This guy walks up to a girl in a bar and hands her a one- page typewritten memo - his bio and resume.  She glances briefly, then unceremoniously tosses it onto the floor.  “Why did you do that?” he asks.  “I don’t care about you,” she replies. 

Handing a woman a memo would be a stupid way to get a date, and it’s a stupid way to try to get the media to pay attention to you, too.  Yet this is the cloddish approach that otherwise savvy people use when approaching reporters.  And they wonder why they get dismal results.  Is it any wonder you are dateless in Seattle, Boston, Chicago, LA and everywhere else when you don’t know how to romance the press?  Reporters aren’t interested in your resume; they don’t care about your company, your product or your service.  You have to know how to woo them.

So how do you land a date with a reporter and get a nice article written?  Let me put on my former reporter hat and tell you the deep dark secret.  Give them what they want.  A story.

A story is not about you.  A story is about something that interests their readers, listeners and viewers.  A breathless, self-serving description of your new product launch, or an announcement of an upcoming event you’re trying to promote will go straight from the reporter’s inbox to the delete file in .53 nanoseconds. It doesn’t meet the “news test.”  Like a pretty girl in a bar, you won’t even catch their eye if you don’t have something to offer.  

You also need to impress the people who matter to them.  Just as you would go to meet the girl’s parents if you were serious, when courting reporters, you need to meet and get to know their readers, listeners and viewers.   Find out what interests them.  Reporters have little time and no patience unless they immediately see the relevance to the people who watch them, listen to them or read them. 

Think about what’s happening now in your world that would interest them.  Something timely.  Something trendy.  Something unique.  This is the equivalent of walking up to the girl with a nice cool Heineken in your hand.  Not every girl will say yes, but many will.  A good story raises the odds of success.   

Cheers!

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Have you ever tried to quickly untangle a delicate necklace chain?  This is not a girl question.  Guys love coming to the rescue for damsels in this type of distress.  Truly - the look on my husband’s face when he returns, triumphant, one side of the clasp in each hand, is positively manly and very appealing. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the luxury of witnessing that look while in New York this week getting dressed for a Wall Street lunch.  I wanted to wear my Tiffany Key necklace; the chain was hopelessly knotted.

At the per diem rate at The Palace Hotel, I thought of calling the concierge.  Surely guest services must have someone on standby that was certified in unsnarling stubborn little bonds.  But I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the phone.  I was engaged in doing it myself.  After ten minutes, I thought the issue was eyesight; donning reading glasses I found the knot easier to see but no less immovable.  Perhaps a tool?  I rummaged through the waste receptacle in the marble bath, recovering a safety pin from my dry cleaning tag; useless.  The thing was still obdurate; in fact the knot moved and was worse than ever.    

Perhaps had I had Googled “knotted chains” I would have found 30,396 search results, but I really wanted to do it myself.  Finally I recalled a department store jewelry clerk  once advising me to first unclasp the chain.  Within 30 seconds I had released the tenacious irritant.  Total time 22 minutes.  Total aggravation – incalculable.      

Determined to draw a useful lesson from this debacle, it dawned on me that this is precisely what many of us do when confronted with a mess of a presentation.  We fiddle and fuss with the PowerPoint slides and hours later it’s still a jumbled knot.  If this happens to you, my advice is- unclasp from the top, let go and start over.  Forget the slides.  Write down the questions on your audiences mind.  Create an outline of topics from that list.  Elegant simplicity.  Create the visuals as a last step.  Voila. A Tiffany quality presentation.

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Berries, cherries, apples, curry, eggs, sardines, and oysters.  What do they have in common?  Nutrionists say they are “brain food.”  Personally I like all of them.  But I also like smoked oysters on crackers for breakfast and extra anchovies on my pizza (which I haven’t had in years because my family gets grossed out.) 

Eating is fun.  But most of us don’t do it that well.  We don’t fuel our bodies for the demands of our day.  We starve ourselves in the morning, grab a bite at lunch and then eat too much for dinner.  I don’t believe my eating habits are particularly better or worse than anyone else’s.  But I have always observed that my standout executive clients look and feel healthy.  They eat well, exercize and take care of those executive bodies of theirs. 

