HOW TO SAY WHAT

YOU MEAN AND GET

WHAT YOU WANT
Karen Berg and Andrew Gilman
with Edward R Stevenson
 Get to
the Point
 Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive
in 2009

littp://www.archive.org/details/gettopointliowtosOOberg
 Get to
the Point
How to Say What You Mean
and Get What You Want

Karen Berg and Andrew Gilman

with Edward P Stevenson

BANTAM BOOKS
TORONTO • NEW YORK LONDON SYDNEY
• • • AUCKLAND
 .

GET TO THE POINT

A Bantam Book / February 1989

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 1989 by Karen Berg and Andrew Gilman.
Designed by Jeffrey L. Ward.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any jorm or by any means, electronic or mechanical.
including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publisher
For information address: Bantam Books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Berg, Karen (Karen E.)

Get to the point.

1. Public speaking. I. Gilman, Andrew.
II. Stevenson, Edward P. III. Title.
PN4121.B427 1989 808.51 88-47833

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam

Doubleday Dell Publishing Group. Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the
words "Bantam Books" and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Regis-
trada. Bantam Books. 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103.

PHINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OK AMERICA

BOMC offers recordings and compact discs, cassettes

and records. For information and catalog write to
BOMR, Camp Hill. PA 17012.
Dedicated to all of our clients who we teach and from whom we
learn.

With and appreciation to our personal and business

heartfelt thanks
and Richard Berg, Dianne Rudo and Chloe, An-
families: to Alex
thony Garcia, Chris Tomasino, Barbara Feinman, Danielle
Caldwell, Kay Peters, Greg Coram, Jerry Michaels, Pat Collins,
Lou Hampton.

To Ted Stevenson, it's clear we couldn't have done this without you.
It was far better and more enjoyable to do with you. Thank you.
 Table of Contents

1The Five-Minute Guide to this Book 1

2 Game Plans: The Audience Profile 9

3 When, Where, What ... and Why: Times, Places,
and Things 25
4 Building Strong Messages: Selling Points and
Word Power 31
5 The Three-Minute Presentation Writing Technique 43
6 Noteworthy Notes 59
7 Show and Tell: Visual Aids 70
8 Perfecting Delivery 89
9 Tough Questions, Good Answers 110
10 Tricky Questions, Difficult Questioners 126
11 How Do Get to Carnegie Hall?
I 138
12 Performance Anxiety: Dealing with Nerves and Tension 149
13 Clothing: What the Well-Dressed Presenter Wears 157
14 Some Final Practicalities: Interruptions and
Choreography 166
15 Media Interviews 173
16 Being a Witness: The Presentation That's All Q&A 182
17 Meetings, Meetings, Meetings 194
18 The Job Interview 204
19 How to Prepare and Read a Speech 210
20 Using a TelePrompTer 214
21 Give and Take: The Panel Discussion 218
22 How to Introduce a Speaker 223
23 Quick Points: Presentations on a Time Budget 227
 The Five-Minute
Guide to this Book

A high proportion of adult Americans view the prospect of speaking

in public quite literally as a. fate worse than death.
Several years ago, in a now-famous study, a market research orga-
nization conducted a poll on the question "What do you fear most?"
The results were included in The Book of Lists. As you might expect,
"heights" was high on the list, along v/ith "financial problems," "fly-
ing," "serious illness," and "death." But topping the list —
the number
—
one fear was "speaking before a group."
Yet this is a prospect more and more of us face every day. We may
be living in the "electronic communications age," when a great deal
of information is transmitted via computers, but the operative word
here is communications. For while electronics make many kinds of
communications possible, in most situations the most effective
means of communication is human being to human being.

It is in direct, we have the best

face-to-face presentations that
opportunity to get our message across— to get to the point.
 Get to the Point

We'd like to make it clear at the outset that we're not talking about
formal speeches. Very few of us ever need to give speeches. Rather,
we are referring to the relatively short and informal
talks with
clearly defined objectives that take place most often in a work-
related context. Although there are different types of talks, each
with unique goals, for our purposes let's simply call them presenta-
tions.

Presentations — and therefore presentation skills — are more im-

portant in the business world than they have ever been before. Every
passing day swells the ranks of people who need to be able to present
effectively in order to do their jobs effectively. In particular, presen-
tation skills are vital to any person who ever has to sell, persuade,
motivate, inform, or represent.

Our Bottom Line

The purpose of Get to the Point is to teach those skills. If you read
thisbook and follow our program, it will reduce your presentation
anxiety to a manageable level. (In fact, it may actually make the
experience almost enjoyable.) But more to the point, it will make
you a better presenter.

Who Do We Think You Ar«?

From our vantage point as corporate consultants and trainers in

this field, the audience for this book is quite broad. A few examples
may suffice to indicate the range: the book editor presenting the
spring list to the publishing house sales force; the advertising ac-
count manager outlining an ad campaign for a prospective client;

the engineer instructing a manufacturing team; the consultant up-

dating a client on project status; the law associate briefing a senior
partner on research for an important case; the college graduate in-
terviewing for a new job; the unhappy consumer complaining to a
store manager; all these — and many more — fall within our defini-
tion of presenters. All of these need to know how to get to the
point.
The Five-Minute Guide to this Book

Who Are We?

Karen Berg and Andrew Gilman are the principals of Comm-
Core, a New York-based communications consulting firm. We pre-
pare business people and public officials for the full range of com-
munications challenges. Among others, our clients include AT&T,
General Foods, the American Lung Association, Chase Manhattan
Bank, Eastdil Realt>', Goldome, and G. D. Searle. Most of our work
involves teaching the specific skills we will discuss in this book: how
to make better, stronger presentations.

We also prepare clients for media appearances from trade and —

consumer press to radio and television interviews, including pro-
grams such as 60 Minutes and 20/20. We frequentiy prepare expert
witnesses for sworn testimony before congressional committees, ad-
ministrative agencies, and public utility commissions. Other semi-
nars we offer include sales skills, stress management, writing, and
crisis communications.

Getting Ahead
How important are presentation skills? In today's competitive
business world, highly developed presentation skills add up to a
bankable career advantage that you won't want to be without.

The ability to make successful presentations has become a

prerequisite in business.

A generation ago, skillful presentation was a nice plus for a man-

ager, but back then it was the possession of technical job-related
skills that helped you get ahead. Today, things have changed; today
the edge goes to those with highly developed communications skills.

Because while technical skills are important, communication is ulti-

mately what business is about.

makes sense, doesn't it? Put yourself in the position of an em-
It

ployer. Assume you are considering two equally qualified candi-

dates, with good references and experience. Which one would you
 "

Get to the Point

hire? Probably the one with the better communications skills be-
cause the one who is communicate the needs and de-
better able to
mands of the job is more
do the job successfully.
likely to
Presentation skills are becoming a direct link to promotion and
success. In many companies today, good verbal presentation ability
is a specific requirement for advancement. In companies such as

AT&T and Citibank, a significant factor in personnel evaluations is

an employee's ability to present well. In fact, one executive at Gen-
eral Electric told us why he came to work on his presentation skills:
"My manager, the division vice president, told me what it would
take to get any higher up the ladder. He said, 'You have the right
training, have made the right moves within the company, and have
proven yourself by your performance. How you look, act and talk
will determine where you go from now on.'

Training: A Competitive Edge

Every person brings natural strengths and weaknesses to the chal-

lenge of public presentation; each of us instinctively handles some
aspects well and, after practice, will learn from experience. But
given the pace and intensity of life today, few of us can afford to rely
on our natural gifts or the accumulation of experience to acquire this
edge.
Consider an analogy: A tennis player gets ahead by learning to hit
the ball accurately and assertively, by learning to reach any ball hit
to him and return it authoritatively. That's how points are made.
A weekend player can rely on natural talent plus a few pointers
from fellow players. After all, in the long run there is rarely money
or a career at stake. A professional tennis player, however, learns
winning skills by training with a professional coach virtually every
day, until these skills become second nature.
It's no different for a communicator: The ability to serve a clean
and assertive message, to field a challenge or question from any posi-
tion and play it back with strength and authority, is the essence of
effective public presentation.
With the competitive edge professional training provides, you can
The Five-Minute Guide to this Book

learn to make your points — and that means selling your organiza-
tion, your products, your services, your point of view with confi-
dence.
That's what Get to the Point is all about.

Bottom Line— Again

Let us reiterate our goal. (As you will shortly see for yourselves as
—
you read on, we don't mind repeating ourselves it's a sound com-
munications strategy.) If you acknowledge the importance of presen-
tation-making and you feel your skills could be stronger, Get to the
Point will improve your skills. If you're a beginner, Get to the Point
wiU turn you into a capable, confident presenter. If you're already
experienced, Get to the Point will make you better.
As and communicators, we use the techniques
skilled presenters
we teach nearly every day. And they work, for us and for our clients.
Our wide experience allows us to teach you basic skiUs of presen-
tation making and to train you in advanced skills as well. We'll ex-
plore numerous situations that we and our clients have faced print —
and media interviews, legal and legislative testimony, panel discus-
sions, media appearances, meetings, job interviews, and more. As

your presentation powers grow. Get to the Point will continue assist-
ing you.

Caveat

We must point out that Get to the Point is not a quick, magical
program. For it to work, you have to work. And the harder you are

willing to work, the better it will work.

The Capsule Version

In keeping with our goal-oriented approach, we want to give you
the basics of the Get to the Point program. Here's our approach to
presentation making, reduced to its bare essentials:
• Know your audience.
6 Get to the Point

• Decide on your bottom line message or action plan and say it

early. If possible, pull in your audience with a strong attention-
getter.

State your supporting points with clarity, focus, and emphasis.

• Anticipate listeners' questions and concerns.
• Make your points again while answering questions.

Background
Here is some of the research that forms the foundation of our pro-
gram, which will be discussed in the chapters that follow.

Ebbinghaus. Much of the basis for our approach to communica-

tions drawn from research about retention, the ability of
is the
human mind to remember what it has taken in. The basic facts are
condensed from the work of Hermann Ebbinghaus, pioneer re-
searcher on the psychology of human memory, around the turn of
the century.
Ebbinghaus's research tells us that the typical listener will forget
40 percent of what he or she has heard during a presentation within
half an hour. By the end of the day, 60 percent will be gone. A week
after hearing a presentation, the average listener retains only about
10 percent of what was said.
Our whole approach is designed to maximize retention; to in-
crease that 10 percent. One key to improved retention is focus.
Clearly focused messages are easier to remember than unfocused
ones.We have a lot to say about focusing on your overall purpose, on
your specific point, and on your audience.
The other keys to retention are repetition (the more frequently a
message is heard, the more likely it is to be remembered) and prox-
imity (the more recently a message is heard, the better it will be
remembered). We are great believers in the rule for verbal commu-
nications propounded by the late journalist, Edward R. Murrow:
"Tell em what you're gonna tell 'em. Tell 'em. Then tell 'em what
you told 'em." In keeping with this principle, you'll find us deliber-
ately repeating ourselves quite a bit.
The Five-Minute Guide to this Book

Nonverbal aspects of verbal communication. More recent research

by Albert Mehrabian on the nonverbal elements of communication
tells us that words are not the whole message. Far from it: One im-
portant study concludes that only 7 percent of interpersonal commu-
nication is traceable to words; about 55 percent is the result of facial
expression and other body language; and the remaining 38 percent
comes from "paralanguage," or how we use our voices. We give ex-
tensive coverage to the nonverbal elements of delivery: physical ges-
tures, eye contact, vocal inflection, and phrasing.
Other research tells us that presentations are more persuasive if

they are supported by visual materials. We have a lot to say about

the selection, design, and use of visual aids.

A Chain Is Only as Strong . . .

—
To draw these elements together focus, repetition, body lan-
guage, use of visuals —
is to create powerful communication. There

is no single key to better and more convincing presentations. Think

of these elements as a chain forged from a series of links, and only as
strong as the weakest of them.

One Last Time

Get to the Point offers you a wealth of practical suggestions. We
hope you'll read the book, and say, "Ah-ha! That makes sense. This
will help me make my point more clearly and more directly."
We designed the book to be flexible. If you have a five-minute
presentation to give this afternoon, go right to our Quick Points sec-
tion on the Talking Memo in Chapter Twenty-three. If you have a
fifteen-minute presentation to give tomorrow, see our Quick Point
Tn-Flight' Presentation Writing Technique. If you already know
how to organize a presentation, skip to Chapter Seven on visuals; if
you are familiar with the use of visuals, you might want to concen-
trate on Q & A (question and answer) techniques, covered in Chap-
ter Nine. Once you've mastered all the fundamentals, you will want
to learn our advanced techniques. Whatever aspect of presentation-
making you want or need to improve, we can help.
8 Get to the Point

But the book will work only as hard as you are willing to work. If
you follow our suggestions and put in the time, you'll make better
presentations. It's that simple.
Get to the Point is a complete presentation training program. And
it works. We know because we teach it, day in and day out, to peo-
ple whose success proves it.

Quick Reference Summary

• Public speaking is America's number one fear.
• Face-to-face verbal presentations are the most effective way
to make your point to others.
• This book will reduce public-speaking fear and make you an
expert presenter.
• Presentation skills are a requirement for success in business,

vital to anyone who ever has to sell, persuade, motivate, in-

form, or represent.
• Our training will help you improve your skills quickly and dra-
matically.
• The basic components of strong presentation-making are:
• Know your audience; anticipate their needs.
• Know your bottom line message and say it early.
• Anticipate listeners' questions and answer them during
the presentation.
• Make your key point again in a summary statement.
• The typical listener forgets 40 percent of what he or she has
heard in the first half hour; 60 percent by the end of the day;
90 percent a week.
after
• Clarity focus, and repetition help build listener retention.
• Visual aids help increase comprehension and retention.
• How you look, move, and speak can outweigh the content of
what you say.
• If you follow the program and do the work, this book can teach

you the basics and the fine points of presentation making,

turning you into a confident presenter.
 Game Plans:
The Audience Profile

Knowing your audience is the first and most crucial step in giving a
presentation. You'll always have an audience, but each audience is
different. Your content, style, and delivery will vary depending on
the group.

There is a distinction between "speaker-centered" and

"audience-centered" messages.

Speaker-centered messages are the points that the presenter wants to

make. They reflect the speaker's perceptions and needs. Audience-
centered messages reflect the needs, concerns, attitudes, beliefs, and
understanding of the people addressed.
Skilled presenters understand that messages need to be audience-
centered and design their presentations accordingly. This does not
mean that their messages are not speaker-centered, but that they
10 Get to the Point

strike a balance. What the audience needs to hear and what you
have to say are both important. Therefore the most powerful mes-
sage is one that integrates the two. This approach to message build-
ing is fundamental to the art of getting to the point. And it is true no
matter what audience you are addressing.

Case Study: In 1985, a young upstart company, MCI, playing

David to the communications industry's Goliath, AT&T,
brought suit for antitrust violations. Like David, MCI won, but
the victory was muted in the subsequent damage suit. The bil-

lions of dollars sought by MCI ended up as an award of only

millions.
After a trial in Chicago in 1985, a member of the jury com-
mented that one important factor in determining the amount of
damages was that the precise meaning of crucial MCI evidence
was "never made clear to the jury" (Emphasis added.) Had the
jury clearly understood MCI's complex statistical argument, he
implied, the damages could have been significandy higher.
The MCI attorneys apparently had fallen into a classic com-
munications trap: not identifying and addressing their real au-
dience. Instead of speaking to the jury in language they could
understand, they were drawn into an intricate, high-tech statis-

tical debate with the opposing counsel. MCI won the debate,
but the practical, dollars- and-cents cost of their failure to cor-
rectly identify and speak to their audience might have been as
high as billions of dollars.

The Audience Profile

To create audience-centered messages, the speaker must know the

—
audience their knowledge, needs, concerns, interests, attitudes,
beliefs, and in many cases even their personalities. The better the

speaker knows them, the more finely tuned his or her messages can
be. That is why the first step in preparing for any presentation is an
accurate and detailed audience profile. It is the strategic foundation
for a successful presentation. It's your game plan.
Defining your audience is parallel to the process a football team
Game Plans: The Audience Profile 1^

goes through in preparing for a game. In the big leagues, it's not
enough be good; the winning edge comes from knowing your op-
to
ponent's game as well as you know your own. Professional football
teams hire scouts to watch other teams. They analyze each opposing
player's strength, speed, stamina, and spirit. Based on this informa-
tion, the coaches work out a game plan that adapts their team's
strengths to best meet the challenge of the opposing team. That's
what the audience profile does for a presenter.
This preparation is both offensive and defensive. In football, the
goal of the offense is tailoring plays to gain yardage and score points.
In a presentation the objective is tailoring messages to make your
point. In football, the job of the defense is turning back challenges
mounted by the opposition. In a presentation, similarly, the speak-
er's goal is to meet any challenges or resistance from the audience,
usually by anticipating and answering questions.

Questions, questions. Doing an audience profile is a process of

questioning. Different questions shed light on different facets of
your audience.
If you know your audience personally, for example, your ques-
power levels, specific turfs, subject matter
tions will relate to the
expertise, and personal idiosyncrasies of individual participants.
We'll discuss presentations to specific audiences later. For the mo-
ment, we'll stick with general audiences.
If your audience is a complete unknown, you really need to start
at the beginning.

Question: Who's going to be there; who are these people?

Basic demographic information can give you the overview that

serves as the background for a more detailed picture. Basics include:
Age
• Sex
" Income level
• Occupation or professional status
Political affiliation
• Ethnic identity
12 Get to the Point

Gather basic audience profile information even if you think

you know it. Assumptions can get you into trouble.

Don't assume you know this basic information — find someone who
does. If you are an invited speaker, for example, and you're going in
cold, the contact person in the organization who issued the invita-
tion would be a logical source to tap.

Case Study: Not long ago, an editor from a major metropolitan

newspaper was invited to fill in at the last minute for the sched-
uled speaker at a weekly luncheon gathering of public relations
professionals. The editor knew that the people who usually at-
tended these meetings were entry-level and junior account exec
typesand therefore thought it wasn't a very important event.
Her was aimed at such an audience; it had the tone of wis-
talk
dom talking to inexperience and could be summarized along
the lines of, "You people will have to learn to write a proper
press release if you want to get along with us. ."
. .

What she didn't know was that the speaker she replaced was
a very important industry figure. As a result, the crowd that
day actually contained a lot of executive VPs and CEOs; people
who had the power to decide when she got a story — or if she got
one at all. They were not accustomed to being addressed in this
tone, nor was the message appropriate to this group. Simply
taking the time to ask the basic audience profile questions could
have avoided this debacle.

As the story shows, accurate audience identification will influence

things as fundamental as your choice of subject matter or content.

Question: What do you want to tell these people; what do they

need to hear?

Just as sort of message for CEOs and another

you would design one
for assistant account execs, you would want to present different
kinds of material to a consumer watchdog group than you would to
the Lions Club. And the Lions Club in Cincinnati will be different
 —

Game Plans: The Audience Profile 13

from the Lions Club in Philadelphia. The same holds true in other
settings.

Getting inside their heads. The goal of the basic audience profile is

understanding the audience's point of view and providing answers

to the questions everyone carries around in the back of their mind:
" "So what?"
• "Who cares?"
"What's In It For Me?" (WIIFM).

A good way of getting at the answers to these questions is to focus on

the audience's relationships.

Question: What is the audience's relationship to itself?

What defines this particular group? What is their common thread?

What issues, attitudes, concerns, or backgrounds forge this diverse
group?
collection of individuals into a unified
These questions will you where the group's attention will be
tell

focused, providing you with an accurate index to your audience's

interests and concerns.

Question: What is your relationship to the audience?

Are they customers? Colleagues? Your boss (or bosses)? Stockhold-

ers? Neighbors? Potential followers?Or simply fellow citizens? Are
you appearing as an authority? An informer? An advocate? An apol-
ogist?

Question: What do you have in common with your audience?

What natural points of alliance do you see? What threads can you
weave into your presentation that will continually reaffirm those
connections, binding you together and counteracting any natural
antagonisms? The range of possibilities is quite broad. It might be

goals — personal, professional, social, or political; interests

common or opposing; a business or occupation; an affiliation; a
skill; or an occasion (such as a retirement party or a sales awards
banquet).
14 Get to the Point

Question: How knowledgeable would you expect this group to

be in your area of expertise; what level of interest can you antic-
ipate?

Answers to these questions can provide clues to the appropriate

depth of your presentation. Gauging depth can be important. You
certainly don't want to talk down to people; it's deadly. Nor do you
want to talk over their heads.

Case Study: A client of ours who manages a major company's

research lab once took a group of new employees on an indoc-
trination tour of the facility, supplying a running commentary
about blood chemistry, hemoglobin, and platelet research.
When the tour was finished, he asked if anyone had any ques-
tions. One man raised his hand and asked, "What's a platelet?"

Question: What are the potential areas of conflict and con-

frontation with the audience?

In spite of tailoring a message based on an audience profile, nearly

every presenter raises issues that may be possible sources of dispute.
Every message has the potential for conflicts, and identifying these is
the second crucial goal of the audience profile process.
The strongest presentation is one in which you, the presenter, in-
vite questions, but in many situations a question and answer session
may be mandatory.If you haven't anticipated the inevitable tough

questions and have not prepared good answers, the strength of the
presentation may be completely undermined. We will discuss this
more fully in Chapter Nine.
Here's a final question you should ask before any presentation
where the speaker is unfamiliar with the attendant conditions:

Question: Are there any special circumstances surrounding

this presentation?

The question about circumstances is really about anticipating your

audience's frame of mind, and together with consideration of your
relationship to the audience, bears on the tone your presentation
takes. It's always worth a discreet question to your contact person on
Game Plans: The Audience Profile 15

the day of the presentation: "Is there anything going on that I should
know about?" If the president of the foundation died of a heart at-
tack earher in the week; if the company's local plant recently re-
leased massive amounts of toxic chemicals into the local water
supply; if the sales force just landed a substantial government con-
tract for portable computers; these are things you need to know be-
fore you make your presentation. This kind of knowledge can spare
you the embarrassment of being lighthearted or flippant in somber
circumstances or will enable you to focus on positive developments.

The Inside View

The approaches to the audience profile we have outlined thus far

are applicable primarily to public presentations. For what we call
internal presentations —
those that take place within a company or
organization —
the focus is generally quite different. The principle is
the same, but there are two significant ways in which internal pre-
sentations differ from public ones.
First, you are much more likely to be working with a preestab-
lished agenda; the subject matter is usually determined by others. As
a result, goals are likely to be clearly defined and results easy to
evaluate: Did you accomplish your purpose? Was your budget ap-
proved? Was your task force recommendation accepted? Did you get
authority to hire the five new people you need?
Second, since companies are hierarchically structured, a specific
focus of the message must be persuading key people and placating
others. Individual personalities must be taken into account during
preparation. The audience will be a complex mixture of human fac-
tors: people with a vital stake in the outcome and those with none;
staunch supporters and inveterate opponents; friends, mentors, pro-
teges, enemies, potential allies, and everything in between.

Personality profile. Your preparation for an internal presentation

should profile each important audience member — as a personality,
and in terms of job function and power. Here are some of the ques-
tions you should consider:
 —
16 Get to the Point

Question: Who are the key people you have to persuade in or-
der to accomphsh your goal?

Question: Have you developed a WIIFM (what's in it for me

pronounced "wiffum") for each of these people?

Question: What personal idiosyncrasies or habits might affect

your presentation?

For example, if there is a key person who has a reputation for arriv-
ing late for meetings or leaving early, do you arrange the agenda to
accommodate that person?

Focusing on the individual. What are the overriding personal con-

cerns of each key person?

Question: Who's bottom-line oriented; who goes for the broad

overview? Who's concerned with pricing, timing, human re-
sources, environmental issues?

Question: How do you and your message relate to any or all of

these concerns?

Rather than compete with these players, can you find a way to form
a tennis doubles team and play on the same side of the net?

Question: From whom can you expect opposition as a matter

of course?

Is there a tough-minded executive who likes to grill everybody? Is

there someone who just doesn't like you?

Question: From whom can you expect real (substantive, as op-

posed to personal) opposition?

Who is likely to genuinely disagree with your plan? This part of the
profile is essentially no different from that for public presentations.

Question: What are your answers to this opposition?

Question: With whom might you build alliances before pre-

sentation time?
Game Plans: The Audience Profile 17

Question: Who among the participants is important enough to

require acknowledgment (usually a special WIIFM message),
even though not a key player in this scenario?

That is, are there any VIPs present whose feathers would be ruffled
if they were left out of the discussion despite the fact that they don't
have a decision-making role in the issue at hand?
Also consider the organization's political climate of the moment
(who is receptive to particular types of moves, projects, or ap-
proaches, and who is not) and the organizational "culture" (in this

connection, primarily a question of what kinds of positions or

stances can be taken by people in different levels of the organiza-
tional power structure without violating the group sense of "good
form").
If you have any doubts about the political mood, sample opinion
in one-on-one sessions before the meeting. If the climate is clearly
hostile to the kinds of ideas and approaches you wish to set forth,
you may want to reconsider your position for now.
A sensitivity to "culture" can help you avoid the pitfall of calling
attention to yourself in the —
wrong ways of offending higher-ups by
overstepping your position. The same awareness can guide you in
making your point without violating corporate canon.
Here are two real-life examples that demonstrate the value of a
detailed audience profile for internal presentations:

Case Study 1: Twice a year the sales force of a major U.S. cor-
poration gathers for a meeting with corporate management for
a review. Sales figures are discussed, as are projections and
goals for the rest of the year. At this meeting, management asks
questions, seeks clarifications and explanations, probes, exam-
ines, and picks at details. It's potential "on the carpet" time for
the sales reps, and they have to be prepared to deal with any
matter the brass wants to raise — and try to come out looking
good.
Also on the agenda are any problems, suggestions, com-
plaints, or special projects that sales personnel want to bring
before corporate management.
18 Get to the Point

From a tactical point of view, the salespeople have three

goals at these meetings:
• To present their track record as positively as possible
To anticipate and develop answers to questions and prob-
lems managers are likely to raise
" To create a favorable climate for their own agenda

Sales personnel felt they could make considerably better use

of these meetings, so they invited us to help them prepare. We
held a two-day planning and training session in which every
part of the presentation agenda was examined carefully.
One of our real skills is helping people see the significance of
information they already have in their heads — such as the com-
pany's sales figures — and shaping such information into mes-
sages aimed at particular persons and their interests. To do this
effectively, it is necessary to understand the people and interests
at which the messages are aimed — to do an audience profile.
Accordingly, we spent 10 percent of the entire preparation
time — over an hour and a half— clearly identifying and analyz-
ing the top executives who were to be the audience for this
event.
What we needed to know was each person's:
• Background
Corporate rank
Relationship with sales
Personal as well as managerial interests
Personality and temperament

We talked these things over with our presenters, wrote down

the findings on large pieces of paper, and tacked them to the
walls where they could be seen by all as we developed our strat-
egies.
The managers involved in the meeting were:
•Group vice president of sales
Vice president of sales
• Vice president of marketing
Game Plans: The Audience Profile 19

• Director of advertising
• Regional sales managers

Group discussion produced the following information that pro-

filed the key players:

Group vice president of sales. He was respected by the reps

for his intelligence and was He
liked for his genial personality.
was new to the company and to the industry — having re-
also
cently moved from another, quite different consumer products
—
company and therefore was not fully aware of corporate his-
tory or culture, or the specific problems of the business. Because
of this, he was something of an unknown quantity. Also, al-

though he carries the highest title, his function in the meeting

was not one of direct authority or responsibilit>'. In essence, his
concerns reflected those of his immediate subordinate, the next
man on the list.

Vice president of sales. He was the executive head of the sales

department, the sales reps' bosses' boss. This was really his
meeting. He was well known to the reps and, though demand-
ing, was thought to be reasonable, fair, and competent.

Vice president of marketing. He was considered by the reps

to —
some extent an adversary for two reasons. First, there had
been tension between the marketing and sales departments for
some time, marketing contending that sales wasn't doing a good
enough job pushing the product line, sales maintaining that
they needed better products with lower prices. Second, he was
by nature a challenging and nit-picking person, more numbers-
than people-oriented.

He was pleased with the sales force.

Director of advertising.
Once ad campaign was launched, the reps really went out
his
and hustled the products that were advertised, making him
look good. Further, the company did a lot of cooperative adver-
20 Get to the Point

tising (that is, it shared the cost of ad campaigns run by retailers

who sold the company's products), so the sales team was a vital
link in the overall advertising strategy. He was basically an ally.

Regional sales managers. These were the immediate bosses of

the salespeople with whom we were working. They were, of
course, 100 percent behind the reps, since they worked together
closely. But the culture of this particular company dictated that
in thesesemiannual review sessions the reps were on their own;
salesmanagers were not expected to intervene on their behalf.
For that reason, they were not likely to make much substantive
contribution to the proceedings.

Using this detailed audience profile as a foundation, we went

on to consider content and the structuring of the six individual
presentations that would be given by selected sales reps. Each of
these contained a primary selling point, and within the group
of presentations we were careful to include several WIIFM
messages, carefully tailored to speak to the interests of each of
the principal audience members.
In particular, having identified the vice president of market-
ing as a potential trouble source, we were able to reduce his
antagonism by:
• Anticipating many of the issues he might raise and prepar-
ing to respond to them
Addressing his interests within the messages
Understanding that resolving the ongoing tension between
marketing and sales was not the responsibility of the sales-
people, but of the respective vice presidents (in other
words, no matter how tough this guy was, the reps weren't
working for him; it was their boss, the vice president of
sales, that they had to satisfy)
• After clearly identifying the personality type, anticipating
expected behavior and taking it in stride

Case Study 2: This example shows the value of premeetings

with key players
Game Plans: The Audience Profile 21^

Our client was a manager at a pharmaceutical company and

was representing a study group that had been given the task by
senior management of making recommendations on whether
the company should enter another line of business. She would
be presenting the group's findings to the corporate management
committee, which consisted of the president and CEO, the
CFO, and vice presidents for marketing, finance, legal, licens-
ing, corporate human resources, planning, and research.
The group's bottom line message was that the company
should enter this line of business, and they were proposing three
possible means: outright purchase of an existing company, in-
ternal development of a new company with products and sales
force, or developing a line of business by comarketing with an
existing company.
Knowing that she would be presenting to very important cor-
porate executives, our client knew she needed to do a very thor-
ough audience profile. Each of these officers had his or her own
business priorities.
Here are the significant findings:
• The vice president of marketing, having established the
study group, was the pivotal power person, the main per-
son who needed to be satisfied that the study group's find-
ings were valid.
• The vice president of finance had a reputation for asking
tricky questions about numbers.
• There was some ongoing tension between the presenter and
the vice president of licensing, who as a result had con-
fronted her with some rather testy questions in other, simi-
lar circumstances.

This audience profile suggested to our client that in addition

to including WIIFM messages for all the principle players, she
had better lay down a prepresentation foundation:
As a courtesy (since he was the spark plug of the project)
and to make sure there were no surprises, she made a pre-
liminary presentation to the VP of marketing.
• She did the same with the VP of finance, since she hadn't
 —
22 Get to the Point

done a complete financial analysis. This eliminated the pos-

embarrassing numbers questions in the full pre-
sibility of

sentation and effectively made an ally of a potentially

dangerous opponent.
• She approached the VP of research, who agreed to deal
with the difficult questions the presenter anticipated from
the VP of licensing.

With the help of these preliminary maneuvers, the presenta-

tion went quite well. The group's recommendation was only
partially adopted, but its work won general approval.

The Personal Touch

Before we leave the audience profile, there's one more aspect of
audience identification you should give some thought to
personalization.
The more often you can make reference to concrete aspects of your
listeners' lives — names, places, events, situations — the more you cre-
ate in them a feeling that you share these things, that you are "one of
— you're not just a speaker,
them." This subtle change in your status
you're a community member on some level — diminishes the barrier
of separateness that naturally exists between strangers, so you are
heard more clearly.
This may mean doing research or simply putting to use informa-
tion you may already have. Whatever the effort involved, person-
alization adds a valuable dimension to your presentation.
for example, you're in Springfield to talk about developments
If,

in microcomputer marketing, instead of talking about retailers in

the abstract, why not use Mike's Megabyte Computer Store down
the block, a company many of your listeners may do business with,
as an example in your discussion.
If you're a senior at Carnegie Mellon interviewing for a job at

Anheuser Busch, you will naturally do enough research to sound as

if you're familiar with the company. Why not go the extra yard and

find out something about Purina and some of the other large compa-
nies headquartered in St. Louis, not to mention the city itself. You
Game Plans: The Audience Profile 23

want to sound as if you are familiar with the company's communit>'

and using this information in \our presentation will help you make
points effectively.
If your presentation opens with a futuristic fantasy about a
homeward-bound commuter calling on his wrist-radio telephone to
tell his preprogrammed oven to start dinner, why not set the stage on

the "five fift\-se\en out of Penn Station," or whatever train your listen-
ers have been taking home from the office most of their working lives?
Touches like these create a picture your listeners can easily step into.
This personalization technique works for internal audiences as
well. Opening lines might be: "Gar>' asked for an update on Delta
project" or "Following Beth's overview of marketing plans, I was

asked to isolate the twent>'-one- to forty-year-old segment." The per-

sonal touch draws others in,makes it us, not just you.
To add the personal touch you need to think about the people in
your audience. Do you share a common experience with them?
Maybe an affiliation, a career path, a boss? Perhaps it's worth the
time to visit the manufacturing plant, the sales office, the down-
town area. The little bits of information you pick up in this way, the
httle touches vou add. can make all the difference.

Quick Reference Summary

Effective presenters are both speaker- and audience-

centered.
Satisfying the WIIFM (What's In It For Me?) syndrome of your
audience is crucial.
Know your audience— their agenda, personal biases, level of
knowledge on subject, level of interest.
What is your message to the audience?
What do they need or want to learn?
Create a bond by using common threads that run through the
group.
Analyze your relationship to the people you're presenting to,

such as boss, peers, or community members.

Be aware of special circumstances: press conference,
awards, etc.
24 Get to the Point

• Who are the particular people in your audience who need to

be persuaded?
• What are their habits (such as consistently late arrival or chal-
lenging attitude)?
• What are their attitudes toward the issues?
• Who will opposition and support come from?
• What are the "hot button" points— issues on which you can
expect controversy?
• Know the answers to likely questions.
• Try to foresee problems and work them out before the presen-
tation.
• Use what you know about your audience to personalize your
If necessary, do a little research into your listen-
presentation.
ers' lives.
 When, Where,
What and Why: . . .

Times, Places, and Things

"To every thing there is a season; a time to every purpose under

heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). This includes presentations.

If you ever have the choice, the best time to schedule an

important presentation is Tuesday morning at ten or eleven

o'clock.

Why? The key to the answer is attention. Tuesday mornings are the
point in the five-day- work- week cycle when people's minds are least
likely to be occupied with other matters. Wednesdays around the
same time are a good second choice. Third choice is midafternoon
between two-thirty and four o'clock on either of these days.
Earlier or later in the week, people are preoccupied with the
weekend, past or approaching. Early in the work morning, their
minds are occupied with the transition from home to work: the
26 Get to the Point

rigors of the commute, the mail, and starting the daily schedule.
After eleven-thirty or so, lunch begins to loom large. After lunch,
the digestion process literally takes oxygen away from the brain and
concentration suffers. If lunch involves drinks, concentration may be
shot for the rest of the day. If not, there is a period in the middle of
the afternoon when people can focus clearly on business — before the
mind turns to going home.
These are not cynical observations, but facts about human beings;
facts that you need to take into consideration when planning your
presentation.

If You Can't Plan, Adjust

Very often we don't have control over the time of a presentation.

So why raise the issue? While you may not be able to pick your time,
you can anticipate the quality of attention you are likely to encoun-
ter from your audience and structure your presentation accordingly.
For example, if you find yourself appearing at the Breakfast Club
on Monday morning or addressing the sales force at four-thirty on
Friday afternoon just before they're about to leave to catch a plane
to Boca Raton for the semiannual sales conference, you can adjust
your approach and maximize the possibility of getting something
useful across.
Most often, this means simplifying; zeroing in on one or two clear-
cut points and making them as forcefully and as frequently as you
can in the time available.
There are other factors that affect listener attention and should be
taken into consideration in your presentation planning.

Meals. Sometimes your presentation may take place in conjunction

with a meal. In you will be competing with the diges-
this situation,

tive process, which favors the stomach over the brain. People are
usually fairly alert first thing in the morning, even after a good
breakfast. But following a lunch or dinner, your audience is likely to
be at least 25 percent asleep. (If alcohol has been served something—
—
you should always try to find out beforehand it may be more like
75 percent.)
 —
When, Where, What . . . and Why: Times. Places, and Things 27

Tip: If your audience is sleepy, one of your few chances to

wake them up is to to stand up or move around
tr>- to get them
a httle. You mightcome prepared with some simple survey
question: "How many of you have two or more television sets in
your home? Please stand up, so we can see you. Now, how
many of you standing have more than two? Just raise your
hands. Thank you. ."
. .

Numbers. Another circumstance that arises frequently is being one

of a number of speakers or presenters. At many companies, for ex-
ample, the budget review process involves meeting after meeting,
presentation after presentation, a marathon of facts and figures.
Knowing where you fit into the parade can help guide your prep-
aration. If you know you're the fifth presenter meaning that you —
will begin long after people's normal attention span is exhausted
you can at least try to compensate.
When you are scheduled to present after the audience's attention
has dissipated, your choices are to use an especially striking opening
to rekindle their attention (see discussion of "grabbers," p. 48) and/
or to hone your presentation to its bare essentials, concentrating ex-
clusively on ke>' messages.

Site Survey

To plan effectively, you need to know the physical location of your

presentation. If you don't know what to expect, you're likely to be in
for some surprises, and surprises of this kind are almost always un-
pleasant.
Find out:
• Room size
" Layout
Lighting
• Equipment

Information about presentation site is likely to be of most concern

to those giving public presentations in unfamiliar locations. If most
28 Get to the Point

of your presentations take place in your living room, the community

center conference room, or the company boardroom, you'll already
be familiar with the basic setup. But taking things for granted is
taking unnecessary risks. We suggest that you use our checklist and
eliminate all uncertainty, whatever the location.

Presentation Site Checklist

Space, Layout, and Seating

n How big is the room? (Smaller rooms are more conducive to audi-
ence participation.)
D What is the seating arrangement?
• Conference table
• Chevron
• Auditorium
D How visible will you be when not speaking? Will you be "on
stage" for the whole proceeding, or will you enter and exit? Is
there a room where you can warm up?
D How are the sight lines? Will you be able to see everyone? Will
they be able to see you? Will you be blocking anyone's view of the
screen when you show visuals?
D What does the speaker's platform or area look like from the audi-
ence's viewpoint?
D What is the visual background? Can you alter it (draw a curtain,
for example) or dress to harmonize with it?

