Before You Make That Presentation

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No matter what work you do, your results are directly related to how effectively you communicate your message. And in today's conversation, we discuss how to prepare for and deliver a persuasive presentation, whether it's in person or virtual. Hi everyone, I'm Steve Sandusky for Barron's Advisor, and welcome to Actionable Intelligence, My guest today is Matt Abrahams. Matt is a lecturer at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, where he teaches two very popular classes in strategic communication and effective virtual presenting. He's also the co-founder of Bold Echo Communication Solutions and the author of the book Speaking Up Without Freaking Out. Matt and I dig into the details of preparing for and delivering a presentation that gets your audience to take action, such as setting up an appointment to meet with you. So let's get started with Matt Abrahams. Matt, welcome to the show.

Really happy to be here, Steve. Thanks for having me on.

Well, I am thrilled to have you here because you are an expert in a topic that is critically important to everybody, and that is communication. And in particular today, we really want to talk about how to be a a better persuader and how you can do a better job giving presentations, whether they're virtual presentations or whether they're in-person presentations. So let's just start with how do you actually prepare the presentation? How should we think about structuring the presentation? What are some of the key things to be thinking about at the very beginning of the process of putting a presentation together?

Well, absolutely. And the number one thing we have to do whenever we create any high-stakes communication is first and foremost, we need to start from the right place. Many of us start from the wrong place. We start by thinking, here are all the things I want to say, and that's exactly the wrong place to start. Rather, you need to be thinking about what does my audience need to hear. So it's not about what you want to say, it's about what they need. And that's a fundamental shift, Steve, because you put your audience's needs first, which means you have to do some reconnaissance, reflection, and research about their background, what's important to them, what they know, what their attitudes are. And then you can begin to think about what is it I need to say to them. So first and foremost, start by thinking about who is your audience and what are their needs? And then you have to come up with a goal. I think all communication must be goal-based. And to me, a goal has 3 parts: information, emotion, and action. What do I want the audience to know? How do I want them to feel? And what do I want them to do as a result of my communication? And it is only once you have a goal based on what you've thought about your audience, can you then start actually structuring communication.

Let's say that I'm a financial professional and I'm giving a presentation, whether it's a virtual presentation or in-person, my goal is to share some education with the audience. And then also ultimately my call to action, let's say, is I want them to schedule an appointment with me. And that could be a 15-minute phone appointment just to get to know each other and see if there might be a basis for us to have a deeper conversation. If that's my objective, what would be the next step then as I think about trying to structure this educational presentation that ultimately has a call to action?

I'm a big fan of structure. Structure helps in so many ways. It sets people's expectations so they know what's coming, so they can focus, helps them remember. We remember structured information rather than rambling much more efficiently. There are lots of structures you can use, but for the situation you've described, my favorite structure in the whole world is very simple. 3 questions: what, so what, now what? You start by defining what it is you're talking about. Maybe it's your business offering, maybe it's a particular product or service that you have that you want to convince the prospect of. So you talk about what it is. You then talk about the so what, why is it important for them, perhaps their family? So relevance is the second piece. So you start by saying what it is, you then explain why it's important, the relevance, and then the third part, the now what, is what comes next. Sign on the dotted line, set up another appointment. Maybe it's let's look at a demonstration or let's run through some of the numbers. So what, so what, now what is a fantastic structure for educating people, for motivating people, and for helping yourself remember what to say in a clear and concise way. So I am a huge fan of that structure, not just for sales situations like you're talking about, For giving feedback, for writing emails, this structure can really help. So what, so what, now what, I think is the key in the situation you described.

Yeah, and that is also very easy to remember. And I think one of the hardest parts of putting a presentation together is you're staring at a blank piece of paper. You're like, oh, what do I do now? But, but you're right, you give this structure— what, so what, now what— is a great frame to start. So let's just say that I'm giving a presentation on how to save money on your taxes. So let's say that's the topic. So how could you then frame that into this what, so what, now what?

So if you're trying to talk to people about how to save taxes, you probably have a list of ideas about things they can do. I would recommend rather than just giving a list, we're not very good at remembering lists of items. Our brains are not wired to store lists of items. In fact, I often joke that bullets kill, don't kill your audience with bullet points. Rather, see if there are specific ways in which the ideas you want to communicate list together or combine together. So for example, you might have ways people can save on their taxes by thinking about particular donations or charitable contributions they've made. Then there might be things that people have done in terms of investments and how they've reinvested profits. Categorize them that way. And then as part of your what, I go through it and say, hey, in order to save taxes, there are 3 major things you can look at. We're going to look at charitable contributions, the way you reinvest, and the way you strategize for the future. Here's why this is important. This is important because it can save you money now in the short term, but also the long term. So what I'd like to do is to walk through your particular finances for this past year and your projections for next year. So that's what So what? Now what? But the key in that what piece is to not just list here are the 10 things we're going to do to save you money, because that'll overwhelm people. Categorize them together into 2 or 3 categories and then go through them.

