Communication Steroids

Having just met Mike on Monday morning of this week, it’s apparent things sometimes move fast. Recorded this podcast on Monday afternoon!

I ran across Mike online and found his Twitter account, where one of his posts indicated he was having trouble with some WordPress formatting issues. I sent a note to him telling him I had a lot of experience with WordPress (this blog is on a WP platform) and offered to help if I could.

Ended up chatting with him on the phone and connecting on several levels – you’ll hear it in the conversation. Turns out Mike has just released a book, so he’s officially an ‘author’ – the book is “Rock The World With Your Online Presence” and has been out about a month.

The book is about connecting via LinkedIn – in fact, it’s so specific, it’s about how to connect by making your LinkedIn profile rock. And nothing else.

Check the book here: Rock The World Book

Follow Mike on Twitter

 

 Podcast: Mike O'Neil Interview [16:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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How did President Obama do with his State of the Union speech last week? Of course Obama is an extremely good speaker – so what can we look at and where can we critique him? Tim ‘Gonzo’ Gordon and Roger Pike watched the speech and took notes.

(photo from Whitehouse.gov)

 

 Podcast: State of the Union [14:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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It’s a brave new world we live in…where anyone with an Internet connection can create a blog.  Everyone has an opinion and there may come a day, in fact most likely will come a day, when that opinion is directed at your company and your product.  What do you do when a high traffic volume blogger hammers your business?  Here are our tips:
1)   Address her issue:  Act as quickly as possible.  Does the blogger have a point?  Are there steps that can be taken?  Make them a participant in the resolution.  If the issue is handled satisfactorily, most likely she will blog about that.  You certainly can blog about your efforts to take care of things, and the obvious attempt to react positively to criticism will play well with any audience.

2)   Talk to him:  Will he accept a call; and, if so, will he be open to an honest dialogue about the issue?  Will he be open to a demonstration or presentation?  Often, just the attempt to establish communication impresses your critic and leads to a good outcome.  Use your active listening skills here.  Ask questions to make sure you understand both the criticism and any other motivations that might exist behind the complaint.  Restate the critics point to make sure they know you understand.  And, again, see if you can include your critic in the resolution.  However, if these two steps fail…

3)   Blog yourself:  Depending on the issue, it may be wise to address the situation head on.  You are not required to name your critic and, in many if not most circumstances, that’s not a good idea anyway.  However, you can take on the challenge offered in the criticism.  In all circumstances, it’s best to keep your blog positive and professional.  Meet their objection and do it with EVIDENCE.   Remember a picture is worth a thousand words.  If you can answer the criticism with photographic evidence, so much the better.

4)   Isolate them:  Bloggers interact with one another, by commenting on their peer’s blogs, or linking to them.  Identify your critic’s niche and approach other bloggers influential in that niche to determine the possibility of a briefing or demonstration.  DO NOT SOLICIT POSITIVE MENTIONS, but, instead, allow them to draw their own conclusions.  Your product or service should speak for itself.  If it doesn’t, get a new line of work.

5)   Communicate internally:  Monitor staff.  You need to control the interaction with your critic.  Remember, in the social media age, every single employee is potentially a part of your PR department, for good or ill.  Watch them.  If you don’t already have an official social media “policy” for your associates, write one.  Recently, in a basketball game between USC and Oregon, USC was assessed a technical foul when a student manager…a student manager…was heard to be screaming epithets at the officials.  The resulting free throws were a four point swing at a critical moment in the game.  Monitor what your staff is doing.  Screaming at the refs won’t help.

Social media, from Twitter to the most elaborate blog, is the interactive space of the modern era.  It’s the new town square, the new water-cooler, and the new back-yard fence.  It’s where people congregate to exchange photo’s, recipe’s, sports talk, and, yes, advice about products and services.  It’s where they talk about their good experiences and their bad ones.  Be ready when your product gets bad press from a blogger.  It’s an environment you must influence.

photo credit: waffler

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I love to watch basketball on TV. I played it as a youngster, I play it as a 50-something. Fun sport; exciting, fast-paced, great exercise, team play and individual accomplishment. It’s all there.

A friend of mine likes to tell me (and has a number of times) that his wife will ask: “Why watch the whole game when the winner is decided in the last five minutes of the game?”

Hmmm…good point. Maybe. If you’re just a spectator and all you want is to see who wins the game in ‘real-time’ then, yeah, sure, tune in to the last five minutes and be entertained and get the score.

Years ago when Michael Jordan was winning his championships, I read a satire on how long the last minute of the game takes.