D Is How tall is it? If you stand behind

there a lectern? it how much
of you will the audience be able to see?

Lighting and Temperature Control

D Is the lighting at the speaker's platform adequate for you to see

your notes?
D Will you be able to adjust this lighting?
D Is room lighting variable (as opposed to on/off)? If you need
the
to show slides, will the room be so dark that you will be invisible?
When, Where, What . . . and Why: Times, Places, and Things 29

D Will you be able to adjust room lighting without leaving your

speaking position?
D Will you need to turn on air-conditioning or adjust the room tem-
perature since lights, equipment, and a certain number of human
bodies tend to raise the room temperature level?

Audiovisual and Sound Equipment

D Does the room contain the audiovisual equipment you need?
Do the projectors, if needed, actually work? How about back-
ups? Are spare bulbs nearby?
D How and on what are projectors positioned? Are they handy to
the lectern? Are they easily moved?
D Will you need amplification? If so, what kind of microphone is
available? (Your best choice would be a wireless mike or, if that's
not available, a clip-on. These restrict your physical mobility
much less than a fixed lectern or "goose-neck" mike.)
n If refreshments are to be served:
• Is the necessary equipment available?
• Are you responsible for ordering food and setting up?
• Is there adequate space?

• Are there enough electrical outiets to plug in the coffee urn

and whatever audiovisual equipment you plan to use?

If It's Worth Doing . . .

The equipment and other physical arrangements can

attention to
take a good deal of time, but it needs to be done well. If these ele-
ments aren't completely invisible to the audience, they're getting in
the way is very important, you may
of your message. If the event
find it worthwhile example of theatrical directors and
to follow the
hold a technical rehearsal, in which every aspect of lighting, sound
amplification, and visuals presentation is run through exactly as it
will be in your actual presentation —
whether by you or an assistant.
This means actually using the microphone you will be using (and if
it is a clip-on, practicing putting it on quickly and properly; see
30 Get to the Point

p. 169). It means actually projecting your slides to verify that the

projector is working, that you or your assistant know how to operate
it smoothly, and that your slides are properly set up. It means setting
lightingand sound levels and making sure these are easily replicated
by marking the necessary controls and switches. You should be able
to run through all the necessary checks in ten minutes or so.
Whether or not you decide to run a full tech rehearsal, checking
and using the physical setup well before presentation time pays a
huge dividend in peace of mind. It eliminates potential surprises,
and ensures that, mechanically at any rate, things will go as
smoothly as possible. This will leave you free to do what you're there
to do —
make your point.

Tip: To ease the process of setting up and checking out the

presentation site it's a good idea to approach the person in
charge of the premises directly. In a public facility this would
be the manager or custodian. For the boardroom, it might well
be the CEO's assistant. Whatever the case, the person with
responsibility for room scheduling and accommodations can be
invaluable in helping you make sure things are properly set up.

Quick Reference Summary

Best time to make an important presentation: ten to eleven

A.M. Tuesday. You're more likely to have listeners' attention.
If you're in the middle of a group of presenters, find a way to
make your presentation stand out.
If you can't control the circumstances, you may have to adjust
your goals and simplify your message.
Check presentation site for size, seating, audiovisual facili-
ties, lighting, and temperature control.
Rehearse at the site witli the equipment: Use the sound sys-
tem, make all the lighting changes, run the projectors.
 Building Strong Messages:
Selling Points
and Word Power

It is now time to be speaker-centered — time to consider your mes-

sage and how to express it in the most powerful way possible.

Strong messages use vivid, unambiguous language. They

reston a foundation of information presented in a package
that we call a selling point, which makes a positive statement
and then gives an illustration.

Background: Some Thoughts on Selling

The word selling may strike you as odd or inappropriate in this

context. So, before we turn our attention to selling points and per-
suasive language and their roles in building strong messages, we'd
like to take a moment to clarify our thinking in this area.
32 Get to the Point

As we see it, nineteen times out of twenty, when making a presen-

tation you're really there to sell. Not necessarily a product or a ser-
vice; it might be an image or idea, a course of action, a point of
view — even yourself.
When we ask our workshop clients what their presentation goals
are, we get a pretty standard array of answers. The list generally
includes: to educate or inform, to solve problems, to arrive at deci-
sions, to agree on a course of action, to persuade, and, yes, to sell.
—
most of these all but the first, really have a
You'll notice that —
clearly active component. We want people to do something, based
on what we are saying. We want our listeners to agree with us, to
approve the recommendations we are making, to make the decision
we are supporting. Those of you who have some experience in sales
understand not only the obvious — that a sale is persuasion — but also
that a sale is agreement, that a sale is arriving at a decision, that,
very often, a sale is the solution to a problem.
And even those of you who present to inform or educate might
consider for a moment whether there isn't a more active purpose to
your presentations than simply to impart information. You probably
also want your listeners to do something.
Suppose that you are giving a presentation about cardio-
pulmonary resuscitation. Aren't you are there to do more than sim-
ply inform your listeners of the existence of this life-saving
technique? Certainly you're there to give them some insight into
how it works, but more importantly you want to convince your lis-
teners to learn CPR so they can save lives.
Many of us are uncomfortable with the idea of selling. We feel

comes from our experience with

that selling "isn't nice." Perhaps this
certain types of salespeople. Who knows? But the reality is that our
society is built on selling; it goes on all the time in our culture.
Calvin Coolidge put it this way: "The business of America is busi-
ness." And that means selling.
Our point here is not that you should become a slick, fast-talking,

hard-sell artist, rather that conscious awareness of your underlying

goal can provide /ocus to your presentations. And a focused message
is a strong message. The more conscious you are of an active goal,
 —
Building Strong Messages: Selling Points and Word Power 33

the more powerfully your message will be communicated. You want

your listeners to do something; you want, in effect, to close the sale.

Retention Factors

In addition to making your point powerfully, focus contributes to

retention. You want people to remember your message long enough
to act on it. Unfortunately, this is not so easy to accomplish. Here's
one ke>' fact for you to remember about communications:

People don't remember much

As we mentioned in Chapter One, the classic research of psycholo-

gist Hermann Ebbinghaus tells us that half an hour after a presenta-

tion, the average listener has forgotten 40 percent of what was said.

By the end of the day, 60 percent. By the end of a week, 90 percent

will have been forgotten. The significance of this cannot be over-
stated.
If you really want to make your point —
if you want it to be

—
remembered you had better make it clear, you had better make it
simple, and you had better make it, as an anonymous wit once put
it, "the way they used to vote in the Windy City early and often!'
Clarity, simplicity, and repetition —
the words a successful pre-
senter lives by. A message that is not clearly and emphatically stated
wiU quickly be forgotten. A complicated message or too many —
messages — may not be absorbed by listeners. A message presented
once — as the conclusion of a closely reasoned argument — may not
even be recognized as a message!

Selling Points

Creating selling points is a particular way of crafting information

into an instrument of persuasion. We've already asserted that it is

the foundation of a strong message, but what is a selling point?

34 Get to the Point

Example: It's very rewarding being part of the Jaycees; we're a

people organization. Seeing Mary Foster win the wheelchair
sprint at the Millbrook Special Olympics was worth all the time
I've put in over the years.

Notice that this selling point consists of two elements: a positive

statement or assertion (the Jaycees is a rewarding organization to be
involved with), which we call a headline, and an illustration that
backs up the assertion (this experience was worth all the time given),
which we call a specific. A headline can be any positive statement
about your company, service, product, program, project, or re-
search.The specific can take many forms: statistics, examples, anec-
dotes, third-party proof, visualizations, and analogies, to name a
few.
Both components — headline and specific — are necessary. With-
out the specifics, you can't justify the headline. Without the head-
line to act as a pointer, the significance of the facts may be
overlooked. When you use these elements together, your message be-
comes focused.
Most people just give the general statement such as, "Our com- —
pany is a reliable, high-quality service organization." They fail to go
—
the extra step and provide a specific "Did you know that the city
government just hired us to maintain all of Springfield's police and
fire alarms?" — that demonstrates the validity of the headline. It's

the specific, not the headline, that actually gets most of the atten-
tion. And the more a specific can capture a listener's attention, the
better it makes your point.

Case Study: The research director for a large corporation was

making his presentation at the annual budget review. To justify
his budget allocation, he needed to allay general management's
concern that research wasn't contributing materially to the cor-
poration. His contention was that although the department
would never be a profit center in itself, it contributed to virtu-
ally every other division.
His headline: "Research is important." His specific: "One of
Building Strong Messages: Selling Points and Word Power 35

our researchers developed a substitute for a high-priced ingre-

dient in a food product that saved the brand over nine million
dollars per year."

Empowering Language: Put a Tiger in Your Tailc

The strongest selHng points are the ones that appeal to people's
"gee whiz" or "I didn't know that" response —
and/or hit them in one
of three other vital areas: the heart, the tummy, or the pocketbook.
The more vividly they do this, the more likely your listeners are to
remember your messages. Perhaps not the actual words, but at least
the point.
Our primary tool as presenters is the spoken word. But there's
another important tool that's often overlooked: our listeners' imagi-
nation. If we can use our speaking to engage the audience's imagina-
tion, we can get our messages across powerfully. If people can
visualize your point they become active listeners. The key to power-
ful language in presentations is really quite simple. Don't tell, illus-

trate.

This approach is especially effective when applied to statistics or

numbers. Though we use numbers a lot as communications tools,
they can be quirky. Since Western science describes the world and its

events primarily in numerical terms, as a culture we have a very

high regard for numbers, almost a reverence. We equate numbers
with /acts. On a personal level, we're able to reject numbers as ab-
stractions and tune them out.

If you have a statistic that you feel makes your point, find a
vivid way of illustrating it and you will multiply its impact sev-
eral times over.

Case Study: The American Lung Association had come up

with a very powerful number that they were trying to impress
on the public: Every day nearly one thousand people in this
country die prematurely of smoking- related diseases. That's dis-
 .

36 Get to the Point

turbing, but it's just a number; easy for most people to tune out.

"Almost a thousand people a day" isn't enough to really get the

average person's attention, so we helped them explore alternate
ways of presenting the same information.
Almost a thousand people a day adds up over time; it's equiv-
alent to about 320,000 people a year. That has a bit more im-
pact; it's harder to mentally exclude yourself from a group that
size. But it's still just a number. To give it power we needed to

relate it to something, to make it concrete.

"That's like Giants Stadium filled five times over . .
." was
one idea we came up with. Not bad, but it had two problems.
First, for anyone who doesn't know how big Giants Stadium is

it doesn't mean much. Second, it fails to underscore the main

idea: death on a large scale.

Finally we came up with a presentation that would hit home

to just about everybody: "Almost one thousand people in this
country die each day from smoking-related illnesses. Imagine
it. That's as if two fully loaded jumbo jets collided over your
hometown every day — and everyone aboard was killed. We
would do something about the problem that was re-
air traffic
sponsible. Likewise, we should do something about the smok-
ing problem."
You can almost see that scene of the planes crashing and the
wreckage and carnage on the ground. This is a painful image,
but it is the type of image the ALA wants people to have to —
actively see in their minds' eyes, and perhaps be motivated to
take action.
This selling point was so impressive that U. S. Surgeon Gen-
eral C. Everett Koop began using it for his own presentations

Selling Point File

Creating good selling points doesn't require a consummate liter-

ary gift, but it does take thought, attention, and imagination. We

suggest that you keep an active selling point file — especially if you
present to "external" audiences. In external presentations your lis-
Building Strong Messages: Selling Points and Word Power 37

teners often have little or no real stake in you or your message; there
is no common task orientation, as there is in a business meeting. This
means your messages have to be stronger to make your point.
Good headline material — points you might need to commun-
icate — comes up all the time. Write these points down in a notebook
or on file cards along with whatever statistical evidence substanti-
ates them. Don't ignore newspapers and magazines as potential
sources of material.
Then spend some time creating supporting illustrations, analo-
gies, or visualizations that really bring them to life. Don't go too far;

some analogies work, others beyond the

stretch the imagination
point of receptivity. If you do your work conscientiously, you may
come up with several compelling specifics for any given headline.
This gives you the option of remaking the same point in a fresh way.
This approach works for "internal" presentations, of course. For
example: "The new personnel policies and regular staff meetings
have improved productivity. George Smith says that lateness is down
15 percent. More importantly, George told me that Felix Jones is
working harder and said he felt like he had more of a stake in the
organization."
Keep adding points and working with the ones already in your
file.You can't have too many selling points. The opportunity to de-
liver a selling point can come up at any time in a presentation. The

better yours are worked out, the more impact they will have. And
the more you practice the art of creating selling points, the easier it
gets.

Well-Chosen Words

Communicating clearly is not an easy matter, even when all parties

have the best intentions. Words can convey meaning with intricate
precision, but they have an equal capacity to mislead. Carefully
chosen words are more likely to carry the meaning you intend than
carelessly chosen ones. Here are our two principles of presentation
language:
38 Get to the Point

Use simple, everyday language as much as possible. Use

strong, active, and, above all, positive words.

Keep It Simple

In general, try to use one word, preferably a short one, where

several might do. If you must use technical jargon or industry
buzzwords, define your terms.
It would be foolish to let your vocabulary make your point un-
intelligible. If your message hangs on one or two key terms and those
terms aren't understood, then your message is wasted. Assuming
that your listeners share your special vocabulary is a pitfall — you
can't be sure.
Acronyms are particularly problematic because they are ambigu-
ous. "OTC," for example, may mean "over the counter" to both a
stockbroker and a pharmaceutical manufacturer, but to a travel
agent it means "one stop charter." In the telephone business it means
"operating telephone company," which is also known as a "LEG"
(local exchange company) or a "BOG" (Bell operating company).
Gompound that ambiguity by the number of acronyms we encoun-
ter every day and the potential for misunderstanding is astonishing.
For clear communications, don't use esoteric, trendy, and highly
technical words and terms —
especially acronyms. If you're abso-
lutely sure that the people you're talking to speak the same private
language, go ahead and use them. But can you be sure?

Case Study: We once gave a session with people fromtwo dif-

ferent telephone companies, both of which sold an alarm moni-
toring service. The companies marketed the same product
under different —
names one called it "Scan Alert," the other
"React." We discovered during the session that people from
each company were unaware of the trade name of the other
company's product.

The point of this illustration is not that you must avoid using a
tradename in your talk. When you do use a trade name or any other
Building Strong Messages: Selling Points and Word Power 39

term that might be unfamiliar with, add a brief explana-

listeners

tion (e.g., —
that's our alarm monitoring service
"Scan Alert ,"). . .

It's simple to do, and it can make the difference between the success

or failure of your presentation.

Make It Strong and Positive

There is another dimension of message building we want to cover

here. Modesty, which many of us are taught as a cultural value in
childhood, dictates that we refrain from "blowing our own horns."
As a consequence we often refer in neutral terms to accomplish-
ments that we are proud of. Modesty, however, is out of place in
selling.

We want you to look at each of your selling points and notice your
wording. Can you find a word that says it more positively? More
emphatically? This means using affirmative terms like "I believe," "I
know," or "I recommend" instead of the relatively neutral terms "I
think" or "it seems."
For example, if your company has to meet federal standards in
doing business with the government, this may be a fact you mention
in your presentations as an indication of product quality. But com-
pare these statements; "We meet federal standards in this area" and
"We exceed federal standards." The latter statement sends a much
more powerful message.
Instead of a colorless statement like "I think this proposal should
be approved . .
."
— assuming you truly believe it — an emphatic
phrase like "The research really convinces me . .
." leaves listeners in
no doubt about exactly where you stand.

Signal Words, Themes, and Triplets

There are three more specific ideas we'd like to cover before we
leave the topic of words.

Signal words. As a presenter you want your listener's undivided at-

tention, and you may come close to that goal at times. Realistically,
40 Get to the Point

you should realize that people's attention does wander, but that it
can be summoned back when it's especially important for you to
have it. You have to send out a signal that says, "Pay attention!"
Signal words like "What's significant here," "I want to stress,"
"Let me underscore," "What's important here," or "This can't be
overemphasized" send that kind of a message. Review or summation
phrases like "In conclusion," "To summarize," or "Let's review" do
the same. These words put the audience's attention back where it
should be — on the speaker.
Themes. As you create the powerful images that give life to your
messages, look for a phrase that might serve as a theme; a special
idea or image that sums up your message. An image like this can be
woven through your talk, building power and retention through
repetition and remaining in the listener's memory long after the rest
of your message has disappeared.

Case Study: Benjamin Lambert, chairman and CEO of

Eastdil Realty, Inc., a major real estate investment organiza-
tion, was preparing an industry conference talk in San
for
Francisco when he came up with the image of the amber light.
The traffic light analogy is an investment business cliche. In-
vestors and brokers are always talking about investment red
lights and green lights. One of Ben's fundamental points, how-
ever, was that in the real estate market, the light is almost never
either green or red. In real estate, one is virtually always pro-
ceeding on the amber light of caution.
We liked the analogy and suggested that he make it his lead,
work it into the body of the speech, and use it again as a close.
We even helped create a little anecdote for the opener about the
country's first traffic light, erected in Cleveland in 1914. And
so was born the Amber Light Theory of real estate investment.
The image got such a strong response that within a week the
idea had made it from one coast to the other, by word of mouth.
A potential client in New York, who had not attended the ses-
Building Strong Messages: Selling Points and Word Power 41

sion, later told one of Lambert's executives that he had heard

the theon- — and agreed with it.

Triplets. Experienced speakers, writers, broadcasters, and others

whose livelihoods depend on effective use of language have long
been aware that three words are often better than one. (Please allow
us this exception to the "one word where several will do" advice,
above.)
There's something mystically powerful about grouping words in
triplets. It's one of the oldest tricks in the book of rhetoric and mem-
orable examples abound, especially in oratory and advertising:
"blood, sweat, and tears . .
."; "government of the people, by the
people, and for the people ."; "round, firm,
. . and fully
packed ."; "snap, crackle, and pop.
. .
."
. .

Learn to think in threes. It can add punch to your selling points

and your key messages.

Quick Reference Summary

• Think of your presentation as if you were selling; it will help
you focus your message.
• Your message should ask your listeners to do something: to
vote, to decide, to act.
• Clarity, simplicity, and repetition aid retention.
• Selling points are the foundation of a persuasive presen-
tation—whether or not you are literally selling.
• A selling point consists of a positive statement— a headline-
backed up by a supporting illustration or specific.
• Look for vivid, visual ways of illustrating your selling points-
images that make your listeners see your point.
• Use simple, everyday words; avoid technical jargon and acro-
nyms.
• If you must use technical language, jargon, or industry buzz-

words, explain them.

• Use strong, active, positive words, not guarded or negative
ones.
42 Get to the Point

• Use signal words and phrases to keep the audience tuned in:
"The real issue is ."; "What's important here
. . ."; "This is . .

."
critical . .

• Look for visual themes that can tie a presentation together.

• Use words in groups of three to increase audience interest
and retention.
 The Three-Minute
Presentation Writing
Technique

Somebody once asked Abraham Lincoln how long it took him to

prepare a speech. "It takes me about two weeks to write a good
twenty-minute speech," he said, "but I can write a /orft/-minute
speech in one week. And," he added, "I can give a two-hour talk on
almost any subject right now." Or, as a correspondent of ours once
put it: "If I'd had more time, I'd have written you a shorter letter."

The point? It's hard to be concise.

With our three-minute presentation writing technique, however,
we give you a way to cut the job down to size. Once you are profi-
cient with you should be able to draft your presentation in three
it,

minutes or less,regardless of length. Our technique works whether

you make thirty-second, five-minute, or two-hour presentations.
Not only is it fast, our writing technique also gives you an impor-
tant psychological edge. Think of the times you've sat down to write
a presentation, a memo, or a report and gotten stuck trying to come
up with a lead. Remember the days before word processors, how
 .

44 Get to the Point

those crumpled pages piled up on the floor? Our method relieves

you of all the frustration of getting started because the lead will
come later.
The technique centers on two easy steps:

1 Stating your conclusion

2. Listing your arguments

These elements comprise the core of your presentation. Almost the

from them. A third element is often necessary
entire structure flows
to complete the scheme, and that has to do with the "lead" we just
mentioned. We'll discuss that later.

The first step is the key, but it rests on doing something that does
not come naturally to most people. The natural tendency in formal
communications seems to be to save the conclusion recom- —
—
mendation, action plan, sales pitch for the end. Our writing tech-
nique, however, reverses that process.

Step One. Make a succinct, one-, two-, or three-line statement

of your message; the bottom line of your presentation.

By the time you're ready to start writing you should be able to do this
fairly easily. If you can't, the chances are you're not ready to write.
This point of departure acts like a mental funnel, channeling your
whole thought process into a tightiy focused output. It makes for a
stronger presentation because it forces you to focus on your message
rather than your argument.

In communications, arguments are secondary. The first pri-

ority is to make clear what is being proposed; then the sup-
porting facts can be introduced to bolster the conclusion.

Case Study: A client of ours, a research scientist with a phar-

maceutical firm, provides an excellent illustration of why this is

so important. She came to us to improve her presentation skills

following her first experience in presenting to senior business

management.
The Three-Minute Presentation Writing Technique 45

True to the scientific method in which background and data

precede the conclusion, our scientist launched into an hour's
worth of data related to her projects. After about three min-
utes, the president of the company slammed his hand on the
conference table and demanded, "Do we have a new drug here,
or don 't we?"
For him, this was the bottom line. If the answer was yes, then
he wanted to hear the details; if it was no, the
details were
irrelevant. If was maybe, he could decide, but without know-
it

ing the point of the message, a lengthy exposition was unaccept-

able.

The principle illustrated by this example is true even when it's not
a go/no-go situation, as in the preceding case study. Look at it from a
listener's point of view: When you know where an argument is lead-
ing, you can judge how well the points substantiate the conclusion as
the argument unfolds.
In a sense, the facts that make up the argument are just packag-
ing; they usually won't be remembered.
Another thing to consider is that inmany informal presentation
situations (in the hall, in the elevator) you may be cut off at any
moment. Even in formal meetings you never know what key figure
may have to leave early. So, whatever the circumstance, give them
your message early.

Where to start. Begin. Grab a pad and a pencil; you're ready to

start creating your presentation. First state your conclusion, your
recommendation, and your action plan. Most often this should take
the form of a direct call for action.
You'd be surprised how many presenters never really tell their au-
dience what they want from them. This is true even of salespeople:
According to Hank (No Bull Selling, Bantam Books, 1985),
Trisler
63 percent of end without the salesperson ever asking for
sales calls
the order. We want you to formulate your message so that you make
it absolutely clear what it is you want them to do. Here are a few

examples:
46 Get to the Point

"Lease a car from us. It will give you convenience, flexibility,

and reliability."
• "I recommend that we reorganize our materials supply system
and keep this plant open."
"Volunteer some of your time to the United Way; you'll feel bet-
ter about yourself and our community will be stronger."
• "My committee's recommendation is that themanagement in-
vest four-point-seven million dollars in this new line of business.
We'd like your approval,"

What's your conclusion? Write it down. Say it out loud. How does
itsound to you? Make it clear and strong. You're off and running.
Once your conclusion is set, the rest of your presentation should fall
into place.

Step Two. List the selling points that support your conclusion.

These two elements — your conclusion and action plan and your list

of selling points — form the backbone of your presentation. Here's

how it works:
Conceptually, we divide presentations into three sections:
• Beginning
Middle
End

in which you:
Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em
Tell 'em
Tell 'em what you told 'em

The beginning and ending essentially mirror each other, stating your
conclusion and briefly summarizing the supporting material. The
middle, the body of the presentation, consists of discussing that ma-
terial in detail.

Let's look at the specific structure of each segment of the presenta-

tion.
The Three-Minute Presentation Writing Technique 47

Beginnings

The function of your opening is to clearly state your message, to

outline the argument that supports it, and to prepare listeners for the
detailed discussion that will follow. It has another function as well.
In addition to introducing your message, your opening is your big
chance to really get your listeners listening.
Perhaps you know the stor>' about the old farmer who came upon
a neighbor one day, trying to get his mule to go. The man was shout-
ing and cursing and pulling on the bridle — all to no avail. Picking
up a handy piece whacked the mule be-
of two-by-four, the farmer
tween the ears with all his might. The mule shook its head. The
farmer shouted, "Gee-up!" The mule blinked for a moment and
then started forward. "The problem is," explained the farmer, "you
first got to get his attention."
Think of the attention span of today's Zippers and Zappers. (Zip-
pers are those who fast forward through the commercials on pro-
grams they have taped on videocassette recorders. Zappers change
TV stations with their remote controls.) Few listeners or viewers give
a station much time before flicking the dial. It's often a matter of
seconds. And the producers of programs and commercials don't
want us to fast-forward or change the channel or station. In the
presentation arena, you have a little more time —
about 30 seconds
before people tune you out. If they don't leave the room, they think

about errands they have to run, the weather, work piling up on their
desk, the movies. If we admit to being Zippers and Zappers, then
you can see why it's important to have a strong opening or grabber
in a presentation.

Attention is a prerequisite to communication. The more of

the audience's attention you have, the more communicating
you can do.

Here is the third element in the three-minute writing technique,

relating to the "lead."
48 Get to the Point

Step Three. An introduction that captures your Usteners' atten-

tion is a necessity.

It doesn't matter when this element gets created. Despite the fact
that it will be used in your introduction, it can be the last step in
your preparation.

The Grabber. Since audiences can be quite mulelike, a presenter

needs a verbal equivalent of the two-by-four in our story. You want
not merely to capture your listeners' attention but to really engage
their minds. We call this kind of attention-getting kickoff the
grabber.
The appropriate degree of "grab" will vary from one type of occa-
sion to another. Generally, your grabber doesn't have to make the
stars fall from the sky or shake the pillars of the temple. It should
introduce the topic in a catchy, arresting, or amusing manner, or it

should introduce you, creating a connection between you and your

listeners. If it can do both, even better.
We use three types of grabbers:
The anecdote
The prop
• The bottom line

At its very simplest, your grabber can be something as transparent

as relating a pertinent thought, insight, or observation that "oc-
curred to me as I was driving out here this morning." Or perhaps "I
was talking to Amy just before the meeting, and she was telling me
some of her concerns about test market results on the product." Per-
sonal references like these help break down barriers between you
and the audience by establishing a connection, even if it's a small

The Anecdote. Humor is good bonding material, which makes it a

valuable ingredient in openings. We don't recommend jokes as grab-
bers, because even seasoned pros like Johnny Carson fall on their
faces about 30 percent of the time. But almost any humorous anec-
The Three-Minute Presentation Writing Technique 49

dote such as a personal story with a laugh — or just a smile — can do

the job. Good material of this sort is often close at hand.

Case Study: A woman in one of our workshops had compiled a

comprehensive report on what in the telecommunications busi-
ness is called "corridor traffic" (that is, phone calls between ma-
jor markets that cross state lines, say from Camden, New Jersey,
to Philadelphia). Her presentation about the was inter- report
esting and informative, but it lacked a distinctive opening.
In a casual conversation with us, she mentioned that she had
become a minor celebritv- around the office as a result of her
efforts. Her colleagues had dubbed her the "corridor queen."

We pointed out that this would make a terrific opener: "Let me

tell you how I came to be called the corridor queen. ." She'd . ,

had it in her head all the time; it just hadn't seemed relevant to
a public presentation.
Personal, whimsical touches like these pull an audience in.
You wouldn't necessarily use this type of grabber for the chair-
man of the board, but it would work fine for a group of peers.
Even an amusing play on words can make a good grabber.

Case Study: A new vice president of marketing at a midwest-

em phone company who was new to the telephone business was
convinced an acronym describing Local Access Transport Areas
(LATAs) would never be understood b>' the public. He wanted
itchanged.
The company's advertising director, however, had studies
that indicated that LATA had gained a high recognition factor
within the industry and that changing the terminolog\' at this
point would be extremely costly. Her message was, "Let's keep
things the way the>- are"; and status quo can be a lot harder to
sell than innovation. She wasn't going to astound anyone with
what she had to say, so in keeping with her low-key message,
shecame up with an effective grabber: "Good morning. We're
here today to discuss the LATA matta'. I believe that LATA is

here to stay, and in support of this I'm going to give you some
50 Get to the Point

LATA data . .
."
— which she then proceeded to do. And recog-
nizing a good thing, she mirrored the opening in her conclu-
sion: "I hope that now we'll be able to lay the LATA matta' to
rest."

The Prop. There are times when you'll really wish you had a two-
by-four for an attention-getter. We really don't recommend this, but
sometimes the right prop will do the job.

Case Study: A product manager we know was once the fourth

of six scheduled presenters at a morning sales meeting held in
Montevideo, Uruguay. To begin with, a lot of salespeople don't

want to be bothered with information. Their attitude is, "All I

need to know is what's the price and what's my cut?" And in

minds were mainly on the sightsee-
this particular setting, their

would be doing as soon as this meeting was over.

ing they
His topic was the chemical properties of the company's new
shrink wrap —
a subject the salespeople would need to know
when they talked to customers. How to get their attention? This
was his solution:
"You will notice that I have placed on your desks two or-
One is shrink-wrapped, the other is not. I want you to
anges.
take these home and put them on your kitchen windowsill. Call
me in a month and tell me how they're holding up. I guarantee
that the orange that isn't wrapped will be a shriveled wreck.
The one that is wrapped will look just about the way it does
now.
"Then take a knife and cut into the shrink-wrapped orange.
You'll find it as fresh and sweet as any orange you could buy at

the store that morning. Now. Let's talk about the chemical
."
properties of this improved shrink-wrapping. . .

The prop helped to penetrate; it got a "gee whiz" response by

graphically and dramatically illustrating something significant
about the product. It was interesting enough to hold their at-
tention for the time he needed to make his point.

The Bottom Line. The stunt with the oranges is really a dramatiza-
tion of a selling point. Very often a strong selling point makes an
The Three-Minute Presentation Writing Technique 51^

excellent grabber. Especially effective selling points are those that

stimulate the intellect, provoke our "gee-whiz" response, appeal to
our sense of self-interest or well-being, or touch one of our emotional
buttons — hitting us in the heart, the tummy, or the pocketbook.
Case Study: Probably one of the toughest audiences any pre-
senter could face, in terms of attention- getting, are the passen-
gers on the New York- Washington, D.C., air shuttle. These
people are busy and stressed. They've heard the air safety in-
structions scores of times.
Knowing this, the stewardess on one recent flight began her
spiel with the following: "Did you know that fl>ing is the safest
form of transportation? Safer than riding a bicycle or a train?"
With this grabber, she caught the attention of the normally
blase passengers.
She continued: "But safety is everybody's responsibility, so
please take out the card from the seat pocket in front of you and
."
read along as I review the information. . .

Our rough estimate was that about one-half of the passengers

did indeed reach for their instruction cards and seemed to be
following along — about a tenfold increase over a normal shuttle
flight.

Case Study: A client of ours was involved in marketing an or-

der processing software package. In her presentation, she men-
tioned one implementation in which this system had reduced
350 days of order processing time to 5 working days. We sug-
gested she make this her grabber: "If we could help you boil
down an entire year's order processing work into one week,
wouldn't you be interested in learning something about our ser-
vices?" This seUing point was so strong we encouraged her to
use it in her closing as well.

We could go on about grabbers, but we've certainly given you

some ideas to work with. Whatever opening gambit you hit upon, it

should lead direcdy and naturally into the statement of your bottom
line (if your grabber does not, in fact, contain your message), after
52 Get to the Point

which you can briefly outline the body of your talk. And that's your
beginning.

Once you have worked out the beginning of your presenta-

we strongly recommend that you commit to memory.
tion, it

During the first moments of your interaction with the audience, you
want to be able to mobilize all your communications skills, which
means making eye contact with your listeners and having your
hands and arms free to gesture (see Chapter Seven for a detailed
discussion of delivery skills). Memorizing your opening lets you con-
centrate fully on your delivery.
A final thought on openings and grabbers: Although you may
think we're pushing you to become vaudeville performers with all
this razzle-dazzle, we really just want you to be strong presenters.

We actually welcome the opportunity to tell presenters to tone it

down. If you have doubts about any of this, think for yourself how
you respond to presenters who drone on and on, or take a long time
to come to the point. We feel strongly that it's better to challenge
your listeners than to leave them to their daydreams.

Middles

The middle of your presentation is the guts. It's where the infor-
mation is imparted and the persuasion takes place. It may contain:
• Supporting data
" Statistics

Evidence
Research
Findings
• Proof

Without good, hard information in the middle, all the audience

profilingand message tailoring in the world isn't going to mean
much. Paradoxically, information is the part of your talk people are
The Three-Minute Presentation Writing Technique 53

most likely to forget, but it is still a vital element. It is the material

the audience needs to make decisions. If it's not there — or it's not
convincing — you are not going to succeed in making your point.
Likewise, a ho-hum approach to the structure and the wording of
the middle of your presentation can lose you the whole ball game.
Strong visual imagery in your selling points, colorful or surprising
illustrations and examples, and well-planned visuals can all add
sparkle to the middle of your talk. They will help sustain interest
and attention, but they are no substitute for solid facts.
Don't fall into the trap of putting all your time and effort into the
ending and beginning and leaving the middle to take care of itself.
If the body of your talk is boring or ponderous, it will completely

undermine even the strongest opening. And it doesn't matter how

stirring your closing is if you've already lost your audience.
There are four basic ways to structure the middle of a presenta-
tion. We call them:
• Question and answer
(Q & A)
• Problem/solution
• Time/sequence
• Topical

Question and Answer. The Q & A approach analyzes a problem or

task and puts it into a series of questions that needs answers. For
example, "The questions we need to explore in our marketing plan
are: What type of media support do we have? What are our sales
objectives? and. Where does the sales force tie in?" After setting this
agenda, the presenter then covers the individual questions and an-
swers in detail.

Problem /solution. This scenario works well for reporting results

and generally goes something like this: "As you know, we've been
facing a serious and unanticipated cash-flow problem, stemming ul-
timately from a troublesome deterioration in accounts receivable.
We were asked to study the situation and develop some measures to
correct it. We found that both the average age of receivables and
percentage of overdue accounts had risen sharply in the first quar-
54 Get to the Point

We also found that our reporting system made it extremely cum-

ter.

bersome to track down the specific information that would help us

."
take appropriate action. . .

In other words, the problem /solution scenario involves a concise

statement detailing the elements of the problem, followed by an out-
line of how solutions were developed, leading into a detailed discus-
sion of the significant stagesand findings. This kind of a middle
would naturally culminate in an emphatic selling point something
like: "With our new reporting system up and running we have been

able to reduce the average age of receivables from sixty-one to forty-

seven days, which is far below industry standards. And we're happy
to report that cash flow is looking better than it has for years."

Time /sequence or 'timeline.' This approach stresses the history or

chronology of a process, problem, or issue.

Case Study: Marc Chodorow, vice president of public relations

for Goldome Bank, a national banking company, uses the time-
line approach when representing Goldome to the press or to
A thumbnail version goes roughly like this:
securities analysts.
"Between December 1981 and March 1982, the former Buf-
falo SavingsBank, whose assets were three billion dollars, ac-
quired three troubled thrift institutions. Assets grew to nine
billion dollars. In early 1983, the organization became
Goldome (named after the gold-domed building that had been
the institution s home since 1901). The year 1983 also saw the
creation of our mortgage banking company and insurance
agency, and the acquisition of two savings and loans in Florida.
In 1983-84, we created a merchant banking group. In 1985-
86, the new corporate headquarters were completed in Buffalo,
incorporating the original building and thus symbolizing the
progress from a regulated savings bank to a diversified national
banking concern. In 1986, we recorded our highest profits ever,
and in 1987, Goldome went public."

Another time/sequence example would be the pharmaceutical

product manager explaining to new management recruits the pro-
The Three-Minute Presentation Writing Technique 55

cess of getting a new product to market; running down the sequence

of events from preclinical testing through application for FDA ap-
proval, product design, tooling up, clinical testing, packaging de-
sign, advertising and promotion development, to actually getting
the drug to the sales force and into hospital formularies and onto
pharmacy shelves.

Topical. This method is probably the most common. Basically, it

says, "Here are the topics that need to be dealt with or resolved in
situation X." As with all these approaches, it is important that you
provide your listeners with a good road map. For example, you
might begin, "There are several topics we need to explore in evaluat-
ing this acquisition. . .
." But instead of proceeding to exploring
them one by one, take the time to list them first: "The topics include
the Dependable Company's product line, the cost and payment
terms of the acquisition, and the synergies between our two compa-
nies." Then go through the list. This way, each topic is like fitting a

brick into place; listeners anticipate the structure of the argument

and watch it take shape.

If there are many facts in the middle of your presentation, it is

a good idea to summarize your progress from time to time.

It's like erecting signposts for your listeners. "Now that we've cov-
ered the issues of cost and product lines, let's discuss the topic of
synergies. . .
." If you've given a good clear opening statement of
your objective you can reinforce that objective as you move through
your points by exphcidy referring back to it. For example, "Keep in

mind that these numbers and statistics help prove the overall sound-
ness of the marketing plan and should be considered when you vote
."
later on. . .

Endings

You've told 'em what you're gonna tell 'em and you've told 'em.
Now it simply remains to tell 'em what you told 'em — and to drive it
home.
56 Get to the Point

Brieflysummarize the points of your argument and restate your

message. To get the maximum impact from your restatement, you
need to introduce or set off the ending with a signal phrase Hke "Let
me summarize what I've said ." or "In conclusion. .""Flagging"
. . . .

your conclusion increases its impact by focusing your listeners' atten-

tion; it alerts them to the fact that you are about to tell 'em what you
told 'em. If they weren't paying close attention before, they will re-
spond to this signal and pay attention.
The whole ending should take no more than a minute.

Like the opening, your ending should be memorized.

The reasoning here is the same as for the beginning: The end of your
talk is the last thing your audience will hear, and the last thing heard
is the thing most likely to be remembered. The more clearly and
forcefully it is stated the greater the likelihood that it will be remem-
bered accurately. Memorizing your ending lets you concentrate on
clear and emphatic delivery.

Recap
Here's our three-minute writing technique in a nutshell:

1. Write your conclusion.

2. List the supporting material — your selling points: data, facts,

statistics, research, examples.