Let’s say you have a presentation to the board of directors, senior leadership team or clients in the morning.  You’re running on a cup of Starbucks coffee plus two more out of the machine at the office.  Is it any wonder you aren’t firing on all cylinders?  Should you be surprised that you feel tired at 3 pm?  I’m no saint in this department.  This isn’t one of those preachy holier than thou sermons.  I’m as guiilty as anyone of not treating my body well. 

Lately though I’ve notced that when I eat nutritionally, starting the day with berries, yogurt, eggs or some other brain food, my mood is better, my brain works more efficiently and I have all the energy I need for the most demanding day.  Most of you reading this are not 22 anymore.  So, you need sleep and exercise, too.   Combine sleep, good food and exercize and it’s a natural high.  You feel that you can conquer the world.

So I thought I should ask you the question - how do you want people to see you?  As a healthy, high energy executive who is in charge of your body?  Or as the person who always looks a little overworked, sometimes bordering on haggard, exhausted or overwhelmed?

Picture a colleague, coworker, friend, boss or mentor who you regard as high energy.  I’m not saying they need to look like the could run the Boston Marathon but successful people get higher performance by putting super in their tanks, not regular.  

So put berries and apples on the grocery list, grab some on the way out tomorrow morning, and let me know whether you’d like some anchovies on your pizza.  

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I used to hate it when my mother said “It’s right in front of your nose, dear.”  Have you ever actually tried to look right in front of your nose?  (I just did it.)  It’s a weird feeling. 

Try it. 

Really, nobody’s looking.  Go ahead.

Wow, you really know how to live dangerously. 

Seriously, did you get dizzy?  I did.  And I couldn’t see a darned thing. After three or four seconds I stopped because it was uncomfortable. No wonder my mother also used to say, “Don’t cross your eyes or they’ll get stuck.”  

She was right.

What I mean is you can get stuck trying to see what’s right in front of your face – the story of your company.   Even a crackerjack marketing/PR/communications team sees it from the same perspective you do.  It’s simple anatomy – you’re so close you can’t see it.     

Nobody knows your business like you do.  You are smart, self-reliant, and you’ve lived the story.  It’s hard to take a step back.  So there you are looking straight down your nose, so close that you may go cross eyed.  

You are the best one to TELL your story but before you do, you may need to take a step back and get someone to helpyou.  Another person’s perspective will help you to fully appreciating what that story really is.  Your story is not the features of your products or services.  It’s about who you are as a company and why customers want to do business with you.      

Recently we started working with a new company which had a cool technology and a lousy message.  I’m saying you could spend 47 hours reading the copy on their web site and I would defy you to explain what they’re trying to say.  But chat with the CEO for two minutes and you see he’s clearly passionate about it.   

So we started asking questions.  We listened, talked some more, revised, revamped, and eureka.  Cool stuff.  The picture came into focus.  I love it when when everybody looks up at the same time and you can tell they are thinking, ”This is fun!”        

It can be scary to let go and twork with a coach or consultant; to try to tell your story to someone else.  You may be a little afraid of the holes in the story, or the questions you hate to answer.  But when you do this, it’s amazing how the answers fall into place.  And you may as well address those gaps because it’s what your audience is thinking about anyway.  

So, my advice is, before you assign the team to spend hours slaving over another PowerPoint deck; before you ask the “Web guy” (I know they’re not all guys but that’s the lingo) to revise your web site; before you sit down with one more trade press reporter, or go to an industry conference or even meet with a big new prospect, get some professional help.  Bring the story into focus.  Uncross those eyes and get the story right.     

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We were crammed like sardines into a conference room smaller than my kid sister’s bedroom growing up, and believe me that’s Lilliputian - it was a sewing room before she came along and sort of surprised my parents.  Anyway, the Bates team was crowded into our smallest meeting room debating whether the image of a Native American should be included on a PowerPoint slide with a proverb that we had recently learned could not be credibly traced to a single source.  Indian? Buddhist? Native American? Photo or no photo? Attribute to anonymous?  Red or blue background for the quote? This conversation among well paid consultants drifted on for several minutes until somebody woke up, blew the whistle and said, “Can we move on?”

