The Presentations Japan Series

Bailed Out By The Brand

My eyes are closing. I am struggling to stay awake. There is something about this presentation that is not working. I thought, it must be me. I must be tired. Later however I realized the problem. I was being lulled into sleep by the monotone delivery of the presenter. Now there was no excuse for this because the language was English. We know that Japanese is a monotone language, so you can sort of understand that this is going to lull you to sleep, unless the presenter is on their game.

The brand by the way is gorgeous. This is seriously high profile, a name that everyone knows and respects. The name alone triggers images that are all first class. The slides and videos he presented were all quality. These people have money and they know about marketing very high end products. They have been doing it for a very long time and they do it globally.

Our speaker had all of this powerful support going for him, yet the actual presentation was sleep inducing. Why was that? The brand is a passion brand, but there was no passion. The brand is a great story, but the storytelling was minimal. The delivery was wooden. Measured, but wooden. The person delivering it comes from a culture that is exuberant, intense, enthusiastic. He showed little of these traits.

Fortunately, despite his lifeless delivery, the brand is so powerful it can survive his attempt to murder it. But what a wasted opportunity. It is not as if this brand doesn't have competitors. There are many and they are also high quality, high status, expensive, exclusive, well healed. He needed to stand out amongst a very crowded field, infecting that audience that evening with his passion and belief in the brand. He is their guy in Japan, so that is his job, every time, everywhere.

It was a good audience too. These are people who appreciate a good brand, who are influencers, who can spread the message. No one will bother though because they were not receiving any energy from this talk. This is the danger when we have a strong brand supporting us. We can become complacent. We imagine we don't have to do much because the brand sells itself. The marketing department's glossy photos and slick videos are enough.

Not true. Brands are being recreated every single day. When the product is consumed that is a brand defining moment. If the brand promise is not delivered when the product or service is consumed, then the brand is that much lessened. If this continues, then the brand will disappear, vanquished by its competitors. The brand doesn't have to be consumed to define the brand though. We as representatives of the brand, are influencing the quality perception of the brand every time we present. If we give a really average performance then the audience will start to doubt the quality claims of the marketing department about this brand. Never forget, we judge the entire organisation on you and how you come across.

If our man in Japan had given a high energy presentation, extolling the virtues of the brand, that would have been consistent with the positioning of the brand. If you are representing a funeral home however, that would not be appropriate. So obviously we need to be congruent. This brand case though would be a great platform for enthusiastic storytelling and verbal passion for the brand. Where were the gripping stories of high drama and intrigue, as they duked it out with their competitors across the globe and over the decades? Where were the human dimension stories of the customers who were famous and fans. This is a glamour business and yet there was little glamour presented in his talk. The styling is seriously beautiful, but we heard nothing about the design team. We got no insider account of some of the legendary tales from the past. It was flat.

There was little or nor energy being transmitted to the audience. When we speak we have to radiate that energy to the listeners. We need to invigorate them. We do this through our voice and our body language. It is an inside out process, where the internal belief is so powerful it explodes out to the audience. They see we are convinced, we are believers and they become believers too.

It is interesting that we have a client company we do training for and the external image of the brand is over the top. Yet the people who work there are very muted, very low key. The contrast is quite jarring because it goes against what we would expect. This means that if we are representing a dynamic brand we had better be dynamic. Our speaker was not dynamic at all. He put me to sleep. No brand consistency on his part and that is just not allowed.

Let's raise our energy levels up when promoting our company in a public presentation. Make sure our voice is using all the range of highs and lows to get full tonal variety. No monotone delivery please. We need to punch out hard certain key words and phrases, like the crescendos in classical music. We need our body language to be backing this up, our gestures in sync with what we are saying. We need to lift the energy of the audience through our personal power. None of this happened that evening and the brand will survive, but the brand elevation opportunity was totally missed. If he keeps doing this, over time, it will be to the brand's detriment. I wonder if the leaders of his organisation have a clue about any of this?

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Crazy Things Smart People Say

Education can be a barrier to intelligence sometimes. This is often the case with people educated in very hard skill disciplines. They are asked to absorb vast amounts of complex information and to follow strict procedural structures. The rote learning aspect becomes paramount. This is fine and will get you graduated out of varsity and into the real world. With so much invested in technical knowledge other skill sets are not fully appreciated enough.

Soft skills, such as communication, are not highly valued. The thinking is that this is rather fluffy stuff. Serious people are knowledgeable about deep technical subjects and how they transmit that knowledge isn't all that important. The quality of the data or the advice is considered to the key thing, not the delivery. Anyway the delivery bit smacks of conmen, carnival barkers and dodgy sales types who talked you into buying that timeshare you never use while you were on holiday.