3. Find an appropriate grabber.

Once you're familiar with the process you can go through it quite
quickly — three minutes or less — when you need to. The technique
works whether you're sitting in your office using a dictaphone, or in
an airplane seat using pencil and paper.
In fact, the technique can be condensed into the "down and dirty
thirty-second writing technique." And there are people who can use
this. Pharmaceutical sales reps come to mind. They catch a doctor
coming out of the elevator or the hospital cafeteria and very often
they have literally thirty seconds to make a pitch. Something like
The Three-Minute Presentation Writing Technique 57

"Hey, Doctor Smith, I know you're just out of surgery and you
haven't slept in four days and you have to go on rounds, but let me
tell you the four reasons why our new drug is a better preoperative
."
sedative. . .

Even you don't normally work under these conditions, you may
if

find the thirty-second technique comes in handy once in a while.

You never can tell when you're going to find yourself in the elevator
with the president of the company that never-to-be-repeated op- —
portunity to let the boss know — in person — what you've done for the
organization lately.

Quick Reference Summary

The three-minute writing technique begins with two primary

steps:
1. Write your conclusions, including an action plan.
List your supporting arguments (selling points).
2.

These elements form the core of your presentation: begin-

ning, middle, and end.
Writing the conclusion first helps clarify and focus your
thoughts.
It is vital an audience's attention within thirty seconds
to gain
of beginning.Think "What's in it for them?"
Develop a grabber to pull in audience. Grabbers are pertinent
thoughts, insights, observations, analogies, personal experi-
ences.
Avoid jokes; they fall flat too often.
Props dramatize points.
After the grabber, the beginning of the presentation will mirror
the ending. The key point goes up front.
The middle of a presentation contains hard evidence; data,
statistics, research.
Presentation of the middle is vital to your credibility; take the
time to do it well.
Visual imagery of selling points, colorful or surprising infor-
mation, and well-planned visuals add sparkle to middle of
presentation.
58 Get to the Point

• Presentation middle can be designed in one of four ways:

1. Q & A— asking and answering vital questions on issue.
2. Problem/solution— posing problems; offering solutions.
3. Time/sequence— chronological orders of events to
make your point.
4. Topical — listing topics one by one, addressing them in-

dividually.
• Ending contains two elements: summary of key points and
audience what you want them to do.
call for action. Tell
• Set off your ending with signal words, summarize your argu-
ments, and leave them with your action plan ringing in their
ears.
 Noteworthy Notes

You may or may not want to write out your entire presentation as
you develop it, but you'll almost certainly want to have some sort of
written material with you as you deliver your talk.
We feel very strongly that a presenter should use notes, rather
than a full transcript. It is much harder to achieve the spontaneous
conversational tone that is appropriate to presentations when read-
ing from a You almost inevitably sound like you're
full transcript.

"giving a speech," which feels wrong to the audience in most presen-

tation situations. Notes support the conversational mode, prompting
and reminding you of what you want to say.
The most frequent question we get is, "How extensive should my
notes be? What do I put down and what do I leave out?" Actually,
the two questions, "how much" and "what," are not the same.

How much? Clearly, we can't give you a specific answer to this. It's
going to depend on such factors as how long your presentation is.
60 Get to the Point

whether you give it once or often, and how much factual or numeri-
cal detail it contains. But we can offer a general answer — which is,

"Probably a lot less than you think."

Notes should be a reminder, not a transcript.

Especially when people are new by

to presenting, they will begin
writing out a talk fully and then whittling few sparse it down to a
notes. Others prefer to start with a detailed oudine and pare that
down. It may take a few presentations to get an accurate feel for
what is important to have in front of you and what isn't.

Less is more. The more material that goes into your notes,
the harder it will be for you to extract what you need.

The art of note making lies in achieving a balance between com-

pleteness and As you include more information in your
accessibility.

notes, either the word density increases to the point where your eye
has trouble finding what it's looking for or you end up with too
many pieces of paper.

What to write. Start with the idea that your notes should at least

reflect the organization of your talk. This means at a minimum they

should clearly list, you wish to cover.
in order, the points or topics
This will make sure you don't leave out anything you planned to say.
Or, if time gets short, it lets you choose what to skip over and what to
include.
You can use "bullets" (heavy black dots) to list your points or, if

you prefer, number them. Numbering will be especially helpful if

you open with a remark like, "There are really only four things that
thiscommittee needs to know about enzyme detergent additives."
away from complete sentences. Generally, a word or two or a
Stay
short phrase, will be sufficient to suggest each point you wish to
Noteworthy Notes 61^

In general, list facts, not principles.

Under stress, we tend to forget "facts" — specific references, num-

bers, examples. The facts listed on note cards will always lead us to
the larger point, but it does not work the other way. If their accu-
racy is crucial, the details in your notes should be things like exact
numbers or statistics, and lengthy quotations. Other things included
will be cues for particular stories or anecdotes, cues for visuals, and
personal reminders.

Tip: Some experienced presenters dispense with notes alto-

gether by working the information that would otherwise be on
note cards into their visuals. This is not a bad idea unless it

pushes you to include more visuals than taste and reason would
other\\ase dictate. Further, if your equipment malfunctions,
you can be up a creek. Play it safe and have a hard copy of any
notes you'll really need.

How to write. Print clearly, preferably in block capitals. Or t^pe

your notes. Keep notes sparse; leave as much blank space as is prac-
ticable to maximize legibilit>'. You've probably all seen presenters
who made their notes too small or wrote too much and had to squint
to make out the key words. We don't want this to be you.

Make sure your notes are readable.

Tip: You can use colored pens or highlighters to make crucial

facts or cues virtually jump off the page. Red is the most visible
for writing or underlining, but other colors work well, too. In
fact, you can "code" your notes by using more than one color:
for example, red for reminders, blue for statistics, green for
quotations, and orange for anecdotes. Yellow isn't very read-
62 Get to the Point

able, so you won't want to write with it; on the other hand, it
is excellent for highlighting (marking over words to make them
stand out).
Another possibility is using colored index cards to code the
different sections or areas of your presentation. One color each
for beginning, middle, and end, perhaps. A colored card for
your facts and figures, A colored card for your final summary
points. The possibilities are limited only by your needs and
ingenuity.

What to write on. You can make notes on virtually anything. Leg-
end has it that Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address on
the back of an envelope. If that's all you have available, fine; but
other things work better.

Five-by-seven-inch file cards make the best note cards.

File cards are best because the heavy paper stock stands up to nor-
mal wear and tear. We recommend the five-by-seven size because, in
our experience, that is the best compromise between legibility and
manageability (smaller and you either have to write small or you
can't get much on one card; larger and they become awkward to
handle — and conspicuous). They are best used in the vertical or
"portrait" orientation, perpendicular to the way the lines are
printed, so you will want to use the blank side. Writing across the
short dimension of the card helps keep notes short and concise.

Tip: If you plan to follow your talk with a question and an-
swer session, make a separate card listing important selling
points you made during your talk, points important enough to
be repeated.
Glance over the card before you begin your Q & A, and refer
toit from time to time as you field questions. You can also jot

down on this card any vital numbers, facts, or statistics you

need to have at your fingertips for answering questions.
Noteworthy Notes 63

Case Study: Here's a concrete example of how a set of presen-

tation notes might look. Six sparsely worded five-by-seven note
cards were all Andy needed for a forty-minute presentation to
an audience of eighty lawyers in a course designed to improve
their courtroom skills and techniques.
The message of the presentation was that how a lawyer com-
municates can be as important as what he or she says. The talk
referred primarily to opening and closing arguments during a
trial, but was also applicable to questioning of witnesses before
a judge or jury. Andy's action message was to ask the lawyers to
be aware of this aspect of trial work and to practice the tech-
niques he would demonstrate to improve their skills.

The stated assumption in the talk was was no sub-

that there
stitute for agood case with good witnesses and the facts and/or
the law on your side. But all things being equal, it is very often
the better presenter or communicator who convinces a judge or
a jury.
But the question here is: What did Andy put on the cards?

Note Card 1
1.— AG
CCI

2.— NOTICE ME
SUIT
LIMP
TIE

TENN.
IDAHO
FDA

Andy's first remarks concerned his name and a brief statement

about CommCore and our business.
64 Get to the Point

Next, Andy asked people what they noticed about him as he

walked to the front of the room. The points, in case he didn't
get much response, were that these lawyers, or members of a
jury (their audience) would notice a suit, the fact that Andy
was limping due to a recent injury, and maybe that he had a red
"power" tie on.
The third set of points were grabber points (see our discus-
sion of "grabbers," p. 48) to convince the lawyers that judges
and jury members still wanted to be entertained. The notes
were Andy's cues for short anecdotes about events in Tennessee,
Idaho, and the Food and Drug Administration. These anec-
dotes all led to the conclusion that judges, commissioners, and
other decision makers are supposed to base their judgments on
the facts a presenter gives, not how it is presented. These anec-
dotes also let Andy's audience know that these decision makers
are also human beings influenced by how things are communi-
cated. What's important about his notes is that he wrote down
the anecdotal note, not the conclusion. From the anecdote, he
could always get to the conclusion. However, if he'd just writ-
ten a note about the conclusion, he might have forgotten to
mention Tennessee or one of the other examples.
Andy concluded his opening with a statement about the pur-
pose of the talk.

Note Card 2
3. — Ct. Room Scenes
Inherit the Wind
Pat & Mike
Perry Mason
The Verdict
LA Law
(Imperfect)

4.— CONTRAGATE
Brendan Sullivan
Noteworthy Notes 65

John Niels
Arthur Liman

Andy next asked the lawyers to name some of their favorite

cx)urtroom scenes. This was part of an attempt to make the talk
interactive. His note card list of movies and TV shows was in
case the lawyers didn't come up with suggestions, or in case he
wanted to bridge to a point.
The "(Imperfect)" point was to remind the lawyers that part
comments related to impression, but they should not be
of their
thrown off by the "perfect" world of the tube or the silver
screen. The courtroom is a more "imperfect," real- world envi-

ronment.
Point four related to several comments Andy wanted to make
about the Iran/Contragate congressional hearings, which were
then going on. His comments were more about the lawyers in-
volved than the key witnesses.

Note Card 3
IMPRESSION
40
60
90

7
35
58

PDA
TENN.
IDAHO
66 Get to the Point

Remember the statistics we've talked about concerning what an

audience retains and what makes up the entire impression?
Andy quoted them and appHed them to courtroom situations,
where a jury can always ask for testimony to be read back to
them.
"FDA," "TENN.," and "IDAHO" had been on card 1. How-
ever, in case Andy forgot to mention them early on, he wanted
to get the points in during the talk. And that illustrates an im-
portant point about notes: In some ways, Andy didn't even
need the cards. He probably could have used one card with
several points. However the cards are a good crutch, as well as a
reminder in case he forgot something. During the talk, he re-
ferred to them several times. Even end of the talk, he
at the
bought a moment before his conclusion by saying, "Give me a
moment; let me check my notes to make sure I covered every-
thing."

Note Card 4
WIIFM
AUDIENCE ^ set up
Room — ^ 2^
charts

CONTENT

MEANING —
legalese .
^^
Albuquerque
Structure
Shorter sentences
Watch news
Language
— active
Facts Analogies SPs
 —

Noteworthy Notes 67

With the note "AUDIENCE," Andy asked the lawyers to be

aware of the audience, whether it was a judge or a jury.
Clearly, the audience profile would have been done during jury
selection. But the point was to be aware of the appropriate
WIIFMs. The other point was to be aware of the physical envi-
ronment and to use the room effectively.
"CONTENT" was Andy's statement that the facts had to be
right. However, given facts and content for a statement or ques-
tions, the lawyer should be mindful not to use too much legal-
ese with a jury lest they not understand all the information.
Andy illustrated this with an anecdote about an Albuquerque
lawyer.
"STRUCTURE" cued Andy to mention using shorter senten-
ces in important oral communications and that a good way to
learn oral communications skills is to watch good commentators

on television.

The "LANGUAGE" notes refer to many of the elements

we just covered in the writing chapter. The specific words
"Facts," "Analogies," and "SPs" — were points Andy wanted to
make.

Note Card 5
VOICE
GESTURES
EYES
DRESS
NERVES
PAUSES

As you read further in Get to the we

Point you will learn what
have to say about all Andy used the cue words to
these elements.
be sure to cover each element and how it relates to communica-
tions, impressions, and retention. One word was enough for a
one- to two-minute chunk of his talk.
68 Get to the Point

Note Card 6
PRACTICE
EXERCISES
LISTEN to TV, RADIO
SMILE ,, .

ENJOY ^^f/°^
^'''^''
NERVES
JACK LALANNE

These were Andy's final notes about how to apply and use the
information in his talk. Each word was a cue. Again, this is

much of what we have covered and will cover in Get to the Point.
The name on the right was written in at the last minute and
was a reference to one of the course instructors Andy met just
before he spoke. This was a way to personalize the talk. In fact,
he had mentioned Ms. Seltzer earlier in the talk, but the note
was here just in case he forgot.
The "JACK LALANNE" note was to remind himself to get
the audience members up on their feet and to show them exer-
cises that would loosen them up before a presentation. (You'll

find these exercises on p. 154.) Everyone present indeed did rise

and do the exercises, including a federal and a state judge who
were sitting on the dais.
Since doing closing statements and answering questions have
long since become second nature to him, Andy made no cards
for these parts of the talk. So that's it. Six cards, forty minutes.
Try making note cards; they'll work for you, too.

Note choreography. Walking to the lectern or speaker's platform

with a handful of papers can add a distracting element to the begin-
ning of your presentation, a transition that you want to go as
smoothly and unobtrusively as possible. If you have to put on a mi-
crophone, empty hands are necessary. What do you do with your
Noteworthy Notes

notes? If you use the five- by-seven cards we recommend, they will
usually fit neatly in either an inside breast pocket or an outside
jacket pocket.
If you like to use large sheets, for whatever reason, solving the
problem is You can fold your notes and put them in a
trickier.

pocket, but this means you will have to carefully unfold the pages
before you begin speaking, which can be quite noisy when ampli-
fied. Further, once folded, paper has a tendency to fold back up, so

unless you go through the cumbersome process of reverse-creasing

them, your pages probably won't lie flat and may be difficult to
read.
A solution is to leave your notes on the lectern before the proceed-
ings begin. But this creates another hazard: It will be very easy for
someone else to inadvertentlywalk away with them. A covering
sheet that says something like "Speaker's Notes —
Do Not Remove on
Pain of Death" should prevent this. Even safer would be to use the
cover sheet and tape the notes to the lectern with removable tape.
If you work without a lectern, you will have to hold your notes.

Five-by-seven (or smaller) cards work best in this situation. Letter-

size note pages are a distraction — a visual distraction to the audi-
ence and a physical distraction to you.

Quick Reference Summary

• Speak from notes, not from a complete transcript. The talk is
inyour head; your notes function as a written agenda includ-
ing vital reminders.
• Five-by-seven file cards held vertically work best for notes.
• Keep notes succinct; a word or two per item.
• Write facts on notecards, not general overview statements.
Stress reduces the ability to remember specifics. You can
always get the statement from the fact, not vice versa.
• Visual aids can serve as notes.
• Use colored pens, highlighters, and cards to help make im-
portant information stand out.
 Show and Tell:
Visual Aids

Even an accomplished presenter can become better by using visual

aids. Visual materials — whether they consist of flip charts, overhead
transparencies, color slides, films, videotapes, or three-dimensional
models or other physical props — can be of tremendous help in mak-
ing a point. Their skillful and judicious use can add dimensions to
your presentation that no amount of extra speaking can contribute.

A recent study by the University of IVIinnesota and the 3M

Corporation (which updates an earlier study by the Wharton
School) finds that an audience is 43 percent more likely to be
persuaded by presenters who use visuals.

As useful as visuals are, however, we would like to emphasize that

they are best used in moderation. Notice that weuse the words
"visual aids." While we want to enhance our communication by let-
 —

Show and Tell: Visual Aids 71^

ting our audience see as well as hear, the visual material should be
there to assist not to control or dominate.
We make this point because it is away with
easy to get carried
visuals, to include so many that they overshadow the main
attraction —
which is you. Visuals are rather like icing: a pleasing
complement to cake but cloying if too thickly spread.
You should follow these three rules:
• KISS (Keep It Short and Simple)

Color
" Pause

Ifyou do, visuals will add focus to your presentation. But beware:
As visuals proliferate, they lose their impact and dull your listeners'
attention.

Case Study: One company we know invested in the latest tech-

nology, a computer-generated graphics device that produces
quite professional-looking images, highly detailed and very
colorful — images that can grow and evolve right on the screen.
A consulting client of ours in that company was among the first
hands on this device, and he received many compli-
to get his
ments on the fine graphics in his presentations. The problem
was few people could recall the content of his message.
that
The University of Minnesota/3M study put it this way:
" Image-enhanced graphics are effective only when selected

and used carefully."

What is the optimum number of visuals to use? We obviously

can't give you a we do have a recommendation:
specific answer, but
Keep them to a minimum. A good rule of thumb is, "When in
doubt, leave it out,"
Limit your visuals to those points that will have more impact visu-
ally than verbally and you'll be on safe ground.

Never begin or end your presentation with a visual unless it

is absolutely compelling. Remember, they came to see you,

not a media show.

72 Get to the Point

We all sense the truth in the old sa>ing, "A picture is worth a thou-
sand words," but make sure it's the right picture in the right place.
The very thing that makes good visuals so powerful is, in a word,
simplicity.

A picture that conveys a complete idea or set of relationships

in a single visual image is the proverbial thousand-worder.

One is the familiar Coppertone bill-

of our all-time favorite ads
board, with the and the puppy who's playfully pulling
littie girl

down her swimsuit bottom. It communicates a simple message, un-

cluttered with extraneous information like the price or the sun-block
number. All it really says is "suntan product" — and that's all it needs
to say.

Good visuals work in the same way as a strong verbal selling

point— by illustrating, not explaining. And the simplicity and
vividness of the imagery add up to high retention.

—
Busy and cluttered visuals complicated charts and graphs, screens
full of words —
can actually decrease retention. There are two seem-
ingly contradictory reasons for this. First, complex or cluttered
graphics present a task —
a dense mass of visual fodder for the eye to
—
munch through and digest that the brain naturally resists. Second,
though the brain resists digesting the visual, it will continue to try,
and will be distracted from your message. It will return to this
annoying challenge and "worry" it. The problem is that while this is
happening what you are saying will not be heard.

The Basics
We have distilled the treatment of visuals down to three basic
rules:

The first, KISS, relates to content.

The second, color, relates to execution.
The third, pause, relates to delivery.
Show and Tell: Visual Aids 73

KISS. It's the rule seen at work in the Coppertone ad. Apply it

when you design your visuals. When in doubt, simplify; eliminate

extraneous material. If necessary, use an additional visual rather
than burdening one with more information than it can efficiently
transmit.
Different industries use this rule in various imaginative ways. The
print advertising business, for example, gives us the "six-pack rule":
A presentation visual should contain no more than six lines of copy
and a "package" or headhne on top. The art director of a television
news broadcast team put it this way: A visual should contain no
more information than what a motorist can absorb from a billboard,
driving past at fort\' miles an hour.
You can bet that billboard ad designers have this down to a sci-
ence, and they give us thousands of superbly produced examples to
—
study along the sides of every street and highway. Instead of ignor-
ing billboards, you would do well to give them some attention. They
can give you valuable ideas for your own visuals.

Color. Since color movies became standard in the forties and color
television — and all its advertising —
became the standard in the six-
ties, we have come to expect the stimulation of color and so have our
audiences. The University of Minnesota/3M study confirms that
"color is more persuasive than black and white." If possible and —
wherever possible — use color in your visuals.
The same communications media — movies and TV— have also
conditioned us to be more receptive to pictures than to words. If you
can, use a picture. Above all, take the time and trouble to design
visuals that are as attractive as you can make them. Your visuals will
be judged, unconsciously at least, by the standards of commercial

TV production.
The touches you add to breathe life into your visuals can be quite
simple; as simple as adding a picture to relieve the severity of type.

Case Study: A telephone company

executive was presenting
basic information on a service program they were selling called
"Linebacker." He had prepared a viewgraph that consisted of a
bulleted list of his main selling points, but he enhanced the
74 Get to the Point

communications value of this list immeasurably by taking the

extra timeand trouble to set the words inside the brightly col-
ored image of a football helmet. This not only gave the audi-
ence an image to relate to, it united the selling points in a
concrete way with the program's clever name: Linebacker.

You can add touches of color to your black and white flip charts
and overhead transparencies without getting into complex artwork.
Write, underline, circle, or even fill in columns or other areas with
transparent colored markers. We'll go into greater detail as we dis-

cuss these types of visuals separately.

Pause. Whenever you present a new visual pause. If necessary,

. . .

count,"One hippopotamus, two hippopotamus," to yourself. Here's

why: The moment you display a visual, that's where your audience's
attention goes. Ifyou are talking while this process is taking place,
either you won't be heard or your visual won't be seen. Without the
pause, you'll be competing with your own visual.
Many people are afraid to pause, because they're afraid that no
communication is going on during the silence. In fact, there is a
great deal of communication going on; it's just not spoken communi-
cation. Sportscasters Vin Scully and Joe Garagiola have won praise
and recognition in the broadcasting industry for the way they use
silence in their World Series telecasts. When excitement explodes or
tension builds, they let the picture tell the story instead of competing
with it.

Do the same when you display a visual. Don't compete with it;

give your audience time to absorb it.

A pause of two or three seconds is generally enough if you de-

signed your visual according to our advice. Then you can resume
talking.
Say what you have to say about your visual. Then, when you're
done, get rid of it. Turn off the projector, flip the page, cover the
model, and return to the lectern. As long as the visual remains on
view, some or all of your audience will be paying attention to it, not
to you. Also, the action involved in getting rid of the visual serves as
a demarcation line. It tells the audience, "We're on to the next
point."
Show and Tell: Visual Aids 75

Choreographing Visuals

Poorly planned or executed visuals can harm your presentation

more than they help. If they are ugly, confusing, or too numerous,
they will turn off your audience. By the same token, if they are han-
dled ineptly and if they are not smoothly integrated into the overall
performance, they can weaken it more than they strengthen it.

The process of dealing with the physical objects involved in

presenting visuals can interrupt the flow of the presentation.

The cure for this is planning and preparation. During the presenta-
tion, have your equipment set up where you intend to use it. Drag-
ging the flip chart or projector to where you are speaking, or
making
an excursion to the other side of the room to operate your equipment
takes too much time. It makes you look and feel hurried and un-
prepared. If your equipment is set up in advance, when you are
ready to use it the minor pause that will naturally occur as you reach
over to turn on the projector or walk over to the flip chart will help
"frame" the visual rather than create a major distraction.

Tip: If you follow another speaker, take the time you need
to reset the room for your presentation. A simple statement,
"I'll be with you in a moment, I'm up the equip-
just setting
ment . .
." will buy you the few moments you need.

Mixing media. A common question is: Should I use more than one
type of visual aid? Our general answer is that it's better — certainly
safer — not to. It just multiplies the possibilities for mistakes and
other disasters. It's one more thing you have to prepare in advance,
keep under control, and remember how to operate.
That's not an absolute answer, of course. Suppose the sales force is

making a presentation management and everyone agrees to use

to
color slides, but one salesman wants to show the television spot that
one of his retail accounts is running. Maybe it's justified, but it will
76 Get to the Point

entail turning off the slide projector, adjusting theroom lighting,

moving the VCR and making sure beforehand that
into position,
the tape is properly cued up. It can be done and may make a nice
change of pace. But unless it is well choreographed and deftly han-
dled, the mechanics may result in slipups and general disruption of
the pace of the presentation.

Pointer pointers. If you have things to say about your visual, polite-
ness and practicality dictate that you face the audience as you speak.
Many people reach across their bodies to point or actually face away
from the audience as they speak, lessening the impact of the visual.

If you use a pointer, you must iiold the pointer in the hand
that allows you to both point and face the audience: If your
visual on your left as you face the room, the pointer goes
is in

your left hand; and conversely.

When you are through using the pointer, it's best to get it out of the
audience's view. Set it down or, if it is the telescoping kind, collapse
it and return it to your pocket. Having a pointer in your hand can
turn the simple act of turning off a projector into a moment of high
drama. you forget to put away the pointer, it becomes a prop.
If

You've probably seen someone absentmindedly brandishing the

pointer like a sword, bending it like an iron bar, conducting the 1812
Overture; generally creating quite a lot of distraction, if not amuse-
ment. So, when the pointer has served its purpose, retire it, like the

visual, from the scene.

Specific Visuai Aids Guidelines

Flip Chart

This is the easiest of the visual aids to use. It is effective for groups
of up to twenty-five people or so, and is an excellent way to present
simple text or graphs.
 —

Show and Tell: Visual Aids 77

In planning your chart, think in terms of key words, like the

bulleted points in your notes.

Less is more; be terse; use single words or short phrases. Let your
commentary amplify the words on the chart. Your audience sees the
key word or phrase; you pro\ade the explanation. If you must use
complete sentences, or simply prefer it, that's okay. But be consis-
tent; stick to one style. If you use a sentence to start a chart, do the
same for all the items on that chart.

Make your writing as legible and as attractive as you can.

Unless your calligraphy is above average, it's a good idea to stick

with block capitals. Magic marker is probably the best writing tool
for this job. Because markers are available in a wide variety of col-
ors, it is an easy matter to introduce color into your charts. Even the
simple use of a bright accent to underline helps flip charts come
alive.

Writing on a flip chart during a presentation automatically cre-

ates a pause, but unless your addition to the chart is quite concise,
this pause can be too long.

The simplest solution to this problem is to prepare your flip

charts in advance and flip or tear off sheets as you go.

Preparing charts in advance, rather than creating them as you

present, has the added virtue of letting you do the job beforehand
more slowly and carefully.
This idea suggests completely prefabricated flip charts, perhaps
produced by the art department. But studies indicate that higher
retention occurs if the chart is not actually completed in advance
leaving the presenter to fill in several key blanks, write the last line,
or underline key words on the spot. This provides an air of spontane-
78 Get to the Point

ity, and watching the presenter in the act of creating the visual has
special significance for the audience. It is a process; it's an expression
of you, not just prepackaged information.

Tip: While doing your charts beforehand, you can lightly

pencil in the words or elements you plan to fill in during the
actual presentation. The audience won't be able to see them,
but they're good cues for you. Whatever you decide to write on
the spot — be it much or little — when you are finished, you still

need to stand back and . . . pause. Really give your listeners a

moment to take in the finished product.

Many presenters feel limitations in terms of picture possibilities

with flip charts — unless they draw well. Actually, unlike with some
of the other kinds of visual aids, audiences tend to be quite forgiving
of less-than-professional graphic quality in flip charts. The audience
sees you making them and they don't expect you to be a professional
calligrapher, designer, or illustrator. We encourage you to think in
terms of picture possibilities and not worry too much about living
up to a professional graphic's standard.

Case Study: A marketing professor was lecturing students on

the concept of "hard goods promotion": the selling of such
items as soap powders, cereal, or nails. Rather than simply use
written words to enumerate the features and benefits of her
product examples, she created a visual with the simple outline
of a box of detergent, within which she enumerated the key
selling points. This provided a clear, albeit simplified, visual

frame of reference for the verbal information.

When you plan to use flip chart visuals, be sure to find out in
advance whether anyone else will also be using the chart. If the an-
swer is yes, you will need a way to locate your prefab charts or blank
pages quickly. You can easily mark your pages by dog-earing them
or by affixing a paper clip. Then, instead of flipping page after
page, you can simply leaf through the stack from the side till you
Show and Tell: Visual Aids 79

find your marker and flip all the pages at once. This not only elimi-
nates a potentially distracting and time-consuming muddle, it will
spare you the embarrassment of inadvertently displaying other peo-
ple's visuals in the middle of your talk.

When you are finished with a particular page, don't leave it there
where it will compete with your continuing presentation; tear it off
or flip it over.

Be sure to include blank sheets between your prepared

charts so that you can get rid of —
them by flipping to the
blank.

Overhead Projector
This familiar device is useful for displaying visuals to groups of up

to fifty people or so. The overhead, or "viewgraph," projects eight-

by-ten-inch transparencies best shown when mounted on cardboard
frames. These require some specialized equipment to produce: ei-
ther a "dedicated" transparency machine or a photocopier that will
print on some sort of transparent film Most of today's "plain paper"
.

copiers will handle this job. (See the sidebar in this chapter on mak-
ing your own transparencies.)
Those who don't have direct access to the necessary equipment
can use the services of graphics houses that can handle any stage of
the process, from setting type, to artwork, to layout, to transferring
a finished layout to transparent film and mounting it on a projection
mask.
Like any equipment, the overhead projector requires some pre-
presentation setup. First, you must be familiar with the equipment
you will be using. This doesn't mean knowing how to use an over-
head projector; it means knowing how to use the overhead projector
that's there. Know where the controls are as well as how to operate

them. Always make sure during setup that the machine is actually
functioning — which will also require you to determine that there is

a working electrical outlet where you need it, or the required exten-
sion cords.
80 Get to the Point

Most important of all, always make sure there is a spare bulb

on hand— and that you know how to replace the bulb— or
that a working backup projector is available.

You don't want to find yourself in the position of one Ph.D. candi-
date who blew a bulb in the middle of a major presentation of his
dissertation and had no backup —
whereupon one member of the re-
view committee was heard to murmur, "Now we'll see what he
really knows."
To set up, position the machine, turn it on, and focus it, using
your first slide asTo minimize the muss and fuss of moving it
a test.

into position during your talk, leave the projector as close to where
you will be operating it as you can. (If you can't leave it in the exact
position, take a cue from professional stagehands and mark the cor-
rect position on the floor with tape.) Assuming no one else will be
using the machine before you, you can leave your first transparency
on the projection glass, ready to go. Then when the time comes for
your first visual, all you have to do is step over to the machine, move
it into position if necessary, and flip the switch.

Tip: If you use viewgraphs a lot, you should consider making

a guide to help in positioning slides. Two simple blocks of
wood — or in an emergency, even a couple of pencils — fastened
to the projection glass in an L configuration with strips of tape
should virtually eliminate those awkward moments of looking
back over your shoulder, trying to get the image straight and
centered. ("Gaffer's tape," used by filmmakers, or duct tape,
available at any hardware store, ate the best choice for this.)

There aren't many rules about the specific treatment of overhead

transparencies, but one of the most important ones we teach is:

However tempting it may be, avoid beginning or ending your

presentation with a viewgraph or slide. It kills the human ele-
ment.
Show and Tell: Visual Aids 81^

As with any visual, remember to pause after displaying an over-

head; let the audience absorb the information before you begin to
talk about it. When you're through discussing the visual, turn the
projector off (or change to a neutral logo slide) so the attention of the
audience is not divided.
In general, you have things to say in connection with your
if

graphic, you should step back and talk near the screen, not the pro-
jector. Remember to face the room and hold your pointer, if used, in
the hand next to the screen. If you speak near the projector, there is a
tendency to look down at — and thus talk down to — the slide rather
than the audience.
If you have a number of graphics to present, especially if they
come together in a cluster, try to introduce some variation in your
presentation technique to avoid lulling your audience into inatten-
tion. You can do this by occasionally introducing the material ver-
bally before you present the image. Subde as itan may seem, this is

effective variation on the technique of showing the image and then

talking after the pause.

Example: "This next graphic will show anticipated first-

quarter sales for the new SuperWidget." Turn on projector.
Pause. Continue. "You can see in column two, which is oudined
in blue, that we expect a 4.7 percent increase over the same
period last year." Just remember, whichever order you use for a
particular visual, what you don't want to do is present and talk
simultaneously.

Tip: To minimize the number of pieces of paper or props you

have to handle, why not put the white cardboard borders of
your viewgraph transparencies to work? They make a conve-
nient place for notes relating to your next graphic or your next
point.

One advantage of viewgraphs is that they are relatively easy to re-

turn to. This comes in handy at Q & A time. If you plan to return to
82 Get to the Point

a particular visual or visuals, you can save the trouble of searching

by creating duplicates. If you have only a few transparencies you
may not feel the need to do this.

Making Your Own Transparencies

For those of you without an art department, but with access to

a plain-paper, enlarging/reducing photocopier, here's our
quick and easy home viewgraph production recipe:
Step 1: Type your text neatly according to your layout. If

your typewriter or printer can boldface, consider using this

design element. You can "paste up" the final arrangement if

you choose. (In general, a pasted-up layout gives greater flexi-

bility, but of course it's a bit more work.) Cut out the various

elements and carefully position them on a clean sheet of paper.

Rubber cement is a standard material for pasteup as it allows
for some repositioning and is easy to clean up. Photocopy the
finished layout onto a clean sheet (normal size or "100 per-
cent") and white out any hairlines created by the edges of the
cut-and-pasted elements.
Step 2: Enlarge your text to the desired size by running it

through the enlarging photocopier.

Step 3: Photocopy your completed visual onto transparent

filmand mount it in a cardboard frame.

Step 4: You now can easily add touches of color by boxing,
underlining, or adding exclamation points or other punctua-
tion in brightly colored transparency markers. In fact, if you're
willing to use a transparency only once, you can consider add-
ing text or underlining or other colorful touches while you're
projecting the visual — just like writing on a flip chart!

One special technique you can use with the viewgraph is to reveal
your graphic gradually. (We call this the "striptease effect.") If, for
example, you have a list of bulleted points or headlines, you can set
up the slide with all but the first one masked off with a large file

card or other opaque object. Then, as you get to the next point.
Show and Tell: Visual Aids 83

move the mask down to expose the next headline, and so on. This
adds something of the element of motion and participation that flip

charts provide. If you use this technique, remember

remove the to
mask altogether when you reveal the last element. If you leave the
mask there, at least half the audience will be wondering what's still
hidden under the file card instead of listening to what you are say-
ing.

Tip: A sophisticated alternative to taping/ word processing is

"press type." Readily available at art supply stores, press type

comes in a wide variety of typefaces and sizes and rivals profes-

sional typesetting in quality. Best of all, it's relatively inexpen-

sive and easy to work with. Anyone with a steady hand and a
little patience can produce professional-looking results. Ask
your art supply dealer for more information and basic instruc-
tion.

Photographic Color (35 mm) Slides

Color slides are a popular visual medium and are useful for
groups of between ten and several hundred people.
It takes careful design and execution to produce top quality
slides — the kind of expertise provided by corporate graphics depart-
ments or professional third-party vendors. Since slides are more
be judged by professional standards than charts or view-
likely to
graphs, they have not been the medium of choice for presenters
without access to these resources.
Producing professional-looking slides has recently become easier,

thanks to developments in microcomputer-generated graphics. It's

easy now; the art department has been eliminated. Just remember:
Easy does not necessarily equal good, and less is often more.
In terms of presentation to your audience, slides are not really
very different from viewgraphs, and virtually aU of what we have
said about the latter applies here (including not beginning or ending
your presentation with projected images). There are, however, a
couple of comparative advantages and disadvantages to consider.
84 Get to the Point

The main disadvantage of slides is having to darken the room.

This creates a disruption in the flow of your overall presentation.
Since it tends to be troublesome, there is a tendency to cluster all

your visuals together so that you only have to go through this once.

This does not necessarily work to the advantage of your presenta-

tion.
For best effect, the lighting should be adjusted so that the audi-
ence can see you as well as the images. This can be tricky; work it

out carefully in advance. Figure out exactly which lights to turn off
and mark the switches with tape; or, if there is a dimmer, place a
piece of tape next to the dial and mark the correct position so that
you or whoever is adjusting the lighting can do it with one motion
instead of fumbling around, trying to gauge if you've got it right.
This will help minimize the disruption.

Tip: In halls where slide projection necessitates complicated

lighting adjustments, it is a good idea to enlist the aid of an
assistant who can handle the lighting and/or the projection du-
ties. The less you have to cope with physically, the more you
can concentrate on making your presentation.

Another minor drawback with slides is that the possibility of phys-

ically interacting with the graphics — as in underlining or adding
text to a flip chart or viewgraph — is virtually eliminated. You can,
however, create essentially the same effect as either the revealed
graphic or the overlay technique in successive slides. And probably
with graphically superior results.

The main advantage to slides is that the sophisticated design of

slide projectors makes slides physically simpler to present. It's been
reduced to simple button-pushing, which is not to say that it can't be
fouled up. As with any projection system, you must always check
out the equipment beforehand. While slide projectors are fairly
standard, it is essential that you or your assistant know how to oper-
ate the projector that is actually there. Make sure the projector is

working and that there is a spare bulb or a working backup projec-

tor of the same type close at hand.
 —

Show and Tell: Visual Aids 85

During setup, check the projector by running through all your

Be sure they are in the correct order and position. You can
slides. —
then leave the projector set up with your first slide ready to go.
—
Fumbles at the slide projector upside down and reversed images
and frantic scrambling to get slides into the right order while the
audience stares at the blinding glare of the blank screen — are a clas-
sic presentation error. Let it be someone else, not you.

Tip: If you are changing your own slides, taping the remote
control to the side of the podium or lectern allows you to keep
both hands free to point or gesture. (Again, gaffer's tape or
duct tape is excellent for this.) When you want to bring up
the next slide, all you need to do is step over — or lean over
and tap the button. It is also a good idea to put a piece of tape
over the backup or reverse button, to spare yourself the muddle
and embarrassment of inadvertently showing slides you've al-

ready presented.

Film and Videotape

Although used less frequently than any of the foregoing visual me-
dia, film and video work well for certain kinds of presentations.
Films can be shown to groups of almost any size. Video is useful for
groups up to twenty-five people per monitor. Except for a few de-
tails relating to the physical setup, they are essentially the same
visual aid.
Our information and precautions for slide presentations (includ-
ing the desirability of an assistant) are virtually the same for film,
adding that you will need to darken the room even more. Know how
to operate the projector —
which should be carefully set up and
tested, including the sound system. Carefully set focus and sound
levels. The film should be carefully cued up and ready to go at the

flip of a switch. We're all familiar with the Academy Leader (the

strip that heads a movie: "Five — four— three — two — one"); don't
make it part of your presentation. As we said, your audience has
86 Get to the Point

been conditioned to the standards of commercial television, so

slipups like this are likely to lose you points.
Setting up a video requires similar care. You don't necessarily
have to darken the room for short tapes, though for tapes of longer
than two minutes you should, bringing the lights back up immedi-
ately after the tape finishes. Adjust the color and sound levels ahead
of time. Clean the monitor screen if necessary. Every VCR and play-
back machine cues up a little differendy. Leave your video accu-
rately cued up with a second or two of black before the picture
comes on. It should be left ready to go. If the playback unit has a
remote control, know how to use it and make sure to locate it conve-
niently for easy use.
There's not much
for you to do during the film or videotape pre-
sentation, but these media require careful introduction so that they
support your presentation rather than take it over. Set up your audi-
ence using "flag" words to direct their attention: "Pay close attention
."
to . .
." or "You'll notice about thirty seconds into this clip that . .

These flag words cue the viewers in what you want them
to to notice
instead of randomly focusing on what interests them.