That's a really important point there. If we don't want to go through like 10 different things, and I've heard people say just come up with one thing, what's one thing that you want your audience to walk away with? So do you recommend we come up with the one thing, or do you think it's okay to have 2 or 3 things? Is there some maximum limit that cognitively we're just able to remember? So how do we think about if we want this to be a persuasive presentation, is there a maximum number of things that we want them to walk away thinking or doing?

So what the research says is the more things you put out there, the harder it is for people to remember. So I think the magic number is between 2 to 4 items. So that's obviously 3 is right in the middle. So I like things in threes, it just feels complete that way, but I certainly wouldn't go over more than 4 arguments or points. It's just really hard for somebody to remember all of those, especially when you're trying to be persuasive.

And what are some things that we can do, or how do we frame things in such a way that we are a persuasive presenter? So if we've got this objective, whether it's we want them to set an appointment at the end of this presentation, what are some things we should be thinking about from a persuasive standpoint, whether it's the psychology that we need to understand about persuasion, and what is it that actually persuades people?

Oh, I could talk a lot about this, Steve. So let me try to practice what I preach. I'm going to categorize this into a couple things. So first and foremost, I want to talk a bit about the approach you need to take to persuasion. And then second, I want to talk about some of the tools that you should be considering. So First and foremost, whenever you're trying to motivate somebody, influence or persuade somebody, there are two primary forces at work. There are promoting forces and restraining forces. So let me explain the difference. Promoting forces are all the things that you do or say that motivate somebody towards the goal you're trying to influence them towards. So it could be, this is gonna make things faster, cheaper, better. You're gonna have more savings in the long run. You'll be happier, healthier, et cetera. Those are promoting forces. But we also have to think about restraining forces. These are the things that prevent people from doing something. So let me give you an example, Steve. I have two children. When they were much younger, they hated eating their vegetables. My wife has a PhD in psychology. I'm a communication guy. You would think that we could get young kids to eat their vegetables, and we couldn't. And the problem was we made the fatal mistake of only focusing on promoting forces. We said things like, eat your vegetables, you'll grow up to be big and strong. Eat your vegetables, you'll be like your favorite sports hero. Eat your vegetables, we'll We'll even give you money to do it. None of that worked. Why? Because they didn't like the way their vegetables looked or tasted. The restraining forces were so strong that those promoting forces didn't do anything except breed frustration and fighting. So it wasn't until we changed the restraining forces. And let me tell you, Steve, ice cream sprinkles on broccoli can change your life. But the point here, the message is that when you go to persuade, don't just think about all the reasons why somebody should adopt your point of view or follow your advice. You have to think about What are the things that constrain or restrain them from doing so? And sometimes the most effective persuasion is aimed at moving those restraints rather than promoting. So that's the first part. When it comes to persuading, a lot of us rely on our default facts and figures. And statistics and information like that is absolutely critical. Performance of funds, of investments, thinking about what the numbers mean now and in the future, really important. However, when trying to persuade people, we have known for millennia, thousands of years, from when people were running around this planet in togas, that emotion matters. And what emotion is all about is getting people to feel something. And the way you get people to feel something is to really put them in a situation, to individuate them. Numbers are all about aggregates. Emotion really plays on individuals. So if you're trying to motivate somebody, you want to blend these two. So you could give some numbers, but then say, so what does this really mean for you, or imagine where you want to be 5 years from now financially. And by asking people to put themselves in that position, they have an emotional reaction. So, it's really about blending emotion as well as facts and not just relying on the facts.

Yeah. And I think so often we tend to default back to the facts because we have this thinking that facts are going to sell, but I think intuitively a lot of us realize that facts don't sell. And I think back to a quote from Jonathan Swift, and this goes back actually several hundred years. He said, "That reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired." Now, I guess in a little more modern English, what he's really saying is you can't reason someone out of something he or she was not reasoned into. So I think this really gets to your idea that for the most part, if I present facts to you, if you've already formed an opinion, and if I present some facts to you, you're probably not going to change your opinion just based on my facts because you've got your own facts. But if you connect with me emotionally, which I think is what you're saying here, if you can tell me a story, if I can resonate with that story, then maybe I'm going to be more receptive to changing my own story, and I might be more receptive to some new facts that you present to me that maybe once I bought into your story, if you follow with some facts afterwards, maybe I'm going to be more receptive. Does that make sense at all?