I was reminded of this recently when talking with a very highly skilled technical person. I have actually seen this person present and he has vast amounts of data at his ready command. He is steady, reliable and a bit dull. Normally being a bit dull mightn't be a problem, except in his profession the competition for advice is fierce. Gathering potential clients together and giving them a snapshot into how brainy you are is a great prospecting tool in his profession. You would think that intelligent people would be able to work out that the delivery of all that brainpower was a competitive edge. An edge that needs to be really finely honed and maintained.

In the course of our conversation I was suggesting that he could do some presentation training and this would help him stand tall amongst the weeds. There was a need but only a low recognition of the advantage that this would give him relative to others, who also claim they have big brains as well. This is a common blindspot for technical professionals. They confuse having the knowledge and big brains with being automatically awarded the business by clients.

Today, across all industries, buyers are much better educated and informed. They have access to global information, at a speed unimagined in decades part. "We will gather our big brains together and they will come" did work for the longest time but not anymore. All professionals have to be highly knowledgeable and persuasive. The persuasive part requirement hasn't been universally grasped by the technical experts as yet.

Our reluctant hero asked me what the presentation training would cost and then proceeded to tell me it was too expensive. This was shocking to me. His profession has no hesitation in charging vast sums to clients because they see the cost through the prism of the value they provide. The actual amount of money was a peanut, in fact, yet he was reluctant to invest in himself to become a dominant player. I am sure if there had been a global conference on his key subject matter, he would have jetted off without hesitation and spent a considerably larger sum to attend the event.

I was shocked not because of the money involved, but because of his inability to grab the chance to become well recognized as THE expert in his field. Participants leave his current presentations lukewarm. They are not salivating at the prospect of working with him. They are not highly motivated to sign him up as their advisor. They are still guarded and unsure. He could switch that whole thing around easily by investing in himself to extend his abilities.

Are you like this too? Are you in denial about the reality, that in this better informed world stocked with your competitors, you need all aspects of your skill set working for you? Brains, experience and the ability to communicate to potential clients that you have both are fundamental to the new order of business.

You have built it, but we won't come because we are going to the other guy who invested in himself and became a fully rounded professional. That "expensive" peanut is costing my friend and others like him a lot of money but they haven't worked it out yet. Don't be like them. Invest in yourself and learn how to work every audience into a passionate belief that they need you and your services right now.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

How To Captivate Your Audience

We can speak to a group and then there is another level, where we try to captivate our audience. What makes the difference. The content could even be the same but in the hands of one person it is dry and delivered in a boring manner. Someone else can take the same basic materials and really bring it to life. We see this with music. The same lyrics, but with a different arrangement and something magical happens. This new version becomes a smash hit. Speeches are similar. A boring rendition is given a make over and suddenly has the audience enthralled. I am sure we would all vote for the enthralling version, so how to do we do that?

The quality of the argument we are going to present is important. We definitely need to design two powerful closes, one for the end of the speech and an extra one for after the Q&A. Importantly, we start from this point when designing the talk. We work out what is the most compelling message we want to leave with our audience and we start working backwards structuring the speech from here. Once we know what we what to say, we need to be gathering evidence to back up that assertion. We have to remember that statements are easy to make, but the listener needs convincing. We now do a rough sketch of the key points and the supporting evidence.

In a thirty minute speech, there won't be so much time, so we might get through three or four of these key points and that is it. Now we make sure that the evidence is super strong, offering really compelling proof, to build credibility for our argument.

Next we work on a blockbuster opening. This has to compete with all the things running through the minds of our audience. The things they were doing before they got to the venue, the things they have to do after this speech. The hand held device is a modern day siren call, diverting their attention away from us, as they check email and social media. We have to smash through all that obstruction and clear a path so that they will hear our message. The first words out of our mouth had better be compelling or we will lose the battle for today's minute attention spans. We need to carefully design what that will be.

We want our visuals on screen to be clear and comprehendible within two seconds. If it is taking the viewer longer than that, then they are too dense. Let's keep the colours to an absolute maximum of three. Photos are great with maybe just one word of text added. This intrigues our audience to hear more. We can then talk to the point we want to make. If we use graphs, we should have only one per screen wherever possible. If we are going to use video, it had better be really, really hot and the transition from slide deck to video, back to slide deck has to be seamless.

