TJ Walker breaks down seven communication techniques Trump uses effectively: absolute conviction, visible enjoyment, clear moral contrasts, audience tailoring, humor, consistent branding, and speaking without scripts. Walker frames these as transferable skills for any public speaker.
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Donald trump's seven keys to public speaking success. Donald Trump has been dominating the news for months now. He's the frontrunner in the fight for the Republican nomination and it's caused a lot of people to try to analyze what is he doing well, what's working for him. I'm going to analyze his public speaking skills and strengths. Nothing to do with his policy positions, his ideology, the content of what he's saying. But he does a number of things well that anyone across the political spectrum or in the business world could learn from. For starters, every single time he speaks, he speaks with absolute conviction. Zero doubt. I'm not saying that's necessarily a good thing you want in a political leader, but it is a great way of communicating. It draws people in. When you can speak in very clear terms, zero doubt, it makes people trust you more. So that's the first big thing that he does well. He speaks with an absoluteness, with every single thing he does. The next big thing, again, this is an apolitical thing. When you see him speak, he looks like he's having the time of his life. When he's on the debate platform with other candidates, when he's at a press conference, he looks like there is a absolutely nothing else in the world he'd rather be doing. This is an apolitical thing. You could make the same case of Bill Clinton when he speaks. Some candidates give you the sense that they'd rather be doing anything else than campaigning and in the spotlight, they'd rather be governing. George H.W. bush, the first George Bush president, famously was caught looking at his watch during a debate and often told people he just wished he could govern and not have to campaign. Donald Trump looks like he's having the time of his life and that is contagious as a communicator in a good way, that helps. It makes people more receptive to anything you say. So that's really the second big thing. The next thing he does really well is he presents with absolute clarity, good, bad, I'm great, you're a moron, you're a dummy, you're an idiot. I'll leave it up to others to judge whether that is good for the political climate or good for being polite and all those other things, all fair questions. But when it comes to communicating effectively, isn't that what so many great Star wars movies have and other movies have great works of literature, clear cut descriptions of good and evil? That's what the Bible has, the God, the devil. And Donald Trump realizes this. So you don't hear him constantly describing the world in terms of shades of gray. It's I'm good, here's what I believe, it's good. Here are people who disagree with me. They're evil, they're bad, they're awful, they're stupid, they're morons. You can criticize that for many other reasons, but as a way of communicating, it is wildly effective. The next thing he does well is he always formulates messages that work for his audience. He knows his audience. He's not trying to appeal to liberals, to moderates, to feminists, to recent immigrants. He understands his audience. So he focuses his message in a way that relates to his audience, that resonates to his audience. Now, many commentators have noted that he said so many things that would typically destroy a candidacy. Well, there are certain gaffes that he could make that might destroy his candidacy. If all of a sudden he started apologizing or seeming meek or mild mannered or doubtful, that could possibly destroy his brand. If he said, you know what, all things being equal, Barack Obama really was a better president than Ronald Reagan, well, that could destroy his brand. But saying the sorts of things that have generated so much controversy for him so far, those are not things that destroy his brand. So Trump understands the messages that resonate with his audience and he sticks to the script. The next thing, the fifth thing that he does well, he uses humor. That's a part of the entertainment quotient he is not afraid of to mock and ridicule his opponents. That's typically not done in politics. But anytime he's talking about an opponent, he typically is so over the top that it's humorous. Whether he's saying, oh, Rick Perry, he thought the glasses would help. Guess what, Rick? People see through the glasses. Everything he said was done with such hyperbole, it generally results in a laugh. Now, maybe not everyone thinks he was funny, but certainly an awful lot of his followers think that he is funny. So there's that entertainment quotient to what he does. And that's how he's able to say, I'm not boring. All these other people are boring. Scott Walker is boring. I'm not boring. So putting in humor, the next thing he does is just absolute consistency. It's not like one day Trump is mild mannered and meek and quiet, or the next day he sounds like he just loves Hillary Clinton. Although you could pull quotes from him in the past, he's very, very consistent. Not necessarily ideologically consistent, not necessarily policy wise consistent. But with his demeanor, his style, and many of his core messages. He is consistent. He's consistent with how his looks, no matter how much you hate his hair. And I think it's frankly bizarre. His hairstyle is consistent in some ways. You can see he's trying to be consistent with how his hair actually looked in the 1970s. His suit is consistent for the most part. He's always wearing a red tie the same way. That's consistent. If he wears the baseball cap, it's going to have the same message on it. So there's an absolute consistency to how he communicates that does help him. And finally, when you see Trump speaking, you never see this. My fellow Americans, today, I want to go over with you my main foreign policy. He's not reading a speech. Now, it's not the end of the world to read. Certainly anyone who becomes president has to read. But on a campaign trail, in the business world, press conferences, it's so much more effective not to read, because then you can put the emotion into it. Then you are seen as someone who speaks from the heart. You are seen as more authentic, whether you are or not. So that's what makes Trump more effective. That seventh element is not reading. He always seems like he's just saying what he believes, being a straight shooter and things that really do resonate with an audience. So that's what I believe are the seven key strengths of Donald Trump as a communicator and a public speaker. Please realize I'm not endorsing him for president. I'm not endorsing the content of what he says. These are basic strengths. And you know what? These are strengths that anyone can use if they want to communicate more effectively, regardless of what party they're in, regardless of whether they're in politics. Now, most of what I do is I train business people, civic leaders, community leaders and experts, authors all over the world on how to speak more effectively. If you'd like to learn these seven techniques in more detail, I do have an online course for you. There's information below on exactly how to learn these skills. And I also train people in person on how to be more effective public speakers. Don't worry, I'm not going to try to turn you into a mini Donald Trump and have you have a bizarre hairstyle. But I do think there are things we can learn from him that are applicable to people who aspire to be good speakers anywhere. I'm T.J. walker. If you have any questions, please call me 212-764-4955. Thank you.