That absolutely makes sense. And I love that you're quoting Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels. Great book. You're taking me back decades and decades ago. I taught high school English. So I did a long, long time ago, but no, that's exactly right. And yet we have this societal pressure, I think, to really focus on the facts and figures. But in fact, the way we feel about something matters a lot. And there's actually some really fascinating research in psychology that says that We have these gut feelings, and then we use facts and figures to justify them, to explain to others why we actually do what we do or decide what we decide. So emotion is important, and I'm not saying over-index on that. I'm just saying balance them out because we tend to lean in way too much into facts and statistics rather than bringing emotion to bear as well.

And maybe on a related note here, as it relates to persuasion and connecting with emotions, where do values play into this. And I think this is so, so top of mind with us today in our world where things are fairly polarized and people seem to have different values and often opposite values. Is there something that we should be thinking about if we're giving a presentation and we know there's some people in the audience that may have different values than we do? Is there anything that we can do to maybe find some common ground where they might be more receptive to our conversation?

So the answer is yes, unequivocally. It goes back to what I talked about earlier, really thinking about your audience and their needs. And one of the things you have to think about— two of the things actually are what are their attitudes relative to what you're talking about? And then second, where are there areas of resistance? What might be the things that are most likely to cause them concern? Is it that it's too risky or takes too long? And thinking about these and then trying to figure out what's the best way to address these. So one, acknowledge them. If you know there are issues or challenges in the moment and in the room when you're communicating, and you ignore them, I think that goes against your credibility. So naming them, number one, and then number two, trying to find ways to collaborate with the people you're talking to who might have different opinions or points of view to show that you're open to discussion, negotiation, or different opinions is really important. And then also the way you structure your material can help. So remember we talked about what, so what, now what, that middle part, that so what, the relevance, the value. If you lead with that, sometimes you can reduce that resistance or bridge some of those differences. So if I were to say something like, wouldn't it be great to have peace of mind and security in your financial future? Many people would say, yeah, that'd be great. You might disagree on how to get there and what that looks like, but at least you agree that there's something in common. So leading with the relevance and then getting into the what, the steps of how you could achieve it, and then the now what. Can often bridge some of those gaps. So it's not only about awareness, really thinking about it up front, it's about approach, being open to acknowledging it and addressing it. And then finally, you translate that into how you structure your message to somehow address it.

Let's say that we've got the presentation put together, we followed this what, so what, now what structure, and we're in front of the audience. So do we start with a startling fact? Do we tell a joke? I mean, how do we get into the presentation here? Because, you know, the very beginning of your presentation obviously is going to be very critical. What are some of the best ways to actually start the presentation to make sure that we start off well and that we've got the audience's attention?

So I don't know if everybody, all your listeners can hear me. I am actually putting my soapbox on the ground. I am now standing on top of my soapbox because you have set me up for a point that's so important to me. I am on a personal mission, Steve, to stop presentations in meetings from starting with, "Hi, my name is, and today I'm going to talk about." The vast majority of presentations and content start that way, and it is silly for one reason. You're often standing in front of a screen or projecting a screen that has your name and your title on it. So it's just silly. It's also banal and boring. I think presentations and meetings should start like action movies. How does an action movie start? With action. And then you see the title in the credits. Now, I'm not saying you need to do something overly dramatic, but get your audience hooked. The most precious commodity we have in the world today is not money, it is not Bitcoin, it's not even GameStop stock. It is attention. And if you don't get people's attention right away, they're not going to focus on you. So what do you do? Start with a question, tell a story, give a startling statistic, relate what you're talking about to them, ask them, what would you do if, imagine what it would be like. These are the kind of things that get people to focus. And immediately after you get their attention, you have to explain the relevance that's in it for them. People are very stingy with their attention. If they don't feel there's value, they're not going to spend a long time with you. So get attention, then explain the relevance and value to them, and then maybe introduce yourself and your course of action. So it is critical to start in an engaging way. For meetings, I am a big fan on agendas that I send out and meeting invites. I put 1 or 2 questions that I want people to come thinking about, and we start the meeting with that question in that discussion, and then we move into the other items. So it is Really important to think about how you start.