“The clock has 59.7 seconds on it; Michael Jordan takes the ball, jukes his opponent, shakes and bakes, takes a fifteen-foot jumper and HITS!

“Now there’s a time out. 54.9 seconds on the clock….”

The bit went on for awhile, with the writer tuning in and out of the game, going to mow his lawn, do the laundry and a few other chores and when he kept checking in on the game there was Michael Jordan – with about 24.5 seconds left now – putting on another move, stopping the clock to shoot free throws – another time out…just 20.9 seconds left… Meanwhile, the total elapsed time of the last 60 seconds of actual game time has taken about half an hour!

So maybe watching the last five minutes of a game is enough.

But not if you’re in the game.

I reflected on this while watching the Saints-Vikings game last Sunday. Halftime score was tied, 14-14. Hey, if you tuned in at halftime you didn’t miss much, right? The score is tied, eh? If they went into overtime all you’d need is to see the overtime to get the result – correct?

Naah, not if you’re a real fan. And particularly not if you’re in the game. Every minute counts. As it does in your business, your job. Your relationship with your spouse, kids, co-workers, friends, neighbors…

Do you just show up at the end to see how the score went? Or do you play from the beginning, giving your all; planning, strategies, trying and failing, getting up and trying again until you succeed?

Do you count the experience you get in improving your skills going up against the competition? Do you take heart in the joy and heartbreak that comes from actually putting it all out there to see how you do?

There is incredible value in having played, in having put your cards on the table. Your experience increases, as does your skill and savvy.

No matter what the game – a game of sports, a game of life – you can’t get the full experience without playing from start to finish.

Joining in for the last five minutes of today’s competition might let you see the final score. But the value is slight compared to having gotten in at the beginning and played to the end.

photo credit: ShashiBellamkonda

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Tony Marino, long-time marketer, public speaker and former stand-up comic discusses his public speaking life in this fast-paced interview with Tim Gordon and Roger Pike.

Check out Tony’s BlogTalkRadio show ‘Marketing Antics’ here.

Follow Tony on Twitter.

 

 Podcast: Tony Marino Interview [15:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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They say you can’t argue with success. And why should you? Success is…well, success!

And from an outside perspective, the New York City-based TJ Walker looks successful. He’s a corporate public speaking trainer, appears on national TV to tout his stuff and has a pretty spiffy weekly newsletter and nice website packed with useful information.

And TJ does offer a lot of timely commentary on public presentations, presidential speeches, corporate or celebrity PR snafus and the like.

He’s built a good brand around the name TJ Walker, and has just released a new book “Secrets to Foolproof Presentations.” I haven’t read the book so I won’t offer a review, but I have seen a lot of TJ’s online videos and have read his newsletter for a couple of years.

TJ offers good solid, if somewhat obvious advice. But then again, a lot of public speaking advice IS obvious. Do the right things, practice, prepare, work at it and you’ll become a much better speaker. His advice doesn’t stand out as extraordinary, but I feel it’s his commentary on well-known presentations that is where he’s making his mark.

For instance, the morning after Scott Brown was elected senator in Massachusetts, TJ offered a two-minute critique and review of Brown’s speaking ability.  He compared Brown a lot to former President Ronald Reagan, and even said that Brown is a rising star and may be a potential future presidential candidate. Very topical, very timely.

As for Walker’s on-screen presentation, I can give him some high marks – and a few low ones. First, his speaking voice is fluid and confident, but not dynamic. He does pace a bit back and forth in front of the camera – and looks at the viewer so that you get the impression he’s giving you his full attention.

But one of his habits I find bothersome: his hand gestures. TJ seems to know what to do with his hands only about half the time. He often brings them together in a prayer-like position, which I find unusual and maybe even inappropriate for the situation. The fact that I notice it – and that he does it often – distracts me. I don’t feel it’s a natural gesture but a contrived one and would encourage him to work to remove that from his gestures. For some the prayer-like hand gesture may come across as co-opting a religious gesture, which may could be said to be out of place.

TJ keeps his reviews of public speaking moments frequent: he’s reviewed John Edwards’ recent admission of fathering a child, Pat Robertson’s claim that Haiti’s earthquake was due to a deal with the devil, and President George W. Bush’s recent return to the White House to assist in the earthquake-relief fund-raising effort.

On to his website, which has recently been re-done. The look is clean, spare and easy to navigate. The ’splash’ page, or front opening page, is mostly an advertisement for his books and corporate and media training. I do have a few quibbles – more minor things which I think his webmaster should take care of.