Every five minutes we need to be switching the energy levels right up, to keep our audience going with us. This is key. Classical music has its lulls and crescendos and so should we. Naturally, we have tonal variety right throughout the talk, but we need to be hitting some key messages very hard, around that five minute interval. This needs to be combined with some powerful visuals on screen to drive home the point. This is not delivered by chance, good fortune or accident. We need to plan for this and structure the presentation so that this brings all the vocal and visual elements together at the same time, in a powerful, impressive way.

We are meticulously sprinkling stories throughout the speech to highlight the evidence we want to provide for our key points. Data by itself is fundamentally dull, but stories fleshing out the data are so much more scintillating. These should be full of stimulation for forming mental pictures in the minds of our audience. We sketch out physical locations, describe colours, talk about the season, mix in people they may know, explain the why of what is in the story. In this way we want our listeners to see the scene in their own mind as we explain the point of the story. It is a bit like reading a novel, after having seen the movie. As you read it, you can mentally imagine the scenes you saw previously on screen. This is the effect we are going for.

Our final close after the Q&A has to go out with a bang and not a whimper. We want a strong call to action. The final vocal delivery must finish on a rising upswing. Don't let that very last sentence peter out at the end. Remember, we want to muster the audience to our cause. We want them to leave dyed in the wool supporters. We want them getting a tattoo with our name on it. Okay, I was getting a bit carried away there. That is probably too much, but you get the idea.

We need great structure, evidence, visuals, stories, pacing, energy, passion and belief in our presentation. The delivery is going to rock because we make it rock through rehearsal after rehearsal, until we have refined the whole thing into a symphonic triumph. That is how we need to be thinking to captivate our audience when we start constructing the talk. Begin with captivation in mind.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

The Danger Of Longevity

Sometimes you see a confident presenter really bomb. It doesn't happen all that often, but when it does, the contrast is vast. If they are totally hopeless and they bomb, well that is understandable. But a competent presenter bombing shouldn't occur. It did and I was wondering why that happened? Where did our speaker go wrong?

Comedians have this same problem – no one laughs at their jokes and there is not much camouflage for them to hide behind, when all they have is a microphone stand on a stage. Being in the limelight, at the podium, on stage, up on the dais is a pressure location. When you are revealed to everyone as a flop all your desperate attempts to refloat the Titanic, make the whole thing seem even more preposterous and pathetic.

In this case, there wasn't even a good recognition that things were rapidly going south. It was only at the end, when it was too late to do anything about it, that the speaker realised he had bombed completely. The tepid applause reaction was a give away. The lack of questions a more immediate one. The whole apparatus of the talk collapsed in on itself, under the weight of its own ineptitude.

The issues were a misreading of the audience and an arrogance. The audience had been lured to the venue with bold promises of goodness and light. The content wasn't good enough to back up the advertising and the audience spotted the gap straight away. They were there for answers. There weren't any and they knew it.

The arrogance was an assumption about the speaker's credibility being sufficient to justify the content of the presentation. When we emphasise the years in business, we are aiming for increased credibility, linked back to our stupendous track record. We have stood the test of time etc. Our speaker had not properly prepared the presentation. He gave it a "once over lightly" treatment, because of his supreme confidence in his ability to deliver the talk. He was a good speaker and a competent presenter. He thought his track record stood for itself. The only problem was the content of the talk was rubbish.

We tread a fine line with the longevity thing. Track record, sustained over many, many years is a credible thing for the audience. The only concerns are that the whole affair may be perceived as dated. We are always being fed the new and greatest, latest best thing. Business fad books come and come and come. The old ones are taken out the back and quietly disappeared. When we talk about the good old days we like it because we were there, but the audience only cares about what is the relevance for them. We have to be skilled to make it fresh, new and connected to their current business reality.

Our speaker failed in that regard. I said arrogance and this is the bit that hurts. Our pride in our track record can make us blind to the fact that people don't really care all that much. We like strolling down memory lane, but so what. We arrogantly assume that what we did was important. Wrong. Where is the link to the audience's current problem right now? We have to keep building that connection. The successes of the past help us to prepare for the future. The failures of the past, help us to prepare for the future.

This is the skillset needed in a speech presentation. Getting the audience need properly understood, suspending what we like to talk about and instead focusing on what the audience is keen to know about is our task. If we fail to get that balance right, we can come across as dated. This is what happened to our speaker. He delivered a brilliant rendition of his past glories and achievements, without effectively connecting to the audience's concerns of today.