You mentioned how if you think about like action movies, how they start, it got me thinking about James Bond movies and how they start with this blood-curdling thing going on. Somebody's getting shot or there's, you know, skiing through the Matterhorn or something like that. And it's just all action. You're on the edge of your seats while they're going through the film credits. And even a lot of the, you know, the shows that you see on TV now, they start right in the middle, right in the action, because they don't want you to turn the channel. And, you know, they don't even give you time to go to the bathroom in between shows.

Right. Now, I'm not recommending your listeners go and start violent action to get their audience hooked, but the idea is exactly right. Drop people in right in the middle, get them engaged, appeal to their curiosity and their motivation, and that's how you get attention. And that's what gives you permission then to explain the relevance of what you're saying.

What are some things that we need to be thinking about during the presentation? And in particular, I'm thinking things like, do we want to make these interactive? If we're gonna take questions, do we want to take questions during the course of the presentation, or do we want to save questions for a Q&A period afterwards? Is it just more personal preference on something like that? What are some things to be thinking about giving the presentation to make sure that we've got the audience's attention?

So once you have attention, you want to foster engagement. So engagement to me is sustained attention, and there are lots of ways to get engagement. Engagement throughout your content. I'll give you a couple examples and I'll end with questions because you mentioned that. So a great way to get people's engagement once you've got their interest and attention is to get them doing something physical. Get them writing something down, have them watch something if you're virtual, have them typing into the chat or taking polls. If you get people physically engaged, their minds will follow. So think about ways, could you take a poll? Now again, if you're talking one-to-one, you're not going to say, "Raise your hand if," but you could get them to write something down. You could show them something on the screen that gets them focused. Second, you can use inclusive language. A lot of us distance ourselves from our audience by talking in generalities. Investors think this, audiences should do that, instead of saying you or us or we. So inclusive language pulls people in. Since we were little children, we have learned that when you hear the word you, you should pay attention. So use inclusive language as much as you can. And then questions are incredibly powerful. By asking questions, you invoke a conversation. My question invokes a response, even if it's just raising your hand or a rhetorical question, you thinking the answer. We are in a conversation. Now, where you take questions is up to you. So there's one thing about you asking questions, but when the audience asks you questions, which is also engaging, you get to decide. So for example, do I want to take Do I want to take questions throughout? Do I want to take questions at certain parts and times in my presentation, or do I just take them at the end? If you are nervous and novice about the topic you're speaking on or newer to it, put the questions at the end. It is too hard to switch back and forth between presenting and Q&A. It just adds an extra level of burden. But if you're more experienced and you really want to engage, then take questions throughout. I like to say there are 3 points I'm going to cover. At the end of each point, I'll pause and take a couple questions and a few more more at the end. As long as the audience knows when they can ask questions, how they can ask questions, then you're set. So all of those will help you be more engaging.

There's so many good points in there. So let's start with this last piece that you were talking about, which was the question piece. What do you do if you get a question where you don't really have a good answer to? How do you handle that?

Absolutely be honest. Say, I don't know the answer. Here's what I'm going to do in terms of how I'm going to find the answer. And then make sure you follow up. Now, if you have an inkling or a hunch, then I absolutely think you should say, I don't know the answer. I'm going to get you the answer in the next 24 hours. I'm going to talk to these 2 or 3 people. My hunch is the answer is this. So when you don't know the answer, you absolutely rely on the truth and then follow up. Now, part of your question, Steve, was if you don't want to answer. So there are times where there are questions that you don't want to answer because the answer is not good or it puts you in a bad light, or it violates somebody's expectation. They think a certain thing is going to be due or done and it's not. So that's a different situation, and in those situations I recommend that you give the rationale why you can't answer. So you might say, I can't answer that question right now because some of that information is still being worked on and I don't want to mislead you in any way. So when you don't want to answer a question, give a reason why you don't want to answer, and maybe follow up when you think you can answer that question. What you want to avoid is looking like you're hiding something.

What happens if you have someone who you think they're going to ask a question, but actually they just start rambling and it's kind of a statement? How do you know when you actually intervene? And, you know, do you cut them off, or how do you tactfully do that without them being upset?

