communicate respond

Ta l k Yo u r Wa y t o t h e To p
How to Address Any Audience
Like Your Career Depends On It.

website: www.communispond.com email address: info@communispond.com Phone: 1-800 843 5168

Talk Your Way to the Top
How to Address Any Audience Like Your Career Depends on It
We have a saying at Communispond: “Every
business challenge is a communications
challenge.” At first, it may sound like one
of those simple “So what?” axioms, often
heard in the business world, that are im-
possible to disagree with because it’s impos-
sible to find any deeper meaning behind
them. But think about it a little more.
Try to name one business challenge that
doesn’t hinge on effective communication.
Increasing sales, using advertising and mar-
keting, recruiting and retaining employees,
cultivating strategic leadership, inculcating
an organizational vision, improving investor
relations, changing how your company or
product is perceived, launching new busi-
ness initiatives: they all depend on strong,
carefully developed, well-executed commu-
nication. You may have the best product or
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service. You may develop the best ideas.
You may have the most talent-rich organi-
zation and deepest resources. You may have
the best business plan. If you don’t com-
municate what they mean to your various
communicate
internal or external audiences, none of
them will matter. It’s not just the message
—it’s how the message is delivered.
Here’s an example. I’ll never forget my
first experience with the new business
development team for the J. Walter
Thompson advertising agency. We had
an opportunity to make a presentation
2 Talk Your Way to the Top: How to Address Any Audience Like Your Career Depends On It.
for a $50-million account. We were up
against four or five other top agencies.
We knew that the presentation was every-
thing. We needed to highlight our talents,
our creativity, our skills, our people, and our
accomplishments. The presentation would
be made up of many parts and many people.
We created an agenda, identified the presen-
ters, and rehearsed the presentation (more
than once).
When the big day arrived, the client showed
up with his team of eight people. They were
taken to the main conference room, which
had been designed as a mini-theater for just
this purpose. Eleven different people from
our agency participated in the presentation.
They were the cream of the crop, the best
that JWT had to offer, yet they ranked “good,
not great” as presenters. Our material was
first class but, with a couple of exceptions,
our presenters weren’t. We knew that the
presentation had to “knock the lights out”
for us to win the account. Alas, the lights
were still on when we finished. We didn’t
get the business. The best efforts of the
top people of the number one advertising
The presentation is a
“moment of truth” for the
presenter. We can’t hide. We are
exposed, for better or worse.
agency in the world were not good enough
because our communication skills were
not good enough.

I came to realize that, in the advertising

business (and every other business too),
decisions were made in response to an oral
presentation, rather than a written pro-
posal. The proposal was important. But the
differentiator was the presentation. Clients
could see and hear and sense what the
recommendation was all about. They
could ask questions. The presentation is
a “moment of truth” for the presenter. We
can’t hide. We are exposed, for better or
worse. The listeners decide whether they
like us, believe us, trust us, and perceive
whether we are secure with ourselves and
confident in what we are saying. The view-
ers can see us think on the spot and judge
how smart we are. In other words, it all
comes down to communication.
Overcoming Your Fear of Speaking
Just as effective communication skills are
Of course, knowing the importance of
vital to organizations as a whole, they are
strong speaking and presentation skills
even more critical to the success of the in-
does not change one crucial fact: you still
dividuals within those organizations. Every
have to stand up and speak. And for most
career challenge, like every business chal-
people, that’s a problem. It’s intimidating.
lenge, involves communication-whether it’s
In fact, it can be downright scary.
running a smooth meeting, making presen-
tations to senior executives, persuasively I remember an ad some years ago for
delivering your point of view (sometimes in a public speaking course. The headline

disagreement with the boss), or conducting
a successful business lunch.
Success and good communication skills
build upon each other. Even more so than
people just starting their careers, successful
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read, “There are only two times when
you’re truly alone. Just before you die, and
just before you give a speech.” If that’s also
how you feel, here’s a consolation: you’re
in good company. Most businesspeople
communicate

are nervous about standing before a group

businesspeople need strong speaking and
presentation skills because they receive
more opportunities to communicate in
front of groups of people. And, ironically,
the better you are at communication, the
more successful you can become, since
leadership gravitates toward people who
can speak well in front of a group.
and making a presentation.
Benjamin Disraeli, one of the greatest
prime ministers of Britain, once said that
he would rather have led a cavalry charge
than faced the House of Commons for the
first time. William Jennings Bryan, one of
the great American orators of the twentieth

website: www.communispond.com email address: info@communispond.com Phone: 1-800 843 5168 3


