What it means. Why it matters. How to excel at it. Nick Smallman at Working Voices explains
Winning the business, making your case, building relationships, instilling confidence, handling difficult people – they’re all jobs where, consciously or not, you’re reaching out for your face-to-face pitching and presenting skills. You’re reaching out for the skills that give you the Personal Impact necessary to get other people buying into what you’re selling.
To most of us the word ‘pitching’ in this context is entirely sales related and means promoting or plugging a service or product. No question, it certainly does mean that.
To most of us the word ‘presenting’ means little more than standing up before colleagues and delivering a PowerPoint slideshow. No question, it certainly does mean that. What I’m talking about here, though, are wider definitions. Where pitch- ing is concerned, I’m talking about creating:
i) interest in your message;
ii) understanding of your message; and iii) action as a result of your message.
And where presenting is concerned, I’m talking about the way you deliver and explain that message.
I have to start from the premise that you don’t talk rubbish (ie your content is worth listening to) and that you don’t sell rubbish either (ie your product, service, idea or argument is worth knowing about), my point being that presentation can only achieve so much. But assuming we’re past that hurdle, here are five introductory pointers to successful pitching and presenting.
1. Being emotionally prepared: focused not fazed
This is about getting into the zone – the focus zone – when you’re preparing for your pitching or presenting task. And it’s about knowing how the instincts that have saved our skins for a thousand generations will help us perform that task superbly –the instincts of fight or flight. On the downside, they’re the instincts that give you sweaty palms and rapid, shallow breathing. On the upside, they’re the ones that get your adrenaline pumping and make you super-alert. Either way you can control them.
ᔡ Relax, don’t stiffen; visualize success not failure; display confidence not doubt;
exhibit energy not inertia. Believe in your message.
It’s not as quirky as it might sound. It’s what every sportsman and woman does before the big event. What every successful public speaker does as he or she steps up to the rostrum. It’s called focus and it’s the way to make yourself emotionally prepared.
2. Getting connected: create interest; work the room
None of us likes to feel left out. All of us want to feel we matter. All of us want our interest to be stimulated.
People will pay real attention to what you’re saying if they’re includedin the ‘discus- sion’, and are interestedin it. So it’s important to know and concentrate on the ways to get the audience involved, the ways to create interest, the ways to reach out to your audience, the ways to create empathy:
ᔡ Bring the audience in right from the start by asking THEM questions (real or rhetorical).
ᔡ Make lots of eye contact with your audience. An audience’s attention tends to wander less if they know you’ll notice. One simple strategy is to notionally divide the audience-area into sections and then give regular but random ‘eye’ attention to each section.
ᔡ Help them understand how your message can relate to their own lives – the ways it can make a difference – for the better – to their everyday existence. Or, perhaps, the sorts of situations in which your message can be used – the ‘When’, ‘How’ and
‘Where’ that your message could have practical implications for them as individu- als.
ᔡ Make them understand the impact of not buying the message you’re selling. For example, if you’re telling your audience about the importance of reliable widgets, explain the consequences of buying and using unreliable widgets – best of all, using illustrations you can share. It’s a fact that negative outcomes often create interest. People naturally want to avoid them.
3. Sounding right: commitment, dynamism, credibility
Your voice is a tremendous weapon in the presentational armoury. Think about it. It offers you so many dials to adjust. Volume, variety, speed, pitch, clarity, pauses.
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They’re all there to be used. And, used with the right balance, they tell the audience what’s important, say where your emotional intention lies, create atmosphere and make your meaning clear.
Know your subject and resist the temptation to read. Reading a short burst of something technical requiring exact terminology is one thing. Reading a whole pres- entation is quite another. There is no better way to sound monotonous and put your audience into a coma. Also, use these techniques:
ᔡ Use your full tonal range – but use it appropriately. Introducing vocal variety for no good reason, or in the wrong places, just for the sake of it, absolutely is NOT what I mean. A flowing, musical way of speaking absolutely is. Listen to the cadences of Barack Obama’s speaking voice and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.
ᔡ Keywords. Emphasize the words that are vital to comprehension. Tony Blair is a good exponent of the emphasized word and phrase.
ᔡ Speak clearly and DON’T mumble. Speaking softly and talking slowly are cardinal sins.
ᔡ Use plain language. Language your audience will understand. Un-elaborate, specific, jargon-free.
4. Looking the part: from head to toe
We’re talking here about body language and the word to remember is one you’ve possibly never heard before and probably never used: congruence.
Put at its simplest, it means harmony and, in the context we’re talking about, it means harmony between your words and your body language – everything conveying the same message.
Open and interesting body language is a big subject but I’ll confine what I have to say to a few core points about the face, hands and feet:
ᔡ Your message matters. It matters that it works. Don’t be animated vocally but stiff physically. Let your face be expressive. Let your hands rest comfortably (and natu- rally) by your sides when you’re not using them to emphasize a point – and let them be ‘soft’ when you are.
ᔡ By a face that’s ‘expressive’ I don’t mean one that belongs in a gurning competi- tion. One that’s mobile and which pleasantly conveys the way you feel about your subject will do just fine. And by hands that are ‘soft’ I don’t mean you should adopt one of those feeble handshakes we all dislike. I mean the sort of soft hand movements you’ll see used typically by accomplished communicators like Bill Clinton or, again, Barack Obama. Notice how their hand movements are deliber- ate yet smooth and fluid, not stabbing, jerky or ‘out of sync’.
ᔡ Which leaves the feet. If you’re interested in just one tip, it’s this. Always point your feet in the direction of the people you’re talking to. Sound’s obvious but it’s a discipline that amounts to much more than showing off your footwear. Think of it for a moment. You’re sitting in a meeting. Point your feet towards the people ᔡ 78 GAININGMARKETSHARE ____________________________________________
you’re speaking to and, by definition, you’re facing your audience and paying them the compliment of speaking directly to them and giving them your attention – a big first step to getting on their good side.
5. Practising = succeeding: practise, practise, practise
By now, just about everyone knows that Gary Player one-liner that goes ‘The more I practise, the luckier I get’.
Where your presenting and pitching skills are concerned, you have to practise the techniques. There’s no doubt that the techniques come very naturally to some – I’ve mentioned a few in the celebrity category who fit the description – but that isn’t how it works for most of us. Most of us have to work at it.
Practising on your own in the comfort of your living room is just fine provided you understand what you’re doing and don’t simply spend your time reinforcing bad habits. That said, though, practising under the guidance of a professional pitching and presentation coach is vastly better. We live in the Communication Age; an age when the impression we create often matters every bit as much as what we’re saying; when possessing a personal brand noted for presentational competence is what can sell you when you’re measured against the competition.
So practise!
If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve all addressed meetings, made pitches and delivered presentations where we’ve thought afterwards we could have made a much better job of it. My point in this piece has been to show you that it doesn’t have to be that way. The secret lies in the things I’ve talked about here which, put another way, amount to getting your mindset right, your voice right and your body language right.
It’s all you have to do. It’s easy. It’s common sense. And it works.
Nick Smallman is managing director of the London-based training company, Working Voices Ltd.
Established in 1998 and specialists in communication and presentation skills, Working Voices coaches on four continents for some of the world’s best-known corporate names.
You can find out more at www.workingvoices.com (0800 389 2639).
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