It wouldn’t have mattered had we also not just spent precious minutes deciding which bullet points to eliminate on a slide about why storytelling is important.  Generally the rule is six bullet point lines per page so your audience doesn’t have to squint.  There were maybe 7 or 8 bullet points so the raging issue was which ones should stay and which ones should go and couldn’t we shorten the messages because it was too much information which it was but they were all important so what should we do………………..5 minutes later ………………………… you know the drill.

This was not a meeting to prepare a PowerPoint presentation.  It was a planning session about creating an exceptional event for a new client. It’s not that the little things don’t matter - of course they do - it’s just that six or eight people editing a slide is not a good use of time and resources.  

That’s what got me thinking about how it’s just so darn easy for even productive professional people to lose their way and get swept up in the minutiae.   

Why does it happen so often?  How do we end up in the weeds?  One minute there’s an important topic on the table; the next minute everybody has lapsed into a coma. It’s as if the Bad Meeting Fair came along and sprinkled ”sleep dust” into everybody’s eyes.  A trance-like state overcomes the room; those immune to pixie dust are restating the obvious and dawdling over issues that matter not; everybody else has saucer eyes.  Someone walking into the room at that moment would easily spot The Meeting Stare.  You know - people around the table day-dreaming about buying a summer home or ruminating about whether to ditch the Lean Cuisine and go out for a turkey wrap and tortilla soup.

As communications consultants, our firm teaches seminars on meeting best practices and effectiveness.  If I do say so myself, it’s one of our better courses.  So I certainly don’t mean to imply by sharing that story that we don’t practice what we preach.  I’m proud of our team because we’re pretty good at planning meetings, creating accurate, timed agendas, stating and ending on time, and fostering productive conversation that leads to action steps and accountability.  We have a great rapport which makes it easy to use humor and good natured jabs to get back on topic.  Yes, we are human and we get off course but what makes it work is we are also allowed to pull out the red flag out and throw it if the group goes off course.

It isn’t a failure if your meeting occasionally goes into the weeds; it’s whether and how you pull out that determines your success.  If everybody comes in the door with a clear sense of purpose, determined to get it done and get out, then you are more likely to avoid prolonged debates about nothing that take you back to your desk for a Tylenol after the meeting.  What I’m saying is that everybody in the room needs to be empowered to pull the flag and call people on “weedy” conversation when the meeting goes down a rat hole.

What is at stake isn’t just productivity and efficiency, though that would be enough.  If your meetings aren’t well run, then good people will conclude that they don’t belong there.  The people you want in your organization won’t stay because they won’t thrive in a culture where time is wasted.   They don’t want to hang out with colleagues who don’t seem to care if little is accomplished.  Meetings are important and necessary but you can’t allow them to become the Godzilla that ate your company.

One way to encourage this culture is to manage time on each topic in a mindful way.  Every meeting doesn’t need to be an hour.  They can be 25 minutes.  Or 7.  People make fun of me when they see my agendas with odd numbers, but I really try to think - is this worth five minutes or three?  Could we do this in 7 instead of 10?   Add it up - you can shave off a lot of time and avoid a lot of minutiae this way.

Prepare an agenda, time it, keep people on course and let everybody know they’re also responsible for keeping things moving.  And, if the Bad Meeting Fairy shows up, get out your old tennis racket and shoe her out of the room. 

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I never, ever, ever provide our email list to anyone.  Once every 871 years I let our readers know about something that is worth their time.  So this is it.  The National Speaker’s Association New England Chapter’s Speaker “U” - and I mean it when I say I endorse this thing 100%.  I am president of the NSA NE board this year, I’ve been directly involved in designing the program and inviting the speakers. 

The reason I wanted to tell our readers about it is because one of the three “tracks” at this two day event is exclusively for business speakers.  The focus is how to develop tremendous confidence, speak like a pro, and use speaking to attract more clients, generate unlimited leads, and grow your businesses through the power of presentation.