I am getting older too, so I took copious notes from this speech on what not to do, if I am ever tempted to talk at length about my good old days. I think we all should avoid that temptation too.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Job Well Done

When you see someone do a very good presentation, your faith in humanity is restored. There are so many poor examples of people killing their personal and professional brands with poor public speaking skills, it is refreshing to see talks done well. It is not that hard really, if you know what you are doing and if you rehearse and practice. This is where the majority of lousy speakers trip up. They don't rehearse or practice, they just unload on the poor unsuspecting audience. Here is a hint. Never practice on your audience!

The global CEO of a major pharma company jetted into town recently and spoke at a chamber of commerce event. The presentation was well structured and flowed in a way that was easy to follow. The slides were professional and clear. He spoke fluently, wasn't reading from any script and instead was talking about the key points up on screen. When we got to Q&A, he repeated the question, so that everyone could hear it and then answered it. He did that while addressing the entire audience, rather than just speaking to the inquirer. When he did not have the information referred to in a question, he admitted it straight up, without trying to fudge it. This builds trust and credibility.

I doubt he did any rehearsal for that audience, because it was a stump speech he has given so many times he was entirely comfortable with the content. Could he have done better? Yes, he could have added more stories into the presentation. A few vignettes from the exciting world of white lab coats, where they were developing new medicines to save humanity, would have been good. He could have delivered it with a bit more passion. It was professional, but it came across as a stump speech. He was supremely comfortable delivering it and that is one issue we have to be alert to. When we are too comfortable, we can sometimes put ourselves on cruise control. We should keep upping the ante each occasion to try and see how much further we can push ourselves.

Another function was an industry awards event and the main VIP guest made some remarks before announcing the winners. Humour is very, very hard to get right. When you see it done well, you are impressed. You need to have material that is funny for a start. Then you have to be able to deliver it so that people laugh. This sounds easy, but as professional comedians know, the timing of the delivery is key. So are the pauses and the weighting of certain key words. It has to be delivered fluently, so no ums and ahs, no hesitations, no mangling of words. Getting the facial expressions to match what is being said is also tricky.

Our humorous speaker was delivering some lines that he had used a number of times before, so he knew his material worked. It is always good when big shots are self depreciating. We can more easily identify with them when they don't come across as taking themselves too seriously. "I am good and I know it", doesn't work so well.

Where do we acquire this humorous material? We steal it. Our speaker had probably heard those jokes somewhere else before and just topped and tailed them for this event. He made them sound personal, as if they had really happened to him. This is important in order to build a connection with the punters in the audience. So, when you attend an event and you hear someone make a good joke or tell a humorous story, don't just laugh. Write it down and start using it yourself. The secret though is to practice that humourous telling on small audiences, to test you have it just right. The cadence is important and that takes practice. I would guess our speaker had told those jokes many times before. It is fresh for us, but for him it was well within his range of capability. This is what comedians do. They introduce new material in small venues, filter out what doesn't work and then they bring it to the big stage. We should do the same.

Another place where we can find humour is in what we say that makes an audience laugh. When I returned to Japan in 1992, I was called upon to do a lot of public speaking in Japanese. I began with constructing what I thought was humour. This was a pretty bold step because I had no track record in being funny in English, let alone in Japanese. These jokes of my own creation all completely bombed. However, I would say something not meaning to be funny and the Japanese audience would laugh. I took note of that reaction and realised that was a joke. I would incorporate that into my other talks. Over a long period of time and a lot of speeches, I built up a stock of these humorous sprinklings of pixy dust that worked.

It was refreshing to see two competent speakers in action recently and it is certainly a skill that all of us can improve in. There are some simple basics of speaking we need to concentrate on - prepare, rehearse, learn – repeat!

Pink Elephant Your Way To Influence

Don't think of a pink elephant. Did you think of one when you read that sentence? It shows how easily we can we swayed by images. If I had said don't think of the letters p-i-n-k-e-l-e-p-h-a-n-t, you would have been fabulously successful. What is the difference – both refer to the same prohibition? We are very much susceptible to images, yet we rarely use this facility when we are trying to have influence with those around us.

We think that force of will, desire, status, oratory, personal power, connections or wealth is how we can have influence with others. In various circumstances, some of these will work, but most are out of reach to the ordinary punter. What else can we do? Well we can "pink elephant" our way to greatness. We can incorporate images into our conversations to persuade others to follow our recommendations.

Getting others to follow our ideas is how we have influence and we have all heard that storytelling is a powerful vehicle for explaining recommendations to others. Like with joke telling though, most of us are pretty average at these skill sets. It sounds easy enough – just tell the joke and people laugh, tell the story and people will get in line behind you. Well we know that few are any good at telling jokes or stories. That is mainly down to a total lack of planning.