century, admitted that, in his first attempts
at public speaking, “. . . my knees fairly
smote together.”
More recently, the Book of Lists printed
the results of a survey of 3,000 Americans.
One of the most startling outcomes was
the answer to the question, “What are you
most afraid of?” Forty-one percent said,
“Speaking before a group.” When the same
question was asked on an “aided basis,”
which means the respondents were given
a list of probable fears to select from,
more than 90% selected “Speaking before
a group.”
So if you have ever felt the roaring wings
of butterflies fluttering in your stomach
before a presentation, you’re just like the
rest of us. A dry mouth is normal. So is a
feeling of tension. So is a quaver in your
voice; a sense of awkwardness; not knowing
what to do with your hands; shortness of
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breath; sweatiness; a somewhat sickly pallor.
Fortunately, with a little work you can
overcome that fear. Here are three steps
toward that goal:
1. Face up to it. Admit to yourself that
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your fear of speaking in public is limit-
ing your opportunity for recognition
and advancement. It’s holding you back.
You can’t stand out in a competitive
environment if you won’t stand up
and speak.
2. Examine possible solutions. There are
hundreds of programs available to you.
4 Talk Your Way to the Top: How to Address Any Audience Like Your Career Depends On It.
The most important criterion to look for
is the number of “on your feet” speaking
opportunities the program provides-the
more the better. You don’t overcome fear
and develop self-confidence by listening
to lectures. Emerson said, “If you can do
a thing once, you can do it twice. If you
can do it twice, you can make a habit out
of it.” We learn by doing. Most of the
skills that have to do with overcoming
fear are physical.
3. Make a decision-and go. There’s no sense
wallowing around in all the material you
may have uncovered. Select the course
that captures your fancy and sign up.
The very act of making a decision will
free you.
Speaking As Well As You Think
Every course in speaking and presentation
skills will differ at least slightly from the
next But they all will help equip you with
skills you can apply to become a better
speaker-and, therefore, a better leader. At
Communispond, we focus on several key
principles to help businesspeople speak
as well as they think.
Prepare Mentally and Physically
In its simplest form, preparation is having
done enough work to be absolutely sure you
know what you’re talking about. Winston
Churchill said it took him six or seven hours
to prepare a forty-five-minute speech. If you
want to be confident, you must know that
your message is worthy of the audience,
worthy of the moment, and worthy of you.
That takes time and work. And it’s worth it.
Know Your Subject
The first step in gaining confidence is to
know your subject. There is no substitute for
that. If you’re not an expert on the subject,
don’t speak. You become an expert through
 study and experience. If you think about it,
you may see that you’re already qualified to
speak on a number of subjects. The reason
you will be asked to speak is that someone
recognizes you as an expert or as a person
who has experience worth sharing with a
broader audience.
The situation will usually determine the
direction your remarks should take.When
Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg, he knew his
mission was to commemorate those who
gave their lives on that battlefield site. A
department head in a company may speak
about the mission of the department a spe-
cial initiative or an unforeseen emergency;
in recognition of someone’s accomplish-
ment; or to announce a promotion. As a
speaker, your responsibility is to reach into
your own storehouse of knowledge and
experience, determine your point of view
about the issue at hand, and then craft your
message so it addresses
the current need.
If you want to be
confident, you must Put It on Paper
know that your
By all means, write out
message is worthy
your talk. It will help
of the audience,
you put your thoughts
worthy of the in order. Seeing the talk
moment, and right there in front of
worthy of you. you will buoy your
confidence.
Practice
Read your talk out loud over and over
again to your spouse, to a friend, to anoth-
er family member, even to your dog. Read
it in front of a mirror while trying to main-
tain eye contact with yourself as you read.
Once you know it well, do the same talk
without the script. Make notes if you like.
Use them while you rehearse. Rehearse
the speech out loud until you’re sick of it.
Then go through it one more time.
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But Don’t Read
Never read a speech to an audience unless
you are forced. They deserve better. So do
you. No matter how erudite the writing is,
the audience sees a speaker who reads his
talk as the deliverer of yesterday’s news.
The drama is gone. We cannot even be
sure the speaker wrote the speech. Fickle
listeners that we are, we will give the speaker
demerits right off the bat. But when a
speaker begins a talk with head held high,
looking at the audience as he speaks, we
know that what we are hearing is “today’s
bread,” baked fresh today, right before our
eyes. Our attention peaks. We are watching
a live performance. We are impressed.
How a Speaker Impacts an Audience
A few years ago, a famous UCLA professor,
Albert Mehrabian, conducted extensive
research on the communication process.
How you look accounts for a whopping
55%. How you sound accounts for 38%.
What you actually say accounts for only 7%.
How you look includes your clothes, your
facial expression, your stance, your hands,
the leaning of your body, the way you move
your eyes. How you sound depends more
on volume and inflection than the quality
of your voice. Again, it’s an impression.
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The message is less important, ultimately,
than how it is delivered. Understanding
the importance of how you look and
sound is the first step toward speaking
and presenting effectively.
communicate
How Our Instincts Betray Us —
and How to Turn the Tables on Them
No matter how much we prepare to give
a speech, it cannot quite match what you
feel during that “moment of truth.”
You walk to the front of the room. You
turn to face the audience. And there is that
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 “superior force” out there, staring back at
you. Every instinct says you should scan the
audience. After all, 85% of all information
stored in the brain comes through our
eyes. They almost wander by themselves.
Scanning for news is their job.
But scanning exacerbates the problem.
Your eye relays all that blurry audience
information, and the brain doesn’t know
what to do with it all. So it throws up an
emergency flag and signals for an adrena-
line fix. You already have that gnawing
tension in your stomach from
knowing you are going to
When you focus
speak. Then you get that extra
on one person, jolt of adrenaline to really jazz
you reduce the you up. Your nervousness is
audience to one increased. Your thoughts get
individual. The all jumbled. Your mind can
situation becomes even go blank.
the same as what To combat all this, we tend
you face every day. to slide into some pretty weak
defensive behaviors:
• Looking away from the audience
when searching for a word
• Looking at people without really
seeing them
• Looking up, hoping for divine
intervention
respond
• Briefly closing our eyes when thinking
• Sweeping the room with our eyes
We use these behaviors because we don’t
know what else to do. None of them help
you think better or speak better. And their
communicate
impact on an audience is negative.
Focusing Your Eyes
Focus on one person and one pair of eyes.
Remain focused on one person in the
audience until you complete a sentence or
a phrase—a place in your dialogue where
you might naturally pause. Usually it’s
6 Talk Your Way to the Top: How to Address Any Audience Like Your Career Depends On It.
more than five seconds but less than fifteen
seconds in length. Then move to another
pair of eyes and finish another thought.
And repeat the process over and over
until you finish.
When you focus on one person, you reduce
the audience to one individual. The situa-
tion becomes the same as what you face
every day. You are used to speaking to one
person at a time. Your brain can handle that
quite easily. Your butterflies will fly away.
Dealing with the Adrenaline Rush
When we stand in front of an audience,
we feel a great adrenaline rush. Our bodies
are supercharged. It’s more energy than we
are used to. If we don’t know what to do with
it, this physical energy leaks out-and can
work to our disadvantage. We fidget, clear
our throats, put our hands in our pockets,
move our feet from side to side, scratch
our heads, play with a pencil, run an index
finger across our nose, cross our feet.
Fortunately, you can make all of this energy
work in your favor if you know what to do
with it. Here are some proven strategies:
Speaking with Energy
Your body can add a visual dimension to the
content of your talk. Gesture for emphasis
or excitement. Show physically that you are
committed to what you are saying. Increase
your volume to add inflection and vocal
emphasis to your message. That way, you
use the energy productively. In a real sense,
speaking reduces to an equation:
Energy released = Energy received
(by the speaker) (by the audience)
If we speak with low energy, the audience
receives low energy and our impact is
reduced accordingly.
Using Your Hands
Where should your hands be? When
you begin, they should hang naturally by
your sides. Then they should be used to
describe and emphasize what you are
saying. Ideally, you should gesture with
one hand at a time.