Yeah, so that's a tricky situation. The question about when is hard to answer. You don't want to do it too soon because you could be perceived as rude, and the key here is perception. So if somebody is rambling on either out of malice or out of ignorance or whatever, you need to let it go long enough so that you look respectful. But at the same time, if it goes on too long, you're losing credibility because people expect you as the presenter, as the meeting facilitator, to take action. So It's really hard for me to say at 5.7 seconds into somebody rambling, go in. That's hard for me to say. However, I can give you a tool that will work really well. I'm a huge fan of paraphrasing. And to me, paraphrasing is where you extract value, some key value that somebody has said and name it. So paraphrasing is not just parroting back verbatim what somebody has said. Rather, paraphrasing is where you synthesize what they've said and distill it down to some critical message. So imagine, Steve, that you are the person who is rambling on for whatever reason, and I want to get the floor back from you. I could simply highlight something of value that you've said. So I might say, oh Steve, that point you made about the implementation timeline, that's really important. And in fact, and you see that I've taken the floor away from you, but I've done so in the politest way I know. I've validated and valued something you've said, named it, and commented on it, and then I move on. You can also do the same with a question. You could say, oh Steve, before you go on, I have a question about that implementation. The implementation to me seems— and all of a sudden now I've got the floor back. So paraphrasing to me is the politest way to interrupt and regain control. When you actually initiate the paraphrase is really more art than science. You need to let the person speak long enough to be heard but not too long to be annoying and distracting.

So you've got to respect the question asker and you've got to wait when they're taking a breath so that you've got an opening to intervene there, it sounds like.

That was a wonderful paraphrase. Excellent. I must have spoken too long. Well done.

There you go.

All right.

I want to go back here just a second ago when you were talking about the audience doing something physical to kind of keep people engaged in And I remember back, I was at a Tony Robbins seminar, and Tony, of course, is well known for his energy. As a student of communication and presentation and persuasion, I really wanted to see what was he doing that makes him so effective at persuasion and motivation and inspiration and lots of different things that he did. But one of them, as it relates to what you were saying, was he's up there speaking for 12, 14 hours a day, and about every 15 or 20 minutes, he's got you doing something. You know, he'll get you running in place as fast as you can for 30 seconds. He'll get you turning to your neighbor and doing a shoulder rub or whatever and high-fiving and jumping around. I mean, there's always some kind of physical movement to keep you going and keep you engaged. Now, that, of course, I think is a little bit different if we're giving a Zoom presentation, but are there still some things that you can do if it's a virtual presentation to keep people active and moving, particularly if we're doing like a 3 or 4-hour virtual event over the course of a day? What do you recommend people do to keep people physically moving during a longer virtual type presentation?

Yeah, and you've really, really brought up an important point. The research suggests that every 8 to 10 minutes you need to change something up to re-engage people's attention. Our attention wanes very quickly within an 8 to 9 minute time frame such that come minute 8, 9, people are not very attentive. Now the good news is that you don't have to do very much to reinvigorate the attention. So it could be just asking a question, switching speakers, putting up a quick poll, having people type into the chat, take notes. If you're in person, have somebody turn next to the person next to them or use breakout rooms if you're using virtual tools or have people private chat each other. It does not take much to reinvigorate somebody, but it does take planning. You know, I teach courses at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. We have been all virtual in the last little bit due to the pandemic. So we had to take a highly interactive classroom experience and make it online. And we've been able to do so, I think, fairly successfully. But part of what was really involved in that is treating our virtual communication as if we were producing a television show. So we not only have our content, which is like the script, but we also have all of the instructions that you get. So if you know anything about movies or television, there are a whole bunch of cues and clues that are built in. So camera pivots here, lighting does this, sound does this. We have to do the same thing when you plan these longer webinars where you actually say, okay, at meeting 8, we're going to have a survey, and then at meeting minute 12, we're going to switch speakers. So you actually have to create what I call a run of show. Along with your content. So it takes extra work, but it is well worth it because it keeps the audience engaged. So think about any content you create that's for the virtual world in 8 to 10 minute chunks. Every 8 to 10 minutes, switch something up. Again, it doesn't have to be major, but switch something up and then think about creating that run of show along with the content. Too often we just try to port our content from in-person to virtual and then find it falls flat. And that's because we're not thinking about how to execute it in this medium.

You talked earlier about the value of attention, and here you're saying that about every 8 to 10 minutes you need to shake things up a little bit. I know a couple of things that I do in some of my virtual presentations is often when I'm starting the presentation, as people are just kind of rolling into it, I'll say, okay, where's everybody from? So in the chat box, just put your city and state or the country that you're from, and then I'll see all of these rolling in there. And I'll say, oh, you know, here's Joe from Edenboro and here's Mary from Omaha. People, I think they like to hear their name and they like to say, oh wow, there's people from this state and that state in this country and that country. So I think that seems to work fairly well. You've touched on the idea of polls as well. I love doing polls and I'll typically do one toward the beginning of a presentation and then we'll riff on the results and make sure that we go through. And I often find that doing a poll early in the presentation gives me some guidance on what the audience wants to hear about. So any other thoughts about the types of ways to engage people or maybe how to more effectively use polls, for example?