Professional comedians spend an enormous amount of time working on their content and then perfecting the timing and mastery of the delivery. If you ever watch Japanese rakugo comedians for example, you can really understand the work that goes into this line of enterprise. They sit on a cushion, usually hold a fan in their hand and that is it. Everything else is down to what they say and how they say it. They create multiple characters, locations, situations and dialogue out of thin air.

On our own part, we normally spend zero time working on our ability to have influence. We don't craft our story content, nor do we practice the delivery over and over to have the best effect. We just blurt out of our mouth whatever it is we want and then get discouraged when no one could care less about what we want.

There is a simple formula that is a powerful engine for gaining influence. It works on the basis that a good idea is a good idea. The reason for that is because the rationale behind the idea is compelling. If your idea doesn't engage the emotions and logic of the listener, they are unlikely to be convinced of it's value. It is a subtle appraoach. Ramming our ideas down the throats of others is the usual way people approach conversion to their way of thinking. This widespread habit has spawned a public of doubters, skeptics, nay-sayers, trolls and haters. We have to recognize that this is our potential audience from the start.

So don't tell people what you want up front. "I think we should hire more sales people right now, to expand the revenues", you say fervently. The immediate reaction to this bold expense plan is to inspire everyone in earshot to get to work on coming up with the thousand good reasons that is nonsense and won't work. Instead we need to build up some images in our story that lay things out in such a way that the audience leaps ahead of the story. We want them to arrive at their own conclusion, that we should hire more people to raise the revenue. By the time we get to our recommendation at the end of the story they are already there and wondering what took us so long to get to the obvious answer. This is called winning without battle, in this case a battle of wits and intellect.

The storytelling should have scenes the listener can see in their mind's eye. We might say:

"Last Friday, I was up on the 44th floor of the headquarters in Akasaka having a coffee with Tanaka san from the CFO's office, talking about how to achieve the President's recently announced five year revenue targets.

Interestingly, she said that they had just finished a computer simulation analysis of the results from the last five years. They found that sales per salesperson were averaging around 40 million yen per year.

I was surprised to hear that even first year newbies like young Suzuki san in the sales team, more than covered their costs in the first year.

I always presumed those new hires were a cost to the company.

Tanaka san was busy getting ready for another presentation a little later that afternoon, so she walked me over to the gorgeous new dark wood paneled board room on the 47th floor.

She booted up her laptop and showed me this line graph on the big 65 inch monitor there, that each year the average increase in salesperson revenue was 50%. I didn't know that by year three, the salespeople were really starting to pull in sizeable revenue numbers.

It was interesting to me that new hires cover their costs and that the real results get going in year three.

If we are going to meet our five year targets, we should hire more salespeople right now.

If we do that they won't cost us anything this year and in three years time they will be producing the big numbers we need".

Now that story required a little over one minute to tell. This is not a huge burden on the listener's patience. I included people, locations, images they could identify with to make it real. At the very end, I made a call for action – "hire" and then finished off with the icing on the cake with the benefit of doing that action – "produce the big numbers we need".

Don't "free form" when trying to have influence. Carefully plan what you will say, practice it to get it concise and digestible for your audience. If you do that you will have people follow your recommendations and ideas and that is what we all want, isn't it.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

How to Make A Magnificent Acceptance Speech

You want to promote your business or organisation, so that you can be more successful. A genius idea pops up amongst the brain trust over a few drinks after work – why don't we enter the Business Awards? Someone has to win don't they, so the odds are fair. Anyway, there is no downside is there? True but there can be, if you don't fully think this through. I don't mean the requirement for polishing the application or assembling the data in support of the claims being made. I am talking about seizing defeat from the jaws of victory on the winner's dais.

When you win, you are invited up on to stage. The cameras are rolling, the lights are flooding the arena and the music is pumping. You are pumping too baby. It quickly occurs to you that hammering the booze on the table to instill some bonhomie amongst the troops was a good idea at the time, but now you need to pull yourself together. Back slapping, hand shakes, high fives propel you to the stage, as you make your way through the labyrinth of round tables.

Before you know it, you and the team have assembled on stage to receive the ovation from the crowd. In a moment, the MC announces you are about to be handed the cool looking trophy from the key VIP guest of the evening. The crowd goes quiet as you draw up to the stand microphone of the stage grasping the prize in your hand. A thousand eyes are fixed on you, awaiting your acceptance speech. You fluff it.

