Question 1. (Stated) “What do you do?â€
Question 2. (Thought, but not stated) “Why should I trust you?â€
So many entrepreneurs fail because they answer the first question, but they don’t have an answer to the second, unstated question. For many professionals, their credentials speak for themselves.
When even the smallest of businesses can have offices around the world these days, plus the inconvenience of air travel, teleconferencing and virtual meetings become increasingly popular and easy.
Well, maybe not easy. It’s still hard to hold someone’s attention by telephone, especially if you are not on a one-on-one phone call. If you are going to conduct a teleconference or virtual meeting over the phone with colleagues around the world, please keep these tips in mind:
There is an old Finnish saying, “Fire is a great slave but a horrible master.†The same is true of PowerPoint slides. The problem, of course, is that most people become slaves to their PowerPoint slides. They really, truly, do not want to be slaves to the PowerPoint, but, well, the slides are there, there’s not much time before the speech, and nothing can be done at this point.
Stop! It doesn’t have to be that way.
It’s fine to use notes and outlines when you are giving a speech—in fact I encourage people to do so. But the less noticeable your notes are to your audience, the better.
I don’t recommend that speakers tell “jokes.†But humor is great and getting people to laugh is fantastic when you are a speaker. But if you are going to tell a joke or a story that your audience can figure out is supposed to be humorous, then you need to deliver the humor relatively quickly.
According to a new survey from LaughLab (as reported in the June 2007 Men’s Health Magazine), a humor think tank (whatever that is) in England, found that the ideal length for a joke is 103 words.
Dress for Looking Like You Already Have Success.
Anytime you are giving a sales presentation, you must be concerned with not only your verbal message, but your non-verbal messages too. How you dress is a significant part of the non-verbal message you are communicating.
Every industry has its own standards of dress and dress for success—there is no one way of dressing for people. For example, the higher you go up in the world of high tech, the tackier you will seem if you wear an expensively tailored, hand-made suit.
Summer is around the corner and that means outdoor time in the sun. It also means you never know when you might be interviewed by a TV reporter at a Fourth of July Parade, a Memorial Day celebration or at a baseball game victory.
Here’s one key tip for the sunny months:
Don’t wear sunglasses when you are being interviewed on TV.
If you are a big star like Jack Nicholson or Bono and glasses are a part of your trademarked image, then wearing sunglasses is great. But for the rest of the world, wearing sunglasses during a media interview can make you look odd, or worse, like a criminal with something to hide.
In general, when you are being interviewed on television, the quieter the background, the better. Noise can be a distraction for the viewer and take away from your message and image.
But not always.
Sound can add to your story and message. Those of you who are regular listeners to National Public Radio or the BBC already know this when it comes to radio, but it applies to TV as well.
Preparing messages and ideas for a speech has about as much in common with preparing messages and ideas for an edited media interview as riding a bicycle does with cooking a soufflé. In other words, they are almost completely unrelated tasks.
The following are all objectives and concerns people commonly have when they are putting together a speech:
Without exception, every single one of these concerns will completely mess you up if you try to apply them when preparing your media message. When you are creating a message for the news media, here is where you should focus:
“We’re under the same scrutiny as (National Public Radio)—it doesn’t make sense,” Opie and Anthony, May 15th 2007 on their talk radio show in reaction to the news that they had received a 30 day suspension from their bosses at XM Radio.
Opie and Anthony are in the hot seat because they made obnoxious comments joking about raping Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The talk show duo is trying to defend itself by saying that they should not be held to the same standards as a government supported network such as NPR. Furthermore, the hosts feel they should receive a pass because they are on satellite radio, not commercial broadcast radio transmitted on the public airwaves (The Federal Communications Commission has not jurisdiction over Satellite radio)