Tip: Be aware that your audience will subconsciously judge

film and video by the standards of commercial television so —
they'd better be good.

Handouts
Distributing printed copies of your presentation to the audience
can help build retention. Handouts should reflect the shape of your
presentation in content, and might well resemble your notes in form.
As with any visual, take the trouble to execute them well. Make
them clean and uncluttered; keep information to a minimum. Leave
lots of white space around your key words or major points.

Unless it is absolutely necessary for people to follow along, don't

pass out written material until you are finished. Anything they have
in their hands — or in front of their eyes — competes for their atten-
 —

Show and Tell: Visual Aids 87

tion, which you want focused on you. Of course, you don't have to
hterally pass out materials. It
is certainly easier —
and perhaps more
dignified — to have the materials placed on a table at the exit door.
If you do decide to pass out your handouts before the presenta-
tion, you can make them an interactive part of your presentation
by creating space for listeners to make notes. If people are taking
notes, remember to slow down so they can get all the information.

Tip: One way to encourage people to take your handouts is to

include something they might want to use later, such as the
phone number of a particular public service you offer.

Quick Reference Summary

A presentation with visuals is 43 percent more persuasive

than one without.
Keep visuals simple and uncluttered with a maximum of six
lines per page.
When in doubt, use fewer visuals rather than more.

Phrases or words are better than sentences. Be consistent

with structure throughout the visuals.
Use color; it makes your visuals stronger.
Try to limit visuals to one medium.
Pause before referring to information on visuals to allow the
audience to absorb the visual.
Put down the pointer when you're finished pointing out items.
It's distracting to the audience if you hold it.

When through explaining a visual, remove it.

Flip charts are useful for small groups.

• Write charts in block capitals beforehand and use ade-
quate spacing between lines.
Overheads are useful for groups of up to fifty people.
Use white borders for additional notes.
•

• Use the "striptease" technique when referring to lists on

overhead. Show one point at a time to keep your audience
focused.
 Get to the Point

35-millimeter slides work well for ten to several hundred

people.
• When using slides, tape the remote control to the side of
the podium or lectern rather than holding it; this frees
your hands to gesture. Tape over the reverse button to
prevent hitting it accidentally.
Film is good for any sized group; twenty-five people per video-
tape monitor is the maximum.
Prefocus projectors for smooth performance.
Make sure there's a spare bulb for any projector.
Film and videotape quality is judged by what is done com-

mercially,so make it good.

Use signal words to introduce tape or film, such as, "Watch
for . .
." or "You'll notice thirty seconds into this . .
."

Provide hard-copy handouts to increase audience retention.

• Distribute handouts after the presentation so audience is
not distracted, orif necessary to distribute handouts dur-

ing the presentation, integrate them into the session and

leave white space on handouts for audience to make
notes.
 8

Perfecting Delivery

In one important sense, a presentation a symphony: It may

is like
exist as notations on paper, but comes into being only
it really
through performance. And it's possible to perform a great work
badly, just as it's possible to perform a mediocre one well.
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony played by the New York Philharmonic
is quite different from the same symphony played by the Springfield

High School orchestra.

Performance has an impact quite apart from the quality of

the "work itself."

The point here is that the delivery of your presentation, in a practi-

cal sense, is your presentation.
Think about it. When you walk up to the front of that room you're
a lot like an orchestra conductor stepping onto the podium. The un-
 —

90 Get to the Point

folding of the event is in your hands. The content of your talk is

already there in your notes — the musical score, so to speak — but

without your skilled and sensitive execution it won't really work.
There's a cartoon we often share in our workshops: The drawing is
of a little man in a tailcoat looking down at a large book laid out on
the podium. There are no musical notes on the page, only an in-
struction telling the man to wave the baton until the music stops
then turn around and bow. We get a lot of laughs with this. That's
how we all wish it were. In reality, however, it matters a lot what

you do with the baton while you're up there. That's what this chap-
ter is all about: the delivery skills you need to turn out a polished
performance.

Like it or not, how you look and sound has more impact on
listeners than the actual words you speak.

People don't carry away from a speech or presentation primarily in-

formation. They carry away an impression.
back for a moment to Chapter One. Among the studies
Let's look
we quoted there is one that analyzes the dynamics of verbal commu-
nication. The findings:
55 percent of interpersonal communication comes from facial
•

expression and other body language.

•
38 percent relates to "paralanguage," or vocal quality.
•
—
The remainder approximately 7 percent is derived from the —
meaning of the words: the content.

How you look and sound add up to 93 percent of the impres-

sion you make. And if those factors aren't working for you,

they're working against you.

We're not suggesting that content is unimportant. Skillful prepara-

tion of content is which is why we've spent four chapters
essential,
discussing it. But remember our chain analogy? The communica-
tions chain is no stronger than its weakest link. Like Beethoven's
Perfecting Delivery 91^

Fifth, your first-rate presentation content can be seriously under-

mined by poor deliver)'.

Case Study: We once undertook to prepare an expert witness

for testimony in a product liability lawsuit. The plaintiff in the
case was a high school athlete who had injured his spine in a
sports accident and was paralyzed as a result —
possibly for life.
There were three defendants: the high school coach, the school
board, and the manufacturer of the sports equipment the boy
had been wearing. Our expert witness was an engineer testify-
ing for the equipment manufacturer.
Juries like to award monetary "damages" in accident cases.
In this case, the defendant most likely to be found responsible
was our client, the equipment manufacturer. Not because they
were, in fact, responsible, but because they had money — they
were the "deep pocket."
The job of our key witness was to make the jur>' understand
that the equipment was very carefully engineered and was as
safe as it could possibly be. In his lab at the plant, the engineer
was quite convincing about the careful design of the equip-
ment. He made it quite clear to us that the equipment did an
excellent job of protecting the head, but that it did not and
could not protect the rest of the anatomy (in this case, the
neck). Like many people who do not regularly testify, he was
not comfortable in the courtroom, and despite his unquestion-
able expertise, he struck us as a potentially ineffective witness.
As might be expected of an inexperienced testifier, he spoke
monotone: his voice was flat and evenly paced. He
in a careful
never gestured and he rarely looked at anybody while he spoke.
He looked above everyone's head or down at the floor rather
than meeting people's eyes.
He also used a lot of technical language in his answers. Al-
though he was professionally correct in not wanting to over-
simplify, we suggested he clarify his terms. It is important to
understand that facts are facts, but in a court of law, facts are
facts only if a jury (or judge) understands and believes them.
Once he accepted the idea that his role as a witness carried
 —

92 Get to the Point

more importance than just conveying facts, he began to work

on the presentation side of his testimony, as well. In any trial, it
is up to the judge or jury to ultimately decide conviction or ac-

quittal; however, as a result of our consulting, the witness and

others from the company did come across better on the stand by
improving eye contact, voice modulation, gestures, and using
layman's English.

Content aside, what distinguishes the effective speal<er is

looking good and being intelligible.

The two really cannot be separated. "Looking good" involves act-

ing:
• Confident
• Animated
Relaxed

These qualities are communicated through:

Facial expression
• Eye contact
• Posture
• Physical gestures

"Being intelligible" — expressing yourself clearly and persuasively

involves sounding:
• Confident
• Animated
• Relaxed
Articulate

These qualities are communicated through the elements of vocal in-

flection:
Pace
" Pauses
• Pitch
• Volume
Perfecting Delivery 93

This, in turn, builds:

• Phrasing
• Emphasis

We'll discuss the role each of these elements plays in getting your
message across, but first we'd like to offer some general facts and
suggestions relating to appearance and impressions.

Looking Good

Whether we're aware of it or not, we begin communicating with

our listeners even before we actually begin to speak. We think of
communicating primarily as a process of moving our mouths, but
how we move our bodies also speaks to our audience. How we stand,
how we carr>' our head, where we rest our gaze, what we do with
our hands — these are all components of language.
The impression-building process begins the instant a person be-
comes the focus of attention. The moment the image strikes their
eyes listeners will start forming impressions: "How attractive (unat-
tractive) this man or woman is." "How authoritative (confident, in-
timidated, disorganized) he or she looks." "Look how tall (or short)

he or she is, how trim (overweight)." "Look how much weight Leslie
has lost since I last saw her." "What a nice blouse she's wearing."
"Carl's tie is a little loud for this company." And so forth. All these
impressions will have an effect on how the audience listens. To the
extent that you can control the impressions you create, it is impor-
tant to start on the right foot. (In this connection, see our discussion
of presentation dress in Chapter Thirteen.)
If you're at a lunch or a dinner, finish eating well before your
presentation. Have your jacket buttoned; check your makeup; make
sure your notes are ready; make whatever last-minute checks you
need. If you're being introduced, be aware that the audience will
not be concentrating on the person who's performing the introduc-
tion, they willbe looking for the person being introduced.
So be ready. Model the behavior you would like others to display
when you're up there; look at the person who's introducing you; give
that person the kind of attention you would like listeners to give you.
94 Get to the Point

When the moment arrives to go on, —

stand up smartly with good
posture. Walk to the front of the room with a sense of purpose.
When you arrive, don't immediately begin speaking. Pause. Ar-
range your notes and visual aids. Get settled. Give the audience a
moment to get used to you. Make eye contact. Smile. Then you can
begin. This all adds up to an impression of conviction, authority,
and self-assurance.
This nonverbal communication process continues for your entire
presentation. It's subtle stuff, mosdy taking place at the subcon-
scious level. But it is powerful — and important enough to merit a
detailed discussion of each of its elements.

When you're smilin' . . . The old song underlines an old truth: Smil-
ing is infectious. So are the feelings it expresses. A smile from you,
the presenter, is a positive signal to which your audience responds
positively. It tells them you're comfortable — which makes them
comfortable.
"Suppose I'm not comfortable?" Smile anyway. Two reasons.
what we said above is also true: If you communi-
First, the reverse of

cate your discomfort to your listeners,it will make them uncomfort-

able. Second, and perhaps more important, smiling will make you
feel better. This may strike you as absurd, but psychologists have
discovered that while our faces naturally express what we're feeling
inside, the reverse is also true to some extent. Our facial expres-
sions —
particularly the smile —
can actually alter our emotional
chemistry. If you are afraid of flying, a smile will make you less
uncomfortable in an airplane. If presentations make you nervous, a
smile will make you feel more at home.
So we heartily recommend smiling. By "smile" we don't necessar-
ily mean the expression used by actors in toothpaste commercials. A
sphinxlike smile with the corners of the mouth turned up slightly is

just fine — though you might want to flash a stronger version from
time to time.

What the eyes tell. An image we like to use in teaching presentation

that communication is like a game of catch. When you throw
skills is

a ball in a game of catch, you generally don't turn your back or bury
Perfecting Delivery 95

your face in your hands, you look to see if the ball is caught. In the
same sense, each time you toss out a thought or idea in your presen-
tation, you should look to see if it is caught. You do this with eye
contact. The catch is indicated by responses from individual audi-
ence members in the form of returned eye contact, a nod, a smile, or
a generall\- attentive look. These responses let you know the ball has
been caught and returned, and that the audience is awaiting the next
toss. A good rule of thumb is that each thought, sentence, or idea is a
separate throw and catch with another individual.
Eye contact will also tell you if your ball has not been caught
(blank stares, no reaction, quizzical or uncomprehending looks) and
thus will alert you to stop and "throw again" (in other words, clarify
your point) so that the game can continue.
Television has conditioned most of us to expect strong eye contact.
The people who talk to us over the tube — be they newscasters, ad-
vertisers, or political speakers — look us straight in the eye (through
the camera). So deeply are we conditioned that we subconsciously
question the honesty and integrity — or at least the conviction — of
anyone who will not or does not look us in the eye. This is basic
practical psychology. By making conscious use of eye contact we can
enhance the o\'erall credibility and effectiveness of our presentation.
Certainly, if we fail to make eye contact, we definitely limit the
potential impact of our presentation.
If you doubt that people rely on eye contact to make impressions,
think about your own personal experience. When you have some-
thing to say that you are consciously uncomfortable about in some
way — if you're embarrassed or if you aren't telling the truth, for
example — you tend to avoid the gaze of the person you're speaking
to. And how do you know when children are lying? The\' won't look
you in the eye.
Conversely, in a one-on-one situation where you have something
earnest and important to convey, something you really want to get
across — perhaps something as urgent as "I love you" — you actively
seek out the other person's eyes.
It's not much
different for public communication. Strong eye con-
tact convev's an impression of confidence, conviction, openness, hon-
esty, enthusiasm, even urgency. Poor eye contact may suggest
 —

Get to the Point

anything from simple nervousness to embarrassment or furtiveness

to outright mendacity.
Like smiling, eye contact says, "I'm comfortable with myself and
with what I'm telling you." Avoidance of eye contact says, "There's
something wrong here," leaving some part of the listener wondering,
"Why doesn't this add up?"
This means not keeping your eyes glued to your notes — which
suggests you are speaking from your own private bubble. It means
not looking over the heads of the audience or off into the far reaches
of space —
which suggests that you are afraid of being with them. It
—
means looking at the people you are talking to at least a good part
of the time. This may be somewhat unnerving at first. Why? For the
very reason that it is important: It really is a gesture of intimacy.
Eye contact with whom, specifically? It generally doesn't matter
a great deal withwhom you make eye contact, simply that you look
atsomeone. Exceptions are the question and answer session (see
page 123), one-on-one presentations, and presentations in which a
specific "power person" takes precedence over others. So it makes
sense to pick a person who is giving you positive feedback such as a
supportive nod or a smile. This should help to alleviate any discom-
fort you feel at fostering intimacy with utter strangers.
Here are three basic eye contact principles:
In general, hold eye contact with a single person for at least a
full thought, phrase, or sentence.
In a group situation (except where you are obliged to play to a
specific individual) divide the audience into several sections
like a tic-tac-toe —
board in order to spread your eye contact
around the group. The number of sections depends upon the size
of the group. Pick a friendly face in each area. These people
serve as your contact points. You can then literally "work the
room," moving from a friendly eye in one sector to a friendly eye
in the next, returning as necessary. This grid solution works well
for audiences of as few as six or as many as a thousand.
In a one-on-one session, or when you're responding to a "power
person," look directly at him or her and don't worry about the
others very much.
Perfecting Delivery 97

Tip: If meeting people's eyes is a problem for you, try this

trick: Rest your gaze on a person's forehead just above the eye-
brows and visualize the Radio City marquee with the words of
your text running across in lights.

Winning Moves
Physical gestures are a vital ingredient in verbal communication.
Gestures do the following:
• Add emphasis to our words
Animate the voice
Provide an outlet for nervousness

If the words are the meat of communication, gestures are the spices.
Gestures add flavor to our speech — the accents that make the differ-
ence between bland and stimulating.
Try a little test: Visualize yourself making an impassioned plea,
speaking out urgently on a subject that you care about deeply . . .

without gesturing — standing motionless with your arms at your

sides. It's hard to picture, isn't it? Without gestures, half the mes-
sage is lost. The same principle holds true for less impassioned utter-
ances as well.
In addition, gestures have a direct effect on the voice, lubricating
and animating it, making your speech more conversational and
hence more accessible and more credible. You can actually "hear"
your gestures when you listen to a tape recording of your presenta-
tion. Gesturing also tends to open up the upper body physically,

promoting good breathing and muscular relaxation, both of which

exert a further positive influence on the voice.
Perhaps most important of all, gesturing gives us a great way to
burn off nervous energy. If we don Y gesture, our nervousness finds
other ways to express itself, usually ways that call attention to the
nervousness, distracting our listeners and detracting from the im-
pact of what we are saying.
98 Get to the Point

Tip: Learn to gesture and you will live longer. We have seen
studies that report that orchestra conductors live longer than
the average citizen. Why? Because in their work, the physical
gesture is means of communication. They are con-
their sole
stantly using the arms and the upper body; more blood is
pumped by the heart, taking more oxygen to the rest of the
—
body. The result is better health and longer life in addition to
effective communications. We've already suggested, at the be-
ginning of this chapter, that you think of yourself like an or-
chestra conductor; why not in this way as well?

Helping gestures happen. Starting out in an appropriate stance can

and we recommend the "ski pole position." For
facilitate gesturing,

those of you who means standing straight, forearms

don't ski, this
held at about waist level, with the hands apart, relaxed, and open.
Most people find this a comfortable position from which it is easy
and natural to gesture.
Stand up and try it. How does it feel? If having your hands "just
hanging in space" feels awkward (which in itself should encourage
you to gesture), try the "professorial" position, in which the hands
are brought together with the fingertips lighdy touching.

Problem postures. There are a number of postures that severely in-

hibit gesturing. An act as simple as clasping your hands together, for
example, breeds a whole category of problem postures: the "firing
—
squad" position hands behind back, body often rocking forward
and back; the "lower anatomical protective" position hands an- —
chored over the crotch; the "higher anatomical protective" position,
with arms crossed firmly over the breasts. There is nothing wrong
with clasped hands, but having found something to hold on to (each
other), the hands tend to remain firmly fastened together, effectively
eliminating the possibility of gesturing.
Grasping the lectern creates similar problems. You've probably
seen the "white knuckler," who appears to be holding on for dear
Perfecting Delivery 99

life, and the "ship captain," who leans into the lectern and steers it

first one way, then the other. Again, the problem is not that they
grasp the lectern, but that they never let go. If you speak from a
lectern, start with the hands resting lightly on it.

Whatever position you find yourself in, watch out for "sticky el-
bows," a position that is another serious inhibitor of gestures. Like
hands, elbows seem to be provided with their own adhesive. If you
start out with your elbows stuck to your sides, they are likely to
remain there throughout your presentation. You will still be able to
move your hands and forearms, but the gestures will tend to have a
nervous, truncated quality.
Give it a awkward, doesn't it? Your motions tend to be
tr>'. Feels
stunted and ungainly, asif you had flippers like a seal. Now unstick

your elbows; immediately, your gestures become more fluid and ex-
pansive.
Some of you, of course, may be self-conscious about gesturing.
Big, expansive gestures may feel quite unnatural. With all due re-
spect, wefeel that not gesturing is unnatural and that it's worth

investing some of your time and energy to overcome your discomfort

in this area. This is especially true if you are likely to be presenting
to large groups in large spaces. In a big hall, the listeners at the back
can't really see your face at all, but if you can make big gestures,
they'll feel some sense of connection, even way back there. The big-

ger the room the bigger your gestures need to be.

With practice, gesturing will come to feel more natural. One
good way to practice gesturing is to slip into your orchestra conduc-
tor persona and gesture on key words as you read dialogue from a
book. If you have trouble remembering to gesture, put a little re-
minder symbol, perhaps a stick figure with arms upraised, or the
word gesture next to key words in your notes.

More body problems. Two common unconscious physical habits

that you should strive to avoid or eliminate are swaying or rocking
back and forth and wagging your head from side to side, keeping
time like the pendulum of a metronome. It's fine to shift your weight

and to gesture with your head for emphasis, but the rhythmic repe-
100 Get to the Point

tition of either movement is distracting. It tends to give your speech

a singsong cadence and conveys an overall impression of nervous-
ness.
To combat swaying, try placing your feet either slightly closer to-
gether (to reduce your leverage), or slightly farther apart (to widen
your base and stabilize the body), or with one foot slightly in front of
the other. To combat head wagging, watch videotapes of your pre-
sentations and practice until you break the habit.

Tip: To remind yourself to gesture, use eye contact, watch for

any bad habit, and pick a person in your audience to cue you
You might say, "When I look at Marge, I'll
for a certain thing.
check to see if I'm swaying; when I look at Bill, that's a cue to
check for eye contact."

Sounding Good
If —
you have something to say that you believe in if you are enthu-
siastic about what you do, your products, your research, the com-
—
pany you work for your enthusiasm should be reflected in the way
you speak as well as in the words you choose. Which brings us to
—
"paralanguage" vocal quality or how we use our voices.
What most of us associate with the term vocal quality is the char-
acteristic sound of an individual's voice —
its unique tone or timbre:

high, low; smooth, scratchy; breathy, resonant; nasal, guttural.

These vocal characteristics are largely based on physical factors, but
they can be changed far more than most of us realize. If you do not
have a naturally pleasant voice and presentations are a necessary
part of your life, you might consider devoting some time and effort
to improving it by finding a voice teacher. There are many fine ones
that teach speaking as well as singing.
In any case, there's a lot more to consider about vocal quality than
timbre. Here we will explore the elements of inflection and their use
to create phrasing and emphasis.
Perfecting Delivery 101^

Inflection. The literal meaning of this word is "to bend, to alter."

Vocal inflection, specifically, refers to voice variables:
" Pace
• Pauses
Pitch
Volume

We use these to make our verbalizations more expressive.

In comparison with that of other English speakers, American
speech is characteristically deficient in inflection. Richness of inflec-
tion one of the qualities that makes British (and other non-
is

—
American) English so distinctive and so attractive. Fortunately,
inflection is easy to improve, and once mastered will make your
speech pleasant to listen to and easy to understand.

Pace. Fast, slow, or in between, words spoken at a steady, even pace

take on a sameness, like driving through a prairie landscape. They
blur together and soon lull the listener into inattention. Varying the
pace of your words and phrases adds contour, creating interest.
It can be helpful to begin your talk at a somewhat slower pace

than normal, especially if you are addressing people who are un-
familiar with your voice. This gives the audience time to "learn"
your voice and speaking mannerisms. Once they have had a minute
or two to get the hang of your style, you can step up the overall pace.
This is a technique that Henry Kissinger uses for public speaking. He
gives his listeners time to get used to his accent, then accelerates to
his normal speaking pace.

In some cases, speaking faster can actually increase com-

prehension.

The brain can absorb information at rates up to approximately eight

hundred words per minute which — is about four times faster than
normal speech. Like a mainframe computer, the mind is spending
only a small proportion of
its time with the task of comprehension
102 Get to the Point

and tends to fill in the remaining time with other tasks. In other
words, it wanders, and concentration suffers. Dealing with a higher
"word density," the mind of the listener is less likely to be distracted.
The catch here, of course, is that if you want to speak quickly and be

understood, you have to speak very clearly.

Another aspect of pace to consider is the changing of pace from
phrase to phrase. We're not talking about anything contrived here,
just using the natural rhythms of ordinary speech: Close your eyes
and listen to any trained speaker, or even to an informal conversa-
tion. You'll discover that people — both professional speakers in their
professional settingsand nonprofessionals in casual ones group —
words together in "meaning clusters". They push together groups of
relatively unimportant words and slow down to give emphasis to the
key words and phrases that carry important information. It makes
the words live.

We do this naturally, but when we get into a situation that's

uncomfortable — speaking in front of a group of people, for exam-
ple — we tend to freeze up and Mnnaturally even out our speaking
pace. We can all spot an untrained or inexperienced person (like
owners of small businesses who insist on doing their own television
commercials) reading off a TelePrompTer. The flat, mechanical sing-
song is unmistakable.

Pauses. Many presenters, especially inexperienced ones, are afraid

to pause while speaking, even for a moment. To these people, two
seconds of silence seems like an eternity. When asked to explain their
reluctance to pause, our workshop clients often cite the fear that no
communication is going on during the silence. This is simply not the

Pauses are a vital element of nonverbal communication and

are essential to strong delivery.

We can't overemphasize this fact. Pauses contribute to communica-

tion in at least four ways:
Perfecting Delivery 103

1. They carry a message of their own ("I'm relaxed, thoughtful,

confident").
2. They serve as a catalyst for verbal comprehension by "ventilat-

ing" the flow of words. This gives the speaker time to catch his
or her breath, and for the listeners to absorb what has been
said.

You should always pause following the introduction of a

new key term or idea, and especially after displaying a
visual.

With terms or ideas, the pause can be brief; with a visual, it

must be long enough for listeners to become readers and really

take it in. This means two to three seconds.
3. Pauses also signal transitions. They say "Okay, we've finished
that thought or topic; here comes the next point." Referring
to your notes at these transition points seems natural and re-
inforces the message of the pause.
4. A brief pause in the middle of a phrase or sentence in the —
—
"wrong place" is a very effective way to call attention to
what follows (see example, page 104).

Pitch and volume. We have a special word for people whose speech
lacks this quality: monotone (literally, "one pitch"). It is clearly a
pejorative term; we don't refer to someone's "stirring monotone."
Used as an adjective, the word is monotonous — which means "bor-
ing" or "expressionless." Clearly, the rise and fall of vocal pitch is a
key element in clear, communicative speech.
Always speaking at the same volume level is equally drab and ex-
pressionless.
Both faults rob us of the opportunity to enhance the meaning of
our words by directing the listeners' attention to what's important.

Phrasing and emphasis. In written communication, punctuation

and typography are used as expressive devices to help to bring out
104 Get to the Point

the meaning of the words. In oral communication, clarity of expres-

sion is it creates phrasing and
achieved through vocal inflection, as
emphasis. And add up to a much more powerful tool than
these
commas, semicolons, and italics.
By the term phrase we don't mean quite the same thing a gram-
marian does. To a speaker, a phrase is an organizational unit, a
—
"meaning cluster" a group of words expressing a unified idea that
is spoken in one breath. One thought equals one breath equals one
phrase.
The natural lift that occurs after each phrase as we pause to take
our next breath signals the listener that we have completed one idea
or thought element and are about to start another. This creates what
we call a "thought rhythm."
As an illustration, here's how the opening of Abraham Lincoln's
celebrated Gettysburg Address might be phrased:

FOURSCORE AND SEVEN YEARS AGO [breath]

OUR FATHERS BROUGHT FORTH ON THIS
CONTINENT [breath]
A NEW NATION [breath]
CONCEIVED IN LIBERTY [breath]
AND DEDICATED TO THE PROPOSITION [breath]
THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.

Try it yourself. Read it out loud. For contrast, try running the
phrases together without the lifts. (You should be able to read the
lines intwo breaths without much trouble.) Do it several times each
way until you feel comfortable with the words. Which way do you
prefer? Record your readings on tape and play them back. Which
do you think would be easier for an audience to follow? We're bet-
ting on the shorter phrases. It is a documented fact that people speak
in shorter word groupings than they write. The typical written sen-
tence runs fifteen to twenty-three words; the average spoken sen-
tence, eight to ten.

Emphasis. The complement to skillful phrase shaping is the careful

placement of emphasis. To emphasize is, of course, to call attention
 —
Perfecting Delivery 105

to selected words or groups of words — to point to their special im-

portance. But emphasis can add meaning as well.

Tip: If you're uncomfortable with short detached phrases,

and feel unsure about how they really come across, rent a vid-
eotape of an old Bette Davis movie. Her phrasing really makes
you pay attention — and you are never in doubt about what
she's saying.

Tr>' this exercise. It is designed to make you aware of the subtleties

of meaning that you can impart through emphasis. Say "I will not
go" out loud four times, each time stressing a different word:

I will not go.

I WILL not go.
I will NOT go.
I will not GO .

Each reading conveys a slightly different message. The first is about

the identity^ of who will go; maybe somebody else but not me. The
rest are variations on an emphatic statement, but with different con-
notations. The second suggests stubbornness in the face of urging.
The third is a flat contradiction. The last, a defiant proclamation
the most emphatic of all.

Emphasis can be achieved by means of any or all of the elements

of vocal inflection we examined earlier:
Changing pace. One simple and effective way to emphasize an
important word is to pause briefly before enunciating it. For ex-
ample: "The plan that has been proposed this morning is ... a
disaster." This is especially effective when combined with
changes in pitch and volume.
" Changing pitch. Just as monotone signals the listener that there

is nothing of special importance in what you are sa>ing, inflect-

ing your vocal pitch clearly creates interest. It doesn't much

matter whether the pitch change is upward or downward, ex-
cept at the end of sentences, where consistent downward inflec-
tion suggests a lack of conviction.
106 Get to the Point

• Changing volume. Speaking louder is perhaps the most obvious

way to create emphasis, but decreasing the volume is actually
just as effective. It is the contrast that creates the emphasis, A
whispered phrase can be very dramatic.

As you prepare a presentation, you can plan your phrasing and

placement of emphasis in portions of the talk that are important
enough to write out. Expand on the technique we used earlier in our
Gettysburg Address example: Write or type each phrase on a sepa-
rate line; then simply underline the words you wish to emphasize.
Which words should you emphasize? The active, emotional ones;
these will generally be verbs, nouns, and adjectives.

FOURSCORE AND SEVEN YEARS AGO

OUR FATHERS BROUGHT FORTH ON THIS
CONTINENT
A NEW NATION
CONCEIVED IN LIBERTY
AND DEDICATED TO THE PROPOSITION
THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL .

Tip: We don't want to leave the subject of emphasis without

extending an urgent plea: Try to avoid the cliche, now solidly
embedded in our aural culture by second-rate television news
broadcasters and public officials, of stressing the prepositions
(such as of, to, for, in, among). It is a verbal affectation that
adds nothing useful to your speech. Also, don't stress conjunc-
tions (and, but, because) and articles (a, an, the).

Here are a few general rules about delivery:

—
Any time you pose a question even a rhetorical one make a —
real pause. Whether or not you expect listeners to answer, it
lends emphasis and gives them time to consider the implications.
• Avoid the habit of letting the ends of your sentences drop. If you

have this problem, practice deliberately emphasizing the final

Perfecting Delivery 107

two or three words of every sentence until this becomes second

nature.
To listeners this mannerism suggests a lack of conviction. It
often occurs for an entirely different reason: either because your
mind is already onto the next sentence or thought, or because
you are running out of breath. If the former, remember to pause
and slow down; if the latter, practice speaking in shorter
phrases, remembering to pause and breathe.
• Never undermine your selling points by glossing over them vo-
cally. Be fully aware that you are delivering a selling point and

stress it. "Signal" words, like proud or excited, can help to add

appropriate emphasis.
" If you feel a verbal fumble coming on, ask your audience's per-
mission to stop and think. You can cover with a phrase like, "Let
me consider how best to say this . .
."

• Take care to enunciate key words clearly, especially trade names

and terms, and most especially if there's any ambiguity. If
you're discussing UNIX (an operating system for computers), for
example, you don't want half your audience to be wondering
why on earth you are talking about emasculated harem atten-
dants (eunuchs). If any such verbal gremlin is lurking in your
presentation, make sure the audience sees the word written
down right off the bat.

Practice Guidelines

can be readily improved through

All the elements of vocal quality
practice. The first step is You can build your
to attune your ear.
awareness of pace, pitch, and volume inflection just by carefully
listening. Many study materials are readily available, from tele-
vision and radio to the conversation going on behind you in a restau-
rant. Close your eyes, and don't even listen to the words. Just hear
the speeding up and slowing down, the placement of pauses, the rise

and fall of the voice, the changes from loud to soft, the emphasis of
an important phrase.
Then practice. Take a section of your presentation that's well
108 Get to the Point

worked out — your opening, for example. Write out as we sug-it

gested above — in short phrases divided into logical units of mean-

ing. Decide which words to emphasize in order to best express your
message, and underline them. Read the lines out loud using differ-
ent types of emphasis:upward inflection and downward, louder,
Mark your pauses.
softer.

Once you begin to be comfortable with your expanded range of

expression, record yourself on tape. While this will probably in-
crease your self-consciousness at first, the direct feedback will be
invaluable in helping you fine-tune your handling of inflection and
emphasis. Eventually it will become second nature, and in time it

will evolve into a distinctive personal speaking style.

Quick Reference Summary

• Good enhance content. Poor de-
delivery or performance can
performance can undermine content.
livery or
• An audience carries away an impression of you that can out-
weigh the content of what you say.
• How you look and sound constitutes 93 percent of the im-
pression you make.
• Three components of effective delivery are:
•Confidence
Animation
•

• Relaxation
• The audience begins judging and evaluating you the minute
you're introduced— before you even open your mouth. Be
ready.
• Walk room with dignity and authority. Pos-
to the front of the
ture making a good impression.
is critical in

• Pause and survey the room before you begin speaking; pick
out friendly faces.
• Smile as you begin your talk.
• Look audience as you speak. Stop talking to look down
at the
at your notes, then look up and resume.
• Keep your eyes on one person for a full thought, or a com-
plete sentence.
Perfecting Delivery 109

• Ifyou have trouble meeting people's eyes, look at a person's

nose or forehead; this creates the illusion of eye contact.
• Making eye contact with the audience helps relieve your own
anxiety.
• Gestures are important in presentations. They burn off ten-

sion naturally, animate your face, and lubricate your voice.

• When using a lectern, don't lean on it in order to press ten-
sion away. Keep your hands at waist level and allow yourself
to gesture naturally.
• Use variety in your voice; pause, alter your pitch for emphasis
and phrasing.
• Speak important phrases slowly.
• Pause to let the audience absorb information. This lets you
emphasize a point nonverbally.
• Use signal words to introduce an important phrase. Deliver
the phrase, then pause. This helps people remember.
• Vary your pitch for emphasis.
• Speaking in a quiet, confidential tone is a strong way to occa-
sionally make a point.
• Keep phrases short, so you can deliver them in one breath.
Eight to ten words per sentence is appropriate.
• Analyze your text to mark for emphasis. Stress can alter the
meaning of your content.
 Tough Questions,
Good Answers

making your point is a brief

Usually, the most effective format for
by a question and answer period. The
talk or presentation followed
experienced presentation-maker knows this well and will insist on a
Q & A whenever possible.

Properly handled, a Q & A session gives you an opportunity

to make your point again— oiXen several times.

Furthermore, in many situations — internal presentations, witness

appearances, and interviews, for example — answering questions is

mandatory. The personnel manager, customer, divisional vice presi-

dent, regulatory commissioner, concerned community member, op-
posing counsel, or reporter will ask any question. Their questions
may be tough — and your answers had better be good. That's what
this chapter is about: tough questions and good answers.
 .

Tough Questions, Good Answers vn

You can see that the art of handling questions is a crucial compo-
nent of the presenter's craft. Although many people find the pros-
pect intimidating, rest assured that it consists of a set of skills that
vou can learn.

If you do the considerable amount of work involved in mas-

tering Q & A skills, you can transform a potentially terrifying
prospect into an important opportunity.

Masterv' of Q & A doesn't mean you can entirely eUminate the risks
involved in facing questions. Mastery is primarily a matter of prepa-
ration, and you can never be prepared for every question. You may
still get a zinger or a dumb, off-the-wall question from time to time.

But if you've been through our Q & A training and are comfortable
with the techniques of handling questions, you'll have a huge advan-
tage. You'll be equipped to handle these situations with equanimity
and, frequentiy, to turn them to your advantage.
If we haven't already made it clear, we believe that the Q & A is
the most important part of the presentation process. There are four
reasons, all of them related to retention.

1 This is the first time listeners have had an opportunity to ac-

tively participate in an exchange of ideas or information.
2. You can reemphasize important points.
3. You can introduce new, positive information.
4. The last things heard are remembered best.

The first reason Q & A helps you make your point is that interacting
with the speaker is stimulating to the audience; it makes them focus

their attention better. They will actually remember your message

better when it's presented asan answer to their questions than when
you make the same point in your prepared talk.
The second is that it gives you an opportunity to repeat. Repeti-
tion is one of the factors that increases retention. The more often
your listeners hear a message, the more likely they are to remember
it.

The third reason is that a question often creates an opportunity for

112 Get to the Point

you to deliver a selling point that didn't quite fit in with your talk,
thus allowing you to make one of your main points again in a differ-
ent way.
Point four really speaks for itself. But there's one final benefit of
the Q & A. It gives you an opportunity to display you. In the context
of a Q & A, your energy, confidence, conviction — and in the face of
difficult or hostile questioning, your courage and compassion — have
a better chance to come through than they do from behind the lec-
tern. All of which helps you get to the point.

The Control Factor

A lot of people find the idea of the Q & A unnerving. The reason?
They feel that in taking questions they relinquish control. With the
opening portion of your presentation — the "prepared text" — you are
in command. You choose the words and the pictures, and direct the
flow of ideas. But when the time comes to throw the floor open to
discussion — if you know that the vice president, the comptroller, or
whoever, may interrupt you at any moment — you may feel like a
on a storm-tossed sea, completely at the mercy of the ele-
tiny boat
ments. In reality, you can retain a considerable degree of control

when the presentation becomes interactive.

Case Study: During his White House years, Henry Kissinger,

undoubtedly one of the most successful communications manip-
ulators of recent times, once reportedly opened a press confer-
ence by asking the press corps, "Does anyone have questions for
my answers?" His quip made explicit what he knew and the
reporters knew: For Henry Kissinger a press conference was
more than a place to answer questions; it was an opportunity to
deliver prepared policy statements on issues of his own choos-
ing. They did ask questions, and he did provide answers, but he
in no way relinquished the agenda to the press. He went in
—
knowing what points he wanted to make and he made them.

Skilled Q & A handling is a process of turning questions— as

often as possible— into a platform for remaking your points.
Tough Questions, Good Answers 1J^

Mr. Kissinger's press conferences illustrate the basic point we wish to

make — that you don't have to relinquish control. However, we don't
suggest that you imitate Mr. Kissinger's outspoken st>'le of handling
the matter. When you're in that powerful a position, go right ahead.
Meanwhile . . .

The best overall effect is achieved when you are responsive

to the questions and keep your awareness of the control fac-
tor in the background.

Be Prepared
The Q & A technique we will outline is one of answering the ques-
tions and then finding a connection between that question and one
of your selling points. The key to Q & A control is preparation. This
point can't be overstressed. So before we work through the tech-
nique let's spend some time preparing.

In Q& A, there's virtually no such thing as being ov^erpre-

pared.

Phase One of preparation is, specifically, preparation for difficult

questions. This begins back where we started — with the audience
profile. Remember our potential conflict analysis? That's the part of
the audience profile that relates specifically to Q & A. It's a clue to
the kinds of questions you can expect.
If you're prepared for a question, you're obviously going to do a
better job of handling it.

Case Study: Former President Reagan's press secretary, Marlin

Fitzwater, has said the White House staff can anticipate
roughly four out of five questions reporters will pose at any
given press conference. This means that during the press confer-
ence, the President is ready for 80 percent of the questions that
come from the floor.
114 Get to the Point

If the President of the United States can anticipate four out of five
questions in an unrestricted presidential press conference, then with
preparation the rest of us ought to be able to anticipate nine out of
ten questions.
This means that roughly one time in ten someone will throw you a
curve when you were looking for a fastball, and you will have to
think on your means that the rest of the time you'll have
feet. It also

an answer prepared. You'll know what's coming maybe not the —

exact words or all the nuances, but at least the specific area or issue.
And you'll be able to step into the pitch and hit a line drive up the
middle.
In other words, contrary to appearances, a skilled handler of
Q&A is never very far from his or her "prepared text," because that
text includes answers for every question that might come up.
The first step in your preparation is to anticipate, write down,
and think through every question that might come up in the context
of your topic. Look especially for difficult, tricky, or belligerent
ones. Then prepare answers as far in advance as possible.