A ragged series of ums and ahs are punctuated by disoriented rambling highlighting no cohesion of thoughts, concepts or ideas. You are now sweating bullets. Multiple beads of perspiration start to run down your face, your pulse is surging, you realize this is a disaster and mentally start looking for the exit. The tuxedoed dandies have had their Colosseum bread and circuses moment. Having seen the lions dispose of their victims, they return to their table chatter. You are not forgotten though. You are now publically outed as an incompetent, who can't string three words together. Your reputation is shredded and the trophy somehow feels less magnificent in your grasp.

You recall have seen this before haven't you. Underprepared speakers making a complete hash of it. Don't try and wing it. Think ahead and be properly tooled up. Under no circumstances mention you are nervous, even if you worry you are about to faint. Fall flat on your face out cold, but don't apologise for your lack of preparation for this speech or your totally bereft skill set in giving speeches. Don't make jokes to release the tension of the moment, you are not funny.

Begin where you need to. Thank the chief VIP, the Chamber or Business Association and the judges for awarding you this magnificent trophy and great honour. Congratulate your vanquished opponents with great generosity extolling their virtues and achievements. Next take this opportunity to promote your company or organisation. That is why you applied in the first place isn't it? Give them your thoroughly rehearsed and well constructed elevator pitch on why what you do is vital to mankind and the future of the universe. This needs to be tight, taut, with no fluff.

When you thank the people who have made this happen in the team, make a short personal remark about each. Taro who stayed late so many nights, catching the last train home to get the project completed on time. Megumi for her total dedication to the care of the clients. Daisuke for his rousing leadership of the sales team when things looked grim. Mari and her team of angels in the back office who somehow managed to hold the whole thing together through thick and thin.

Finally, thank your family and friends who have supported you. If you become emotional at this point, don't worry, whip out your hanky wipe your eyes and just keep going. We will love you for it.

Wrap it all up with a rousing call to action for the crowd. Encourage them to play a bigger game and maximise their potential here in this wonderful, exciting special country of Japan. Thank the organisers again, wave the trophy and move away from the microphone stand, to signal you have finished. Now quietly call the team together to join you and the VIP, as you all pose for the photographers with the trophy. Then get off the stage, you are done!

Think through the award component of the evening, prepare thoroughly what you want to say, rehearse it many times, time it to make sure it isn't too long and stay off the booze until you actually win. Good luck!

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Do Your Homework

I was at a speech recently, given by a very prominent person, an extremely experienced speaker, to a very prestigious audience. It should have been a triumph, but it was a fizzer. There were two particular problems with the speech. One was it was set for 25 minutes but the speaker finished in 8 minutes. The second problem was that the most interesting part of the speech was not readily accessible for the audience. Both issues stemmed from a lack of homework before giving the speech. Given the experience of the speaker, I found this rather surprising, but it highlights that no matter how comfortable you are or how experienced you are, always do your homework before giving the talk.

Japan is a very formal country. If a speech is scheduled for 25 minutes, it has to last that long or otherwise it upsets the timetable. It creates a gap and organisers here in Japan are not renown for their flexibility and capacity to ad lib. It also sends a subtle negative message to the audience, that they are not worth preparing a 25 minute speech for. It comes off as being disrespectful and flippant.

I was sitting in audience the listening to the proceedings audience and was surprised to hear the speaker wrapping things up. Looking at my watch, I realised we were barely out of the blocks. Another audience member caught my eye, as we both realised this was coming to an abrupt and rather shocking end. He gave me a quizzical look that said "is this speaker serious?". It certainly didn't leave the right impression with the audience. They felt cheated and that they had not being respected enough, given how self important they are. This was the right crowd to win over too, so a real opportunity gone begging.

I have often been asked to speak to Japanese groups from 4.00-6.00pm. It is late in the day, when people are already tired from the morning and early afternoon sessions. The length of a two hour speech is taxing for an audience to stay connected with the subject and with the speaker. I wondered why they would want to put the audience through that ordeal? I asked, "Can't we just make it an hour, tops?". I was told, "Oh no, Dr. Story, it has to be two hours". Listening to a foreigner speaking Japanese for such a long period is also tiring because of the extra concentration needed.

After doing a number of these long speeches, I eventually realised that I was the filler, between the end of their own programme and the party. The food and drinks were ready for a 6.00pm start and I needed to keep tap dancing until that time. If I had quit after an hour, the organisers would lose face, because people would be lost with what to do for that single unscheduled hour. If they were Aussies, they would just start the party earlier!

So before you speak, carefully check on how long they want you to occupy this part of the programme. The organisers usually have very little interest in the quality end of the experience. They just need the slot filled and you need to understand that is your role sunshine. Knowing this will help you in your preparation. You can structure the presentation to make it interesting over a two hour period. One way to do that is by employing visuals. I don't mean detailed, heavy duty graphs and tables of statistics, like a lot of Japanese presenters seem to love. I mean photos with no words on them, which you then proceed to talk about.