We have nationally known speakers including the author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott .  David also wrote the hit book World Wide Rave and his Web Ink Now blog is ranked by AdAge Power 150 as a top worldwide marketing blog.

The rest of the two-day event, June 10th and 11th, at the Conference Center at Waltham Woods in the Boston area, focuses on how to speak well, make a powerful impression, exude professional presence, engage your audience, make your visual presentation exceptional, and be savvy about your PR and marketing.  The “deans” of Speaker “U” and I have personally selected speakers who we truly believe are going to blow your socks off.    

I will be giving a program called Never Ever Be a Dud Speaker: 10 Proven Strategies to be the “Perfect Speaker” at Industry Conferences and Events along with my good friend Susan Friedmann, one of the Deans of Speaker “U.”  This is a brand new seminar we’ve created just for this event, about how you can become the expert who stands out in the crowd and delivers one of the most memorable presentations of any meeting.  We’ll cover the essentials of moving beyond just conveying a message to provide your audience with breakthrough insights, awareness, and cutting-edge information. We’ll also show you how to energize your presentation, make it more motivational, entertaining and utterly professional.

Susan has traveled the world helping companies put their best foot forward at trade shows and events. A prolific author, Susan has written twelve books including “Meeting and Event Planning for Dummies,” “Riches in Niches: How to Make it BIG in a small Market,” made it to #1 in hot business books on Amazon.com, and her latest book, “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Target Marketing.” Susan and I are privileged to be among the 600 people in the world that have earned the designation CSP, Certified Speaking Professional.  

Also on the corporate speaker track:

• Professional Dress:The Power of a Strong Image in Building your Career - with Mary Lou Andre
• POP! Your Business, Brand, Book, Social Media and Speaking - with Sam Horn
• The Art of Being Fabulous: Make a Powerful Impression with Clients and Prospects - with Judith Bowman
• Never Be Boring: Step by Step Tools for Developing a Memorable Interesting Business Presentation - with  Naomi Deutscher
• How to Make Your Presentations Video Centric: Tips, Tricks and Techniques to Add Impact - with Bettina Hein
• The Art of the Moment-The Improvisational Actor’s Toolbox for Business Speakers- with Daena Giardella
• PR/RX - A Foolproof Prescription for Creating a Healthy PR Plan And Getting Media to Pay Attention to You - with Tara Frier

And that is just the corporate track.  There are two other full-day program tracks for professional speakers (who get paid to speak) and for emerging professional speakers who are building their careers as consultants ane experts.  Check out the entire program description  www.nsanewengland.com

I’m almost embarassed to tell you how low the price is - if you register before April 25th it’s $297 - that is not a typo.  NSA is keeping the fee low because it wants to attract business speakers who could also benefit from the tremendous value NSA provides.  So you can write this check ( or give them your credit card number) without even blinking.

So I urge you to check it out, and if you come, I’ll see you there! 

PS: Sign up on the web site: http://www.nsanewengland.com/meeting_registration_speakeru.asp

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Some people use their blogs to communicate everything.  Like therapy.  I try not to do that.  But there’s something on my mind.  And I think it’s worth sharing. 

The other day I said something to someone and regretted it.  I didn’t swear (learned that lesson from Joe Biden). I didn’t even raise my voice (though I know how because I’m married to an Italian).  I simply made an observation about his emotional state.  In front of other people.

It was true.  It was also stupid.  He came up right after the meeting.  He didn’t even wait until people had left.  We were going to have it out right then and there, come hell or high water.      

What triggered my initial comment isn’t interesting.  But I’ll tell you just to provide context. The group was discussing a technical issue, really in the weeds.  He was repeating himself — over and over.  No one understood.  They didn’t need to.  They didn’t have the information needed to make a decision.  It wasn’t even clear they ever needed to vote on it.   So, they were getting impatient.  Very impatient.  People were shooting me looks, rolling their eyes and letting me know – end it. Each time I interrupted to suggest we take it off line or decide next time, he launched into another explanation.  Finally, I ended it.  He shot me a look.  So, I said it.    