This is the most rigorous work you will have to do in the

course of your presentation training. But, like a lot of what a

recruit does in boot camp, it will pay off under fire. Walking
Into a Q & A without doing this homework is like walking into
battle without a weapon.

For this exercise, we recommend you make a Difficult Questions

Worksheet. The worksheet is essentially a four-part list containing:
Questions you have found difficult to answer in the past
Questions on matters you would prefer not to have exposed in
public, to other departments, to your superiors, or to interview-
ers
• Issues that are particularly critical to your position, depart-
ment, business, industry, or organization
Your primary selling points

After making out your Difficult Questions Worksheet, spend some

time mulling over the contents. This is not a process you want to
Tough Questions, Good Answers 1^5

hum' through. If possible spread it out over several days. Try to

expand your thinking. Don't always be linear; let your mind associ-
ate freely. Consider even' possible ramification of your business, of
related public concerns, and of your positive program. Continue
this process — letting ideas percolate and integrate — until you feel
you really know your way around all the issues, pro and con.

Tip: Tr>' the technique known as "mind mapping," in which

you write the central thought of the question in the middle of
the page and write down ideas all around it.

By the time you've completed this phase of preparation, you

should be pretty comfortable with a broad spectrum of questions.
Part of your job in the Q & A will be to answer those questions, but
it's not your whole job. Along with your answers, you also want to
work in your selling points. That's what makes the Q & A an oppor-
tunity.
Phase Two of preparation is the forging of connections between
the issues raised by the questions you studied in phase one and your
selling points. For help in this second phrase of preparation, we have
designed the Plus/Minus Worksheet (see next page).

On the left side of the page, list all the negative issues; on the right
side, list all your positive selling points. As you study the material in
this format, your aim is to bridge the rhetorical space that separates
the two sides with concepts that create a connection between one
side and the other. Look for logical paths that lead from items on the
negative side to items on the positive side and draw actual lines con-
necting issues that relate conceptually.
Sometimes you can answer a minus question with a plus word and
specifics. For example. Question: "Isn't this promotional plan un-
necessary?" Answer: "It's absolutely necessary. Let me give you our

specific objectiveand our anticipated results."

Sometimes you need to answer the negative and use a "but" or a
"however" to get to your plus side. For example, Question: "Isn't the
anticipated expense figure one-point-five million dollars with only a
116 Get to the Point

PLUS/MINUS WORKSHEET

+ + + + +

three hundred thousand dollar sales figure the first year?" Answer:

"Yes, that's true. But this is an investment that will make us competi-
tive in the long run. The numbers show us turning a profit in the
fourth year."

Work out a connection from every item on the minus side to

some point on the plus side. It's much more important for all

the minuses to be covered than for every plus to make an

appearance.

You will probably begin to notice that certain concepts crop up more
often than others (the cost of living or the importance of customer
service, for example). These are your "higher" or "broader" issues;

take special note of them because they are important.

Tough Questions, Good Answers VV7

Q&A Architecture: Building Bridges

After analyzing in detail how "their" questions and "your" an-

swers connect, you're now ready to meld these two elements into the
powerful rhetorical device we call the bridging technique.
As the name suggests, the technique consists of building a verbal
bridge between the point raised by the questioner and the selling
point you wish to emphasize.

Case Study 1: A classic example of skillful bridging is drawn

from the 1980 presidential campaign when candidate Edward
Kennedy appeared on a television interview program.
The senator's pet campaign issue was his health care pro-
gram for the elderly and it was a popular issue. His selling
points were bankable votes for him, so naturally he wanted to
make the audience aware of it. Twenty minutes of the thirty-
minute program had gone by and the senator hadn't had an
opportunity' to talk about health care. The next question was:
"Senator, what is your \aew on the MX missile?"
Think for a moment what you would do in this situation. You
need to answer the question, but you also need to get in some of
your selling points. Is there any way that you can answer the
question and find a connection that will allow you to bridge to
health care? How about the issue of costs?
Senator Kennedy's answer went something like this: "My
staff and I are against the MX. We don't think it is the right
weapons system for this country. First of all, we are adequately
covered by our existing systems. Second, you can't look at the
—
MX or any other weapons system without focusing on its —
cost. We have only so much money in our national budget, and

I believe that more funds should be spent on domestic priorities

such as rebuilding our roads or in areas such as national health

care . .
." With this bridge, Kennedy was off and running. "In
this country today, the average American senior citizen spends
about one-third of his or her income for health care mainten-
ance. With my bill, we can bring this down to one-fifth or less,
and each elderly person in this town could save as much as four
hundred dollars a year."
118 Get to the Point

At this point, the reporters might follow up with further questions

on the health care issue, or they might come back to the MX missile.
The point is that the smooth transition gave the senator a chance to
make his selling point and left him in a position where it was even
odds he would be able to make others.
That's the technique in a nutshell. Here was a smooth, logical,
persuasive path from the issue of a weapons system, to the broader
issue of costs and the national budget, to a specific economic issue —
the high cost of health care. And finally the selling point — the Ken-
nedy-sponsored bill and its benefits for the elderly.

Case Study 2: Moving to the private sector, Marc Chodorow,

vice president in charge of public relations for Goldome, was
talking to a reporter on the subject of KWIKLINE, the bank's
telephone banking service.
"Twenty-five to thirty percent of our 'platform' transactions
[at a desk, with an officer] are now being handled by
phone . .
." he was saying when the reporter broke in: "Does this

mean that old-fashioned, face-to-face human services are going

down the tubes?"
"Not Chodorow. "We still believe in personal
at all," said
banking and we always will, but [but is often a very
services,
important word in bridging] we find that using the phone
—
works better for us it's cheaper and more efficient. And
frankly, it often works better for our customers as well.
"Here's an example. Last April 15, just hours before the last
possible minute to file a tax return, we got a call from a cus-
tomer who was out of town but who wanted to fund his IRA.
The added complication was that he needed to take out a loan
to do We were able to take care of both transactions for him
so.

over KWIKLINE in time for him to meet the IRS filing dead-
line."

The story makes another textbook example of skillful bridging:

Chodorow answered the question (we aren't abandoning walk-in
banking services), bridged (but) to his selling point (we think it
—
works better for us and for the customer), and added a memorable
Tough Questions, Good Answers 119

supporting specific (look what this service can do for you in a pinch).
Bridging is a flexible and adaptable technique that can be used
one way or another in almost any Q & A situation. The more you do
it, the better you'll be at it.

Practice, Practice, Practice

We have a whole chapter on practicing, but practice is particu-

larly crucial for Q & A, so we need to say a few things about it here.
Skillful Q & A always requires specific preparation.
Former Presi-
dent Reagan, for example, spent approximately and a half hourssix

preparing for every- press conference. That's the kind of commitment

that produces results. But before you get into that league, you're
going to have to devote some time to mastering the pivotal Q & A
technique, bridging.
Your practice at this stage has three primary goals:
• Perfection of your command over the issue-bridge-selling point
links
• A spontaneous conversational tone
• Conciseness

The more closely you can approximate real presentation conditions,

the more effective your practice will be. This means responding to
real questions. Getting a friend, spouse, or colleague to scan your
worksheet and fire tough questions at you would be most effective.
If you don't have access to a practice partner, you will have to
frame questions for yourself — just as you imagine they might come
from the audience:
• Write your questions down on slips on paper.
" Put the slips in a paper bag and pull them out one by one to
simulaterandom questions from an audience.
" Do down your answers. Say them out loud, in your
not write
own words, just as you would in any conversation or discussion.

As you practice, strive to refine and simplify your answers. The

more succinct they are, the more likely they are to be understood
and retained. Work at getting the main message of your selling point
as close to the front of your answer as possible.
 —

120 Get to the Point

Repeat each answer until it goes smoothly. This will probably

take you about three tries per answer in the beginning. As you de-
velop skill, you'll do better and better on your first try.

To really help yourself improve, record your practice sessions on

audio tape. Listening to yourself speak is the most effective feed-
back.
As you listen to the tapes of your practice session, we suggest that
you first make notes on what you like, then concentrate on what
needs improvement.

More Q&A Techniques

You've prepared for the tough questions and spent time practicing
the bridging technique. You're probably feeling pretty confident
about the prospect of facing a question and answer session.
We've got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is

that you're not quite ready yet; there are more question-handling
techniques for you to master. The good news is that they're easy
and they will make your performance that much stronger.
The following rules and guidelines will keep the Q & A session
running smoothly and under your control. They will help you steer
clear of serious pitfalls, and generally help to make your Q & A a
success.
Keep in mind that these are generalities and must be filtered
through experience and common sense. Some points are more appli-
cable to one situation than another. The list is most useful in the
more formal presenter/ audience situation. In the one-on-one meet-
ing with your boss, or in a job interview, you are much more re-

stricted in the range of appropriate techniques.

Set ground rules. In small presentations, this is not usually possible.

In large meetings, however, this is highly recommended to establish
your authority in the Q & A setting.
You may, for example, ask that questioners raise their hands or
stand and identify themselves and their affiliations. You will proba-
bly want to save questions until after you have completed your pre-
sentation. If so, ask listeners to hold their questions until the end. If
Tough Questions, Good Answers 121^

you want to limit questions to one per person, say so; you can always
graciously make an exception to this or any ground rule on an ad hoc
basis. If you forget to ask members to hold their questions and some-
one interrupts, either suggest that he or she write down the question
and save it until the end, or you can answer it and ask everyone else
to please hold further questions until you have finished your presen-
tation.

Be prepared to get the ball rolling. When preparing for a Q&A

session,you should always write a question or two for yourself. Au-
diences are sometimes slow to begin asking questions and you must
start the ball rolling or the whole Q & A may fall flat.

"One question that is frequently raised about this subject is . .

." is

one way to handle it. Another is, "Just before we started this eve-
ning, Marty asked me . .
." There are many possibilities. Once you
have primed the pump, the audience will generally warm up and
begin asking their own questions.

Tip: You can help stimulate questions from the audience while
you set your ground rules: As you explain how you'd like mem-
bers of the audience to seek recognition, raise your arm to illus-
trate; you'll find that this tends to elicit an arm-raising
response. If this doesn't do the trick, proceed to your fall-back
questions.

Answer all questions. Only personal questions, questions relating to

proprietary information, and questions to which you don't have an-
swers (see our discussion of "don't-know" questions on page 127) are
exceptions. The rest are fair game.
Try to look at difficult questions as an opportunity to demonstrate
your strength. If questions have been submitted in written form, you
might consider tackling one or two of the tough ones first just to
demonstrate your willingness to face all issues. Here is an opportu-
nity to head off anticipated questions raising particular problems. If
you have prepared conscientiously, you should be able to offer a rea-
sonably strong answer to the occasional unpredictable zinger. And
122 Get to the Point

evenif you don't handle a question brilliantly, the courage and com-

mitment you show by taking it on in good faith will ultimately work

in your favor.

Always pause before answering a question. Pausing gives you time

to collect your thoughts. It takes the brain more than two seconds to
formulate a well-considered answer, and when the question is a dif-
ficult one, you really need that think time. The pause helps you

avoid the pitfalls of "having your tongue drive your brain" and un-
consciously repeating the negative language in a hostile or inflam-
matory question (which we will discuss presently). Just remember:
Listen, think, and answer.
Not all questions are brain-crunchers, but there are two good rea-
sons to pause even on easy questions.
First, the pause conveys an attitude of respect both for the ques-
tioner and for the question itself. It tells the audience that you are
relaxed and that you regard each question as worthy of serious re-
flection. It also shows that you are listening. Jumping on the ques-
tion before it is out of the questioner's mouth is likely to send the
message either that you are anxious or that you have glib, ready-
made answers for everything.
Second, you pause before every question, the audience quickly
if

an aspect of your style. Then when you are asked

assimilates this as
the tough question and you need the time, your pause doesn't tele-
graph to the audience the message that you find the question a prob-
lem.
For difficult questions, in addition to pausing, it is a good idea to
have a small repertoire of phrases prepared to extend your time to
think. This will also allow you to launch into your answer unobtru-
sively. ("Well, let me
you how we view that issue.
tell .") Try to . .

avoid the response, "I'm glad you asked that question," which often
comes across as defensive. On the other hand, an acceptable answer,
even on the witness stand, is, "I've never thought about the issue that
way. Give me a moment to consider it in that light."

Bridge answers whenever possible. With innocuous questions,

bridge to your selling points. With tricky or embarrassing questions.
Tough Questions, Good Answers 123

after dealing with at least part of the substance, bridge away to

more comfortable ground. Respond to the specifics of the question
and move to the realm of the larger issues that it raises. Once there,
you can almost always reiterate your message.

Don't repeat negative language. A natural response to a tough

question is to buy time by repeating the question verba-
to think
tim. This is the worst thing you can do. In mindlessly repeating the
question, you will be emphasizing the negatively charged language.
("Are we ripping off the public with our new pricing structure? .") . .

Coming full circle to repeat a question at the end of an answer is a

natural impulse. If you do not check it, especially with a hostile or
otherwise difficult question, you may undo skillful work you
a lot of
did in bridging away from it in the first place. You may well end up
where your questioner began — with a negative statement. ("So, no,
in answer to your question, I don't think we're ripping off the pub-
lic. . .") You want to end with the positive. It might help to visual-
.

ize a bridge — a structure that leads from one side of the river to the
other, not around in a circle.

Anticipate the brain-crunchers. To defuse a potentially volatile

issue —
if you suspect or know that someone in the group is going to

hit —
you with a tough question you can meet it head on by raising it
yourself. It certainly is better for you to do this than for you to be
surprised with it from the floor. And the audience may respect you
for your courage and candor.

Keep it moving. Make an effort to be crisp and concise with your

answers. In general, aim at keeping your answers between thirty
seconds and a minute. Answer the question; if appropriate, bridge
to a selling point; take another question.

Disengage eye contact and move to another questioner. This helps

you include more people in your answers and also discourages
follow-ups. Establish eye contact as you field a question. Maintain
that contact for the first few moments of your answer. Then shift to

one or more other members of the group, perhaps settling on the next
questioner even as you finish your current answer.
124 Get to the Point

This technique obviously doesn't apply when you're dealing with

a power person. You must stick with that person until he or she is

done dealing with the question or issue.

Leave on a high note or with a brief summary. Nothing looks worse

than dutifully droning on until the audience has no more questions.
After the Q & A time you have allotted, or when you feel you've
reemphasized your selling points, you should wind up the session.
An effective technique is to ask for "one or two more questions." If
the an easy one and you have made a positive bridge on your
first is

answer, you can use that as an opportunity to exit. If you don't man-
age to handle the first question smoothly, take a second. If neither
goes particularly well, give a prepared thirty-second summary of
your presentation so that you can leave the audience with a positive
message. You might actually say, "Although I didn't handle that
question particularly well, let me finish strongly with a brief sum-
mary."

Close with dignity. Following your final answer or your summary

statement, pause for a count of two or three, take off your micro-
phone, gather your papers, and walk off with the same purpose and
dignity with which you approached the lectern.

Quick Reference Summary

• "Q & A session" doesn't mean "inquisition"; use it to your
advantage.
• Preparation is the l<ey to feeling in control of the Q & A.
• Analyzing the audience is the number one priority.
• Anticipate and practice difficult questions.
• Use the bridging technique to turn negative questions into
positive answers.
• Try "mind mapping"— free association of ideas emanating
from the central thought of a question— to allow you to bridge
toa selling point.
• Develop the discipline of using the Plus/Minus Worksheet. It
Tough Questions, Good Answers 125

will help you create transitions from negative questions to

positive answers.
• By bridging you can (1 ) narrow the focus of interest of a ques-
tion toa specific issue within the issue raised, or (2) expand
the focus of interest to the broader issue, which may allow
you to bring in selling points.
• Bridging can diffuse an adversarial question.
• It is important to answer a question first, then bridge.
• To practice Q& A, have a friend ask tough questions. If no

help is available, write questions on slips of paper, and draw

them at random.
• Always pause before answering a question. Take time to
think.
• First thought when a question comes is "What's my selling
point?" Second thought: "What's my bridge?" Pause. Then
answer.
• In many cases, you can set ground rules. When possible,

make things as comfortable for yourself as you can.

• To stimulate questions, ask one of yourself.
• Don't dodge or evade questions. If you don't know the an-
swer, say so and volunteer to get the information to the ques-
tioner.
• When you don't know the answer to a question, try to bridge
back something pertinent that you do know.
to
• Watch for negative language in questions. Never repeat neg-
ative language in your answer.
• Don't repeat questions— unless the audience really can't
hear them.
• In an adversarial encounter, move your eyes to another ques-
tioner as you finish your answer. This prevents follow-ups.
• If possible, keep answers short. Thirty seconds to a minute is

appropriate.
• Leave on a high note. Always summarize key points in a posi-
tivemanner.
 10

Tricky Questions,
Difficult Questioners

Most questions are straightforward, inviting equally straight-

forward answers. But there are several types of questions containing
rhetorical pitfalls that come up frequently enough so that every pre-
senter needs to learn to recognize them immediately.
The same holds true for several types of questioners (or styles of
questioning) that have a disruptive effect on the smooth flow of your
Q&A.
In examining these problems, we will concentrate on two separate
but related areas:
• Awareness: Learning to clearly identify the specific types of
problems
Tactics: Learning how to deal with them smoothly, maintaining
focus and control, and turning potential problems into opportu-
nities to make your point
Tricky Questions, Difficult Questioners 127

Tricky Questions

The "Don't Know" Question

For some reason, many of us feel when we get up in front of a
group we have to be omniscient; as a result, we are often reluctant to
acknowledge our occasional ignorance.

Sometimes, the best answer you can give to a question Is, "I

don't know."

If you don't know the answer, don't make it up. Trying to fake an
answer is a mistake for several reasons:
• It's hard to be convincing when you're not convinced yourself.
• If there is someone present who does know the answer, you're
likely to be shown up on the spot.
" If anyone in the audience later learns that your answer was in-
correct, you may look bad forever in that person's view, no mat-
ter how well you handled yourself during the Q& A.

If you don't know, step one is be candid; say so.

But don't leave matters there. Step two is to amplify; offer what-
ever explanation or justification you can: "I'm sorry, that just isn't

my area of expertise" or "Those figures won't be available for an-

other few days."
Step three is always to offer to remedy the situation: "I'll find out
that information and get back to you. When will you need that by?";
"See me afterward and I'll tell you who to contact about this"; or, to
a reporter, "What's your deadline?"
Step four, having demonstrated your integrity and good faith, is

to transform this intoan opportunity. By bridging back to what you

do know, you create an opportunity to deliver a selling point: "But I
can tell you that in this general area we've been making an effort
to . .
." This response is like a negotiation where you say, "I can't give
you that, but will you take this instead?"
128 Get to the Point

The Loaded Question

Confrontational questions that contain highly charged negative
language ("rip-off," "monopoly," "profiteering," "endangering pub-
lic health") can be very disconcerting. Saying little is your best tactic
in response.

Never reinforce negative or highly charged language in a

question by repeating it.

You may not be able to neutralize the effect of such a question en-
tirely, but don't lend credence to the charge by expanding on it.

Take your time. Pause. Use your own words. Above all, be con-
cise. Don't overanswer and don't allow yourself to get drawn in or
distracted by the emotionality of what's been said.
If you need to buy a little extra thinking time, use a phrase like, "I
certainly wouldn't use those words" or "I strongly disagree with
."
your characterization. . .

The Forced Choice (AKA the False Choice)

This is the situation in which the questioner poses two alternatives

as if they were mutually exclusive ("Do you walk to school, or do you
carry your lunch?") and invites the presenter to endorse one or the
other.

The real answer to an "A or B" question may well be "neither

A nor B, but C." Or may be "both A and B."
it

("Are lower earnings the result of mismanagement or employee

theft?" Quite possibly neither one. "What do you want, high profits
or a clean environment?" Without question, both.)
The defense against the forced choice is simple: Awareness. As
long as you recognize the critter when it turns up, it is easy enough
to deal with: Remember to pause thoughtfully, then use the word
both or neither, as the occasion requires.
Tricky Questions, Difficult Questioners 129

The Multiquestion
Often when people get an opportunity to ask a question thfey sense
that this may be their only chance. Typically, they then turn all the
various questions on their mind into one lengthy run-on question.
Trying to log remember, and respond to a whole list of questions
in,

can be confusing, taxing, and time consuming.

This is one situation in which it is okay not to be 100 percent
responsive.

If you ask the questioner which question he or she wants you

to answer first, it invariably turns out to be the toughest.

Instead, simply pick out the one question that you most want to
answer and do it. Everyone is generally satisfied with this. A second
option is to respond along these lines: "Well, you've asked me several
questions;I think the issue that covers all of them is ."
. .

The situation where these tactics don't work is the small manage-
ment meeting or any other one-on-one situation where you're being
grilled by your superiors. In this t^pe of Q&A session it's best to
take notes as questions are asked, then try to answer them succinctly.
If you need to buy a little think time, you can ask for a restatement
of one or more questions, or a confirmation of specific items asked
for. It is okay to be human in this situation; if you forget one of the

questions, it's all right to ask: "What was your third question
again?"
In terms of the order in which you answer multiple questions
from your boss, if there is a particularly tough one, you might
choose to tackle that one first. This allows you to move on to more
comfortable territory and end your multianswer on a positive note.

The Hypothetical Question

Many questioners begin their queries with "Suppose that . .
." or
"What if and then, describing some particular set of circum-
. .
."

stances, invite you to speculate about their effect. The temptation to

wrestle with the problem may be strong, but resist. Buying into an-
130 Get to the Point

other person's speculative scenario creates the impression that you

are endorsing it, even though you understand that it is hypothetical.

In dealing with hypothetical questions, above all, never ac-

cept the premise out of hand.

Begin your response by verbally flagging the question as "a hypo-

thetical" or "an 'if question." You then have three options:

1. You can respectfully decline to speculate.

2. You may choose to answ^er, making it absolutely clear that you
are speculating.
3. You can respond with a reality-based answer.

Whether you choose to provide an answer or merely indicate your

unwillingness to speculate, make sure you have clearly identified the
problem to the audience, so they don't think you are being arbitrar-
ily unresponsive.

Case Study Reagan administration Defense Secretary Cas-

1:

par Weinberger did a fine job of this in an interview following

the U.S. bombing of Libya in 1986. Chris Wallace of NBC

News asked, "If this does not deter Colonel Qaddafi and terror-
ism continues, what then?" Weinberger responded, "That gets
us into hypotheticals, and you know I try not to deal with
."
those. . .

Having flagged the hypothetical. Secretary Weinberger then

used the opportunity to deliver a selling point when he added,
"But I think it will send an unmistakable signal, and I think it

will go very far towards deterring future acts."

Case Study 2: During the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987, we

recall many hypotheticals posed to witnesses. When congres-
sional investigators framed speculative scenarios to Lt. Col. Ol-
iver North, his attorney, Brendan L. Sullivan, was always quick
to flag them in no uncertain terms. At one point he said about
an "if" question, "That's so hypothetical it's dreamland."
Tricky Questions. Difficult Questioners 13^

On the other hand, when it was in his interest to do so, North

answered such questions: "That's a hvpothetical, but let me tell
you that if those events had occurred, it would have been a very
positive development."

Tip: If \'ou are confronted with hypothetical questions on

the witness stand (as in an administrative hearing), you can
sometimes be forced to speculate. In such a case, be sure to
qualify each answer ("This is speculation, of course, but if I
must, I'd have to say . .
." or "In answer to your hypotheti-
cal . . ."). This makes for a clearer transcript and a minimum
of ambiguities later on about what part of your testimony was
asserted as fact and what was forced speculation (see our dis-
cussion of being a witness in Chapter Sixteen).

Tip: Hypothetical questions crop up frequently in job inter-

views. Here again, flagging the question type is a good tactic.
It lets the interviewer know and that
that you're listening
you're careful. For example: "If you're a product manager for
Brand X and your market share drops by two points, what
would you do?" It's a fair answer to flag the if: "Well, you're
asking me to speculate on a matter I don't believe will come to
pass. However, if that were to occur, let me state . .
."

Difficult Questioners

We identify four problem questioner "types" who crop up fairly fre-

quently:
The Supporter
The Detailer
• The Negator
• The Filibusterer
132 Get to the Point

The key to understanding these questioners is to remember that in a

sense they aren't really questioners at all. The problems arise from
the fact that each type is functioning for the moment as a speaker.
The speech may be a generous statement of appreciation, a criticism
or grievance, or a self-serving rhetorical orgy.

In dealing with troublesome personalities in the presentation

situation, you must take control.

While there are exceptions, in most presentations it is your privilege

Although you don't want to be rigid about it, it is
to set the agenda.
up to you to keep to that agenda: your message.
Dealing firmly and politely with those who seek to usurp the floor
helps present you as a confident and assertive person, lending con-
viction to your message indirectly.

Bonus: It is almost always possible to use even troublesome en-

counters as opportunities to deliver additional selling points.

Let's look at problem questioners one by one.

The Supporter
You may be surprised to find support listed as a problem. It is, but
only in one sense. Because of our cultural notions of modesty, it is

hard for most of us to accept praise, directly and wholeheartedly

expressed. It makes us uncomfortable and we want to make the situ-
ation go away as quickly as possible. In a presentation, this tends to
result in, at best, a hasty word of gratitude, at worst, a piece of
embarrassed self-effacement.
If we are aware of the problem, however, we can use supportive

comments to our advantage:

• Openly and sincerely thank the speaker for the kind words.

Tell why the appreciation is gratifying. You strive to do good

work and appreciation adds to the satisfaction.
• Then add a selling point, a further example of achievements you
Tricky Questions, Difficult Questioners 133

feel are praiseworthy: "Thanks for your land words, John. We

do try to be good corporate citizens, and it's nice to know that
our efforts are appreciated. One of our latest projects in a re-
."
lated area is . .

Tip: You won't always be able to add the selling point, but it's

nice to be prepared. At several points in this book we have

suggested that the presenter make up a note card listing points
he or she wants to score in the Q& A. In this situation it is

usually pretty easy to bridge to one of the points on your card.

The Detailer (AKA the Nit-Picker)

This is the person who likes to quibble with facts and figures. A
natural response to this provocation is to get into a debate. This is

also the worst response. The point raised by the detailer is usually
minor and often insignificant. If you pursue it too far you can com-
pletely lose the rest of your audience.
The problem here is the competing claims of one individual versus
the whole group. Politeness requires that you spend time with the
questioner, but if you spend too much time, you lose everybody else.
Tactically, your main goal is to deal with the question as expedi-

tiously as possible.
If facts and figures, stand by them. If there is
you are sure of your
legitimateroom for disagreement, volunteer to see the person after
the meeting and resolve the matter then: "George, I'm not 100 per-
cent sure of those figures. Why don't you see me after we finish here.
I'll get all the information from you and then get back with the an-
."
swer. . .

Be absolutely sure you follow through on any pledges to "get

back" with information or contacts.

You can certainly include others, and again, this is a good opportu-
nity to bridge to one of the larger issues and deliver a selling point.
134 Get to the Point

"Anyone else who is interested is welcome to join us. Now the issue
that George raises here is one I can discuss . .
." In this way you can
deal with the question in a reasonably short time without getting
bogged down in a lot of nit-picking. You come out looking good:
friendly, courteous, tolerant, concerned, helpful.

The Negator
This is the questioner with a personal problem or a negative state-
ment that is clearly not a question at all. In this case you are being
cast more in the mold of arbitrator or ombudsman than as a source
of information. You would like to be helpful, if possible; at the very
least you would like to appear concerned. But you don't want to take

up the entire audience's time with one person's problem, which may
be only marginally relevant to your agenda. You need to respond,
but not to get sidetracked and lose your audience.
The solution is to take the problem where it belongs: outside the
bounds of your Q & A.
• First, be responsive, if possible, to the issue being raised, if only
to validate or acknowledge it: "I just don't know what happened
."
to your brother-in-law. . .

Next, indicate your willingness to help — and the restrictions you

are operating under in this situation: ". . and we don't
. really
have time to discuss it here as fully as I would like."
Then, offer to put yourself at the person's disposal outside of
presentation time: "See me after the meeting and I'll be glad to
do what I can to clarify this for you."
• Finally, try to use the incident in a positive way by addressing an
issue that encompasses the point or problem raised by the nega-
tor: "But I'd like to point out — on the broader issue of jobs in
general — that for the past two and a half years we've been striv-
."
ing . .

By expressing compassion and/or a willingness to help, you make a

favorable impression. By offering to deal with the issue or problem
outside of the presentation context, you regain control of the pro-
ceedings. By addressing the larger issue, you are able to make a sell-
Tricky Questions, Difficult Questioners 135

ing point. This is turning a problem into an opportunity; getting to

the point.

The Filibusterer

This is the most flagrant variety of "problem nonquestioner": the

person who launches into a rambling, run-on statement that may
show early promise of becoming a question but never does. It's an
aggravated form of thinking out loud. Since the statement is almost
always negative or critical in tone and is without any explicit state-

ment to come to grips with and address, it tends to make both you
and the audience uncomfortable.
The source of the discomfort here is the issue of control. You have
nothing concrete to respond to; the "questioner" has seized control of
the proceedings. This makes you anxious, and it has the same effect
on your audience. Like it or not, they look to you to take and main-
tain control — which is your primary task here.
A natural impulse would be to interrupt and challenge the filibus-
terer, asking, "Well, are you going to ask a question or not?" Unfor-
tunately, appropriate as this may seem, it is likely to seem rude and
confrontational; it is better to avoid this kind of impression.
If he or she gives you an opening you can jump in and regain
control by "answering": Well, Chris, if I understand what you're
."
asking . .

If not, as is often the case, your only recourse is to use what we call
the "relay race baton-pass" technique. After listening politely for a
while — twenty-five to thirty seconds is quite sufficient — you figura-
tively reach out and grab the baton (i.e., the monologue) from the
filibusterer and run with it.

1. Look directly at the person.

2. Address him or her by name, if you know it (which generally
causes the speaker to pause for a second or two).
3. Pick up on a few key words, and then start talking.

Begin by literally echoing the speaker's last few words. Talk a little

louder and more forcefully than your filibusterer, and as you do so,

move your eye contact to another member of the audience. Keep

136 Get to the Point

talking as you bridge to the general issue. This assertive technique is

quite effective, and the audience will appreciate your taking con-
trol.

There are a few additional personality types that cause problems

We cover these fully in Chap-
specifically in the context of meetings.
ter Seventeen.

A Final Note: You may feel that we're a little rabid about push-
ing you to get your selling points in at every opportunity. In
reality, it's who actually turns the Q & A to
a rare individual
advantage. We asked a person in one workshop, "How did you
do on the Q & A?" He said, "Well, I had my answers ready, but
they didn't ask the right questions!" If you really want the
Q & A to work for you, you have to be like the notorious "Boss"
(William Marcy) Tweed, grand sachem of Tammany Hall, who
said about his career, "I seen my opportunities and I took 'em."

Quick Reference Summary

• Watch for the "A or B" dilemma: being forced to chose be-
tween presented alternatives. A third choice may be the right
one.
• With multipart questions, answer the part of the question that
lets your selling point come through. It's generally your
choice if you want to go on to another part of the question.
• In internalpresentations, especially to your boss, you may
have to answer all parts of a question. In this case, tackle the
toughest part first, then easier parts, and end on a positive
note.
• "Flag" hypothetical questions: "You're asking me to specu-
."
late . .
." or "That's a hypothetical . .

• Be prepared to express pride in project or company in re-

sponse to a Supporter's questions or remarks.

• In response to a Nit-Picker, stick to your guns if the point is

important; if it isn't, concede that the fact may be true and

offer to talk with the person after the session.
Tricky Questions, Difficult Questioners 137

• Be aware of Negators. Stay calm. Don't buy into the person's

negative tone or words. Don't get caught in a fight.
• Offer to see a Negator, and any other interested parties, after
the presentation to deal with the related issue.
• Once you know you've got a Filibusterer on your hands (thirty

to forty seconds should be long enough to tell), intervene by

using the person's name (if you knowit), and expressing con-

cern over issues being raised. you don't know the person,
If

"take back the floor" by echoing the Filibusterer's words and

bridging to another point.
 11

How Do Get I

to Carnegie Hall?

You'll probably recognize that question as the opening line of an old

joke.The punch line is "Practice!" Which is what you need to do if
you truly want to become an accomplished presenter. You've learned
enough just by reading Get to the Point to improve, but if you really
want to be good, you must practice. Practice alone, practice with
family, with colleagues, or with professionals — but practice!
Here's a whole chapter filled with advice and techniques to help
you practice efficiently and enjoyably and get the most out of your
effort.

General Practice Concepts

We'd like to start by giving you some general maxims about prac-
tice; how to make the most effective use of your time.

Don't work on too much at once. Like playing the piano, giving a
presentation requires us to integrate a number of complex processes
How Do Get I to Carnegie Hall? 139

into one seamless performance. Especially in the early stages of

practice, avoid trying to do it all at once. Break things down into
discrete components, mastering each separately before putting them
together.

By concentrating on one factor at a time, you will master the

process more quickly than if you try to"do it all."

Feel free to be free. Practice time is the time to take chances. We

strongly encourage you to try everything; any zany idea that comes
into your head. Later on, you'll have time to weed out things that
don't work, butsome of the things you discover this way will become
invaluable components of your personal style.

If you don't take chances in a training session, you'll never

do it in "real life."

For peak performance, make it tough. Once you've mastered the

fundamentals, make practice harder than the real thing; you'll per-
form better. Call it the "on-deck" principle: The batter waiting in
the "on-deck circle" swings a heavily weighted bat so that when he
gets to the plate the bat he swings at the oncoming pitch will feel
light.

Case Study: Len Dykstra, one of the New York Mets' batting
heroes of the 1986 World Series, credits his success to just this
kind of approach: making the practice task harder than the real
thing. Dykstra set out to learn to hit a major league fastball by
batting against "Iron Mike," the pitching machine. He began at
—
the normal distance sixty feet, six inches from the pitching
mound. Once he was comfortable hitting what the machine
threw from this distance, he began to move closer to the ma-
chine, effectively reducing the time the eye and brain had to
track the ball's trajectory and set the bat on a collision course.
Eventually he got as close as forty-five feet to the Iron Mike and
 —
140 Get to the Point

was hitting balls that were faster than anything a human being
could possibly throw.

If you design your practice to be tougher than the real thing, you
too can have that performance edge. If you know you have ten min-
utes to give your presentation, make sure you can do it in eight
without rushing. When you practice for your Q & A, really dig deep
and look at every embarrassing, malicious, or underhanded question
that your worst enemy might raise. Prepare for the toughest present-
ing slot: Assume that you're going to be the fourth of six speakers, so
you'll find a way of launching your talk that will really wake up the
audience.
Whatever practice devices you come up with, challenge yourself.
Your efforts will pay off.

The more closely you can approximate real presentation condi-

tions, the more your practice will pay off.

Presentation Practice

Out loud, please. Most of the work we've done so far in Get to the
Point has been in terms of the written word. Presentation making,
however, is a spoken skill,and to master it you have to transfer your
skills into the speaking mode.

When you're actually making a presentation, your mind,

your body, and your voice all have to work together. There-
fore, they all need to be used in practice workouts.

Thought patterns and sentence structures differ radically between

writing and speaking. The average spoken sentence, for example,
contains nine words; the average written sentence, twenty-three.
What looks good on paper may sound unnatural and therefore un-
convincing delivered vocally. Listeners tend to detect — even only if

subconsciously — a "reading quality," which diminishes your overall

credibility.
Perhaps the primary reason is that verbal speech dances to the
How Do Get I to Carnegie Hall? 141

rhythm its own, quite different

of the breath; written speech has
rhythms. Working from written you may find it hard to breathe
text,

properly (This is one reason we encourage using notes rather than a

full transcript.) So, to be effective, your practice must be done out

loud.

Tip: Stretch physically and vocalize a bit before practicing in

order to get into the habit before the real presentation. (See
Chapter Twelve for recommended exercises.)

Get it on tape. By recording your practice sessions you increase

their effectiveness immeasurably. The direct feedback of listening to
your own voice, watching your own face and body is more valuable
than a dozen critiques. In the early stages of practice, audio record-
ing is fine; later on, you'll want to do videotaping, if at all possible.

Tip: With the accessibility and portability of cassette and

microcassette recorders, you can make use of "dead" time like
commuting time for presentation practice. In the privacy of
your car you can both record and listen. On public transporta-
tionyou may feel inhibited about speaking into your recorder,
but with a tape player and headphones, you can certainly lis-
ten discreetly.

Practice Plan

Divide and conquer. As we suggested above, practice pays off bet-

ter if, instead of attacking the whole presentation at once, you divide
it into brief segments and work on each segment separately,
A logical place to start would be with your opening, which you'll
memorize. Practice the whole process of beginning your talk. If us-
ing a lectern, literally walk up to a lectern (a box on a table will do)
and put down your notes. Pause. Visualize the room you'll be in and
the people you'll be addressing; actually look at them in your mind's
eye. Make mental eye contact, take three deep breaths, and launch
142 Get to the Point

into your grabber. Once you've finished, turn off the recording ma-
chine, rewind the tape, and Hsten.

Self-critique. Your first assignment on playback is to notice what

you did well. This may not be easy. We humans tend to be hypercrit-
ical of our own performances, wincing at every little imperfection
and remaining deaf and blind to our strengths.

The key to effective self-criticism is detachment.

Try to be another person while you listen. This may be tough at

like

first, but makes a big difference in what you're able to hear.

it

So, from as objective a point of view as possible, what did you like
about your performance? Was your voice animated? Did you sound
confident? Conversational? Whatever it was that you felt good
about, dwell on it awhile; feel that strength, let it sink in, reinforce
it. Then move on to considering what needs improvement.

The 'Rule of Three.' Don't be afraid to do "retakes" as you practice

your segments. Generally, it takes at least three tries to achieve a
and convincing rendition. However, if
suitably polished, confident,
you feel additional run-throughs would strengthen your perfor-
mance further, by all means do them.

Audio checklist. Go through the playback-self-critique process for

each segment of your talk. Here's a list of things for you to listen for:
D Is your voice clear?
D Are your selling points strong and clear?
D Do you sound audience-centered?
D Did you use signal words to continually pull the audience in?
D Is there any phrase or image that might be developed as a theme
throughout your talk?
D Do you need to:
n Slow down?
D Speed up?
D Vary your pace?
How Do Get I to Carnegie Hall? 143

n Did you take time to breathe?