Yeah, so I love everything you've said. I think works really, really well. Using chat as a tool to get people engaged. I have people chatting during some of the things I'm speaking on, getting their opinions, because you're right, it gives you input and insight into what they're thinking, and then you can act on it. When it comes to polls, just the two things you have to keep in mind, you have to help people people understand how to take the poll. You know, these virtual tools have lots of different ways of doing it. You can raise a virtual hand, you can type, or you can select yes or no. Some of the tools actually have formal polls where you see choices and you have to click. So just make sure people know how to respond, because if they don't, they feel alienated, and instead of connecting with them, you actually put them off. The second thing, and it sounds like you're doing a great job of this, Steve, is when you get the input, you then have to comment on it. So taking a poll and then not commenting on the results makes people feel like they've been like it was a gimmick that you ran. So it's really important that you comment on it, and it sounds like you certainly are because you're actually folding that information in. Some other things I like to do, I'm a big fan of showing video or sharing screens. Some tools let you do that, so I can let people see what I'm working on. Some tools have virtual whiteboards where you can actually sketch things out. That can be really helpful. A trick I use when I teach my MBA students is I will put in a link to a shared document, let's say a Google Doc or a Google slide deck, and in the chat, I'll put the link. People click on the link, they then go out of the virtual tool, whatever it is they're using, to this other shared tool and do work in it. So I can send my students to a spreadsheet where each of them enters information, and then I bring them back to the virtual tool. So getting them engaged and then interacting with them along the way are really powerful tools you can use.

And one of the other things that I like about doing polls is I have a bit of an alternative motive when I do a poll, and that is— that I think about the poll such that I want to create a poll where I can then write another article based on the poll results. So if I do 2 polls during a presentation, I get great feedback, and then I can write a couple pieces of content from that that I can then publish in different places. So it's getting a multiple return on doing that. So I think that's another thing to keep in mind as you're creating polls in any of the interactive stuff that you may be doing is think about ways that you can repurpose the results of that so that you get some benefit and some mileage from it outside of the presentation itself.

Can I add one more thing to that? Sure. So in some of the tools, you can actually save the chat that happens, and you can take the same chat content, just like you said, the results of the poll, and turn it into articles and other things. So there's a lot of interesting data that we can leverage from our virtual world that can serve other communication functions, not just in the moment, but beyond.

We have this medium of virtual communication, and some people, I think, went into it kicking and screaming. And I think a lot of people are now like, "Actually, this is pretty good. You know, there's a lot of benefit. I can reach a lot more people doing some of these things virtually." So as you described— Yeah, so eloquently here that we really have to understand the benefits of this medium and the different ways that we can use it and really leverage it as well. All right, so let's talk a little bit about two things. One is commanding the stage. So really, how do you have presence, whether it's a virtual presentation where you're just on the screen, and then also how do you do that in person? So that's one piece. And then the second piece I want to talk about too is the vocal quality. How can we improve our voice? What are some things that we need to be thinking about as it relates to the voice? How do we think about the cadence, I guess, of our presentation or our speaking in terms of when we speak softly or when we want to pause, just some of those things there. So let's just start with commanding the stage. How can we do that?

Presence is one of these terms that means lots of different things to different people. Let me give you some of the key elements that are important for me. And you're right. I mean, it boils down really to 3 major categories, the 3 Vs as they're called. It's the visual, the vocal, and the verbal. Verbal. So in terms of visual elements, what people see of you either in person or when you're online is really critical, and it boils down to you want to be big, balanced, and still. People who are perceived as credible, as competent, are big, balanced, and still. And what do I mean by big? Many of us, when we get nervous or we're sitting at our desks doing a video call, we slouch, we make ourselves small, So you want to be big. How do you make yourself big? Well, you stand up straight or sit up straight. And the key, I think, is to take your shoulder blades, your scapula bones in the back of your body, and pull them down towards your waist. And if any of you listening, if you just sit up, pull those shoulder blades down, you'll feel your shoulders expanding. You're actually making yourself bigger. I'm not saying puff out your chest. I'm just saying pull those shoulder blades down. Down. That's what I mean by big. By balanced, I mean you want your head straight. I don't want you rigid like you're standing at attention, but many of us when we sit or we get nervous, we tilt our heads and it makes us look less confident. And then finally, if I'm standing or sitting, I just don't want to sway or rock. So you want to make sure that you're still. The best nonverbal presence is the unnoticed nonverbal presence. If people see you swaying, you're distracting. They notice it and that takes away from their ability to focus on your message. So So being big, balanced, and still will help, and that's key for the visual element. I'll add one more thing to the visual element. You must look at the camera when you are speaking virtually. Many of us look at the faces of the people we're talking to, but to the people we're talking to, when the speaker's looking at their faces, it looks like you're looking at their shoes talking to them if you were in person. You have to train yourself to look at the camera. Camera because that looks like you're looking at your audience. So that's the visual element.