I learned later that he was really angry about something else.  But my timing was terrible.  Wrong time, wrong place.  And what I felt bad about was how it made me feel about myself as a leader.

Fallout:

·         We dealt with it

·         I think it’s over

·         I still wish I hadn’t said it

You can’t take the moment back.  The spotlight is on you – and it reflects on how you lead.  No matter how inappropriate someone’s behavior, you have to choose your moments.  Even if what you say isn’t illegal, derogatory or demeaning, it doesn’t matter.   If you let your emotions get the best of you, you don’t feel good about it.    

Yes, we’re all human.  We will make mistakes.  And we can learn from them.   

Note to self:

·         Confront behavior

·         Choose the moment     

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I was talking the other day with one of our executive coaches, Margie Myers, about what makes people sit up and pay attention.  She told me about this hilarious cartoon that appeared in the New Yorker back in the 80’s.  It’s called What Dogs Hear.  Being a dog lover I went looking for it.    

When I saw it I realized - it isn’t just about dogs.  Is it?    

Imagine that dog is YOUR AUDIENCE.  (I know, I’ve had some ”dog” audiences too, but I am not meaning to insult dogs or audiences here. Simply trying to make a point.)  They are really trying to listen.  But they can’t hear.  It isn’t their fault.  They’re trying, they really are.  You just aren’t speaking dog language. 

If you want your audience to sit up and pay attention and maybe even give you a big kiss after your presentation, your only hope is to talk to them -about them.   

The other day I took a look at the first draft outline for one of my client’s presentations.

Blah Blah Blah.  It didn’t need a tweak - it needed a shredder. As in a do over. So we hauled out the Audience Agenda exercise from Speak Like a CEO, and I asked him to switch chairs.  That often helps people change perspectives -move out of their own mindset into the mindset of the audience. I asked him to imagine he was the CEO of his company.  What was on the guy’s mind? 

He came up with three questions - 

• How can we seize new market opportunities this year?
• How can we improve our profitability?
• Do we have the right people on the team to do it?

Voila.  An outline for a talk that will get a CEOs attention. I predicct he’ll be all over it like a dog on a bone.

Please don’t be a blah blah blah speaker.  Take time.  Do the 180 thinking.  Write down the issues on your audience’s mind.  Build your talk around that. There, isn’t it simple? 

Woof!

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Suddenly it’s become this thing.  I didn’t used to hear it that often but lately everybody’s talking about how their leaders need to tell stories. 

The reason most people can’t find their leadership stories is because when asked, they can only remember the stories they’ve been telling at neighborhood cocktail parties or around the family dinner table on Thanksgiving.  You know - the one everybody likes about how in third grade you and your brother were chasing each other across a field and climbed over a fence and you stuck your hand on a board with a rusty nail and your mom was mad as hell and youu had to get a tetanus shot.  Or the one about how you skipped World Religion class in college and then got your girlfriend’s notes and pulled three all nighters in a row to study only to fall asleep and wake up 12 hours later having slept through the final.  Fascinating stories like that.   

Those probably won’t work. The reason they won’t work is that it’s going to be hard to make a business point.  But trust me you do have great stories some of them personal but with universal themes appropriate for business. 

Stories are the way to deliver a message.  The reason many leaders pooh-pooh the idea is because they are …afraid.  There, I said it.  We don’t do that in our culture.

The best speakers and leaders tell stories.  They believe events in their own life are worth sharing with others in order to explain who they are as leaders.

Of course they get help.  You don’t want to get up and start telling stories unless they’re going to make a powerful point.  That would be like picking up a scalpel and performing heart surgery without the proper training.  Yes you could use the instrument but the results won’t be pretty. 

Fortunately telling stories isn’t heart surgery.  Everybody learn to do it well.  And everybody HAS stories.  I’ll never forget sitting in a session with our consultant Craig Bentley who told his client, “If you’re breathing, you have stories.”  Yes, your stories are there, hiding in plain sight in the corners of your life.  You just need to stop and look.  Then, give them a little love.  Say, come here story, I might want to tell you.