D Did you pause occasionally?
D Was your voice flexible in pitch? Did it move up and down the
musical scale, or did it hover within a limited pitch area?
D Did you make effective use of emphasis, giving life to the emo-
tional words, the action words?
D Are you unconsciously stressing the prepositions and/or conjunc-
tions?
D Did you ever emphasize by lowering your voice?
D Did you keep phrases short and crisp, or did you ramble on and
on and on, gasping for breath?
Record, play back, study, and rerecord each segment of your talk
until you no longer find any major problems, until you've bolstered
all your strengths to the maximum.
Once each segment is working smoothly, put them all together
and practice the presentation as a whole. (If yours is a long presenta-
tion, you may want to assemble short segments into intermediate
sized sections before practicing the whole thing.)

Skill drills.In addition to working on your presentation section by

section, you should devote some time to practicing specific skills.
Listening to yourself and going through the vocal checklist should
quickly reveal the areas that need work.
If you're a natural monotone, for example, practice especially —
—
with feedback from your tape recorder can change this. This is a
situation where you really need to give yourself permission to take
—
some chances even to feel silly for a while, if necessary. Keep it
firmly in mind that this is only practice; you've got nothing to lose
but your inhibitions.
For working to change monotone, choose a short selection of mate-
rial as a practice piece. It could be from your presentation or it could
be something else, but in either case it should have some excitement
to it, some emotionality. Pick out the active words, then work on

making them come alive. Try out different effects. Move the voice
—
higher and lower to the very top and bottom of your range. Exag-
gerate. Be outrageous. Explore your limits.
You'll soon find it doesn't sound so outrageous. You might even
 : —

144 Get to the Point

like your new vocal expressiveness. In any case, you can always tone
it down when you're in front of an audience if you need to.
Another psychological technique to improve your vocal expres-
siveness is you are giving your presentation over the
to imagine that
—
radio that your voice is the only tool you have to make your points.
Treat your tape recorder like a broadcast microphone as you tape
your practice session; then imagine it is a radio as you play back
your tape. Would you tune in to hear this commentator again?
What you can hear on a tape if you're listening carefully is amaz-
ing. You should even be able to hear where you gestured. You can't
hear the actual gesture, of course, but you can hear where your
voice got animated. If that didn't happen very often, practice can
help here, too. Find a private practice space and read or act out a
practice piece, gesturing emphatically on the thoughts or ideas you
want to stress. As with your previous vocal practice, really exagger-
ate and be expansive. Read newspapers, poetry, lines from a play,
speaking faster and slower. Try for effective delivery at a variety of
tempos.
If you rarely or never paused and were out of breath, you need to

work on your phrasing. Again, working out loud with written mate-
rial, your own or others', is the best regimen. Use a copy you can
mark up. Divide the text into short, crisp phrases. Indicate your
pauses and word stress, and phrase groupings in the manuscript
with our script marking symbols (or invent your own)

/ for a brief pause; // for a longer pause

" or = = = = = = = for emphasis
y^ ^>\ to tie groups of words together
^ to indicate a breath

Mark on your you need to remember. Inflection,

notes anything
pace, pauses, and gestures can be indicated on your note cards. It
all

—
can be a symbol like an upward or downward arrow to indicate
pitch or a stick figure with arms upraised to remind you to gesture
or a word— "SLOW DOWN," "FASTER," "BREATHE," "SMILE,"
"EYES."
Don't worry that you shouldn't be looking at your notes often
enough for this kind of reminder to help much. This is practice.
How Do Get I to Carnegie Hall? 145

remember? At this stage, look at your notes as much as you need to.

As you practice, you will learn to do these things naturally. Any that
remain stubborn can be marked in your final notes.

Listening is learning. Here's a supplementary assignment for you:

Listen to others as you go through your day. Listen to the way people
speak. Listen with real attention. Material is everywhere, and we
suggest you concentrate on:
Professional actors and announcers (television and radio news
broadcasters, especially the better known ones, are often very
good models)
Nonprofessional communicators in informal circumstances;
that is, any conversation in which the parties are at ease and un-
self-conscious

Listen for all the elements of inflection, phrasing, and emphasis

that we covered in Chapter Eight.
If you hear something you like, something that stimulates your
listening attention, work it into your own delivery.

The video eye. Once you've worked through your presentation seg-
ment by segment and practiced all the skills you felt needed im-
provement, it's time to try to gain the use of a videotape system.
Videotaping yourself is not indispensable; but it is quite valuable.
Everything an audio recording can you about your verbal pre-
tell

sentation, a video recording will tell you about your expression, ges-
tures, and body language.
Set thecamera up to record a full-length view of you. You don't
want to be a talking head here, because that's not what people will
see. For rehearsal purposes you need to be able to observe your face

and your upper body, particularly your arms and hands.

Video checklist. Tape your delivery. Play back. As with the audio
it

taping, your first assignment is to notice what you liked about it.
Notice everything you did well. Then look for spots or aspects that
need improvement.
D Was your face expressive?
 —
146 Get to the Point

D Or a frozen mask?
D Did you remember to smile?
D Before you began?
D From time to time during your talk?
D Was your body loose and mobile?
D Or did you stand like a wooden Indian?
n Were your gestures full and fluid?
D Or were your shoulders immobile?
n Or were your elbows frozen to your sides?
If you had a lot of trouble with one specific aspect of delivery
gestures, for example —
tape your delivery several times, concentrat-
ing on that one skill. Keep taping it until the embarrassment that —
feeling of "this can't be me doing this" —
goes away.
As with your audio tape practice, record, play back, study, and
rerecord until you've eliminated all the problems and maximized
your strengths. Plan to videotape your entire presentation two or
three times.
Once your delivery is smooth, add your visuals. Actually observ-
ing the orchestration of your visuals on video can help tremendously
in polishing this aspect of your presentation. The audience's point of
view really lets you learn from experience how long a pause is
needed to absorb each image. (It also reveals how good your visuals
are. If they're too complicated or are poorly designed or laid out,
you'll see it better on the video playback than you will looking at the

visual itself. This is the time to make any improvements.)

Q&A practice. If your talk will include a questionand answer

session — or an internal presentation in which you will be sub-
if it is

ject to questions, either at the end or throughout —

you will need to
do some Q & A practice. If at all possible, have other people help
you out on this. If not possible, you can do quite a bit on your own.
Refer to our Q & A practice suggestions in Chapter Seven. As you
review your audio tapes and/or videotapes of Q&A practice, be
alert for the following basics:
D Did you answer the question?
D Did you recognize tricky question forms?
How Do Get I to Carnegie Hall? 147

D Did you clearly flag tricky questions when you recognized them?
n Did you bridge to a selling point?
n Did you shift your eye contact?

Critiques from others. Once you feel you have derived all the bene-
fityou can from the direct feedback of practicing with recording
devices, see if you can enlist a volunteer audience to view your pre-
sentation. If you have friends, colleagues, or mentors who are expe-
rienced in presentation techniques or public communication in
general, solicit their advice and criticism. Even if you don't have
experts at your disposal, invite anyone you can get to sit still long
—
enough and listen friends and family will usually help. If you can
coax some candid comments from them, so much the better. Even
without feedback at this point, just presenting in front of an audi-
ence will help make you that much more comfortable when the ac-
tual presentation time comes.

Quick Reference Summary

• Divide your presentation into components to avoid frustra-
tion.
• Take chances; go beyond what is usual for you in voice, tone,
pitch, and gestures.
• Breathing exercises will help calm your anxiety
• Practice out loud. Use a tape recorder— video or audio.
• Stretch physically and vocalize a bit before practicing in order
to get into the habit.
• If using lectern for presentation, use lectern (or some sem-
blance) for practice. A
box on a table will do.
• Listen and/or watch your tapes as if the taped performance
were someone else's; be objective.
• Always note what is good before dwelling on what needs im-
provement.
• Retape segments again and again, trying variations in your
voice— in the sound level and enunciation.
• When you pinpoint areas to work on— pacing the voice, for
148 Get to the Point

example— devise exercises to correct the problem. Read

newspapers, poetry, lines from a play, speaking faster, slower,
trying for effective delivery at a variety of tempos.
• Don't worry about referring to notes in practice; use them as
much as you need to.
• Spend the bulk of your practice time working with audio tape.
—
You can actually hear more breathing, inflection, voice-
dropping at ends of sentences—than on video, since you
aren't distracted by the visual element.
• Do plan to videotape your presentation at least two or three
times if at all possible.
• Once comfortable with speaking, add your visuals.
• Remember to pause when you show a visual. Turn to the au-
dience and talk.
• Remember to summarize after your talk— even in practice.
Leave on a high note.
 12

Performance Anxiety:
Dealing with
Nerves and Tension

There's more to being a polished performer than mastery of tech-

nique. All the technique in the world won't guarantee a great pre-
sentation if you're so tense that your body conveys discomfort to a
degree that overshadows your words. Indeed, nervousness and phys-
ical tension are the things people fear most about public speaking.

Almost everybody experiences nervousness in front of a

group or audience.

This chapter deals with nerves and physical tension. And the bottom
line is that both are natural and controllable.
Actress Helen Hayes, "first lady of the American theater," was
asked in an interview late in her career whether she still got nervous
before a performance. "Sure," she replied, "I still get butterflies be-
150 Get to the Point

fore every performance. But over the years, I've managed to teach
them to fly in formation."
For some people nervousness is an affliction that goes away over
time, or that disappears when they are making a lot of appear-
ances — only to reappear when they haven't been in the spotlight for
a while.
For others, in some degree it is always there. And this group in-
cludes quite a number of professional performers — like Helen
Hayes.
Some nervousness is perfectly natural. There are two types of ner-
vousness. "Fight or flight" most often stems from inadequate prepa-
ration. The other is a more positive anxiety, the kind a racehorse
feels at the starting gate. It's a positive adrenalin flow. You should
feel thoroughly prepared if you've followed the Get to the Point pro-
gram, so we hope you won't experience the first type of nervousness.
You really ought to have the second kind. If you don't feel an excited
anxiousness at all, it means you really don't care. Even so, nerves are
nerves. When your knees are shaking it doesn't matter what the
source of the problem is. The objective here is to give you the tools to
keep nervousness to a manageable minimum.

Teach Your Butterflies to Fly

If you understand that nerves are natural and can accept a certain
amount of nervousness as normal, you are well on the way to getting
it under control. Nervousness, like other forms of fear, feeds on itself.

Without awareness, that little voice inside your head saying, "Look
how nervous you are! What a terrible, inadequate person you are!"
will go unchecked. This will put you at a real disadvantage.
Accepting your nervousness is the first step in reducing it. After
you've done that there are a number you can take
of other measures
to keep it under control. Since nervousness is both a mental and a
physical phenomenon —
it originates in the mind but is expressed by

—
the body we need to address both the body and the mind to deal
with it.
Performance Anxiety: Dealing with Nerves and Tension 151

Psych-ups: The Mind

Your concepts, attitudes, and mental images are the sources of

your nervousness. These are often unconscious, which makes them
tricky to deal with.

The bugaboo of formality. If you simply start with the idea

"speech" at the back of your mind, you're already in trouble. If you

can intercept this thought and counter it by consciously picturing

yourself in a conversational situation, you've won half the battle.

The fear of fear itself. Another problem is the fear that the audience
will see your nervousness. This is actually two fears: one, that your

listeners do perceive your feehngs; and two, that they think badly of
you for having them. Your unconscious mind thinks, "They know
how ner\'ous I am," and then, "They must think I'm terrible." You're
likely to be wrong on both accounts.
The fact is, audiences are largely unaware of a speaker's nervous-
ness. They've got lots of other things to pay attention to. Make your-
self a big note in red at the top of your first note card: "I FEEL
CONFIDENT!" It should help reduce your anguish.
The other thing to keep in mind is that even if some of your ner-
vousness does communicate itself, audiences tend to be forgiving,
not judgmental. Evidence of your human fallibility will often evoke
an empathetic response. Sounds unlikely? Look at your own experi-
ence as a member of an audience. Have you been to a presentation
where the speaker really blew it? Just plain got lost and had to start
over? What was the reaction? Usually it's forgi\ing and supportive.
The typical listener's feeling is, "There but for the grace of
God go I."

Keep in mind, though, that this isn't a free pass to blunder your
way through a presentation. Especially in a business meeting setting
an impatient attitude lurking right behind the forgiving one.
there's
That audience sits through a lot of meetings and will be empathetic
to a point, but they want to get something useful from each one.

Get the audience involved. Making the presentation interactive as

soon as possible is another technique that helps many presenters get
152 Get to the Point

over their nerves. Interaction — give and take — is like conversation:

familiar and comfortable.

One simple way to introduce an interactive element is to poll the
gathering on some preselected questions; ask for a show of hands. A
similar technique is to pose a specific question and field an answer.
Be prepared to bridge to the right answer if you don't get the one
you were looking for.
It might go something like this: "Given our present market posi-

tion, who can suggest a merchandising scheme for our new self-
adjusting widget?" One member of the team might suggest, "How
about a drive-time radio contest?" You now bridge to your answer:
"Well, Jack, I know how well that worked for the high-performance
mini widget, but what we've been looking at for Super Widget III is
a direct mail/store coupon offer."

Mental imaging. Many people — including a number of world-class

athletes — use the powerful techniques we call mental imaging to
combat nervousness and improve concentration. One imaging ap-
proach involves creating a strong mental picture of the result you
want to achieve. This can be as simple as seeing yourself walking
away from the lectern feeling great after a successful presentation.
Or it might be more specific: the committee voting to accept your
recommendation, for example. Whatever the desired outcome,
bringing a positive mental image of it to the presentation should help
make things go well.
A different approach to mental imaging is used by many speakers
to overcome persistent "audiophobia." Sir Winston Churchill is re-

puted to have been petrified in front of an audience — until he hit on

the idea of imagining his listeners sitting naked in the audience! He
mentally turned the tables, "projecting" (in psychoanalytic jargon)
onto his audience the sense of vulnerability he felt himself.
If you like Sir Winston's image, use it; we're sure he'd be de-
lighted. If that one doesn't suit your personality, here are a couple
that we have found useful: Instead of unconsciously wondering,
"Will they like me?" reverse the positions; ask yourself, "I wonder if

I will like them?" Or say to yourself as you approach the lectern.

Performance Anxiety: Dealing with Nerves and Tension 153

"Okay, now I'm going to do everything I can to make them comfort-

able." Be on the lookout for an image all your ow^n; it will be the
most effective of all.

Reminders; breaking the cycle. Since nervousness begins in the un-

conscious and automatically reinforces itself once begun, one of the
practical problems in combating it is finding a way to break the
cycle.As we suggest elsewhere, you can use your notes as an aid in
refocusing your awareness. Write in an occasional reminder key. It
could be as simple as "SMILE" or "BREATHE" or "MAKE THEM
COMFORTABLE," written in big, easy- to-read letters. Notes like
this can be a lifeline to when the nerves start to buzz. These
grab
techniques probably won't make your butterflies go away, but they
should help you to keep them in formation.

Warmups: The Body and the Voice

Nervousness usually manifests itself physically in the form of mus-
cular tension. In order to give our bodies the best opportunity to
perform well, we need to release as much of the tension as possible
beforehand and then continue to channel it out of the body as we go
along.

If circumstances permit, do a real physical warmup before

your talk— bending and stretching.

If tension is a particularly big problem for you, you might want to

do some fairly strenuous exercise. If you're a jogger, jog. If you play
racketball and the facilities are available, do that. You can do this as
much as an hour or two beforehand and you'll still feel the beneficial
effects at presentation time.
Most of the time, of course, a major physical workout won't be
possible.But if you have access to a reasonably private room before
you are scheduled to appear, you can do some of the less strenuous
lands of warmups that singers use.
154 Get to the Point

The Get to the Point Warmup Program

The Body
For the following warmups, stand in a comfortable position.

Fingers, wrists, and arms. Start by wriggling your fingers; then

shake your wrists; finally, the arms. You should feel all the joints
loosening up.

Shoulders. Stand tall, feet apart, as if you were supported by a

string attached to the very top of your head. Let your shoulders hang
naturally. Then draw the shoulders up high; try to touch your ears.
Hold that position for a slow count of three. Then relax the shoulders
and let them hang again. Repeat this several times. A variation on
this is the "shoulder roll": First shift your shoulders forward as
far as they will comfortably go. Hold. Then move them up and —
hold. Then all the way back —
and hold. Finally, press them down as
far as they will go — and hold. Reverse the direction if you wish.
Repeat the cycle until your shoulders feel loose.

Neck and surrounding muscles. Stand in a relaxed posture

and gently let your head drop forward. Feel the neck muscles
stretch. Then, very slowly, an elephant swinging its trunk, roll
like

your head sideways. To give you an idea of how far, imagine a clock
face: In the head-down position you're at six o'clock; you want to
roll your head up past nine o'clock, then counterclockwise to six and

up past three o'clock. Continue this gentle rolling-stretching two or

three times in each direction — or until all the kinks are out.

Warning: Don't roll all the way around the back. This can hurt
both the neck muscles and the larynx (what we usually call
the "vocal chords," although there are no "chords").

The mind. Calm yourself before presentation time by listening to

you need to get psyched up, rock and
soft music. If roll or other more
spirited music can be helpful.
Performance Anxiety: Dealing with Nerves and Tension 155

The Voice
The jaw. Follow these steps:
• Loosen the lower jaw by moving it from side to side.
• Work the jaws in a chewing motion.
• Stretch your mouth W-I-D-E open. Feel the jaw and facial mus-
cles loosen.

The lips. Relax the muscles in and around your lips by making the
sound we make when we are cold. (We usually spell it "Bmr," but it
doesn't really sound like that.)

The voice. Start on a low pitch and softly hum. Let the voice move
up and down as high and as low as you comfortably can. Remem-
ber, keep it soft; this is literally a stretching exercise for the larynx,
and gentle is better than forceful. A minute or two of humming
should leave your voice feeling clear and flexible.

The chest. Whether or not you had the opportunity to do any of the
foregoing, always take a few deep, deliberate breaths just before you
go on. The technique is straight out of self-hypnosis: Inhale slowly
through the nose, letting your chest expand, filling your lungs to
capacity. Hold the breath for a moment before exhaling slowly and
quietly through the mouth.
These are a good basic set of loosening up techniques. Of course
you may add others that work for you.

Tip: Do not consume alcohol or caffeine just before a presen-

tation. Alcohol can dull your senses. Caffeine can make you
too jumpy.

Once you begin speaking, you need to stay loosened up. And the
bestway to accomplish this is yes, to gesture. Don't hang on to
. . .

the lectern or clasp your hands. These positions not only prevent you
from making gestures, they give the muscles something to tense
against. And tense they will; it's almost like doing isometric body-
156 Get to the Point

building exercises. If you can keep your arms and upper body mov-
ing, however, you burn off your muscular tension.

Quick Reference Summary

• It's natural to be nervous. Some natural anxiety helps your
presentation.
• Channel tension out body through gestures.
of your
• Calm yourself by breathing correctlyand deeply.
• Prior to presentation time, if you need to calm down, try listen-
ing to soft music. If you need to get psyched up, listen to rock
and roll or other more spirited music.
• Think of your presentation as a chat; this makes it less stiff.
• Make your presentation as interactive as possible. Ask ques-
tions of the audience early in the presentation or invite ques-
tions from the audience as yougo along.
• Use mental imaging— see the process through to the end in a
positive way.
• Use your note cards to remind yourself to "SMILE," "STAND
STILL," "PAUSE," etc.
• If possible, do a real physical workout— running, swimming,
racketball— a couple of hours before presentation time to get
your body loosened up.
• Do warmup/relaxation exercises on pages 154 and 155 or
findyour own to get physically relaxed.
• Do not consume alcohol or caffeine just before a presenta-
tion.
 13

Clothing:
What the Well-Dressed
Presenter Wears

Carefully and thoughtfully chosen, your clothing can lend powerful

support to your physical presence. GeneraUy this support should be
unobtrusive, so you might save the sartorial spectaculars for the
weekends and nonpresentation days.

You should dress well, but your clothing should not call atten-

tion to itself.

Clothing that captures the audience's attention interferes with the

message you want to deliver. Remember that you are there to make a
statement, not your clothes.

For virtually everyone, presentation dress means "business

dress."
158 Get to the Point

For men, this means business suits (or shirtsleeves in some compa-
nies, if the meeting is around the conference table); for women,
suits, dresses, or skirt-blouse ensembles. The only exceptions to busi-
ness dress would be uniforms for military personnel and possibly
police or other uniformed public officials and perhaps a lab coat or
hard hat for a scientist, engineer, technician, or plant manager giv-
ing a media interview in the workplace.
We used to counsel conservatism in presentation dress: When in
doubt, go for a more conservative look. Today we are happy to re-
port a real trend away from the wZfraconservative dress mode in
most industries. Without going too far out on a limb, we can say
there is —
greater flexibility a greater range of acceptable styles and
modes — today than in the recent past, particularly for women. The
key factor is knowing your business and following the prevailing po-
litical dictates regarding clothing choice.

Know your industry.

Dress codes differ markedly from industry to industry, profession to

profession. Bankers do not dress like entertainment industry execu-
tives. We you are familiar with the traditions operating
trust that
within your organization and your industry. You should also be
aware that dress standards vary from region to region.

Case Study: A New York City-based executive was called to

testify at a regulatory hearing in a small New England town.
He wore what he thought was appropriate clothing; what he
was accustomed to wearing at such hearings in New York. This
consisted of a dark blue pinstriped suit with vest, white shirt,
and dark tie. As he walked into the hearing room, he overheard
one of the commissioners whisper to a colleague, "The only
time we dress like that in these parts is when we're carried out
in a box."

Adjusting dress to conform to regional preferences is a compli-

cated issue. It certainly isn't simply a question of "when in Rome, do
 —

Clothing: What the Well-Dressed Presenter Wears 159

as the Romans do." Your audience knows you're not a Roman, and
pretending to pass yourself off as one may be seen as patronizing
you may thoroughly alienate your audience. A Yankee wearing new
cowboy boots in El Paso is what we call an "easy mark."
The best counsel we can offer on this aspect of presentation dress is
that you seek specific advice from someone in the place you will be
making your presentation. Remember that this advice needs to take
into account the image you wish to project and the nature of the
proceedings as well as your regional identity.
If, for example, you're a financial officer from the Boston office
going to handle a tax audit at corporate headquarters in Houston,
find someone in Houston who can help you work out a dress ap-
proach that fits in rather than calling attention to any aspect of re-

gional identification. In other words, you may want to make some

adjustments in your clothing.

Quality Shows
Although most of what follows has to do with specifics of style,
color, patterns, and fabrics, something perhaps more important
than these is With clothing, more than many
the question of quality.
things in this world, you get what you pay for. A superior quality
suit communicates an image of confidence and authority to those

you address. The fact that you wiW feel more confident and authori-
tative is an important reason for wearing fine clothes. We suggest
money spent on fine clothes for your presentation appearances is
that
money well spent. Even if it seems extravagant at the time of pur-
chase, it will pay off in overall presentation effectiveness.

Remember, your clothing can give you strong, unobtrusive sup-

port for your image —
and your message. Buy the strongest support
you can find.

Tip: When you're making an important presentation, wear

something that you like and that makes you feel good. If your
clothes put you in a positive mood, chances are you'll make a
more effective presentation.
160 Get to the Point

Guidelines for IVIen

Suits:
• Fabric: Wear wool. Although we think of wool as winter wear,
its properties really make it the fiber of choice for all seasons.

Tropical-weight wools are nearly as cool as any other hot-

weather fabric, they tend to breathe better, and they unques-
tionably look better. Besides, rooms are air-conditioned in the
summertime.
Colors: The darker tones — navy, gray, even black — can gener-
ally be worn in all seasons.The darker the shade, the greater the
sense of formality and authority. The turn away from conserva-
tism in dress is reflected in the fact that lighter colors are now a
possibility in the summertime. A rich beige works especially
well with a light blue shirt.
• Patterns: Pinstripes, especially subtle ones, are acceptable in
many industries and regions and virtually required in some.
Save checks for the country club. you are a professor, you may
If

wear tweeds.
• Vests: Except on television where they add roughly fifteen
pounds to your looks, vests look fine. But we recommend they be
avoided because they tend to constrict your breathing. If you
feel you must wear a vest, make sure it is loose enough for you to

breathe easily and deeply. Also, if you wear a vest, it's fine to
leave your jacket unbuttoned; if not, we recommend buttoning
the jacket. In a seated presentation leave your jacket open.

Shirts:
Fabric: Wear cotton or cotton blends.
" Colors: Wear white, off-white, pastel, light grays, or neutrals.
For television appearances, white shirts are generally out. Their
brightness causes the cameras' automatic exposure control to
overcompensate, resulting in underexposure of your face. If you
are unable to consult wardrobe or other production people, stay
on the safe side and wear a standard pastel blue, yellow, or —
pink —
or an off-white.
• Patterns: Another area in which clothing conservatism has re-
Clothing: What the Well-Dressed Presenter Wears 161

laxed is shirt fabric patterns. At the time of writing, there are

some very nice patterned shirts. Stripes are generally fine, espe-
cially the more traditional pinstripes. Avoid busy, loud patterns

and strong colors.

Sleeves: Wear long sleeves for a finished look.
Details: Wear button-down or classic pointed collars. Trendy or
unusual collar styles and other shirt details are out of place.

Ties:
Fabric: Silk is best.
Patterns: Solids or simple patterns are best. Foulards, paisleys,
and flowers are not recommended for presentations. One dress
consultant recommends that you choose ties from one of the fa-
miliar categories that can be described in a single image such as
solid, polka dot, "repp" (i.e., stripe), or club.
Color: The range of acceptable colors is wide. If in doubt, tone
it —
down. Red ties or ties with a strong red component — are
very popular with television news broadcasters not only because
they show up well on camera, but also because the color reflects
and adds flattering warmth to facial coloring.

Jewelry:
• Style: Avoid anything that calls attention to itself — unless you
wish to refer to it. You might, for example, wish to wear a Ki-
wanis tie tack or a twenty-five-year service pin in your lapel.
Gold watch fobs and other such adornments are best left at
home.

Case Study: We once asked an executive whom we were

preparing for testimony before a presidential commission in
Washington, D.C. to remove , his ID bracelet. We try not to
overdo dress rules when working with clients, but in this
case we were concerned that people would be distracted by
this sparkler on his wrist rather than listening to his words.
While ID bracelets were in vogue in his home state, in the
hearing room in Washington the adornment was just in the
way.
162 Get to the Point

Shoes:
Style: Any style of shoe you would normally wear to work should
be fine for presentations. Any shoe that says "sport" should be
avoided.
Principle: Whatever style of shoes you choose, make sure
they are polished.
" Color: Black should be appropriate in any setting. Browns
should be on the dark side. In some localities, brown shoes have
negative connotations and should be avoided. If you are going to
be presenting in an unfamiliar place, try to get an idea of the
local attitude to brown — or settle for black.

Guidelines for Women

As we suggested in our opening remarks, the what-to-wear ques-
tion is women than for men. Women
considerably more open for
have gained sufficient acceptance in corporate culture that
they can express their femininity a little more freely than was possi-
ble five or ten years ago. What we call the "deaconess" look dark —
navy suit, white, high-collared blouse, and navy silk bow tie is —
blessedly dead. Increasingly, women in executive positions are find-
ing they can dress more in their own tastes without interfering with
their career progress. We're happy to report that even in some very
conservative areas (in certain investment banking companies, for ex-
ample) it is a woman's ability, not her conformity to a strict, conser-
vative dress code, that makes her promotable.
You know your working environment; suits may still be de rigueur
in your industry. But even so, you may be able to cultivate little
touches that lead away from the deaconess look. We feel you'll be
— —
more comfortable more yourself with your business (including
presentation) wear, if you have a little fun with it.

Suits:
Fabrics: Wear wool, silk, and look-alikes. One of a number of

options that exist for women but not for men is knits. Suit, skirt,
wear (sub-
or dress, knits are perfectly acceptable presentation
They offer the advantage
ject to industry or regional exceptions).
of moving with your body more easily than in woven fabrics.
Clothing: What the Well-Dressed Presenter Wears 163

Make sure that they fit well and that the sldrt lays smoothly over
the hips.
• Style: Designers are finally becoming more sensitive to the needs
of working women and making some stylish business-
are
oriented suits, giving you a direction to move in —
away from the
prim, straitiaced look. There is also more of a spectrum now, so
you can test the waters a little at a time.
• Cut and fit: These are very important. A garment that really
follows the contours of \'our body and moves with you when you
move makes you look good. When you raise your arm to point at
the screen, does the shoulder seam pull, the armhole bind? Can
you button the jacket comfortably? (Actually, women don't need
to keep suit jackets buttoned, but it's nice to have the option.)
• Sldrt length: Hem lines rise and hem lines fall. Even if miniskirts
are in vogue for street wear, we suggest you consider knee-length
or below the knee as standard for presentation dress.
Colors: There is a ver\' broad palate of acceptable colors these
days. It's easier for us to cover the unacceptables: Avoid any-
thing truly bright, garish, or loud. (Again, keep in mind the
basic principle: You are the main attraction, your clothing is

part of the supporting cast.) In conservative industries, you may

be limited to the more traditional navies and grays, with the
possible inclusion of browns, rusts, tans, beiges, or dark greens.

Blouses:
• Fabrics: Wear cotton, silk, or fine synthetics.
• Patterns and colors: Generally, keep them simple. Subtie stripes
or other unobtrusive patterns are okay. Quite a range of color is

possible,from traditional whites and pastels to vivid, jewellike

hues (best in silk and best under darker colored suits). Ruffled
fronts are fine if not extreme.

Dresses:
• Fabrics: Wool (including knits), silk, or fine synthetics.

Patterns: Avoid busy patterns, extreme styles, plunging neck-

lines, and anything that will actively distract from your presen-
tation.
 —

164 Get to the Point

Ties: Ties are becoming more of an optional accessory for women.

The day of the obhgatory dark-toned club pattern bow tie is over.

Designers are coming up with new, more imaginative, more femi-

nine ties like those fashioned in a rose at the throat. A tasteful silk
scarf or a brooch are possible alternatives.

Hose: Wear neutral to dark tones. Subtle textures and patterns may
work, depending on your business.

Shoes: Avoid boots, open toes, and sling-backs. By all means choose
colors to coordinate with your outfit. Black patent leather, the ultra-
conservative choice, is always safe. Even if you normally wear flats,

we suggest you wear at least a litde heel for presentations.

Hair: Careful grooming, not length or cut, is the issue. Keep your
hair pulled away from your face. Nothing is more distracting than
watching a woman constantly flicking hair out her eyes — or not be-
ing able to see the eyes because of all the hair.

Jewelry: Avoid dangling earrings or necklaces. Leave your dia-

monds and other sparklers at home. Pearls or other matte finish
pieces that don't reflect too much light are best.

Makeup: Every woman over the age of twenty-five should wear at

least a little makeup for presentations; a little blush, mascara, and
light lipstick. For presentations where you will be brightly lit
—
which includes television appearances makeup will need to be
heavier than your usual to create the same effect. Bright lights wash
out skin tones.

Quick Reference Summary

Your choice of clothing can enhance your image as a pre-

senter,making your message stronger.
You should dress well, but your clothing should not call atten-

tion to itself.
Clothing: What the Weil-Dressed Presenter Wears 165

• For virtually everyone, "presentation clothing" means "stan-

dard business clothing."
• Be aware of dress standards in your region and in your busi-
ness or industry.
• While business dress standards are less conservative than
they used to be (especially for women), avoid flamboyance.
 14

Some Final Practicalities:

Interruptions
and Choreography

A few practical presentation matters that are not directly connected

to any of the larger conceptual areas we have dealt with do never-
thelessneed to be covered. The two broad areas are the problem of
interruptions and the choreography of microphones and the lectern.

Interruptions

Interruptions can come from a number of sources. Someone may

bring you a message, a person may wander into the meeting room by
mistake, some members of the audience may carry on their own loud
conversation, a truck driver outside may lean on his horn. The list is
as long as the possibilities life brings. And you can be sure that some
interruption or other distraction will plague your presentations from
time to time.
Minor distractions — people occasionally walking in or out, a mi-
nor cough, a message handed to someone in the room — are fairly
Some Final Practicalities: Interruptions and Choreography 167

normal occurrences in meetings and presentations and can generally

be taken in stride. After all, the show doesn't stop when one person
But major disturbances do call for action.
arrives late to the theater.
The criterion for deciding whether or not to take action is the degree
to which it is likely to capture the attention of the listeners and in-
terrupt communication.

If you try to compete with a distraction, you invariably lose.

Acknowledge major interruptions immediately. Because no com-

munication is going to take place, you might as well stop talking the
very second you become aware that "something is going on." And
that is precisely what you ought to do.
It's very simple. Stop speaking and wait for external or nonhuman

The dogfight outside the window will eventu-

distractions to pass.
ally wind down; the truck driver will stop honking; the airplane
noise will die away enough to allow you to continue.
With human disruptions, however, your listeners will expect you
to take control. If thoughtless colleagues are holding a private con-
versation, for example, generally all you need to do is stop and look
over at them. The silence will most likely get their attention, and
your eye contact will clearly communicate your feelings about the
interruption.
Occasionally, this tactic will fail to work. Then you will have to
take appropriate action to regain control of the proceedings. If it is a
— people are talking and don't pick
case of rudeness or insensitivit>'
up your polite signals or simply won't shut up — you may have to say
something. Responses vary with the person interrupting, so the spe-
cific approach you take is a judgment call. Let's consider some possi-
bilities.

If an aide walks in with a note for a member of a meeting — let it

go. If they engage in extended conversation, a pause would be ap-

propriate. If the people interrupting are your equals in rank, you
might ask them to keep it down or even to go outside the room to
finish their conversation. If the disruption involves people senior to
you, try extended silence. If that doesn't work, you might politely
168 Get to the Point

ask if they want you to wait until they complete their discussion.
Sometimes well-meaning people are unaware of the disruptive effect
they are having on a group.
If your disruption is a natural disaster —
a member of the audience
—
having a coughing fit, for example try to alleviate the problem by
handing the afflicted person a glass of water or some similar action.
In such a case it is a good idea to offer an expression of concern,
whether or not you actively intervene. A simple "Are you all right
over there?" or "Do you think you'll be okay now?" will suffice.

Tip: Any time someone you while you are

delivers a note to
presenting, you need to give the audience some indication of
wonder what it
the contents or they'll —
was about and not pay
attention to what you're saying. If it's for you, say so. If it con-
cerns someone else in the room, pass on the message: "For the
person who drives a blue Buick with Colorado plates: You left
your lights on"; or "Sarah, you just received an urgent phone
call. Go ahead; we'll fill you in on anything you miss."

Choreography
Like a ballet, a presentation contains movements — usually inter-
action with the physical setup — that need to flow smoothly the if

performance is to be successful. We covered one such area, the cho-

reography of visuals, in the context of our general discussion of that
subject. Here we cover the other major areas of choreographic con-
cern, relating to microphones and lecterns.

Microphones. Generally, if a meeting room or auditorium is large

enough sound system, it will have one. From the speak-
to require a
er's point of view, one sound system is pretty much like another,
except for microphones. There are three types commonly in use:
Fixed
Wireless
Clip-on
Some Final Practicalities: Interruptions and Choreography 169

A fixed or "gooseneck" mike that's attached to the lectern attaches

you to the lectern as well.

If you have a choice, always request a nonfixed microphone,

one that attaches to you.

The wireless microphone, technologically the most up-to-date, is ac-

tually a tiny radio transmitter that sends your voice to the amplifi-
cation system without any wires to encumber you. This gives you
worry-free mobility — and makes the wireless mike your first choice.
To "mike up," just clip the unit to your lapel, shirt, blouse, or neck-
tie,about one hand's span (six inches) from your mouth.
Since wireless systems are relatively expensive, however, not every
haU is so equipped. Midway between the fixed mike and the wire-
less, in terms of convenience, is the "clip-on" or lavaliere. This is a
very small pickup that either hangs around your neck or fastens to
your clothing with an alligator clip, like the wireless.

The clip-on you almost as much mobility as the wireless, but

gives
there is a cord to contend with —
which adds one important step to
the process of "miking up." First, attach or hang the mike about six
inches from your mouth, as with the wireless. Then, to keep the
wire out of the way of your hands and feet, lead it inside your jacket
(if you're wearing one) and around to the back. Tuck a loop into the

waistband of your skirt or trousers, making sure to leave some slack,

and (for men) rebutton your jacket.

Tip: Women who wear dresses can tuck the mike wire into a
belt or sash. If your dress is beldess, you'll have to do without
this safety net.

Aside from getting the wire out of the way, both physically and
visually, thisprocedure gives you a safety net: If you walk away
—
from the lectern without removing the mike and it is easy to forget
—
about these tiny mikes what happens? The mike crashes to the
floor, sending an amplified thunderclap through the room. If you've
170 Get to the Point

tucked the cord into your waistband, then rather than jerking the
microphone off your lapel, your motion simply pulls out the loop of
cord and disaster is averted.

Lecterns. Inexperienced presenters often use a lectern as a crutch.

Or perhaps "security blanket" is a better way to put it. The lectern
provides the thing a drowning person desperately longs for: some-
thing to hold on to. But this proves to be a liability as well as an
asset. The same mentality that craves something to hold on to won't
let it go. This results in some postures you probably recognize: the
"white-knuckler," who seems quite literally to be "hanging on for
dear life"; the "ship captain," who leans in and grasps the lectern in
a bear hug, listing first to one side, then to the other as he steers his
ship through the perilous waters of his presentation. They may feel

safer for their physical contact with the lectern, but they sacrifice
their ability to move and gesture. The security blanket becomes a
strait] acket.

Another reason to avoid grabbing or clinging to the lectern is that

it tends to diminish your energy and results in shortness of breath
and muscle tension. Gesturing will relieve the tension and help your
breath supply.
Some presenters avoid the trap of physically grasping the lectern
but instead use it as a sort of psychic shield or fortress; something to
hide behind. Unseasoned presenters tend to stay firmly rooted be-
hind the lectern, in effect imprisoned in their Others — we
fortress.

call them the "space walkers" — are able to get out from behind and
drift a short distance, but they can get no farther away than the
length of their arm, which acts like the hose that connects them to
their life support system.
The lectern as psychic shield or fortress protects you, but con-
versely it acts as a barrier between you and your audience. Without
the obstruction of a lectern, you simply have more presence; you're
communicating more directly.

To the extent that you can free yourself from the lectern, your
presentation stands to gain in liveliness and credibility.
Some Final Practicalities: Interruptions and Choreography 171

Learn to move away from the lectern. Think of it as a place to park

your note cards: Walk out from behind it as you develop a point;
then, when you need to refer to your notes, simply walk back. If
eventually you can do without the lectern altogether, so much the
better. Presenting without a lectern doesn't fall under the heading of
cardinal rules, but it's one of those subtle but significant factors that
add up to making points.