Now our big name speaker in my example, actually had some really intriguing photos with him, but he hadn't thought to put them on slides and show them to everyone. He just waved them in the air effortlessly and ineffectively.

It is not hard to ask the organisers if there is an opportunity to use a screen and a projector. Most venues in Japan have these types of equipment. Why that relatively simple task wasn't checked on before the speech was a complete mystery to me. He could have really wowed his audience because the content of the photos was really dynamite. Waving the actual photos around from the podium isn't quite as exciting, as projecting them up on a huge screen and then telling everyone the back story.

The point here is do your homework in Japan before you speak. Check on the logistics, the reasoning behind the schedule, the equipment availability at that venue for what you need. Who will be in my audience, what are they interested in, what is their knowledge of the subject, how can I impress them, will there be consecutive or simultaneous translation going on if you are doing it in English? No one prepares to fail, but we do fail to prepare, don't we.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Nerves Are Not Needed

Speaking in front of others makes many people tongue tied and nervous. They struggle to get through a simple presentation, internally, in front of their colleagues. A public audience is something they would flee from, screaming and waving their hands in the air. Why is that? We all learn how to talk. The presentation is just a talk, so what is the big deal? Yet, it is a barrier to many people who have to navigate this impediment to move up through their careers. If you are in front of the big bosses and you can't make a competent presentation, kiss your career aspirations goodbye baby. There is very little chance they are going to put you in charge of others. So, if you like what you are doing today, that will be just fine, because you will stay where you are right now for a long, long time.

If it is just talking, why do we have such tremor at the prospect. Most of us can talk to our friends, family and colleagues without any problem. In a presentation though the stakes are raised. We are on show, we are singled out for attention, scrutiny and investigation. We become very internally focused. We are oblivious to our audience because all of our attention is on ourselves. All of the pressure is on us too and it is coming from within ourselves. Our self-talk is bad. Our self-regard goes negative. We become plagued with self-doubt, memories of failures, shortcomings, inadequacies and derision.

Our playbook is drawing on our failures from the past, not from our potential or even small successes we have had. We go to scale immediately on the negative and obliterate the good bits from our memory. We recall that school play when we forgot our lines and everyone laughed at us. The time at University when our class presentation of our research paper was scoffed at and belittled by some of our classmates. That time in the results meeting, when the big boss berated us for our presentation skill deficit.

We are operating from a sense of scarcity of ability, rather than an abundance of opportunity. We have to switch these ideas around. "Fine buddy boy, but if I could do that, I would have done it already". That is too true and the reason you haven't done anything better to date is because you don't have any worthwhile information on what you can an should be doing. When we don't know how to do something we tend to shy away from it. We do this to protect our public image and our ego.

So we have placed ourselves in an internal contradiction where our fear drives our behaviour to never end the fear. We need to recognise that cycle and to determine to break it. The brilliant thing today is that we are awash with so much information on how to give presentations. Shelves groan under the weight of worthy tomes on the subject. YouTube is bursting to seams with instructional videoes. Podcasts aplenty provide hints and tips. TED talks are readily available to see what others are doing and at a high level. Once upon a time, you had to be in the room or specially connected to see the best in action, but today you are a few clicks away from free access.

Start by studying. Learn the basics by attending entry level presentation courses. Switch your thinking about how to prepare for talks, by focusing on your rehearsal and not just your materials preparation. Leave you ego at the door and volunteer at every opportunity to present. Repetition is needed and after doing just five presentations, you will feel a lot more comfortable than you did for the first. After twenty, you will be relaxed. After fifty, you will be enjoying it.

When you know how to properly structure your talk, you can relax and just help us navigate through it. You will have the slides to support you, which are visual markers as to what comes next. Don't try to memorise the content or you will blow yourself up.

I saw this with a speaker visiting from the USA. She had a grand resume and was going quite well, but she made the fatal error of trying to remember what she wanted to say for each slide, rather than just talking us through what was the point of the slide. She lost control of her breathing because of her mounting, self imposed pressure and actually had to stop the presentation. She eventually completed the task, but she was a mess at the end.

Fear of public speaking is often a product of ignorance of what to do, fuelled by wishful thinking that you don't need to do anything special, like studying the subject. When you get good information and apply it, then the fear fades and with practice comes skill. I avoided speaking for decades because of fear. I finished my first public speech in 1983 in 8 minutes. Unfortunately it was supposed to go for 25 minutes! Today, I have delivered over 500 public speeches and now teach people how to give presentations. The difference came about because I decided to study about how to do it, volunteered to give talks at every chance, got proper training from experts and put myself out there and had a go.

