Scott Lee Cohen Drops out of Lt. Gov Race
TJ walker looks at the media crisis management skills of Scott Lee Cohen as he drops out of the Illinois Lt. governor's race.
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There are three kinds of eye contact that presenters can have with audiences:
Staring at the floor, reading notes or staring at the PowerPoint slides-near zero percentage eye contact with audience. (this is what the worst speakers do)
Scanning the audience like a windshield wiper, maybe a fast one or a slow one.
Giving each individual in the audience personal eye contact for a full thought, about six seconds or so (world-class professional speakers like Bill Clinton do this).
If you do # 1 you won’t be a pretty good presenter; you will be flat out awful.
If you try to do #3 you will likely get flustered and frustrated.
So my recommendation is that you try #2. Just look around the room. You can scan the room fast or slow, although the slower the better. If you can lock eyes with a few people around the room, so much the better. Try to look at every part of the room. If you ignore any one part of the room, that part of the room will ignore you back.
The main issue you have to decide is this: are you going to ignore the people in the room or are you going to look at people. If you look at people, they will look back at you and there is a great chance you will give a pretty good presentation. If you don’t look at people, then there is a good chance that they will, in turn, ignore you and there is a great chance that you will give an awful presentation. It really is that simple.
It’s OK, to look at notes from time to time, especially if you can do it in conjunction with picking up a glass of water, putting down a glass of water or appearing to push the advanced button on your projector.
More Insights from TJ Walker & Jess Todtfeld
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Honing your Skills for Consistently Great Presentations
Whether you are a CEO of a public company, an entrepreneur seeking venture capital or a street preacher, never forget that speaking is primarily about conveying positive emotions between you and your audience.
Don't try to survive every speech, try to improve every speech over the last one.
Your colleagues and competitors spent on average 12, 16, or even 20 years of daily instruction on how to write well in school, but most of them never received more than 15 minutes on how to speak well. This is an opportunity for you because it means that with only a little time and effort, you can out-shine your competitors.
Create a list of speaking goals and a timeline.
Internalize your message in your gut.
Read every book you can find on making speeches.
Constantly edit and improve your speech after every speaking engagement.
Being Called in as an Expert for an Interview
The topic of the story isn’t you, but is about broader issues affecting your industry.
The topic of the interview is not a crisis that affects you or your organization.
You are so comfortable and confident during an interview that you can think in your normal “real time” manner.
If all of the above items are not in place, you are asking for big trouble. But if you are set, then you may proceed.
In this interview format, you are freewheeling. You must be listening to every nuance of the reporter’s questions, providing great substance answers, AND you must be packaging your answers in dramatic and vivid style.
You must be thinking and speaking both substance and sound bites at the very same time. You must be a little more “out there” or run the risk of your competitors hogging more ink or airtime away from you.
You can’t say stupid things, or you will destroy your credibility.
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