How do I know?

Well, for one, we teach storytelling in our boot camps and workshops so I’ve seen ordinary people get up and tell gynormous stories that nobody could guess they had in them.  It’s happened a thousand times.  We start by asking probing questions to get people thinking about interesting experiences, they work with a partner who asks more questions to get to the “truth” or lesson in the story.  You wouldn’t believe how much fun it is to hear these stories and watch these speakers blossom right before our eyes.   

If you are wondering whether personal stories really work in business the answer is yes as long as they aren’t inappropriate, x rated or pointless.  And if one of our coaches is working with you we’re certainly not going to let you go tell your team how your fraternity got arrested at 4 a.m. in the middle of the football field because you were reenacting the famous all-night streaking party of 1972.   We’ll be looking for the kinds of stories that show decisions you’ve made, challenges you’ve faced; transforming experiences that express who you are.  You might be surprised to discover how even small, ordinary events can become signature leadership stories that express your viewpoint and make a huge impact on your audiences.

Nobody except perhaps your spouse would be interested your first kiss, but a lot of people would like to know about something you learned in your first job.  They’d also like to hear about awkward moments, difficult choices, failures, successes, interesting people you’ve met, and insights you’ve gained by living and facing life head on.  

As I always like to say to my clients, you’re leading this group or this company FOR A REASON.  Somebody put you here because they saw something in you.  So now it’s time to reveal it.  You owe it to the people you lead to share insights about the values and principles that drive you.    

Your stories about life and career have shaped you as a leader and made you the person you are today.   The trick is to be selective; choose the right events, master a process for examining them, and apply the structure for writing and telling a story to make a point.  

I am constantly amazed and astounded at the things that happen to people.  It’s life!  It’s damned interesting!  You can look at somebody in a business suit and think “he was born in that suit” until you hear his tale of surviving a storm at sea in a rowboat or how adopting a baby from Romanian orphanage or trekking to a remote mountain village with a broken leg.  You always end up in the same place.  Everybody has an interesting story.  And if you share your stories you’ll make a magical connection with your audience. 

You know how a lot of people look at you and think that you’ve been sitting in that big office all your life?    They have no idea that you’ve struggled, failed, or overcome difficult situations personally and professionally.  Honestly, they think somebody just handed you the keys to the office.  As a leader if you can connect with them through your stories you will encourage, motivate and inspire them to work hard and live up to their own potential and I can’t think of a better definition of leadership.

Steps in the storytelling process 

• Think of a challenging situation you have faced, a failure, awkward moment, difficult decision
• Tell the story to a friend, coach, mentor or speechwriter
• Get them to ask you probing questions - what happened, why was that significant, what was the result, how did you feel, why does it matter
• Look for the point inside the story, don’t try to “fit” a point into a story - let it tell you what it’s about
• Record it out loud, then transcribe and edit
• Use a story structure to eliminate unnecessary details and leave only what matters and takes your audience there
• Bring it alive with conversation and colorful descriptives
• Make your point in terms of a universal theme for your audience
• Write it down and save it
• Practice until you can tell it in a fluid, conversational style
• Be sure your point is clear

If all that sounds complicated it’s actually not.  Once you learn the process and have the tools, it’s really fun.  And let me tell you those stories make speaking a whole lot more enjoyable. 

There are disasters.  You see them at conferences and company meetings.  You know, when the speaker starts a story that goes on forever, and everybody starts squirming or checking their Blackberries.  You try to be polite but nobody is that nice. So, you turn to a perfect stranger seated next to you, exchange painful, knowing glances meant to say OH MY GOD PLEASE HELP HIM or LET THIS END.  

But don’t let that scare you.  You can learn this.  Storytelling is not a natural born skill but with the right tools, practice and some guts you can do it.  A good story will earn you a reputation as a standout leader in your company and industry.  Not to mention you’ll be able to ditch the PowerPoint heroine for a few minutes and actually have a conversation with people. 

Want to hear about our boot camp and storytelling seminar?  Email me at info@bates-communications.com

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