First, there is no “title” on the page, so when the page appears in a tab on a web browser such as Firefox, it doesn’t show Walker’s name, but rather shows a web address like this: “http://etc…”

Also, if you hover your mouse above the text “Speaking Excellence with TJ Walker” your mouse changes to a hotlink – even though there’s nothing there. So I looked at the source code and sure enough, there is a blank image there with a hotlink. As a longtime webmaster, this makes no sense to me.

As I continued to look at the source code (if you want to do this, click View > Page Source and you can see the source code for any web page), I was very surprised to see 148 lines of code that are links to a French web domain advertising Viagra and Cialis and other products. If this was my website and my webmaster I’d dump them immediately – wherever this code came from it has no business here. Just weird. And apparently TJ’s webmaster failed to include common ‘meta-tags’ to make the site more search engine friendly – stuff that’s really ‘web-design 101′.

Basic webmaster stuff and I’m surprised at the lack of attention to detail that exists on the site.

Overall, I have to give kudos to what TJ has done with his careers – he’s written books and produced DVD’s, has appeared on national TV shows as an expert and offers solid advice.

Get that website code cleaned up, TJ, and your online presence will be smokin’!

Website: TJ Walker’s Speaking Excellence

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What is the communication culture in your business? In your community? In your country? The world? Tim Gordon and Roger Pike look at how the culture of communication affects how you communicate with people around you.

 

 Podcast: Communication Culture [15:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Last week I attended a Portland Business Journal ‘Power Breakfast’ where about 200 – 300 business folks gathered for breakfast and to hear a speaker talk about their business.

This time the speaker happened to be Bob Moore, the founder of Bob’s Red Mill in Portland. The event was scheduled from 7:30 am – 9:00 am. I arrived about 7:25, mingled for a bit, introduced myself to a few people and then found a seat and ate breakfast.

Right about 8 o’clock the Business Journal publisher went to the front of the room, walked on stage and addressed the audience.

After a few minutes of ‘house-keeping’ duties (thanking the sponsors, etc) and mentions of upcoming events, he introduced Bob.

The format was very relaxed; both Bob and the publisher were wearing wireless microphones. They sat in comfortable chairs with a small table between them.

The presentation was a non-rehearsed interview format, which started when the publisher asked how Bob got started in business. Naturally this led to Bob telling a handful of stories as a young man, meeting the woman that would become his wife, a brief look at a few failures before he found the way to success with Bob’s Red Mill.

When the presentation started I glanced at my watch: 8:00 am. With the event schedule until nine, I wondered how they would make this interview last an hour – or if the organizers even wanted it to.

Finishing on time is probably one of the most important things to consider as part of your presentation, no matter how long you’re scheduled. If you go past the advertised time, many folks will get anxious, some will get up and leave and miss the end (which may be the best part!).

As Lisa Braithwaite mentioned in one of her blog posts last year, “First of all, practice your presentation so you know how long it takes. If it’s long, cut, cull and edit your content so it fits. Keep in mind that audience interaction will take up some time, so make sure you have a cushion built in; practice finishing a little early to be safe.”

So, yeah, it’s important to make sure you have the flexibility and awareness to make adjustments on the fly – once you have the ability to do that under any circumstance, you’ll be remembered as a valuable speaker no matter what your topic.

Back to the Bob’s Red Mill / Business Journal presentation: as the hour went on and it got to be about 8:45 am, a couple of folks seated near me got up quietly and left. A few minutes later a few others from the opposite side of the room did the same. It was now just a few minutes before 9 am, the scheduled ending time. The interview was wrapping up. By 9 sharp, the final wrap-up had been given, we’d heard a few reminders about future events and were dismissed.

Perfectly on time.

Since I wasn’t in a hurry, I mingled for about 15 minutes to connect with a handful of folks I knew and then headed out myself.

There is a significant benefit to your audience to ending your speech on time. But bottom line: as a speaker looking to do future speaking gigs, you benefit just as much. You’re remembered as someone who pays attention to the clock and is thoughtful of the audience. Don’t go past the scheduled end time – even by a minute. People will more likely remember that you went past your allotted time more than the important part of your presentation that you wanted them to recall.

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When it comes to how to get your message across there are a lot of aspects to consider. Tim Gordon and Roger Pike discuss the ‘hows’ of presentations and public speaking.

 

 Podcast: How to get your message across [12:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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More “Making Public Speaking FUN!” suggestions from the HARO mailbag…

Joel Hilchey at www.joelhilchey.com offers a suggestion to warm up with a few folks before going onstage:

Hi Tim! My name is Joel, and I’m a youth inspirational speaker.

Before I give a talk, I try to get out into the audience and chat with some people. I have a few small magic tricks that I use to break the ice with individuals in the audience ahead of time – especially people that look like they’re “leaders of the pack”.