The nerves piece disappeared once I slipped my attention from myself, to my audience.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Let's Be Clear

Most talks and presentations we hear, we cannot recall. Why is that? We were there presumably because we had an interest. The presenter no doubt made an effort to share something of value with us. They probably spent hours on their presentation slides and were perhaps somewhat anxious about giving the presentation. So a lot of nervous energy was expended in the exercise, but with a zero result. If we can't remember the content or the speaker, then it is hard to say it was a success, wouldn't you say?

Part of the problem is the way people present their information in the first place. The slides are too dense and confusing. The delivery is done in a lethargic manner, devoid of passion, with zero body language backing up the key points. Sitting there listening, we catch that disease from the speaker very swiftly and suddenly we don't have any passion for the exercise either. We hear a monotone voice droning on and on, like the humming white noise from your electrical appliances. The speaker may also be speaking too fast because they are nervous or may just be a serial mumbler, who is hard to catch.

The design of the talk may not flow well, so it is hard to make the mental move from understanding one point to understanding the next. The speaker may decide to improvise and sweep us all off on to a tangent, that has little to do with the main menu. We rarely make it back, because we have now lost interest in what they are saying and we are playing with our phone instead.

A recent presentation had elements of this. The speaker was quite a smart person, having built their business up from zero and is now winning large contracts from big players in Japan. The slides outlining the details of how the software worked were dismal. It was complex and disconnected. It was assaulted by numerous tangents of tangents, totally wrapped up in diversions. The delivery was lifeless and humdrum. There were no crescendos, no light and dark elements – no contrasts. It consisted mainly of a composite of calms and no storms and so didn't spark as much interest as it should have.

If we want to elevate our good name above the rabble, we had better do a splendid job of being clear when presenting. Our slides should be in the ratio of one slide to one idea. The less on the screen the better. Let's lead the charge for minimalism on screens. Let's bring out our inner zen of nothingness. The screen and the slides are competitors with our face. We want people looking at us and glancing at the screen, not the other way around.

We want to use numbers. There are seven elements or five elements or three element of our main thesis, for example, and so we attach numbers to each. This is a simple, tried and true guidepost system to navigate the audience through the content. Don't make the punters work hard to follow where we are going with this talk.

We should speak with passion, belief, commitment and enthusiasm about our subject. If you can't do that, then please remain in the audience and don't get up on a podium and try to talk to crowds. All you are doing is killing your personal brand and bringing no value to humanity. We want your energy, but we want it harnessed – it has to be controlled. We want some words being hit hard and some introduced gently – both are powerful mechanisms for emphasis. We want the energy, but we don't want chaos, where all the words are jumbled together.

I was coaching an Indian businessman here on public speaking and in his initial speech, he spoke at breakneck speed for three minutes, with nary a pause nor a break and with a very heavy subcontinent accent. In fact, it was one massively long sentence, strung together without compunction or mercy and fully incomprehensible and forgettable. Introducing some concepts like having a clearer structure, slowing down, adding in pauses and highlighting some words over others for effect, had a miraculous impact on his final version. It was night and day.

Don't mumble. Record yourself in rehearsal and be prepared for a shock. Yes that tinny, reedy, nasal, mumbling voice is really you. The lack of a rehearsal is the big error to catching problems, before you destroy your public reputation. Rehearse. Listen to how you sound before anyone else has to. Rehearse.

Speak to your key points and don't read us the manuscript please. We all have email by the way, so you can send it to us, rather than read it to us. When you run through it numerous times before you are unleashed on your audience, you discover the right cadence of how to express the ideas best,

One run through though is a joke. You need to be doing this preparation multiple times, so that all the vocal bugs and defects are completely eliminated before the curtain goes up. By the way, regardless of how your voice sounds to you, don't worry about it. All those born with television announcer voices are on television or radio and the rest of us are out in the real world, shaking it up, as best we can. If what you say is being delivered in a way that we can easily understand and if the content is interesting and valuable, then we will forgive your total lack of a superstar bass DJ voice.

Being clear when speaking is not such a big deal. People worry about it, but don't do any work on it before having to speak. They then wonder why the whole thing fell in a heap. A few simple measures will make it perfectly clear to the audience. They will hear you and then the quality of the content will either resonate with them or not. Your chance of being remembered will go right up, if you just do a few things before you unleash yourself on your audience.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.