With your move from in-person business meetings to on-camera platforms, your adjustment is similar to the adjustment that Broadway actors make when moving from stage work to working on camera for TV and film: how to be convincing in a very different medium.
You know, for example, that every actor and spokesperson on a TV commercial has to project the qualities that are needed to sell ideas, products, and services through a television screen. And these are the same qualities that YOU need to project during your on-camera platforms during this time of business disruption.
Now, as a business leader, you’re on TV! So you need to LOOK the part and SOUND the part.
During this time of business disruption and working remotely, one of the most critical factors for successful leadership is the use of emotional intelligence. On-camera meetings require much more EQ than IQ. And that means projecting qualities that Increase Trust On Camera: confidence, clarity, candor, empathy, and openness.
You probably excel at projecting these qualities in person, but how do you project these qualities when people are looking at your image on a computer screen or mobile device?
Now, more than ever, business leaders need to remember what actors have known for decades: the camera never lies! It picks up every subtle nuance of your being.
It’s important to understand that working on camera is an unnatural experience for two reasons: (1) It’s a small medium, visually; highly focused and concentrated, and (2) It robs us of the advantage of human, kinetic energy that’s so important during in-person communication.
On camera, we need to compensate for the fact that we’ve lost the KINETIC factor.
As a business leader, you’ll want to do everything possible to help your viewers feel your personal, positive, and compelling energy — while they’re looking at you on a small screen!
When you use PowerPoint, are you actually diminishing your image as an expert – or even helping your audiences tune you out? If your answer may be YES, you need PowerPoint Presentation Tips for real speaking power.
Today’s VideoBlog gives you the solutions: PowerPoint Presentation Tips, Part 3. In previous blogs, I presented Tips #1 through 6.
Tip #7: At any point in your presentation where you plan to move close to your audience for dramatic effect, help focus audience attention by placing a black slide in your deck.
Tip #8: When you want to focus attention on yourself for a longer period of time, allow the screen to go completely dark. Use the “B” key for this.
Tip #9: Always make your final slide an image slide: this image should illustrate the inspirational closing that you will speak.
Finally, Tip #10: I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Don’t make PowerPoint your higher power. Allow PowerPoint to support you, and not the other way around.
When you use these strategies with PowerPoint, you’ll project your own unique power. You’ll enhance your image as an expert and your listeners will quickly realize that they cannot afford to tune you out. You’ll have them on the edge of their seats!
Would you like to grab your business audience’s attention and keep them riveted to your presentations? Do what actors do: take stage! Inhabit the space with a “do or die” purpose and an attitude of complete belonging.
Your physical demeanor speaks volumes about you, and your business audience is sizing you up before you even say a word. Here are three basic strategies, to make your physical demeanor enhance your presence:
Whether you’re seated or standing, begin speaking with both feet planted firmly on the ground. Imagine that your legs are tree trunks and your feet are roots extending deep into the ground. This initial grounding helps you claim the space as your own and helps give weight to your subsequent movements. It helps you project confidence and authority.
If you’re standing, stand away from furniture and resist any temptation to lean for support. If someone offers you a podium, politely decline it, if you can. Whenever possible, you want to eliminate any physical barriers that could come between you and your audience. If you must use a podium, stand tall and don’t lean on it!
Whenever possible, give any handouts you may have after your presentation has ended, not before or during the presentation. When you give people material to read during your talk, you are inviting them to focus on a piece of paper and inviting them to ignore you. Giving your audience material to read also suggests the idea that they could just as effectively have read your content, and that they didn’t need to come hear you live and in person!
When you apply these strategies, you’ll be well on your way to taking stage; you will make your physical demeanor enhance your presence, and you will get buy-in faster.
Does your elevator speech project your interest in your prospects and their needs? Or does it project your interest in yourself?
During networking situations, your conversation partners may be wondering “What’s in this for me?” Here are three basic steps to help you focus on what your prospects care about most – which should become what you care about most!
Step 1:
Identify the benefits that your products and services have for your listeners and their organizations. It’s all about the benefits:
Increasing profits
Improving productivity
Reducing the cost of doing business
Enhancing their competitive edge
Mention the benefits that are of greatest interest to your listeners at that moment.
Step 2:
Edit your content to be as concise as possible – 30 seconds is a good length. One way to hook listeners is to identify a problem that you can solve: a problem that makes them think, “I have that problem, too, and I really want a solution!”
Step 3:
Use phrases that help you sound authentic and conversational: language that is “mouth and ear friendly”: easy for you to speak and easy for your listeners to hear and repeat. Your elevator speech should be memorable.
