Presentation Skills with Peter Danish: 2BB 046

Broadcasting from the Polish Tea Room just off Broadway.

Show Notes

In this episode the 2 Boomer Broads interview Peter Danish, who is a media marketing strategist, author, Emmy Award winner, classical music critic and playwright. Peter worked as an Senior Media Marketing Executive at NBC for many years and is the author of the book, “I’ll Give You Exactly Five Minutes.” It’s a professional guide to the O.R.S.O.N. system of presentation skills. Peter says he was a lifer in the TV industry working ever since he was out of college.

About 10 years ago, he decided on a lark to take 2 weeks off and to go to Bosnia. A friend of his in Nyack, NY, where he lives, mentioned that she was going with a group called the Fellowship of Reconciliation. (similar to Amnesty International)  He was burning out at NBC and on the verge of a nervous breakdown from working too much.

His family was originally from Dubrovnik, Croatia. Peter says that Croatia is stunning if you ever want to visit. Game of Thrones is filmed there.

Peter’s boss was upset that he was taking off for 2 weeks because the network was in the middle of the Upfront. That’s when television network executives wine and dine advertisers and press and take them to shows. Right after the Upfront, Peter took off for 2 weeks to Bosnia where he worked in an orphanage.

It was a life changing experience.

It was several years after the war in Bosnia but the children at the orphanage had been abandoned, were victims of rape and incest and were victims of other sad situations. The first day he was there he couldn’t stop crying.

The supervisor at the orphanage made it clear that Peter was not to drop a single tear while he was there. She said the kids didn’t need tears, they needed strength. On the day he left, he was distraught that none of the kids came down to say goodbye. The interpreter said it was harder for the kids than it was for him. They didn’t want the kids to be in the situation where someone says they’ll come back but they never do.

Peter ran up the stairs and told the kids he was going to come back leaving the staff infuriated. He made a promised to return and ended up coming back 8 more times.

When Peter returned to work he was aglow. He started to tell his boss about the trip. His boss didn’t want to hear about it and berated Peter for going. He said that his work was piled high and to never ask for 2 weeks off again. Peter walked into his office and made the decision to quit working there. He went home and booked his trip back to Bosnia.

After that he worked as a freelancer. He found that all the people he’d worked with, after 25 years of writing speeches and sales presentations, wanted Peter to keep writing for them.  He ended up working for all the networks including many of the cable networks.

5 years ago a mentor of Peter’s, who was the general manager and head of sales at the Telemundo Network encouraged him to write down his formula for creating presentations. Peter studied the speeches he had worked on with clients and boiled down the components of what made them successful. Many of his clients complained that they had a hard time remembering what they were supposed to say. This inspired Peter to come up with his O.R.S.O.N. System. Overview – Research – Solution – Opportunity – Next Steps.

The logic is that you don’t need notes. Don’t read prepared speeches. If you remember the word O.R.S.O.N., you will never lose your place in your speech again.