to summarise the key message behind the numbers.

It doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t need to be stuck here forever

Many CFOs have transformed into excellent communicators
Imagine how impressed the faces of your colleagues look when they see you presenting with new found confidence and purpose. Hearing words of thanks and praise as your boss commends you for doing a great job in an important meeting. Imagine that you are able to craft and deliver an engaging presentation to senior management without spending weeks of preparation time. The satisfaction you feel when you are able to influence important decisions that affect the future of the company. The freedom in being able to concisely and powerfully communicate your thoughts to your boss. How confident you feel as you handle questions with direct, clear and relevant replies.

You are not alone.

You can learn how to switch from technical expert to effective executive
If any of the above sounds familiar, don’t worry, you are not alone. In fact, you are in good company. Most senior finance people have similar issues. Being technical experts means that you are focused on process, procedure, the integrity of data, and especially pay attention to very small details. All of which is essential – and desirable – in finance executives. However, when you reach a certain level in the organisation, these technical skills become less important as the core task of an executive is to make decisions and communicate them throughout the organisation. All highly effective executives are superb communicators and presenters and they set the benchmark for others to follow. Today, when decisions are made on who to hire as a CFO, CEO or other key role -the ability to engage with internal and external stakeholders is one of the top two or three competencies.

With the right support you can become a confident presenter
However, as a finance expert, you can’t be expected to automatically know what it takes to be an engaging and confident presenter – you are not an executive speech coach – and with the demands on finance executives already very much more than they were a few years ago, your time is squeezed so that executive communication skills has probably been relegated to only a couple days of training if at all. The good news is that help is here.

Top 5 pieces of advice from The One Minute Presenter
To take a step away from being a technical expert and learning the craft of an effective executive communicator, here are five things you need to do:

1. Learn to adjust to the audience
Many technical experts over focus on the data and numbers in their presentations. While the data is important or essential, you also need to consider the technical expertise of the audience and their expectations for the presentation. Learn how to adjust your content to match each audience.

2. Tell the story behind the numbers
If you are giving the same presentation without change time and time again, chances are you are being too content focused. Learn how to tell the story behind the numbers – especially for less technically adept audiences. Once you have the story which includes the key message and supporting messages, you will have greater flexibility with your content. Tailoring or adapting to different audiences will become easier and will not take a tremendous amount of time.

3. Tagline your key messages
Learn techniques from the advertising, movie and consumer industries by distilling your core messages into easily digestible phrases or taglines. These short phrases should be easy for you to remember and should flow off the tongue easily, so spend some time editing them until you are happy that they are easy to deliver. Taglines are both easy for the presenter and the audience to remember. By inserting taglines throughout the presentation, you will help clarify the core messages for the audience. You can also use collateral – like slidedecks and handout or posters to reinforce these messages. Once the audience remembers your tagline, they will remember your message.

4. Connect with your audience
Audiences today have shorter and shorter attention spans. In business, Blackberrys are ubiquitous and their stream of emails demands attention. If an audience gives you ten minutes of their undivided attention you are lucky. Instead, think of ways to engage with the audience so that they are glued to your performance. Simple techniques range from telling stories that illustrate the points you are making. Everyone loves listening to a good story, even in the business world. Consider using a range of relevant visuals from pictures and videos that help the audience to internalise the message. Other connecting techniques include asking rhetorical questions and using facilitation techniques to encourage audience participation.

5. Look them in the eye and project
While there are numerous presentation delivery techniques you can employ, two stand out. Firstly, eye contact is essential to engage with an audience. The more an individual in the audience feels you make direct eye contact with them, the longer they are likely to concentrate on you and your presentation. Complete a sentence or thought while looking at an individual before moving on so that your eye contact is smooth and natural. Secondly, your voice is your biggest tool to project decisiveness and confidence to your audience. Your voice should be loud enough for all the audience to hear you clearly and like a good story-teller you should vary your pitch, rate and intonation which makes your content more interesting to listen to and – through emphasis -helps your audience to understand where the key points are.

Many CFOs have benefited from The One Minute Presenter coaching
I work with many CFOs from multinationals around Greater China. Just recently, after helping one CFO to understand their communication style and specifically how to answer questions in a one-on-one meeting with his boss, he told me that he had cut the meeting time with his boss in half. And both of them were enjoying the meetings a lot more than the previous ones which dragged on frustratingly for both parties. Importantly, the CFO was also able to carry these skills into preparing and joining in conference calls, making presentations internally and externally and also with his own team.  The upshot is that he has a better relationship with his boss, which enhances promotion prospects, and he has improved his overall communication effectiveness with other important stakeholders.

So what now?
If you are ready to take a step up in your career, and want to learn how to be a more powerful communicator, then visit www.oneminutepresenter.com and download a free chapter on how The One Minute Presenter system works to help you develop more executive presence.

About Warwick J Fahy
Warwick works with high-potential senior finance executives who struggle to get their point across and influence their key stakeholders. Warwick helps the executive gain respect by quickly and powerfully expressing their opinions – even when under pressure.

Warwick is the author of “The One Minute Presenter: 8 steps to successful business presentations in a short attention span world. Warwick can be reached on warwick@oneminutepresenter.com and +86 21 6101 0486.

Links:
The One Minute Presenter available on Amazon.com: http://tinyurl.com/ylzx3dc
Book information and blog at www.oneminutepresenter.com

Web Site Resource: One-Minute Book Reviews

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I coach senior finance executives to craft memorable (hopefully!) messages and stories from often data-heavy presentations. Which is not always that easy. I teach them how to create taglines – short pithy phrases – that sum up vast amounts of data, rather than present 57 very dull slides crammed full of tables. Sometimes I am challenged by executives who find it tough to boil down their messsages to such short and catchy phrases. I admit it’s a skill which takes practice.

One great resource I have just come across which demonstrates this skill in bags is Janice Harayda‘s One-Minute Book Reviews site (no connection with The One Minute Presenter!). In a fantastic section called Books in a Sentence, Janice distills her opinion of the book into a short sentence (or two). It makes for great reading. Here are some of my favorites:

Managing Employees From Hell: Handling Idiots, Whiners, Slackers and Other Workplace Demons. By Gini Graham Scott. A much more useful guide to managing saboteurs at work than the insipid The Power of Nice.

Your Management Sucks: Why You Have to Declare War on Yourself … and Your Business. By Mark Stevens. No, the book does.

Beauty Junkies: Inside Our $15 Billion Obsession with Cosmetic Surgery. By Alex Kuczynski. An impressive blend of reporting and social commentary that may stand for years as a definitive book on the 21st-century cosmetic surgery boom.

Mystic River. By Dennis Lehane. Clint Eastwood shows, as with The Bridges of Madison County, that he’s a good director of bad books.

Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling/Career Strategies for Asians: The Essential Guide to Getting In, Moving Up, and Reaching the Top. By Jane Hyun. A former HR executive says that Asian-Americans can succeed at work partly by — surprise, surprise — “networking” and “mentoring.”

I highly recommend that you go and take a look at the others. If a book can be reduced to an informative sentence, can’t your presentation story be told in fewer words too?