Taking Your Stance

Walking around is of no value to the
audience unless you are going somewhere.
Pacing is going nowhere. You look
strongest and in greatest control when
you plant your feet shoulder width apart,
weight equally balanced, square to the audi- the energy, instead of letting go and
ence. That way, all of your energy manifests using it. You’ll swallow your words. Your
itself in gestures, facial expressions, and body will be a reflection of your weak voice.
upper body movements. Your message is You’ll be conscious of your nervousness.
reinforced and made clearer by your phys- That’s no good.
ical behavior. Your confidence will grow
But if you take a leap of faith and let your
as you sense the control.
voice ring out, you’ll find that your body
will follow and your confidence will soar.
Keeping Up the Volume
You see, volume is a trigger mechanism.
If your volume is low, you’re probably
Once you push yourself hard for more
speaking in a monotone. If you’re a mono-
volume, your body will become more
tone, you’re boring. Most executives don’t
engaged in helping get the message across.
speak with enough volume. Speakers think
they are loud. Audiences don’t. Audiences All of that will make you free-free of fear,
read low volume as low conviction or low free of self-consciousness, free of self-doubt.
interest on the part of the speaker. At that You will have taken all of your adrenaline

point you’ve lost them. The greatest sin
a speaker can commit is to be boring,
because that loses the audience. And low
volume is the greatest cause.
Many people have been taught that they
should speak in a conversational tone.
respond
and put it to work for you.
One more thing: Once you’ve begun to
learn and internalize some of the skills for
speaking as well as you think, put them to
work. You can’t sharpen them if you don’t
use them regularly. Seek opportunities to
communicate

Unfortunately, that doesn’t work when you speak. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Do the
are speaking to an audience. You’ll be try- thing you fear to do and the death of that
ing to contain the adrenaline, to hold back fear is certain.”

Mr. Daley is the founder and chairman of Communispond, a communication skills training firm based in
New York. This white paper is a review of the book Talk Your Way to the Top (McGraw-Hill, September
2003), co-authored by Mr. Daley and Laura Daley-Caravella.

website: www.communispond.com email address: info@communispond.com Phone: 1-800 843 5168 7

 communicate respond

website: www.communispond.com email address: info@communispond.com Phone: 1-800 843 5168