To summarize:
Focus on the benefits that your listeners care about most
Mention a problem that you can solve: one that they want solved!
Make it conversational, brief, and easy for listeners to repeat
Create an elevator speech that demonstrates your ability to address the needs of your prospects, and they will be interested!
Would you like your clients and prospects to believe that you will be a true business partner for them? You can help make this happen by sharpening your active listening skills. Active listening helps you project a spirit of good will and project your most positive, professional image.
Very often, it’s wise to listen as your conversation partners express themselves fully, before you present your own thoughts, opinions, and perceptions. People are more likely to agree when they feel that they themselves have been heard!
Here are three steps that will help you listen actively:
Step 1: Blend
Blending is any behavior that helps reduce the differences between you and your conversation partners. The goal is to increase rapport. As we speak, listeners are often subconsciously wondering “Are you with me, or against me?” — so building rapport is very important. Blending will help you do it. This means that you will mirror – and not mimic – your conversation partner’s tone, pacing, volume, facial expressions and posture. Give receptive signals: “Oh, yes, I see, I understand”, and use a lot of head nodding.
Step 2: Backtrack
The goal of backtracking is to show that you are listening and want to understand. When you backtrack, you repeat verbatim your conversation partner’s words. It is important not to paraphrase; use the exact words. This is particularly useful during business conversations on the phone.
Step 3: Clarify
Ask clarifying questions. Your goal is to gather as much information as possible and delay giving your own responses. Clarifying questions begin with the words “why”, “how”, and “tell me about…” There are three main benefits to backtracking: it shows that you are patient and supportive, it helps an unreasonable conversation partner behave more reasonably, and it helps reveal any hidden agendas that your conversation partners may have.
These three steps for active listening will help you project a spirit of good will and caring. Next time, I will share the final two steps to help you listen actively and make it easier for your clients and prospects to believe that you’ll be a true business partner for them!
When you’re in the middle of a challenging business conversation, and you’re certain that your tone of voice has been “above reproach”, what else can you do to increase harmony?
I recently talked with you about the importance of monitoring your tone of voice to increase harmony in challenging conversations. Here are three more strategies to help guarantee your success:
#1: Give positive reinforcement.
We often need to continue having business conversations with people whom we have already experienced to be difficult. Be on the lookout for their positive behavior, and acknowledge it verbally. Whenever you witness behavior that you would like to see repeated, you can say something like, “That’s one of the things I admire about you: your ability to ___”. Identify the positive behavior; praise it.
#2: Interrupt people tactfully when they are shouting, dominating a conversation or meeting, or complaining with increasing negativity.
Calmly repeat the person’s name over and over again. When the person stops speaking, state or restate your own intention in the conversation.
#3: Respond to criticism strategically.
Thank people when they criticize you. When we defend ourselves, it often appears to be an admission of guilt. Instead, you can say something like, “Thank you for telling me how you feel”, or “Thank you for being honest”, or just “Thank you.” “Thank you” is a complete sentence!
When you monitor your communication in these three ways, you’ll help bring out the best in people, increase harmony, and set the stage for greater success in challenging business conversations.
Here is a strategy that will help you deepen trust and rapport with your business conversation partners: acknowledge positive intent.
Positive intent is the good purpose meant to be served by any communication or behavior. Always look for positive intent within others; give people the benefit of the doubt in situations that are difficult or have not turned out well, and especially when your conversation partners have caused a problem.
Take the following three steps:
Look for things to thank people for.
Verbally express appreciation for things that people have done well.
Acknowledge any information that people may have lacked, and promise to keep them better informed in the future, even if it’s not your job to do so.
Then say: “Thank you for (xyz)”. This is the point when you will mention the person’s positive intent. For example, if a person has been excessive in some way or overly-detailed, or has made errors, you might first say something like, “Thank you for your attention to detail.”
In some situations, unfortunately, it may be challenging to identify someone’s positive intent! If you truly cannot identify positive intent, make something up that is plausible. When you mention a positive intent that is plausible, it’s very unlikely that your conversation partners will deny that this was their intent. Most people want to be seen in the best light and appreciate the opportunity to save face.
In the moment when you’re identifying positive intent, blend. Blending is any communication or behavior that minimizes the differences between you and another person. This means that you will mirror (and not mimic) your conversation partner’s tone, tempo, volume, energy level, and body language. Give receptive signals, such as “oh, yes, I see, I understand, etc., and use lots of head nodding.