What about gestures? So if we're in a visual presentation, how should we think about gestures in a virtual presentation?

You should still try to do gestures. Two things: try to situate yourself so people can see at least mid-chest and above. You don't just want your head in the virtual box, it's too much. Same time, you don't want your face too far away. We read a lot on people's faces, so we need to be able to see our faces clearly. And if you frame yourself so you're like mid-chest and above. If you were a statue, think of it as a bust, you know, so it's not just the neck, it comes down to like the mid-chest. And when you gesture virtually, you need to make sure your hands stay within the box but not in front of your face. So I tell people to lift their hands up and put their thumbs at their shoulder height. If your thumbs are at your shoulder height and you gesture, when you look at it on camera in the virtual box, it looks good. Now, if somebody were standing next to you in the room you were in, they'd think you look really weird. You look like a puppet almost. But on screen, it looks good. Before you ever click join meeting, most of the tools frame you up and you get to see your video before you click join. Make sure you're big, balanced, and still. Bring your hands up at your shoulder height. Just do a quick gesture to see what that looks like, then click join meeting so you know what others are going to see when you join. So those are the visual elements. When it comes to vocal, you just want to have variation in your voice, even in person, but virtually this is so important Steve, if I were to answer your questions like this, most of your listeners would stop listening. The human brain is wired to habituate. It's wired to focus on novel things. So if something stays the same, it just habituates and doesn't pay attention to it. So you must have variety in your voice. And the way to get variety in your voice is to add emphasis, especially around descriptive terms. So I would never say I I'm so excited to be here. I would say I'm so excited to be here. I emphasize the so and the excited. So those emphatic emotional words really help. And then finally, the verbal element. The big thing that will really get in the way of your presence is if you use lots of filler words, ums, uhs, likes, I means, that really, really works against you. There's no easy way to get rid of them. You just have to become aware. Now there's some tools that will help you. There's lots of tool apps out there that will at least inform you of of when and where you're doing them. And awareness helps, but you just have to be vigilant to really work on reducing those. So it's all about your visual, vocal, and verbal elements to help you have a better presence.

I found one of the best ways to help me realize how many of these filler words I'm using and what are my most common ticks is to get a transcript of your presentation and get the one that transcribes every single thing that you and you'll see every um and every so.

Yes, so, now, and like are the most popular words and filler words, and it can be really, really distracting. At least, Steve, it's not honestly. That's the one that bothers me the most. When people say honestly a lot, it makes me think everything they're saying before the honestly was a lie.

What about the voice itself? I think this is something that a lot of people overlook, myself included. And what I mean by that is, what can we do to train our voice, to take care of our voice, just like a professional singer might, they're trying to protect their voice because that's a big asset. What can we do as a presenter to make sure that we're not gonna lose our voice or that we're not gonna get a scratchy voice or that we could talk for 8 hours in a day if we need to? What are some basic things we can think about preserving our voice?

Your voice is like a wind instrument. The more air you put through it, the more you can do with it. So protecting the voice is also about just becoming better at breathing and more aware about your breathing. So taking deep belly breaths, doing things like yoga or tai chi, or at least breathing like that can really, really help. Perhaps the best thing you can do for breath at least is to develop what I call vocal stamina. And vocal stamina is your ability to speak for long periods of time without getting fatigued and running out of breath. So how do you do that? You do it by reading out loud. Reading out loud is a proxy for speaking out loud. Very few people would go run a marathon without training first, nor should you try to speak for long periods of time without training first. So if I have a 20-minute presentation coming up next week, I start reading out loud 5 to 10 minutes a day a week before. So part of the way you prepare your voice and keep your voice strong is to work on breathing sitting and developing vocal stamina. The other thing to do is to treat your voice like singers do. Drink warm water, have some lemon and honey in it. Also warm your voice up before you start. A lot of us go from not speaking to speaking right away. You know, an actor, a singer, they will warm up their voice, and there are lots of things you can do to warm up your voice. My favorite way is simply to say tongue twisters. Tongue twisters force you to enunciate, they force you to focus in the present moment, but you should warm up. Never start from just, you know, waking up and log in and start speaking. It can actually do damage to your voice. I use the analogy of exercise. Most of us know that if you're going to start exercising or playing a sport, you should warm up first. You don't just go out and start at full speed. Same thing is true with your voice. So taking care of your voice is really important.