When I get on stage, these people become my biggest supporters. Plus, afterwords, they are more likely to say hello and chat. Speaking is fun for me not just because I can make people laugh, but because it’s a chance to make a connection with people, and starting BEFORE the talk helps me do just that!

Of course, it’s also important to be so well-prepared that you can really enjoy the moments on stage without worrying that something will go awry. That frees up your mind in the moments before the show, so you can focus on who’s in the audience..

If you’ve got any kind of singing voice, you might try what Susan Lannis, Time Liberation Agent with ORGANIZATION Plus! Inc. did:

I was faced with an after-lunch group that had been sitting through non-stop, hour long, sessions that started at 7 am. I sang my opening and a room full of people who had slumped into the room suddenly sat up straight and laughed and their energy fed my energy and I was funnier than I have ever been and the group literally danced out of the room – it was an amazing experience for us all.

And then there may come a time when you’re in a unique situation where you speak to an audience that may have a language difference…let’s let Victoria H. Trabosh, Executive Coach and Speaker at victoriatrabosh.com try and explain:

I speak professionally in the US and RWANDA. I speak some Kinyarwanda – just enough to dazzle – not complete a complex thought. But when I’m there – I connect with my audience with a bit of English.

If you say Hallelujah – they will shout AMEN! So when I came back from my last trip to Rwanda in October, I started adding that to my speeches. And would say, “many of you are staring at me as they do in Rwanda and thinking, “who is this white woman and what is she doing here? And when I see that look – I shout Hallelujah, and they shout AMEN. We shall practice!” And then I sprinkle it throughout my speech… it’s amazing and brings tremendous joy and laughter. Hallelujah?

Another way to add FUN is to play a game. Anyone remember Jeopardy? Mary E. Banks of W.O.W Consulting Group in Houston does:

I do a lot of public speaking and one of the ways that I have incorporated ‘fun’ into the topic is to have the audience engage in a game of ‘Jeopardy’. It is set up like the TV show and the audience loves it.

Now here’s a clever (and yes, somewhat sneaky) idea from Ken Newman of Magnet Productions in San Francisco. Plant a ringer in the audience:

One of the devices we have used very successfully over the years, in the interest of making public speaking a bit less predicatable, is to plant a heckler in the audience.

Someone who takes a decidedly contrary position to the speaker.

One example that comes to mind was a presentation we did a number of years ago for a large investment bank. The speaker was introduced with a very impressive CV. As his presentation began, a waiter began circulating throughout the room, topping off wine glasses. As the speaker continued, the waiter began muttering comments to the seated guests, getting at various times, chuckles or not very gentle requests to, “shut up.”

This continued for a bit until our desired degree of discomfiture was reached, at which time the speaker confronted the waiter.

The presentation at this point became quite hysterical, and unlike anything that this very conservative audience was expecting.

I think just putting forth that ‘bold’ part of yourself can pay big dividends. Sara Holliday of FitBySara.com describes a particularly powerful outing…

One of the most memorial speaking engagements I did recently was for the Race for the Cure (for Breast Cancer) in front of 15,000 participants. I started off with foreboding music in the background and said, “I’m so excited to be here today because each and everyone of you is making a HUGE difference in the cure for Breast Cancer!” The crowd cheered. I said, “I’m going to warm you up with kickboxing and we’re literally going to kick cancer in the BUTT!” The crowd roared and the music was “We Got the Power” by Snap and the band got into it too. Everyone was moving even if they had no rhythm! I felt like I was floating! It was an incredible amount of energy!! In fact the Susan B. Komen foundations folks told me that people thought I was “a rockstar”! Then 2 weeks after I did a speech about my experience of being in front of 15,000 people. I shared my dream the night before of waking up hard pounding in cold sweat. I also wore my workout outfit under my jacket, took it off, played the music, while sharing the thoughts going inside my head such as “I have so much energy in my body right now, I could pick up a car!” The audience was so into it. They laughed and sweated along with me!

Ever done any impromptu speaking? Children’s book author Sharon Rexroth of fromtheskybooks.com says she looks forward to the Q&A with her audience – which are often kids:

I speak often to schools and to civic organizations because I am the author of children’s books which are educational.

When I speak, I never use notes and I try to make the speech always be geared to the audience. I try to open up the audience with questions and answers after I present my info. That is by far the best part of the presentation, because I never know what the kids will say and it is really interesting to hear. I think the impromptu aspect is the best way to go.

So thanks to all of those great suggestions – all worthy of consideration next time you’re giving a speech. What are YOU doing to make public speaking FUN?

photo credit: peruisay

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