Quick Reference Summary

Ignore minor distractions— someone walking into the room, a

cough or sneeze. If a distraction affects audience attention,
pause until it passes.
If you try to compete with major disruptions in a presentation
setting, you'll lose.
Step one in responding to major interruptions or disruptions
is to stop speaking. If the disturbance is human, look at talk-
ers in silence. If not, simply wait for it to abate.
If people are talking and don't respond to your silence, ask
them to "keep it down" or finish their conversation outside.
For coughing, sneezing, or choking fits, offer assistance, If

possible,and make sure the person is okay.

How long to wait during an interruption is a judgment call. Go
with your feelings.
Listeners expect you to manage the group. Take action when
necessary.
If you receive a message when presenting, always let your

audience know if it is for you. If it isn't, pass it along to whom-

ever it is for.

If your voice is to be amplified, choose a clip-on or wireless

mike you mobility.
to give
Clip the mike one hand-span from your mouth and tuck the
cord, if there is one, behind you in your belt or waistband.
If you need to cough or clear your throat while wearing a

mike, turn your head away from the mike.

Don't lean on the lectern. It diminishes breath supply
172 Get to the Point

• Don't cling to the lectern; it creates muscular tension and pre-

vents you from gesturing.
• A lectern is a barrier. The more you can get out from behind it

and face your listeners, the more "presence" and impact

your presentation will have.
 15

Media Interviews

We have prepared people for 60 Minutes, 20/20, MacNeil/Lehrer,

Business Week, The Today Show, MIS Weekly, Health Magazine,
and Live at Five, as well as for numerous live radio call-in shovv^s, so
we know media interviews. We can tell you that, with the exception
of the brief, spontaneous hallway or "deadline" interview, ninety-
five times out of a hundred media interviews provide an excellent
opportunity to make your points —
and usually to a very large audi-
ence.
Essentially, a media interview is a presentation in question-
and-answer format. Like any Q & A session, you do have to
answer questions put to you, but you can almost always get around
to making — —
and emphasizing the points you want to leave with
the audience. All the basic presentation skills come into play in the
interview, including writing or content-organizing, but most espe-
cially the question-preparation and bridging skills.
174 Get to the Point

A reporter wants to hear your selling points; you're the

"source," the expert, the person who can make him or her
look good.

Most of the time a reporter calls you because you have information
he or she needs for a story. You are a subject matter expert. The
caveat of media interviews is that if you are not the expert, don't
fake it. Your obligation is to refer the reporter to whomever is the
expert. Learn the ways that we will presently describe to gracefully
say, "I don't know" or "I can't talk about that matter," and give them

a source who can help them.

Before the Interview

When the reporter calls step one is to get his or her name and
affiliation (paper, magazine, broadcast show) and ask, "Have you
spoken to public relations?" That's the rule in most companies. In
fact, several of our clients have a rule printed on their daily news
summaries: "If you get a call from a reporter, or you have a news-
worthy story, call in media relations, at -
" The public relations people will generally determine if you
are the proper person to be talking to this reporter.

Ground rules. Once an interview has been set, the first thing to do
is gain control by setting some ground rules. The most crucial thing
to establish is the topic or purpose of the interview. Open-ended in-
terviews have a way of getting out of hand. If for any reason you
don't feel comfortable dealing with the topic the reporter is pursu-
ing (or, as we mentioned, if you're not the expert), don't agree to
do the interview. If you have no problem with the topic, you can
proceed —
and don't hesitate to keep the interview confined to the
agreed subject. Be sure to find out when the interview will appear
(print or broadcast).
If the interview has not been set up by the public relations depart-
ment, you may wish to set other criteria or ground rules, such as
Media Interviews 175

arranging the date and time and/or location to suit your conve-
nience, establishing a time limit for the interview, or
imposing certain restrictions on subject matter. The latter will avoid
"no comment" situations.

Audience profile. Your next step is to do an audience profile. Re-

member that the reporter is just a vehicle. Ultimately, your commu-
nication is not with the reporter but with the reporter's audi-
ence — the reader, listener, or viewer. The reporter, however, is your
means of reaching your audience; in this case, the only means. So,
read the paper; watch the show; find other articles by this reporter.
See what kinds of approaches and quotes he or she tends to show-
case. Also find out all you can about the demographics of the me-
dia's audience; call their ad sales department. All of this will
prepare you to make the most of the interview opportunity.

During the Interview

Following are the most important rules to be aware of during in-

terview time.

Be alert for 'difficult' questions. Review the question types we cov-

ered in Chapter Ten: the hypothetical, the false choice, the multi-
part, and the loaded questions. Reporters wield questions all day
long — this is their stock in trade — so they are masters of all of these.

Case Study: Also be on the alert for confused, uninformed, or

general questions that are an invitation for you to explain more
of your material. Sometimes these are outrageous, as on one
occasion when a New York area computer company executive
was being interviewed by a reporter from a trade journal and
was asked in the middle of the interview, "Excuse me, is this
hardware or software we're talking about?" The point is that
you, like the executive in the story, should be mindful of the
opportunity, not the inappropriateness of the question. Use
such questions as occasions to explain or even teach.
176 Get to the Point

Flag your selling points. You know what your selling points are but
neither the reporter nor the reporter's audience does. Underscoring
the points you consider vital with phrases like, "What's important
here is . .
." or "I'd like to stress the following . .
." helps focus the
audience's attention.

Never go 'off the record.' A reporter's job is to gather and publish —

or broadcast — information. If you don't want the public to be privy
to it, keep it to yourself. "Not-for-attribution" comments are tricky
stuff; we suggest you steer clear.

Never say 'No comment.' This doesn't mean you have to answer
every question thrown at you in an interview, but it does mean you
have to learn to decline gracefully. "No comment" has a combative,
confrontational tone to it. It brings to mind television coverage of
events like a drug bustwhere the suspect shields his face from the
camera with his coat. You create a much more positive impression
when you offer an explanation of why you decline to answer a ques-
tion.
There are three areas of questioning that clearly violate the
bounds of the "interview compact": Questions that fall outside of
the agreed topic, personal questions, and questions relating to pro-
prietary information. You can set firm limits and still appear fully

cooperative if you cover your refusal with a clear explanation. This

works particularly well if you then bridge to related information you
are prepared to discuss. For example, "That's really outside the
bounds of what we agreed to talk about, but here's what I can say
about the general issue you raise ."; "The FCC hasn't ruled on our
. .

petition, but I can tell you what we argued"; "It's a matter under
litigation and we can't talk about it until the courts have
ruled. But our position is ."; or "I'm sure our competitors
. .

would love to have that information, but we won't discuss this until
we make our formal announcement. But if you'd like some general
."
information . .

End the interview after a reasonable length of time. Presumably, if

you set a time limit you will adhere to it unless the interview is going
Media Interviews 177

very well and you think you can make a few more points by continu-
ing. If it's going the other way, by all means terminate it after a
"decent interval."

Facilitate follow-ups. Let the reporter know where and when you
can be reached for follow-ups and make yourself available as prom-
ised. Having taken the time to talk to a reporter, take the extra time

to give him or her the opportunity to call you so that if they do have
questions, the information will be right when it's printed or broad-
cast.

Special Rules for Different Settings

Prearranged interviews. In cases where you know about the inter-

view you can prepare fully. Find out both the topic and
in advance,
the format. You can research the general topic, which will give you
an overall perspective, much as gathering an audience profile adds
to your perspective in a standard presentation. This can guide you in
preparing solid, well-developed selling points focused on the subject
and vivid supporting specifics.
matter, with strong headlines
Always be prepared to summarize your most important points.
Remember, repetition builds retention. If a reporter hears one of
your points three or four times, the chances are three or four times as
great that it will be broadcast or turn up in print. Feel free to bring
notes or a summary card just to make sure you don't forget any key
points. For radioand print interviews and certainly for interviews—
held over the phone —
you should refer to your notes at any time. For
on-camera interviews, you might carry a file card and refer to it
discreetly from time to time —
only during commercial breaks and
only if you're a skilled spokesperson.
It is also a good idea to send background information to the re-
porter. The worst that can happen is that he or she doesn't read it. If
the first question doesn't lead to a general statement of the back-
ground information, you can take a moment to provide it to the au-
dience: "Well, Clare, I can give you those figures in a moment.

However, let me first take a little time to give you an idea of what
this product means to us — its features and how we've positioned
."
it. . .
178 Get to the Point

If appropriate, have props — products or books, for example on —

hand to demonstrate one or more aspects of what you're discussing.
If you're doing the interview at the studio, tell them in advance
you're bringing something to show; they will then set up the best
shot for viewing it.

Spontaneous on-camera interviews. These can be quite intimi-

dating. After establishing the basics —
primarily credentials
—
and topic, as discussed above ask for a few minutes to compose
your thoughts. You should use this time to pull together a hasty but
coherent agenda. Jot down your bottom line and your two or three
main selling points if you can. You may or may not get a chance to
refer to them, but even if you don't, writing them down helps fix
them in your memory.
In addition to basic ground rules discussed above, get as comfort-
able as possible in a difficult situation: Ask that cameras, lights, and
microphones be kept at a reasonable distance. To give yourself the
same lifeline the reporter would take for himself or herself, ask for a
retake on any fumbled answer. You may not get the retake, but gen-
erally reporters want you to look and sound good, so they might
allow you to do a retake.

Interviews in your office. The main advantage to holding an inter-

view on your own territory is that you will at least feel at home with
the surroundings. Make the physical environment as pleasant as
possible —
get out from behind your desk and into a living room set-
ting. All of this tends to diminish the natural atmosphere of tension.

Two other steps we suggest you consider taking are to invite your
public relations representative to be present (if you have one) and to
arrange to make your own tape of the interview. The former will
help keep you and the reporter on track; the latter will serve as a
"file copy" of the entire interview — not just the reporter's edited ver-
sion.

Television Appearances
Aside from straight reporting, which is covered in
spontaneous on-camera interviews, virtually all television appear-
 —

Media Interviews 179

ances for presenters fall into the broad category of talk shows. Ap-
pearing on television can be nerve-racking, but most people feel it's

worth \\'hatever discomfort it entails because it's great exposure. You

really can't buy the kind of coverage you get free from a guest ap-
pearance on television — the "third party endorsement effect" — even
with a no-expense-spared advertising budget.
To make your television appearance go as smoothly as your pre-
sentations, follow the basic training precepts we've discussed
throughout this book: Get to know the show, host, and format
preferably by watching. Prepare a list of strongly delineated selling
points. Arm yourself for difficult questions. Make a Plus/Minus
sheet to guide you in bridging answers. Find out if there is a topic or
theme; if so, slant your selling points and plan your bridges accord-
ingly. Find out who else will be on the show; consider what topics
and directions are likely to result. Plan bridges as appropriate.
If > ou plan to use props —
a good idea to illustrate your points or —
to give a toll free phone number for further information, be sure to
mention it to the producer prior to your studio appearance.

Dress. The first principle really goes without saying: Look your
best. For the rest, our basic presentation dress principle applies: Your
clothes should not call attention to themselves. It's you, not your
wardrobe that people are interested in. White shirts cause photo-
graphic exposure problems with television cameras; they're too
bright. Avoid this problem by wearing soft off-white or pastel col-
ors. Ties or blouses containing some red reflect a flattering warmth

to facial tones.

Arrival. Get to the studio well ahead of the scheduled time. Intro-
duce yourself to the producer, makeup and wardrobe people, and, if
possible, to the host. Don't be intrusive, but if you have an opportu-
nity to chat with the host or anyone who helps determine content,
use it. The more you can get across about yourself and your topic
before things get under way, the more likely the interview will go
smoothly and be interesting.
Even if you don't get a chance to speak with the show host before-
hand, you can use the "mike check" —
the part of the preshow setup
180 Get to the Point

where your microphone level is balanced with that of the host — to

get a little information across. When the sound person asks you to
speak into the microphone so they can get an accurate level, instead

of following the traditional "Testing, testing; one, two, three,

four . .
." we suggest you simply identify yourself and your company
or other affiliation and mention one of the points you'd like to make
during the show.
This may seem outre, but think about it. First, these are busy
people who don't get a chance to do all the preparation they'd like.
Second, they want the same thing you do: to get an interesting inter-
view. Third, indicating that there are certain things you want to talk
about is an immediate stimulus to the host up on those to follow
points. The more of a sense the interviewer has of the areas in which
you are interested and able to speak to, the greater the likelihood
that the interaction will be entertaining —
which means viewers will
be less likely to flip the channel.

On camera. All the impression factors are doubly important on

television. Here are some vital tips that should help make your ap-
pearance a success:
• Posture. You will generally be seated for most of your time on-
camera. Sit forward in your chair and
up straight. You don't
sit

have to on the edge of your seat, but definitely avoid

sit literally

lounging. Important: Lean in toward the host when you an-

swer. This demonstrates energy and conviction.
• Eye contact. Maintain eye contact with the host even when the
host looks at the camera. Don't worry about the cameras. You
communicate to the audience through the host. In fact, keep
your eye contact and posture until you hear an "All clear" or
"We're off the air" signal so you don't drop your on-camera de-
meanor prematurely.
• Smile. Even when the show is on a sensitive issue, smile when
you're introduced and when the show —
or your segment ends. —
• Gesture. Keep your hands resting lightly on your thighs. From
this position, it is easy and natural to gesture.
• Be concise. Try to keep your answers between twenty and thirty
seconds.
Media Interviews 181

Be dramatic. Use visual images and analogies to help dramatize

your points for the audience.
Offer tips, if appropriate. The American public loves tips, and
if they believe they have learned something useful from you,
they may in fact remember your product, service, or message
better.
" Don't lose sight of your audience. Never forget that you're really
talking to the show's listeners, not the host or other guests.
Enjoy yourself!

Quick Reference Summary

• Media interviews are like presentations in question-and-
answer format.
• Preparation is the key; have your selling points ready.
• Do an audience profile: Familiarize yourself with the program
or publication, and who they view as their audience. If possi-
ble, get to know the interviewer's style and point of view.
• Keep in mind that your ultimate audience is those who watch,
read, or listen to the interview.
• Remember, you are the expert, the "source." Your input is
valuable; you can make the reporter look good.
• Take control whenever possible: Find out the topic and stick
to it; set ground rules.
• Be on the (Review the types in
alert for "tricky" questions.
Chapter Ten.)
• Learn the art of the graceful "No comment." (That is, never
actually say "No comment," but offer an explanation for why
you must decline to answer a question.)
• Never go "off the record." If you don't want to see it broadcast
or in print, don't say it.
• Remember to bridge to your selling points.
 16

Being a Witness:
The Presentation
That's All &A Q

Being a witness — whether in a civil or criminal trial, before a con-

gressional or legislative panel, at a regulatory hearing or an admin-
istrative proceeding — may be the most difficult communications en-
vironment you will ever encounter.
Why? The setting is often intimidating. The stakes are gienerally
high. You're sworn to your testimony. Most of all, it's the questioner's
forum, not the answerer's, so your ability to get your message across
may be restricted.
Believe it or not, though, giving testimony is still basically a pre-
sentation, and with the proper preparation, you can maintain some
degree of control and usually get to the point.

Case Study: One of our clients was invited to appear at a con-

gressional hearing on pharmaceutical pricing. There was a real
question whether the company even wanted to send a represen-
Being a Witness: The Presentation That's All Q&A 183

tative, since it was anticipated that the hearing was going to be

something of an inquisition. In addition, it was feared that the
legislator sponsoring the hearing was not really investigating
anything. Rather, he had already made up his mind and was
merely using the hearing as a forum for making his points to his
constituents and the media —
very likely at the expense of our
client. We were able, however, to convince management that,

although it wouldn't be easy, such a hearing, properly handled,

could be a valuable communications opportunity. The com-
pany decided to put in an appearance and make the best of it.

The best of it, of course, meant making some points of their

own. The company president himself decided to testify, and he
took our number one rule seriously. He prepared. As a result, he
succeeded in communicating some real selling points, about re-
search and development costs, and about the economics of the
business. A few of the more important comments were reflected
in television and print coverage. As a result of his willingness to
take the risks and then prepare properly, our client fared much
better than the competition who shunned the hearing alto-
gether.

Perhaps the main point to draw from this story is that, however
difficult the witness stand may be
communications forum, you
as a
should not be intimidated. There's always a way to prepare and
make a point or two. Sometimes you can do quite a lot better than
that.
Whatever your opinion might have been of the political actions of
former national security advisor Lt. Col. Oliver North, when he
took the stand in the Iran-Contra hearings he was prepared and took
advantage of the opportunities that arose.
Each type of witness environment — law court, legislative hear-
ing, regulatory proceeding, investigative panel — has own rules
its

and procedures. If you're familiar with these, you can pretty accu-
rately anticipate the restrictions you will be facing, and thus you can
have a pretty good idea of the points you'll be likely to make. Let's
look at each of these environments individually.
184 Get to the Point

Courts of Law

This is, of course, the scene most of us think of in connection with

the notion of witnessing. While most of us have rarely if ever been in
a courtroom, we have watched countless dramas on television and in
the movies. In a sense, we all have a little preliminary training for
can be rather confusing, though, because in a real
this venue. It
courtroom the story doesn't unfold in a smooth or natural way; it
unfolds in pieces.

Trial testimony road map. Since the average television script

doesn't take the trouble to explicitly set forth the rules of trial con-
duct, we shall give an overview here. Here's how the Q & A usually
works: After jury selection (if any) and opening arguments, each
side in the trial — prosecution (or plaintiff) and defense — calls its

own witnesses.

Direct examination. The attorney for the prosecution or plaintiff

calls witnesses for that side and conducts "direct examination." In
the proper turn the attorney for the defense does likewise with de-
fense witnesses. Direct examination is usually friendly questioning,
in which your lawyer guides you through the unfolding of your
story. "Please tell us, in your own words, what happened on the

night of . .
." In other words, in "direct," you will usually be able to
give quite full answers and get your selling points in, although a
careful judge and skilled opposing counsel may keep your comments
confined to the facts and will try to keep you from drawing conclu-
sions and making judgments —
which are part and parcel of good
selling points. We suggest that you be prepared to try to get in as
much of this information as possible. The jury can be instructed to
disregard it, but having heard it, they can't entirely disregard it.

Cross-examination. The picture changes dramatically with cross-

examination. In "cross," the opposing attorney will have a chance to
question you about your direct testimony. They will pick at details,
and attempt frame narrow questions that elicit a strict yes-or-no
to
or other brief answer. You may have no idea what points the lawyer
Being a Witness: The Presentation That's All Q&A 185

is trying to score. The main problem with

cross-examination from
the witness's point of view you rarely get a chance to explain
is that
or to repeat any of your selling points. A good lawyer will cut you off
the instant you say the words but or however.
Our cross-examination advice is that you each question
listen to

carefully, pause for a moment, then answer. you can't or don't

If

want answer yes or no, say so. A

to determined lawyer, however,
may you into a yes-or-no choice. In such a case try starting
force
your answer, "Although the answer is yes [or no] ." This answer . .

allows your qualification. Another tactic to consider is using the

word and as a bridging device. If you can anticipate a question or
issue in cross-examination, you can sometimes take advantage
of a small opportunity to slip in information that is not directly re-
sponsive to the question. The examining attorney may ask to have it

stricken from the record, but the jury will have heard it.

Coaching. A good lawyer will thoroughly prepare his witnesses for

both direct and cross-examination. When the stakes are high, this
will involve careful rehearsaland videotape analysis. The film The
Verdict, with Paul Newman, was not an accurate look at the work-
ings of the law, but as an example of witness preparation it was su-
perb. In a key scene, the defense attorney, played by James Mason,
used videotape to prepare a physician for testimony. The firm
staged a mock trial and let the witness see and hear what he sounded
like. Direct testimony was rehearsed and the questions for cross-
examination were anticipated.
If you ever have to testify in a trial, you should go through a drill
for difficult questions, just as for any presentation. Keep in mind
that in this situation you have a professional adversary — opposing
counsel — who will search out any weaknesses in your testimony and
probe them. So make your practices good ones. And make sure your
lawyer is aware of all the tough questions you believe you will get.
Your lawyer should then take you through the whole preparation
process — direct and cross. If the stakes are high, this should include
videotape feedback. As one lawyer we know put it, there should be
no surprises from an opposing counsel, either on questions or on
their witnesses' answers on cross-examination.
186 Get to the Point

Legislative Hearings

Legislative hearings are presumably held for the purpose of col-

lecting information that will help legislators enact laws. In reality,
they often serve other purposes, including providing publicity for
individual legislators and their programs. In this sense, they are of-
ten "theater pieces," set up to realize a preexisting "script," and in
which each witness is a sort of guest artist, playing a role.

There are rarely any surprises. Staff researchers have usually de-
termined the positions of the witnesses beforehand, and thus the
content of their testimony. This doesn't keep legislators from regis-
tering carefully rehearsed expressions of surprise for the television
cameras.
In short, events at a legislative hearing are often staged and care-
fully choreographed for television coverage, down to details like
choosing a room small enough that it will appear crowded even with
only a few people present.
All this might lead us to the conclusion that testimony at such
hearings a pro forma affair at best. You appear to set on the record
is

what the legislators already know, and answer questions, if they're

asked. In keeping with what they understand these hearings to be,
most companies and organizations prepare a written statement to
enter into the record, and a chosen representative then reads a por-
tion of the prepared remarks. It's all "for the record." In this boring
situation, you will often find legislators reading their mail, talking
to their aides, or working on other matters. No communication is
taking place, and apparendy no one expects any.
Our position is: Use legislative hearings as an opportunity; a
chance to really make your points forcefully and dramatically in a
public arena. As pointed out by Arthur Liman, chief counsel to the
Senate in the Iran-Contra hearings, in criminal trials, "You some-
times leave the best story untold because of the rigid rules of evi-
dence." However, in a congressional hearing, "You try to tell a full

story so the American people know what happened and Congress

can take appropriate corrective action."
So by means appear. Let your words underscore the well-
all

researched written position statements that you submit. Try to fig-

Being a Witness: The Presentation That's All Q&A 187

ure out how your company or organizational interests dovetail or

coincide with those of the legislators (this is basic audience profile
work). Find a —
way to play on the same side of the net at least part
of the time. Then dramatize your testimony. Think about vivid,
visual selling points. Practice your delivery. You can make an im-
pact.

Regulatory Proceedings

Witness-stand testimony in this type of proceeding invariably fol-

lows prefiled direct testimony. In other words, it is essentialh' cross-

examination (with occasional redirect and recross), although
compared to a court of law there is generally much more room for a
witness to explain or amplify his or her answers. In light of this,

many witnesses at regulatorv' hearings view their job as merely de-

fending the written statement. Again, we take the view that such
hearings, even though conducted on a cross-examination basis, are
an opportunity' to educate — and make points.
In practice, this means a lot of bridging. Preparation for a regula-
tory- hearing should concentrate on the plus/ minus analysis. The key
bridges are areas where your company or organization shares con-
cerns and issues with the public; it's the dovetailing principle again.
It is also important to be clear about who your real audience is.

Although you will be responding to the questions of a commission

attorney or "intervenor," you may in fact ultimately be addressing
the legislators' constituents, the public.

Special Points for the Witness Stand

Fundamentally, the rules for testimony presentations are the same as

for more typical presentations, but often with a twist or qualifica-
tion.

For example, it is essential that you know what you want to sa>'
and be prepared to say it forcefully, but as a witness you also need to
be aware of how and when circumstances will make it possible for
you to do so. That is, you need a clear understanding of the rules and
188 Get to the Point

procedures for information exchange and how these may restrict

your ability to make your point. Above you should be prepared

all,

to bridge when you can, especially if you have reason to believe you
will not be able to make your point without doing so. See your op-
portunities and take 'em.
You need to know your audience, but the audience you really wish
to reach may not be the person or persons you actually address. In a
trial, you are questioned by a lawyer, but you need to make your

points to the jury or judge. In a legislative hearing, it is the legisla-

ture or the committee as a whole that you address, not the legislators
or staff members holding the hearing. This audience can be ex-
panded to include the public at large, through the media.
And of course all the basics of delivery apply here, too, only per-
haps more so: Make good eye contact. Lean in when you answer
questions; if there's a microphone, "embrace" it with your presence.
Gesture with your hands and arms. Project and animate your voice.
Keep your language simple; if you have to use technical language,
industry jargon, or acronyms, explain them. Use signal words and
phrases wherever possible. These are effective emphasizers, both as
they are delivered and when written transcripts are reviewed.
The one overriding rule for all types of testimony is, "Be pre-
pared." It relates most clearly, perhaps, to the content and style of
difficult questions.

Case Study: Several years ago, we saw an important govern-

ment witness reveal a weak spot in the context of a congres-
sional hearing. Seated behind a table in the stately conference
room, the senior official appeared relaxed and confident. He
was handling questions well: His voice was strong and ani-
mated, he was leaning in to make his points, making effective
gestures. Then on the next question, his whole demeanor stiff-
ened: His voice flattened out; his hands went flat on the table.
He answered the question, but his reaction clearly signaled that
the legislator had hit a tender spot in his testimony. His reaction
made the congressman continue to probe this area. Staff mem-
bersmade little checkmarks in the margins of their transcripts
 .

Being a Witness: The Presentation That's All Q&A 189

as reminders to investigate this area further. So, while the wit-

ness didn't "say anything wrong," he still gave away the game.

You can take two steps to prevent this happening to you:

1 Anticipate all the tough questions and be waiting for them . Do

the difficult-questions drill and the Plus/Minus analysis; do
them you can.
as thoroughly as
2, Take our advice Chapter Nine) and pause before every
(see
answer you make. This way, whenever a question does take
you by surprise, you have a little built-in recovery time.

Also, review the tricky question types we covered in Chapter Ten.

The one you're most likely to encounter in your witness role is the
hypothetical. Be careful and methodical and qualify each hypothet-
ical with a phrase like, "That's an if question"; "In answer to your
hypothetical"; or "I'm continuing with your hypothetical line of
."
questioning. . .

The following are more specialized tips:

Listen. The full routine is Listen, Think, Answer. Experts can often
be fast on the draw, anticipating the direction of a question. As you
testify, keep in mind that there is a written record of the proceed-
ings. If you listen to the entire question, you'll answer what is asked,
not what you think is about to be asked. You will also make life

easier for the court reporter or stenographer, who will not make as
many mistakes and who will not have to stop you to slow you down.

Don't argue. This is for your attorney to do with the judge or hear-
ing officer. You should try to remain calm and cooperative. But don't
allow yourself to be trapped by a questioner's tactics, either. If you
are asked a question that demands a yes-or-no answer and you can't
answer that way, say so. If totally boxed in, try this response: "Al-
though the answer is yes [or no], I would like to qualify ." With . .

this tactic you have alerted those in the hearing room that you wish
to qualify your answer and the written transcript will reflect this.
190 Get to the Point

Be polite. When you take the stand, take the trouble to say "Good
morning" or "Good afternoon" or some other civilized pleasantry.
Try to be conversational in your responses, no matter how rigorous
the questioning gets.

Flag the hypothetical . On the witness stand, it's appropriate to

call attention to hypothetical or "if" type questions. Unlike a general
presentation or media interview, responses that we covered in Chap-
ter Ten, on the witness stand you may be forced to answer such ques-
tions.

Our suggestion is that each time you are forced to answer a hypo-
thetical, start your answer with a phrase like: "Well, counselor, in
answer to your hypothetical . .
." or "In answer to your speculative
question . .
." or "In response to your supposition, let me state . .
."

Make sure that if the follow-up question continues the hypothetical

premise, that you continue to flag the answer. The result will be a
signal to the questioner and the court that you are being a careful
witness, you will continue to think clearly, and most important the
written transcript will be very clear as to the nature of the questions
and the responses.

Be prepared for the media. The news media, particularly the trade
press, is usually aware of public and administrative hearings. Re-
porters may approach you for a statement. Review the suggestions in
the "Quick Reference Summary" for Chapter Fifteen. In particular,
avoid saying "No comment." Give them at least a general selling
point statement that reiterates the major elements of your testimony.

Bring a 'crib sheet.' Prepare a card or sheet with three or four of the
points you want to make at any regulatory or legislative hearing.
(These are not allowed in a court of law.) It's like the plus side of the
Plus/Minus Worksheet.
We learned this lesson from a woman who testifies frequently in
public utilities hearings. She is well qualified, being an accountant
and a lawyer. And she is always well prepared. She always brings a
sheet of paper summarizing the points she wants to communicate.
On one occasion, an attorney noticed that the witness kept referring
Being a Witness: The Presentation That's All Q & A 191^

to her notes. (Keep in mind here that anything you bring to the
witness stand is "discoverable" and can be introduced into the
record.) The attorney swooped down on her accusingly: "You appear
to be referring to a piece of paper that I do not have. What is it? We
would like to have it introduced into the record; please tell us
what it is."
Without skipping a beat, the witness responded, "Sure, counselor.
The paper contains some of the points I wanted to communicate
here today. One of them is ." And before he could cut her off, she
. .

had scored one of her points. A great example of taking advantage of

your opportunities.
Two final thoughts we'd like to leave with you. The first is an idea
we got from another seasoned witness: Treat the experience like a
job interview. Think about it. When you go for a job interview, you

must be you must think about the points you want to get
positive;
across; you have to anticipate the questions, answer them, and
bridge to positive information; you must be enthusiastic and sell
yourself. All these points apply to the witness.
The second thought is one of our themes and a suggestion that
often turns the experience around for people who are dreading it:

Have a good time!

Quick Reference Summary

Sworn testimony can be the most intimidating of all presenta-

tion settingsbecause it's the questioner's forum— and fre-
quently an adversarial situation. However, with proper
preparation, you can usually maintain enough control to
make your point.

Court of Law

• The rules of evidence would seem to make it tough to make

your points, especially on cross-examination.
• The attorney for "your" side should rehearse you thoroughly
and should give you the opportunity to make all the points you
feel are important.
192 Get to the Point

• In cross-examination, be prepared for all "difficult questions."

Have answers.
• Anticipating the line of questioning in cross-examination can
help you to score points.
• You can sometimes be forced to answer hypothetical ques-
tionson cross-examination. Always be sure to qualify your an-
swers: "In answer to your hypothetical question ." or "If . . I

must speculate, would say. I

."
. .

Legislative Hearings

• Although often pro forma, legislative hearings provide an op-

portunity for you to make your points, often to a very large
audience.
• Live testimony generally supplements presubmitted written
testimony.
• Often, you are given wide scope to make your own statement.
Take advantage of this: Prepare. Have strong selling points.
Practice your delivery.
• Remember that your audience is "the people."

Regulatory Proceedings

• Witness-stand testimony in regulatory hearings almost invari-

ably follows prefiled direct testimony. Hence it is, in essence,
cross-examination.
• Hearings, however, do not run under strict rules of evidence.
As a witness you have a wide range of opportunities to make
your point by means of bridging.

For All Types of Testimony

• Know what you want to say and be prepared to say it force-

fully.

• Remember, it is almost never the person asking the ques-

tions who is the ultimate audience of your communication. In
Being a Witness: The Presentation That's All Q&A 193

a trial it is the judge or jury. In a legislative or regulatory hear-

ing, it is generally the public.
• All the rules of delivery apply to testimony: Gesture; keep
your voice animated; make eye contact, especially
with cameras.
• As with all Q & A, remember: Listen, Think (which also means
"pause"). Answer.
 17

Meetings,
Meetings, Meetings

The one thing all business people know about meetings is that there
are too many of them.

Generally, meetings are necessary when you need the input

of several people, when a decision is required from a group,
or when you need the synergy of group interaction, as in

brainstorming.

You'll be wise to eliminate as many as possible by asking the key

question: Is this meeting truly necessary? Perhaps a phone call, a
letter, or an office visit would be more efficient or productive.
If the answer to this key question is no, or you're not sure, decide

whether your meeting can be postponed or rescheduled, or your

business handled in some other fashion.
If the answer to the key question is yes, then you've got some prep-
Meetings, Meetings, Meetings 195

aration to do. Since you're this far in reading Get to the Point, you're
already familiar with muchwhat you have to know. In this chap-
of
ter, we'll discuss the similarities betAveen meetings and other types of

presentations and tell what else you'll need to know to conduct a

successful meeting.
What is a successful meeting? In our experience, if you can discuss
and take action on all of your agenda items and start and conclude
on time, ninety-five times out of a hundred you can consider your
meeting a success. It's the kind of success that enhances your value to
your company or organization; the kind of success that gets you
ahead.

Purpose, Planning, and Agenda

Once you have established the need for a meeting, it is up to you,

the chairperson, to plan it or at least to supervise its planning. It is

important for the purpose of the meeting to be clear. Presumably,

since you carefully weighed the need for the meeting, its purpose is

clear to you. Be sure it is equally clear to those who will be attend-

ing. You might want to give the meeting a title. When meeting an-
nouncements are sent out, a clear statement of purpose and/or a
catchv' title can focus attention on the objectives and help ensure
good attendance.

Ail meetings require an agenda.

Agendas need not be set in stone, but without at least a loose struc-

ture, meetings wander. An agenda provides the chairperson a legiti-

mate reason to move the meeting along.

If your meeting requires consensus on the agenda, you may want
to reach agreement on a written agenda before the actual meeting
takes place. This may mean preliminary phone calls, letters, or
memos to solicit discussion items, opinions, and premeeting ma-
terials.

For more formal meetings, the agenda may include ground rules
such as the length of time for opening statements and discussion, as
196 Get to the Point

well as rules for such issues as submission of materials and voting.

Depending on the circumstances, even physical objects like tables
can become items for discussion and even contention. Remember the
Paris peace talks during the Vietnam War?
Usually you'll want attendees to have some sort of written agenda
to refer to. If you don't distribute a sheet to each individual, put the
agenda on a flip chart or a slide. At the very least, give an oral re-
view before the meeting starts.

Tip: Whatever form your agenda takes, never include a

minute-by-minute time schedule. It's fine to be organized, but
meetings need a feeling of flexibility and you don't want a
group of people constantly checking their wristwatches.

Audience profile. Unlike any other presentation situation, the audi-

ence profile for a meeting begins with deciding who should be there.
Sometimes these decisions are quite simple. It may be obvious whose
input is needed to adequately discuss a given issue or problem. Often
you will want to invite the entire marketing committee, or all the
members of a particular organization. At other times, the decisions
are more subjective and will reflect political concerns.
Once you have decided on the list of attendees, you should go
through the standard audience profile. As we made clear in Chapter
Two, while you wish to accomplish the agenda and basic tasks of the
meeting, most people who attend the meeting will be judging it ac-
cording to their personal question: What's in it for me?

Facilities planning. The goal of physical planning is to create an

environment in which those attending your meeting can concentrate
on the subject matter without undue distraction. A smooth-running
meeting depends on coordinating all the elements in your presenta-
tion "theater." Basically, this means choosing the right room. The
following considerations apply:
Size. The room should seat approximately the number of people
you will bring together.
Meetings, Meetings, Meetings 197

• Seating arrangement. Depending on circumstances, different

configurations of seating — table, theater style, amphitheater, or
chevron — may be preferable.
• Lighting. Aside from basic adequate lighting, the facilities
should be capable of lighting the speaker well even while visuals
are being presented,
• Visual aids. Make sure the equipment you will need — overhead
and slide projectors, flip chart, videotape players and monitors,
—
and spares will be available.
" Amplification. If theroom is large, check the public address sys-
tem and microphone availability.
• Lectern. If you anticipate needing a lectern, make sure one is
present.
Food and beverage. Make sure that there is room and equip-
ment for any refreshments you are planning to serve, or that
appropriate catering facilities are located nearby and have been
notified.

Even with small meetings, it is important to do a little house-

cleaning and/or setting up beforehand. This may be as simple as
cleaning up the coffee cups from the last group that used the confer-
ence room, or just tidying up and straightening the furniture and
laying a photocopy of the meeting agenda at each place. Do some-
thing that says, "This is a serious working/ communications environ-
ment; we appreciate your being here and will do all we can to make
it a productive occasion."

Conference centers. To make sure that all these details are taken
care of — without having to take care of them directly — many com-
panies and organizations prefer to hold important meetings at con-
ference centers, establishments that generally offer excellent
facilities and can handle virtually any sized group. These centers are
run by professionals who can provide valuable planning assistance.
Just getting people away from the
office and constant interruptions

and phone calls may be worth the added expense.

A word of caution here, however: While conference centers gener-
198 Get to the Point

is no substitute for doing your

ally provide excellent facilities, this
homework. You will need to check out the meeting room, do a
still

tech rehearsal, and practice with the equipment.

Meeting Management— Handling the Interaction

The entire tone of a meeting can be set by a strong opening state-

ment. Opening statements should be short and to the point. Set
yourself a time limitand stick to it.
Ifyou want a model, think of a good opening statement you have
heard in a political debate. At a meeting, the opening statement
should always include a word of welcome, a review of the agenda, a
statement of any ground rules you wish to establish, and the ex-
pected closing time.

If the participants don't know each other, make introduc-

tions.

This is an often-overlooked matter of protocol. In a small meeting

you might ask participants to introduce themselves and perhaps to

say a word or two on their expectations of the meeting. In a larger
meeting, you should introduce the people who will be presenting.

Record keeping. Decide in advance what kind of records will be

kept for the meeting. The chairperson should never be responsible
for taking the official notes or minutes. In a small, informal meet-
ing, you can ask for a volunteer. Usually, though, you should ar-
range beforehand for someone to serve as recording secretary. If you
want a verbatim transcript, tape record the meeting. Most confer-
ence centers are setup to make full video transcripts of any meeting.
You may also want someone to list meeting items on a blackboard
or flip chart. Appoint a separate person to fulfill this function.

In brainstorming meetings, record a// suggestions, no matter

how outlandish.
Meetings, Meetings, Meetings 199

You can weed the list later on, but don't cut off suggestions unilater-
ally during the meeting.

Ground rules. Preestablished ground rules are vital to the orderly

conduct of the discussion. Let the members know how much time is
allotted to the overall discussion and how long each individual
should expect to speak. If people run overtime, your job is to diplo-
matically cut them off. If Barbara Walters could cut offRonald
Reagan and Walter Mondale in their televised debates, you should
be able to enforce agreed-upon time limits for your discussion.
Summarize or offer clarifying comments from time to time during
the discussion, as appropriate. This will often help to refocus a dis-
cussion that has wandered. Generally this commentary, along with
your "parhamentary" functions, will constitute your contribution to
the body of the discussion. (It is generally considered inappropriate
for the leader to be a contributing participant in the substantive
discussion.) If the agenda calls for a decision to be made, and it is
clear that it cannot be made at the current meeting, the leader
should make sure there is agreement on the next steps, such as
whether the matter will be resolved by further correspondence and a
follow-up vote by telephone, mail, or another meeting.