I've had a handful of situations in the past where either I had a mini panic attack or I just had a complete brain fog where I forgot what I was gonna say. So if we have either one of those situations, what is something that we can do to kind of pull ourselves back, collect ourselves, and then move forward with the presentation?

If you lose track, first and foremost, if you really have created that goal we talked about a while ago, no feel, do, you should be able to restate your goal or use your goal as a wayfinder to get yourself back on track. So if your key message is, I want people to know this, feel this, do this, that becomes a compass that can land you back on your path. The other thing to do is just like when you lose your keys, go back to go forward. So, you know, if I lose my keys, I retrace my steps to try to find them. The same thing you can do when you communicate, just simply simply think about what did I just say, repeat it, say it in a slightly different way, and that will often get you back on track. And if you really get lost and things really blow up and you've forgotten totally, I'm a big fan of having a back pocket question. This is a question that I've thought about in advance that I can use if I just need time to collect myself. So I'm going to let you in on a little secret, Steve. When I teach my classes, if I ever forget, and sometimes I'll forget, I teach the same class a lot, I can't remember, did I say it in this class or not? What I'll do is I'll pause and I'll simply ask I ask my students a question which will then give me time to think through where I'm at and what I need to do. So my back pocket question is simply, I want you to think about what we've just discussed and how you can apply this in your life. Now I understand I have an advantage. I teach classes where it's very applied, people can use it, but I bet everybody listening into this can come up with a question that's generic enough that it would fit in the meetings and presentations that you give, that it could buy you just a little bit of time to help you be able to answer the questions that you need to answer.

So it's always have a plan B.

Yeah, exactly.

I tend to be a planner and I think about, okay, well, what could go wrong? Or what happens if the presentation goes down? So I always have a printed copy of my presentation just in case we have a technical difficulty or something, but they can still hear me. So it's always good to have the backup plan 'cause I think that helps give you some confidence as well. Well, Matt, I know we're getting ready to wrap up here. So just a couple of quick things. Two things. One is, is there anything else that you want to share here that we haven't talked about yet?

A couple things I'll share. So first and foremost, it is really important to take the time to work on your communication. Many of us take it for granted. We've been communicating for most of our lives and we just feel like this is the way I do it. But just like any skill, you can improve and work on it. And it takes really three things: repetition, reflection, and feedback.

Feedback.

So you have to practice. You have to give yourself the opportunity to practice, just like a sport. That's how you get better. You have to reflect. Many of us are so busy, we never think about how it went. We just move on to what comes next. But take time to start cataloging what's working for you, what's not working for you, so you can begin to make change. And then finally, get feedback. That's where coaches, that's where taking classes can really, really help. And speaking of that last part, if people are interested in learning more, I have a consulting practice. It's called Bold Echo. Bold Echo. You can find us boldecho.com, and we run webinars and one-to-one coaching. And I curate a website called nofreakingspeaking.com, which is designed to help people be more confident, compelling speakers. And then if you're interested, you know, I don't want to take anything away from Steve's podcast, which is wonderful. I also host a podcast called Think Fast, Talk Smart, where all we do is talk about communication skills. So those would be resources I'd point people to and just encourage people to work on your communication skills. It can make a big difference.

Excellent. Well, that was the second thing I was going to ask you is what's the best way for people to reach out to you. So we've got the website, nofreakingspeaking.com, and then you also have a book. Tell me about that.

Yeah, thank you. I have a book called Speaking Up Without Freaking Out. It's in its third edition. It's designed to help people feel more comfortable and confident in their communication, but also gives tips and tricks around how to answer questions if you're a non-native speaker, things you can do to better your communication and really how to be engaging. So lots of resources for your listeners. And just take the time to improve your communication. It will serve you well.

Excellent, Matt. Well, I really appreciate you taking some time here to share your wisdom with our audience.

You're quite welcome, and it was a pleasure.

My key takeaway from my conversation with Matt was this idea of having a structure to your presentation. The key one he mentioned was the What, So What, Now What structure that you can use to organize organize your thoughts. That idea alone should help you do a better job creating presentations that have an order to them and an outcome that you can drive toward. All right, that's all for today. Make sure that you like and share this podcast through your favorite social platform. And for more great podcasts, visit us at barons.com/podcast. Take care and be safe.

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