Verbally acknowledging positive intent will help you build trust and rapport and increase your success in business conversations.
In my last few blogs, I have described the value of applying acting objectives when you prepare to speak for business. Here are some additional benefits that you will experience when you use this technique. Pursuing acting objectives
#1: gives you laser-beam focus and simplifies the process, because it gives you just one thing to think about: what you are doing with your words as you speak
#2: galvanizes your energy toward your listeners; it’s the quickest and most powerful way to project energy, commitment, passion, and poise.
#3: provides a completely organic way to make your voice and physical demeanor support your content. It turns your voice, body language, and content into one seamless, unified message.
When you are speaking in business conversation or making a presentation, this gives you maximum power and delivers to your listeners maximum impact.
Whenever you speak/present in business, it’s very important to keep your focus on your listeners: on what you ultimately want them to feel or do. Nervousness (which is a focus on self) and a preoccupation with word choice or howyou are coming across can jeopardize your power to influence.
Listeners care about one thing: “What’s in this for me?” This is why speakers must always project a “you focus” and why rehearsing in front of a mirror is so dangerous: it trains you to focus on yourself and on how you look (which is often detected by the audience and can project either arrogance or anxiety).
In my blogs, I have presented a theater technique that helps business speakers focus the mind on listeners; the technique is the pursuit of what actors call “acting objectives”. “Acting objectives” are separate from the types of objectives that should be obvious from your content and which you might even articulate to your listeners. Instead, “acting objectives” have one purpose: they are designed to propel your energy toward your listeners and project a “you focus”.
Once you have chosen powerful acting objectives for each “beat” (see my previous blog about “beats”), keep your acting objectives private: they should be your secrets. Have you ever noticed that your secrets hold great power for you? For speakers, this is helpful; we want our acting objectives to hold power over our demeanor; we want them to give us an audience-focused delivery style.
Rehearse the way actors do: rehearse aloud, rehearse often, and rehearse at top energy. As you speak the words of each beat, focus on the underlying acting objective. Your energy and commitment in this pursuit are key. As you speak the words of each beat
Focus on the acting objective (what you want the listeners to do or feel), rather than on the exact words you are speaking
Keep the acting objective at the forefront of your mind
Pursue the acting objective with complete commitment: as if your life depended on it
Finally, always be sure that your demeanor communicates, “My message is important for you, so I love being here with you.”
Pursue “acting objectives” to focus your mind where it belongs: on your business listeners — to engage them fully and increase your power to influence.
Would you like your business listeners to trust you more? Would your business improve if you could convince prospects that you will be a true business partner for them? Would you like to generate more new business and keep more the business you already have?
If you’re answer is YES, you won’t want to miss my exciting program called “Enhance Your Leadership Presence with Acting Improvisation.” You’ll learn how to enhance your leadership presence by using acting improvisation, storytelling techniques, and the “yes and” mindset to transform your communication skills. You’ll learn how to generate business by deepening interpersonal connections, speaking with authenticity, building trust, and engaging your listeners. And you’ll learn how to address the changing needs of your existing clients by expanding your creativity and spontaneity.
I describe this work as “serious fun”. You’ll be engaged in playful, interactive activities: acting improvisation, theater and imagination games, and mind, body, and voice techniques that will help you project a spirit of collaboration and convince your prospects that you can (and will) help them solve their business problems.
Let me tell you how acting improvisation will enhance your leadership presence:
#1: Whenever you speak for business, your listeners have one over-riding concern: they want to know what’s in it for them. Acting improvisation addresses this concern. Early in their training, actors learn that the audience is always asking the question, “Why are you telling me this?” Acting improvisation teaches that you must answer this question, and answer it in a way that is compelling for your listeners. This is a skill that every business leader needs! If you’re not answering this question in a way that is compelling for your listeners, you’re losing business.
#2: To generate new business and keep the business you already have, you need to engage your listeners. Acting improvisation teaches what a message is made of, what needs to happen; it teaches you how to discern when the beginning should be over, when your listeners have had enough of the middle, when it’s time to move on to the ending, and how long that should last, etc. Leaders who use this knowledge and the timing that it develops become truly engaging: become masters of engagement. And they have a measurable competitive edge!
You, too, can become a master of engagement. Acting improvisation will teach you how! Don’t miss the opportunity to experience this innovative program: you’ll take away powerful techniques to transform your leadership presence.
Discover how play will enhance the way you work. And get ready for some serious fun! I look forward to working with you.