People Management

Particularly in smaller meetings, personalities play an important

role. We covered the common types of difficult questions and diffi-

cult questioners inChapter Ten. As promised there, we will now

cover some additional personality types that sometimes create diffi-
culties in meetings.

The Silent Type. Silence is usually golden, but meetings are an ex-
ception. In a meeting, you often want to build consensus. Other
times, the opinion or contribution of a particular individual is

crucial — especially when you know be voiced to others out-

it will
side the meeting. That's when silence becomes a problem. Silent
people are not necessarily unimportant people. In fact, the silence
200 Get to the Point

may be an expression of power. If you single out the silent type by

explicitly requesting input on a given topic you risk intimidating or
alienating this person. A better approach is to ask a question of the
group collectively and then follow up by polling members individu-
ally, placing the silent person somewhere in the middle.

The Objectionist. This person sees the negative side of every issue,
plan, or proposal. He or she is much like the Nit-Picker or Detailer
we discussed in Chapter Ten. Don't confront this person during the
meeting. A better approach is to present your ideas or objectives and
seek consensus from this person prior to the actual meeting session.
If the Objectionist tries to dominate your meeting, do not take this
personally or show irritation. Offer to consider certain points and
revert to the agreed-upon agenda.

The Monopolist. This personality bears some resemblance to the

Objectionist but is not as negative. Like the Filibusterer we met in
Chapter Ten, this person just likes to talk and contribute, but finds it
hard to come to the point. Enforcing time limits and being sure to
elicit the opinions of others will help keep the Monopolist under con-

trol. "Henry, I'll get back to you in a moment. But let me first get the

views of some of the other people who are here."

The Inadequate. The person who manifests the Inadequate person-

ality may be vital to the group but, like the weakest performer
on a sports team, needs support and a sense of belonging.
Encourage this person to participate by helping him or her feel more
adequate and powerful. Often, allowing this person to do small,
easy-to-accomplish tasks will make him or her more productive at
future meetings.

The Idealist. This person may be angry and belligerent or simply

overly zealous about some cause peripheral to your meeting agenda.
An effective leader will try to find common ground without neces-
sarily subscribing to the idealist's full program. "Yes, this company
does have many environmental concerns. . .
."
Meetings, Meetings, Meetings 201

Decision Time

When it is time to make decisions at a meeting, the chairperson is

responsible for ensuring that the decision-making process is fair, effi-

cient, and accurate. Again, planning and advance preparation will

make any vote taking easier. For internal meetings, the voting proce-
dures are usually well established. For an external group, you should
check the organizational or departmental rules, corporate bylaws, or
constitution.
Other decisions include how voting should be done by secret —
ballot, —
by voice, or by a show of hands and whether the result
should be determined by pluraHty, majority, two-thirds, or unani-
mous consent. Voice votes can generally be conducted by the chair.
Be sure to ask someone to confirm your findings. A show of hands
should be counted by two separate individuals. When you plan a
secret ballot, prepare ballots in advance and plan a method for dis-
tributing and collecting them and counting the vote. Ballots should
be rechecked and if necessary retained in a secure location.

Closing Time

As the meeting winds down, people often begin to leave. At this

point you need to take control. Often a clear statement of the re-
maining time and business wiU accomplish this. If you don't take
control, the early departures will distract the rest of the attendees
and often make them feel as if they are being kept after school.

The closing of a meeting can be your most important mo-

ment in terms of input.

The last things said in a meeting are remembered longest, so use

your closing statement to stress the points you feel are most impor-
tant.As with a more standard presentation, nearly all of your state-
ment can be prepared in advance.
In addition to your observations, a good closing statement can
include:
202 Get to the Point

A recap of important action items and decisions, so that all at-

tendees leave with a sense of accomplishment and agreement

(and will be more likely to attend future meetings).
A general word of thanks for all who attended and special
thank-you's to people who accomplished tasks, presented infor-
mation, and took on responsibilities.
• A clear statement of when and where any follow-up meeting or
event is to be held or, barring that, a statement of how people
will be informed.

Follow-Up

Meetings need follow-up, and this involves attention to details. As

chairperson, you should always review the minutes before they are
sent to the other attendees. Make sure the minutes are distributed.
Also see that key commitments have been fulfilled. People sometimes
make promises during a meeting and then delay or even fail to fulfill
their promises. A polite note orphone call is often all it takes
to do the trick. If this gende prodding doesn't work, don't be afraid
to use the legitimacy of the chairperson's position to encourage peo-
ple to complete jobs they have undertaken.
Remember, if you have accomplished your agenda and have fin-

ished on or before your scheduled time, you can generally consider

your meeting a success. Participants will consider their time well
spent and they will be more willing to attend meetings you call in
the future. Leading meetings effectively is a valuable skill that can
lay a red carpet down the middle of your career path.

Quick Reference Summary

• Key question: Is this meeting necessary, or will a call, memo,
or one-on-one conversation accomplish my purpose?
• Meeting success criteria:
• and end on time
Start
• Cover your agenda points
• Meeting planning checklist:
D Audience profile
Meetings, Meetings, Meetings 203

D Agenda
D Site preparation
D Ground rules
D Voting procedure
• Problem personalities to be prepared for:
•The Silent Type. Don't confront this person directly.
Rather, solicit input from each group member and include
the silent member somewhere in the middle.
• The Objectionist. If possible, seek consensus with this
person before the meeting. If objections are raised
in the meeting, offer to consider certain points and revert
to the established agenda.
• The Monopolist. Keep this well-meaning person under
control by enforcing time limits and encouraging others to
offer views.
• The Inadequate. Encourage this person's participation by
assigning him or her meaningful but manageable tasks.
• The Idealist. The best way to deal with the missionary zeal
of this meeting type is to find some common ground.
• Guide, clarify, and summarize as the meeting progresses.
• Make sure follow-up operations are carried out.
 18

The Job Interview

The job interview is the ultimate one-on-one selHng presentation.

Given two candidates with equal credentials on paper, almost in-
variably the better presenter or communicator will get the job.

Job interviews involve virtually all the main elements of pre-

sentation making.

Included are the audience profile, content preparation, selling

points, preparation for difficult questions, bridging — and practice.
And depending on the job, even visual aids may come into the pic-
ture.
Your goal for the job interview, as for any presentation, is to be
focused, prepared, and positive. One important thing to keep in
mind about this presentation is that although it is billed as an
interview — which suggests the potential employers ask the ques-
 .

The Job Interview 205

—
you give the answers it's actually an interactive event, a
tions,
two-way process. You're there so the hiring company can find out
about you; you're also there to find out about the company, the posi-
tion, and the people in the company.
Although you should certainly plan on asking questions at the in-
terview, don't wait until then to begin gathering information about
the company. Do your own audience profile, as you would for any
presentation. This is important for three reasons:

1 It makes sense for you to gather as much information about the

organization and the position as you can so you can judge
whether this is the right situation for you.
2. Personnel officers and recruiters tend to be favorably im-
pressed by the thoroughness and foresight demonstrated by a
candidate's having researched the position in advance. It

makes you look good.

3. If you do like what you see, then like any audience profile,

your research helps you create more "audience-centered" mes-

sages. If you really understand what the organization is like,
you can stress the ways you fit in with it.

It is generally not difficult to gather relevant information about a

company, even a specific position. Corporate annual reports, stock
and brokerage analysis reports, electronic data bases, trade and con-
sumer articles, and former employees are all viable sources of infor-
mation. Perhaps more specifically helpful will be the executive
recruiter (if any) who told you about the job and your own personal
network of friends and associates. If you can't get information any
other way, call the company public relations or investor relations
department and ask for some background.
Try to get a basic job description, including responsibilities and
salary.Other key areas of advance information relate to the manage-
ment and decision-making style of the department you would be
joining and the personalities of the key managers. If, for example,
you are a real go-getter being interviewed for a position in a depart-
ment with a very laid-back management style, you should be aware
of this and have some idea of why they would want to hire you.
206 Get to the Point

You already have a list of your personal selling points. It's

called your resume.

The accomplishments you Hst there are the headlines; the specifics
will be provided by you during the interview. Your preparation
should include pulling together at least one strong anecdote or other
specific for every point you have listed. If you can come up with two
or three, you'll look that much stronger. Try to make your selling
points as visual as possible; let the interviewer see the examples in his
or her mind's eye.

Their Questions

Preparing for a job interview is similar to preparing for any other

question and answer session. Keep in mind that in this case the ques-
tioner is an official representative of the organization you hope to
work for and that the basic message you want to communicate is the
corporate or organizational WIIFM: What's in it for us to hire you?
What's the significance of your accomplishments and experiences for
this job?
Those are the questions to keep at the back of your mind as you
make out your Difficult Questions Worksheet and your Plus/Minus
Worksheet. With some reflection, you should be able to anticipate
virtually all the questions the interviewer will ask. Naturally, this
will include questions about your past work history, which may well
contain some tender spots you would prefer not to have someone
probing. In other words, like any presentation, the job interview is

likely to involve questionsyou would prefer not to answer. And, as

in any presentation, you will need to be prepared to deal with them:
Respond to the question and bridge to more positive information.
In addition to questions you'd rather not answer, you need to be
alert to the other types of tricky questions we covered in Chapter
Ten, particularly hypothetical . Job interviews frequently involve
speculative or hypothetical questions of the type, "Where do you see
yourself ten years from now?" or "If you were running this division,
given this set of facts, how would you respond?" You are almost re-
The Job Interview 207

quired to answer these. Just flag them as hypotheticals before you do

so. (Note: The question, "Would you be willing to relocate?" may
not be hypothetical.)

What you don't have to say. Lest we leave you with the impression
that you are at the mercy of all the interviewer's questions, be as-
sured that there are questions you shouldn't feel obhgated to answer.
As always, personal questions fit into this category. With the ris-

ing concern over individual rights, some of these areas of personal

information have been declared off limits by law. This doesn't
always stop interviewers from asking the questions, however. The
best policy is to be polite and state firmly that the question is per-

sonal and can have no bearing on your work performance. If neces-

sary, negotiate a little and offer other information that may be
relevant.

Example:
Question: "Do you plan to have children?"
Answer: "Can you explain why that is relevant to this inter-

\dew?" or "I don't see how that is relevant, but if you're con-
cerned about my commitment . .
."

You should also avoid answering questions that delve into proprie-
tary information relating to your present position. Sometimes these
questions are posed in an effort to gain information, sometimes just
to test your reaction — since most employers don't want to hire some-
body who's ready to give away information. Don't fall into this trap;
just politely decline to reveal proprietary information and suggest
that they would be unhappy if their employees did so in the course of
job interviews they might have.
Some questions that come up in job interviews are just plain
dumb. These could be anything from "Who do you think will win
the World Series?" to "What did you think of that ugly sculpture in
the lobby?" We suggest that you resist any impulse to be flippant or
sarcastic. Just answer the questions, and treat them as a way for you
to make another point (i.e., bridge to another selling point).
208 Get to the Point

Your Questions
Your audience profile probably won't answer all your questions
about the job and company, and the interview is the time to ask
them. We suggest you prepare a list of questions or points that you
wish to bring up. Realistically, there are a lot of things you should
find out about. Some of your questions may just confirm information
you gathered elsewhere. Having the list with you doesn't obligate
you to ask all the questions on it, but the notes will be living proof of
your preparedness. It's not unlike going to the doctor's office with a
list of symptoms, concerns, and questions. In the pressure of the mo-

ment we tend to forget, and a list helps us remember.

Demeanor and Deportment

All of the skills we discussed in the core of the book apply equally
to job interviews — only more so, since the stakes are higher. The
impressions you make are crucial, from your clothes to the way you
walk in and greet the interviewer to the way you sit, gesture, make
eye contact, and use your voice.
Good eye contact is crucial. Let your gaze rest on the interview-
face rather than letting your eyes roll skyward or look down
er's

at the floor.
Remember to pause before answering questions (see pages 102
and 103).
Lean in to answer questions.
Show your enthusiasm. Enthusiasm, or at least a good energy
level, is important for any interview. Don't be a corporate cheer-
leader, but let your interviewer know you are capable and have
an energetic, positive attitude.

Specific Job Interview Tips

Drinks. If your interview involves going out for a meal, you may
have to decide whether or not to have a drink. This question is less

likely to be a test of character than in days past. If you are inclined

to have a drink, you may wish to follow the lead of your hosts: Do if
The Job Interview 209

they do, don't if they don't. On the other hand, it is also becoming

more socially acceptable not to drink, so ifyou are inclined not to,
don't. If the drink is a rite of passage or congratulatory gesture, on
the other hand, it is best to go along.

Warmups. Clients tell us their best interviews are the ones where
they are a little relaxed. (Not totally relaxed; a bit of adrenaline is

helpful.) You may want and place to do the kind

to find the time
of relaxation warmup we recommended in Chapter Twelve (see
page 154).

Decisions. Try to be clear about your motives in attending any

given job interview. Is this really a job you want? Or are you just
testing the waters, checking opportunities, or simply strengthening
your job interview skills? Don't get tense over an interview for a job
you don't really want and then agonize if the job is offered — or if

it isn't.

Visuals. For —
some kinds of jobs advertising, pubHc relations, or
design, for —
example it may be appropriate for you to bring samples
of your work such as ads or press releases. If you do bring samples,
please remember our cardinal rule about the presentation of visuals:
If you have preliminary remarks or explanations, make them. Then

present the visual — —

and pause long enough for the material to be
absorbed and evaluated.

Quick Reference Summary

• Job interviews should be interactive and conversational.
• Do an audience profile on the company or organization.
• Be prepared to relate the selling points on your r6sum6 to the
objectives and outlook of the organization for which you are
interviewing.
• Prepare for Q & A with the Plus/Minus and Difficult Questions
Worksheets.
• Practice bridging to your selling points.
• Always ask your own questions.
• Be aware of your body language, eye contact, and energy.
 19

How to Prepare
and Read a Speech

We feel that delivering a speech from notes is almost always prefera-

ble to using a fully prepared text.With notes, your eyes aren't glued
to words on paper. Your performance has more spontaneity and you
can look at the audience. Nonetheless you may at some time feel the
need to work from a prepared text. Some of the occasions when you
will want a prepared speech are: when the rules for all presenters
are the same; when copies of the talk will be distributed to attend-
ees; for more formal events such as annual meetings, very precise

introductions, an explanation of rules and procedures, or if you don't

have the time to rewrite the prepared speech from the company
speech writers into your own words and thoughts. Here are some
guidelines that will help you maintain eye contact and generally en-
liven your speech.
How to Prepare and Read a Speech 21^

Typing the Speech

Use large type. Have your speech t\ped in uppercase letters, prefer-
abl>' in an oversized typeface. Most electric t>pewriters and daisy

wheel computer printers have an element (daisy wheel or type ball)

available for just this task. The typeface is often named something
like "Orator." Most dot matrix printers can print double height
and/ or double width characters. If possible, use the double height-
double width combination.

Type phrases, not lines. DiWde each sentence into thought or mean-
ing units, then tynpe only one thought or phrase per line. Double or
triple space between lines. For example, the beginning of Lincoln's
Gettysburg Address would become:

FOURSCORE AND SEVEN YEARS AGO

OUR FOREFATHERS BROUGHT FORTH ON THIS
CONTINENT
A NEW NATION
CONCEIVED IN LIBERTY
AND DEDICATED TO THE PROPOSITION
THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.

Use only two-thirds of the page. Leave at least the bottom one- third
of the page blank. If you fill the page, by the time you read to the
bottom, you are looking down at quite a sharp angle. This tends to
make your voice drop and certainly makes eye contact difficult.
Leaving the bottom blank also reduces text density', making it easier
for your eye to pick up words and phrases. In combination with the
improved reading angle, this encourages you to make eye contact.

Don't jump paragraphs. Always try to finish a paragraph on the

same page on which you started it. This eliminates confusion as you
move to the following page; you'll have a natural pausing point and
can give yourself ample time to move the page and continue.

Number pages. Clearly.

212 Get to the Point

Fine-Tuning the Speech

Mark up your text. Read your speech aloud, listening for the points
where you will want to pause, emphasize words, and group words
together. You can use the markup found in Chapter Eleven on page
144. Consider using colored pens to make your notations extra legi-
ble. Be neat.

Pauses: Put a slash (/) after a completed thought or sentence. Use

a double slash (//) when changing thoughts or for dramatic impact.

Emphasis: Underline words to be emphasized. For extra empha-

sis, use double underlines. Generally, emotional and action words
get this treatment.

Joining: Use a connecting line (

'"' ^ ) to join words that
should flow together and be spoken in one breath.

Here's how our example might look, marked up for delivery:

FOURSCORE AND SEVEN YEARS AGO /

OUR FOREFATHERS BROUGHT FORTH ON THIS

CONTINENT
A NEW NATION //
CONCEIVED IN LIBERTY/
AND DEDICATED TO THE PROPOSITION
THAT ALL MEN // ARE CREATED E QUAL .

Make marginal notes. At the beginning of your speech — and wher-

ever you need reminders — give yourself marginal instructions such
as "SMILE," "GESTURE," and "SLOW DOWN." Some people pre-
fer symbols: A stick figure might mean "gesture"; upward or down-
ward arrows could serve as inflection cues; eye glasses for eye
contact. Use whatever works for you.

Don't staple pages. When delivering your talk, lay your pages on
the lectern and move the first page to the left of the pile. As you
How to Prepare and Read a Speech 213

finish reading the first page, reach with your left hand and move the
second page to the on top of the first page. Continue in the same
left,

fashion. This is something like the way a page turner handles the
problem for a musical performer. The idea is that it's what's coming
that's important, not what's past.

Pause. Use pauses liberally in your talk. As we've said at every op-
portunity, pauses give your audience time to digestand appreciate
what you've said. Pausing also gives you reading time, so you can
then look up and make eye contact with the audience as you begin
each new paragraph.

Practice, practice, practice! Generally, do a minimum of three run-

throughs — out loud, with a tape or video recorder and/or an audi-
ence. Listen for clarity of phrasing and good vocal inflection. For
the full story on practice, see Chapter Eleven. See also the section on
lectern techniques, in Chapter Fourteen.

Quick Reference Summary

• Type your speech in large type or all capital letters.
• Type in phrases, not sentences or paragraphs.
• Mark your script with symbols to help you with pace and in-

flection.
• Practice, practice, practice.
 20

Using a TelePrompTer

The TelePrompTer is a standard tool used when delivering a speech

on television or videotape. In many ways it is ideal, since it enables
you to read text while you appear to be looking directly into the
camera.
But the benefits of the TelePrompTer can be liabilities as well.
Because you are reading your text and generally have no audience
present, it is difficult to maintain the energy and enthusiasm you
would bring to a live audience when speaking from notes. Hence
these guidelines.

The Machinery
Basically, there are two types of TelePrompTers: One is a video
monitor, usually placed just below the camera lens, to which a copy
of your text is transmitted. The other is a flat glass screen — usually
placed over the camera lens, onto which your text is projected. The
Using a TelePrompTer 215

glass prompter is also suited to speaking before live audiences and is

commonly used at political conventions and similar gatherings.

Remember the Basics

Although you will be speaking to a machine, remember that you

are addressing an audience —
through the camera. Use pauses liber-
ally to give your audience time to digest and appreciate what you've
said. Gesture to burn off tension and animate your voice. Maintain
eye contact with the camera to avoid looking uncomfortable or in-
sincere. If possible, put an easel stand next to the prompter with
notes reminding you to "SMILE," "GESTURE," and "PAUSE."

Prepare Your Text for a TelePrompTer

Type and mark your script just as we described above for a live
speech, except that you may, of course, use the whole page. The
problems of reading angle and eye contact have been eliminated by
the technology.

Get Comfortable

Do as much you can to make yourself at home. Arrive early at

as
the studio. Get to know the technicians and crew.
When you're in a studio looking at a camera, you want to appear
as if you're talking to a real audience. There are several of ways to do
this:

Visualize someone behind the lens who you know or want to

know, and talk to that person.
• Actually talk to the technician behind the camera, or have some-
one stand next to the camera who you can talk to.
" Bring a picture of someone you know — your kids, a loved one,
your dog, whatever works for you — and tape it next to the cam-
era lens or prompter screen to help you relax.
• Mentally recreate another setting in which you have given your
speech.
 —

216 Get to the Point

Case Study: This last approach worked well on one occasion

when we were coaching an executive who was new to the vid-
eotape process and the studio atmosphere.
He was a few minutes into his speech and it frankly wasn't
going very well. He was stiff, wooden, and flat. We stopped
him. "Where did you originally give this speech?" we asked.
Colorado Springs, he told us, at a sales meeting. "All right," we
said, "we want you to put yourself back there in that sales meet-
ing." As soon as his mind returned to that setting, his reading
became very natural, as if he were talking to that audience and
not to the camera. The rest of the taping went beautifully.

The cardinal rule to remember with TelePrompTers is lead,

don't follow!

There is a TelePrompTer operator whose job is to adjust the flow of

copy to accommodate your reading pace. Remember that you set
the pace; don't ever feel that you have to wait for the copy, or have to
keep up with its flow.

What You'll See

About six lines of copy will be visible on the screen at one time. As
you read, the text will scroll upward, revealing the next lines. Again,
set your own pace. You drive the system, it shouldn't drive you.

Practice

We've said it earlier in this book, we've said it elsewhere; we say it

again. With more important than ever. You are about
television, it's

to be a classic "talking head." Which means that your audience is

—
going to be listening and watching close up. If at all possible,
practice with videotape, in a studio. If this is not possible, use an
audio recorder and practice in front of a mirror, or have someone
observe you and comment on your performance or both. Listen —
carefully to be certain your sentences are not too long to be easily
Using a TelePrompTer 217

understcx)d. Generally, at least three out-loud rehearsals will be re-

quired before you will begin to feel comfortable with your speech.

If you think it doesn't take practice to deliver a speech, consider

the case of one actress who did endless "takes" of her role in a tele-
vision commercial before she was satisfied with the reading. Her
lines? Just two words!

Quick Reference Summary

• Lead the TelePrompTer, don't follow.
• Relate to the audience through the camera lens.
• Visualize a real audience or real presentation situation or cre-
ate a substitute to speak to, either a real person or a picture of
someone.
 21

Give and Take:

The Panel Discussion

As a communications environment, the panel discussion offers a nice

mix of elements. It's more spontaneous than a speech or one-on-one
interview. It is inherently interactive and offers both audience and
participants the stimulation of an immediate contrast of views. The
environment can be adversarial, though not to the extent that a trial
or hearing is, so this too can be stimulating.
In a panel discussion you know your speaking time will be
limited —but you have no way of knowing how limited. Hence pan-
elist profile preparation iscritical. In order to have the best chance

of getting your points in, you must anticipate opposing positions and
arguments:
• For ease of reference, list your key points on a five-by-seven
index card.
" Always be ready to bridge.
• Also, be ready to jump in and make your points based on other
panelists' statements.
Give and Take: The Panel Discussion 219

•
Tty to repeat your key message two or three times during the
course of the discussion.

The Split Audience Factor

One factor that comphcates the preparation process for panels is

that you're dealing with a "split" audience. This creates an unusual

amount of audience profile work.
On one hand, there is your "true" audience, the people in the
auditorium or those who are watching or listening to the broadcast.
These are the people you're trying to sell your points to, so you'll

need do the normal audience profile: Get a firm understanding of

to
who they are and center your messages on their concerns and their
awareness (WIIFM).
On the other hand, you can't forget the moderator and the other
panelists, the people with whom you will be interacting directly.
Realistically, you're not there to convince them or win them over to
your point of view, but you must be ready to respond to the issues
and points view they will raise, to anticipate the challenges they
of
will present. To be effective, you need to know who's going to be
there and what their areas of expertise are, along with their points of
view and prejudices. So, given all of these players audience, mod- —
erator, and other panelists —
and the time constraints, set realistic,
limited objectives. Concentrate on a few important selling points
that you'll have on your note cards.
Here are a number of techniques and tactics that will help you
make your point in panel discussions.

What to Find Out Ahead of Time

Know the themes and subthemes of the event. How is it being
billed or promoted?
• Who is the moderator? What is his or her perspective and/or
agenda?
• Will you have an opportunity to make an opening and/or closing
statement? Always make these statements, if at all possible.
What is the physical environment — the panel setup, micro-
220 Get to the Point

phones, water pitchers, audience seating? If you can influence

the seating arrangement, get yourself located at one end of the
table. These are the "seats of power."
Can you appear with a colleague? It's usually more effective if
two people can represent the same organization.
• Can you bring handouts, brochures, or other reading material
to leave with the audience? If you can, this is an excellent way to
reinforce your message.

At the Panel

Arrive early. Introduce yourself to the moderator and the other

panelists. If not prearranged, find the best seating positions.
• Setup any charts or other visual aids you have brought (after
making sure this is appropriate).
first

• Take a few moments to relax before the panel begins. Stretch

and limber your muscles and your voice (see pages 153-156).
Review your key points just before things get under way. Keep
your note card in front of you during the proceedings. Take a
few deep breaths just before it is your turn to speak (see page
155, Chapter Twelve).

During the Discussion

• Be sure to address the audience, not the panelists, during your
opening and closing statements.
Sit up and lean slightly forward when you speak. This demon-
strates —
energy and commitment and allows for better breath-
ing.
• When others talk, keep your eyes on them. When responding to
another panelist, begin your answer by looking at him or her,
then shift your eye contact to the audience. This includes them
in your answer, reduces the likelihood of a rebuttal from the
panelist, and cues you to bridge your answer to an issue of inter-
est to the entire group.
Don't try to control the course of the discussion, but be sure to
jump into the dialogue at any appropriate point and bridge to
your selling points. If a colleague is appearing with you, decide
Give and Take: The Panel Discussion 221

in advance which of you will address which issues and which of

you will take on the responsibility of responding to unfocused
questions or those not directly in your area of expertise. It's im-
portant not to look confused or unprepared.
• Most important, be constantly on the lookout for opportunities
toadd your points when your colleague or another panelist has
finished talking. Unless strict rules of order have been set up,
you don't have to wait your turn. If you have an important point
that addresses the audience's needs, try to make it. Signal the
moderator with a hand gesture or use a word or two to make a
natural transition. Key words to use: "I'd like to add ." or . .

"From our perspective . .

." or "Here's another point. . .
."'

• When your coUeague/copanelist is talking, your job is to think of

selling points or specifics that drive home the general answer.
This ability to have both of you answer shows a team approach
and helps build audience retention of your message.
• Keep your sense of humor. Don't take comments personally, par-
ticularly in an adversarial discussion. Enjoy the opportunity to
deliver a message to an audience.

After the Panel

Make yourself available for informal conversation with members

of the audience.
• Leave reading material or handouts with a contact telephone
number or address so interested persons can reach you.
• Tell the panel organizers that, subject to your schedule, you are

willing to appear at other discussions.

To evaluate your own performance (as a guide to possible im-
provement for future panels), check your note card or other list
of crucial points. How many of your selling points did you get
in? Did you get your key message across two or three times?

Quick Reference Summary

• Prepare for two audiences: the listeners, and the moderator
and other panelists. You want, ultimately, to communicate to
222 Get to the Point

thefirst, but you must do so by addressing the second.

• Keep your objectives limited; concentrate on a few important

points.
• Jump in after other panelists' points and bridge to your mes-
sage.
• Don't be afraid to repeat yourself. Try to make your key point
two or three times.
 22

How to
Introduce a Speaker

Introducing a speaker is one of those jobs that doesn't get much

attention — if it's done right. It's when it is done badly that everyone
notices.
An introduction is a minipresentation, with its own shape and
choreography, and as such contains most of the elements that by now
should be familiar. In fact, the only presentation elements that don't
come up are the Q & A and visuals.

Audience Profile

Like any presenter, to prepare a good introduction you need to

know the audience. Generally, you already do. If not, you need to
do enough of a profile to understand what about the speaker will
appeal to them. You are the connecting link between audience and
speaker.
224 Get to the Point

Your Message

Essentially, your bottom line message is, "Here's a great speaker."

Your selling points are details about his or her background, qualifi-
cations, current activities — whatever compelling information you
can gather to pull the audience in. Your call to action will be some-
thing like, "Please join me in giving a rousing welcome to So-and-
So."

The speaker's name should be the very last words out of

your mouth.

Here's why. First, it's your show only until you pronounce the name;
then the audience's attention goes instantly and directly to the
speaker. Once you no longer have an audi-
that transition occurs,
name as the cue
ence. Second, the speaker generally takes his or her
to get up and walk to the lectern. A premature introduction can
cause considerable confusion and embarrassment.
In addition, saving the speaker's name until last sometimes adds a
bit of suspense — a touch of showmanship that is actually not out of
place in an introduction. Why
showmanship? In one sense, as an
introducer you have a function similar to the warmup band at a rock
concert or the kickoff person at a political rally. You are there to
generate enthusiasm for what follows.

Beginning

To create enthusiasm you need to start with a high level of energy.

The first words out of your mouth tend to set the tone. Accordingly,
a good grabber is particularly important in introductions. Much of
what we said earlier about grabbers (see Chapter Five) applies here,
except that personal connections established should be between
speaker and audience. Humor is a good ingredient if it comes natu-
rally to you and is not inappropriate in terms of subject matter or
occasion. Current events often provide a meaningful tie-in.
How to Introduce a Speaker 225

Middle

The main body of the introduction consists of information about

the speaker (selHng points) that will whet the audience's appetite.
Social rules require us to be modest about ourselves in public, so
your job as an introducer is to be immodest on behalf of the speaker,
just as you would be about your company's product; hype his or her
accomplishments, credentials, and stature. Like any other presenter,
you're there to make a sale, to sell the speaker to the audience.

Selling Points

All too often, "introducers" limit their selling points to a thumb-

nail biography accompanied by a dry list of books and papers writ-
ten, titles and degrees earned, affiliations, and/or other credentials
that reveal very little about the person involved. The more you can
convey a sense of knowing the person, however, the better you moti-
vate the audience to do the same. This kind of connectedness comes
from mentioning personal involvements, current projects and activi-
ties, something about the contents of books or papers. In fact, an-

other device that often adds a touch of suspense is to foreshadow

some aspect of what the speaker is actually going to say. Find out
what the speaker is going to say and set up the talk without stealing
his or her thunder.

As with all selling points, try to illustrate facts about the speaker
and information about his or her work and accomplishments in dra-
matic terms. This means translating your points into words and
images the audience can relate to intuitively. Your linking task be-
comes much easier if you have an opportunity to talk with the
speaker beforehand, so take the time to get to know the speaker if

you can. you don't get a chance to speak about anything eke,
If

check the factual accuracy of all your information with the speaker
before the event. It is embarrassing to all when the speaker feels
compelled to correct academic or professional background informa-
tion.
226 Get to the Point

Ending
Once you've finished your remarks, deliver your call to action:
"Please join me in welcoming . .
." If applause is appropriate, lead
the applause. At this point, you have tsvo options. You can leave the
speaker's platform, which is often the simplest logistical choice, or
you can stay to physically welcome and "install" the speaker. If you
choose to stay, you will need to step back as the speaker nears the
lectern, to let him or her pass in front of you. Generally, you will
shake hands and "turn over" the lectern. Once he or she gets settled
in, you will probably get a word or two of thanks, which is your cue
to quickly exit.
As with any presentation, the more preparation and practice you
put in, the more successful the introduction will be.

Awards Choreography
If the occasion is an awards ceremony, the person performing the
introduction will generally be the one to physically present the
award. In some circumstances, especially where a number of
awards are being given, you may want to keep your remarks quite
brief. In other cases, especially where only one recipient is to be

honored, you will probably want to speak at greater length. When

you have concluded your remarks and announce the recipient's
name, you will step back, holding the award in your left hand,
shake hands with the recipient when he or she arrives, hand over the
award, and depart unobtrusively.

Quick Reference Summary

• Remember that you're the link between the speaker and the
audience.
• Find personal notes, relevant anecdotes, or a WIIFM (What's
In It For Me) message in addition to the standard listing of
honors and accomplishments.
• Save the speaker's name for last.
 23

Quick Points:
Presentation
on a Time Budget

#1 : The Instant Presentation

The setting: An elevator, at the water cooler, leaving the cafeteria,

at your desk.
The situation: A boss or peer stops you or phones you and demands
an on-the-spot opinion, evaluation, update, or progress report.
The need: A clear, concise, convincing thirty-second response.
The strategy: Listen, Think, Answer,

Step 1: Pause. That's right; pause. At all costs, resist the temp-
tation to engage your mouth and let it drive the brain.
Step 2: Think:
•
Who is this person? What's his or her relationship to me?
•
What is his or her concern or relationship to the issue
raised?
• What is the most succinct, bottom-line-oriented message I

can deliver in a relaxed, conversational manner?

228 Get to the Point

• Is there a specific fact or example that supports my mes-

sage?
Step 3: Answer. Deliver your statement with the most convic-
tion and confidence you can muster.
Step 4: Follow up and close. Don't be upset
if you can't answer

any follow-up questions that may be forthcoming. Try to an-

swer them, but don't let the impromptu encounter go on too
long. You can excuse yourself with a remark like, "I'm on my
way to an important meeting ."; "You've caught me in the
. .

middle of something that can't wait ."; or "I've got someone . .

sitting in my office . .
." Generally, it is prudent to offer to fulfill

the request at your earliest convenience: "When would you

need the rest of this information? I'll put it together for you . .
."

whenever.
The instant presentation occasionally turns into a longer con-
versation. But focus on the first thirty seconds. If the encounter
does run longer, try to develop a good closing line before you
break it off.

#2: The Two-Minute Talking IVIemo

It happens all the time in business: You've been asked to make a

presentation— sometimes couched as an "update" or a "status or
progress report" — in your boss's office or a at staff meeting in ten
minutes.
Here are guidelines that will enable you to pull off this assignment
with style.

Put this kind of a presentation together the way you typically read
a memo (as opposed to the way memos are usually written): Get
straight to the bottom line.
You do by determining and delivering the information that
this
this person or group really needs to know.
Here's the simple, four-step technique:

1 . Write your bottom-line message first. (This is the same as the

information this person or group really needs to know.) It

should consist of no more than two or three sentences.

Quick Points: Presentations on a Time Budget 229

2. Pull out two or three essential facts, or pieces of data that sup-
port your conclusion or bottom line. As you select your sup-
porting points, consider how they support the conclusion. Ask
yourself the questions: "So what?"; "Who cares?"; "What's the
significance of this fact or data?"
3. Write a strong opening for your two-minute talk. This opening
could be:
• A relevant anecdote or personal note.
• A prop that helps people visualize your point.
• The strongest possible bottom-line message.
Example: "If we increase production and authorize over-
time, we can reduce our two- week backorder problem."
This avoids the more standard (and boring) opening: "I
."
want to give you an update on our order situation. . .

4. Review your material. Make sure you can deliver the basic
message in two minutes or less. Anticipate any questions.

When you actually deliver your talking memo, the elements ap-
pear in the following order:

1. Opening
2. Bottom-line message, if different from the opening
3. Supporting points
4. Bottom line message— again— as conclusion message

#3: 'In-Flight' Presentation Writing

Here's a game plan for making the most of your time when you
have to prepare a presentation in a limited but not severely —
—
limited amount of time (for instance, on the flight from Kansas
City to Seattle). It is really an expansion of Quick Point #2, bridging
the gap between the real shorties and a full-fledged presentation,
adding the possibility of visuals, more and clearer selling points, and
more time for Q& A.
Tools required are an airplane (or other) seat, a note pad, and a
pen or pencil.

Audience profile. As in a full-length presentation, the first step is

taking stock of who will be there. If you know the people, visualize
230 Get to the Point

them. What is each person's role in the proceedings, each person's

personal concern? Who are hkely to be supporters of your position?
Who are hkely to be opponents? What are the personality types?
What "What's In It For Me" message can you formulate for each
person or position represented within the group you will be present-
ing to? Jot down this information on your pad.

Your roles and goals. Using your audience profile, make a quick
mental review of the stated reason for your appearance in this pre-
sentation setting. This should help you assess the basic expectations
of those you will be addressing. In other words, what's your role
here? Next, jot down a simple, clear statement of what your mess^^e
is in the presentation:
Consensus?
Data?
Ideas?
A Sale?

(The object of this segment of preparation is to make sure your mes-

sages are both audience- and speaker-centered.)

Gee whiz points. What new, startling, amusing, unusual, or

thought-provoking fact, statistic, or anecdote can you use to get the
attention of your listeners and/or dramatically illustrate your selling
points?

Problem-solution sheet. On one side of your page, quickly list all

the problems, challenges, or negative aspects of your subject that

occur to you. Don't worry about ordering or ranking them. Across
from the negative points, list all the solutions, recommendations, or
positive selling points that come to mind.

Identify your key issue. Look over your list of solutions and recom-
mendations and pick the one that best keys in to the WIIFM needs of
your audience. This is your key audience-centered issue. Your task is

now to link it firmly to your personal bottom-line message with one

or more strong bridges. This is the core of your presentation.
Quick Points: Presentations on a Time Budget 231

As with all bottom-line messages, you will state your positive

point at the outset. Then you will examine the problem or negative.
Finally, you will restate the solution or recommendation. (Tell 'em,
tell 'em, tell 'em.)

Plus/Minus Sheet. Using your problem-solution sheet as a guide,

make a real Plus/ Minus Worksheet, listing every possible negative
question or issue that might come up in the context of your talk, and
indicate bridges to positive information. Make sure you have a
bridge and a positive answer for every negative point on your sheet.
Study your Plus/Minus Worksheet and rehearse your bridges.

Look over your material and decide what points

Select visuals.
would make good visuals. (In this scenario, you need to think in
terms of flip chart visuals, since there is no time to create slides or
overhead transparencies.)

Notes. Make notes if you feel you will need them. Keep them con-
cise. List details and specifics, not general principles.

Run-through. you have an opportunity (in the cab ride from the
If

airport, for example), rehearse your talk out loud. Spend some—
time visualizing tough questions, and practice bridging from these
to your selling points.
 "A high proportion of adult Americans view the prospect
of speaking in pubhc quite literally as '<xfate worse than death.
Yet it is in direct, face-to-face presentations that we have the
best opportunity to get our message across ioget to the point.
"Presentation skills are vital to any person who ever has to
sell, persuade, motivate, infonii, or represent. The purpose

of Get to the Point is to teach those skills. If you read this book and
follow our program, it will reduce your presentation anxiety
to a manageable level (in fact, it may actually make the
experience almost enjoyable). But more to the point, it will make
you a betterpresenter.'^
— irom Get to the Point:
Hou' to Say What You Mean
and Get What You Want

Jacket design © 1988 One Plus One Studio printed in u.s.a.