We tell clients that they are the presentation, not their scripts and nothing brings that home like facing an audience without one.

Know that, the good news is if you are prepared, speaking from notes is going to greatly increase your effectiveness as a speaker. No one in your audience wants to be read to, no matter what the topic. They’ve come to hear what you have to say, not what you have to read. (After all, you could have saved everyone time and bother by just emailing your script if that weren’t the case.) The bad news is, you’re going to have to get over the notion that preparation stops once you get your content down on paper.

Follow some basic guidelines to help you power up your presentation without that script:

• Always start by determining key messages. Your messages are your port in a storm. Lose your place? Return to port. Wondering if material is relevant? Look at those key messages and decide whether any of your material helps explain or convince us of their validity. If material doesn’t directly do that, leave it aside. This is how you’ll begin to reduce a lot of unnecessary material and get to the essence of why your audience has come to hear you.
• Reduce notes to key ideas and phrases. Don’t use full sentences on your note cards and don’t fill your notecards with small script. The whole idea here is to get away from just reading to the audience. That process gets much more complicated if you’ve simply transferred an entire script onto small notecards. Instead, focus on larger points with key phrases, using more of an outline reduced to a bulleted form (and numbering your note cards prominently). The idea is to maximize eye contact with an audience and gain some feedback from them. If you see heads nodding in agreement, or faces staring back in thought, you’ll get a cue you’re on the right track.
• Don’t memorize. You want to practice your talk until you’re comfortable with the general shape and outline, but give yourself the freedom to speak in the moment. No one knows what you meant to say. Meanwhile, by freeing yourself from exact phrasing and even exact order, you’ll have a better opportunity to really connect and give your presentation a flow that’s easier for the audience to understand.
• Try and leave even the notecards behind. If there’s a small table or surface off to the side you can place your notes on, work toward reviewing your notes periodically rather than holding the notes in your hand. Yes, it takes practice. If you need to return to your notes to check your place, don’t stress. Simply stop talking. Review your notes, and then begin again with your audience. Once you really free yourself from the need to fill every second of time with a scripted phrase, you’ll discover how much your props (notecards) have actually been holding you back. If you need to shorten your presentation to accommodate your ability to stay on track, then do so. It’s well worth it to your audience to get a sense of your passion and knowledge about a subject, then it is to try and follow a technically detailed presentation that’s just read to them.
• Practice, practice, practice.  Did I mention practice? Nothing will increase your proficiency and the audience’s enjoyment more than having a real sense that you’re not lecturing them but really communicating your ideas for some purpose. When you’re comfortable, it’s going to show, in natural hand movements, in a more relaxed voice, natural pace and more compelling presentation.

Remember, you are the presentation. The rest are merely aides to help you make it.

Aileen Pincus is a communications consultant and President of the Pincus Group, Executive Communications Training. She can be reached at www.thepincusgroup.com

The post Public Speaking From Notes: Some Tips and Techniques appeared first on The pincus Group.

Briefing isn’t just another word for presentation. A briefing is designed to point the listener toward “precise instruction or essential information” according to Webster’s definition. In practical terms, that means the essence of your job as a briefer is to facilitate some kind of action.

That means the first thing to ask yourself before putting together your briefing is why you’ve been asked to give it. You can’t develop your key points if you don’t know how or why this information is going to be used, or exactly what piece of information you gather will be the most useful to the person you’re briefing. The essential work for any briefer is in the preparation and in knowing your audience, what he/she or they might need, and then delivering it. If you want to hit the mark with every briefing you deliver, follow these best practices:

START AT THE END
You can’t brief well if you don’t know where you’re heading. Remember, this is a talk with a specific purpose, designed to deliver essential information for a decision maker. What’s the conclusion you’re going to reach? Get that up front and build your briefing from these “messages.” Don’t keep your target audience waiting and wondering what all this adds up to. You want to state your case and then spend the bulk of your time proving it by adding the essential information that led you there.

KEEP FOCUSED ON THE WIN
Remember this isn’t about everything your target audience needs to know. It’s about the ESSENTIAL things he/she or they need to know NOW in order to make a decision. Stay focused on the WIN, What’s Important Now. That means you want to distill your information to a few key points and back those up with your best verifying information. Then let the person you’re briefing guide you to any more detail in the question and answer portion of the briefing.

STAKE A CLAIM
This is no place for a wishy-washy, “on the one hand-on the other hand” type of dissertation. Briefings, remember, have a particular purpose. Don’t wait for your target audience to ask you, “So what’s your conclusion?” or “Which of these options do you think is best?” The whole point is to state a case and prove it. If your target wants you to talk about a different option, that’s fine as well, but be ready to make your case either way. You’ll have to stick your neck out to be a useful briefer. This isn’t just a random collection of information you’re delivering. Even if the best you can do is a briefing that concludes “we need more time” or “we don’t know yet,” make sure it’s clear why this is your conclusion and stand behind it.

REMEMBER TO BELIEVE WHAT YOU’RE SAYING
Never deliver a briefing with conclusions that you don’t believe yourself. This isn’t acting. Your usefulness to a decision maker demands credibility. Make sure you can deliver that to the best of your ability, in every briefing, every time.

Aileen Pincus is President and CEO of The Pincus Group, Inc., providing tailored presentation training and media coaching to executives worldwide, with headquarters in Washington, DC.

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We tend to avoid what we fear, so before you hand off that presentation to someone else or try side-stepping the responsibility altogether, consider what you’d be passing up. Each presentation in front of your peers, your boss, an important client is a unique opportunity to showcase your value. A home run in a presentation or briefing can do more to lift your reputation and cement trust for these important relationships than all of the hard work you’ve already put in getting ready for it.

That’s because your audience can see and hear your ideas for themselves. They can connect the messages with the messenger and get the full measure of their impact. Importantly, they will give credit for those ideas to you, the presenter. In short, presentation and briefing skills are essential tools every executive needs to master.

Embrace the presentation opportunities you have by conquering those fears and letting your expertise shine. Follow these pro tips to help:

Don’t memorize

If you memorize (instead of just getting comfortable with your ideas), all you’ll be concentrating on when you deliver your presentation is remembering what you were supposed to say. That’s going to interfere with being your best, most confident self. Instead, stay in the moment and give yourself permission to express your key ideas in a way that sounds natural and comfortable for you. Don’t worry about perfection. Your audience isn’t.

Do prepare (the right way)

Get your essential ideas down to (no more than) three main points. Practice delivering these orally. Pay attention to how you naturally communicate them, what details you use to explain each and how you transition from one main point to the next. There’s simply no substitute for hearing yourself present and building some muscle memory of how you want the presentation or briefing to flow. (Recording yourself is a great tool for this.) If you write out a full script, begin practicing with a greatly reduced one with just bullet points or notes with key points and phrases. It’s far more important to stay connected to your audience than it is to remember every detail of something you’d prepared.

Build in a breather

Many presenters need help controlling their fears at the very start of their presentations. Once they get into the body of their material, the content of what they’re saying helps them find their stride and pull through. If you’re most anxious at the beginning of your presentation, try a different approach. A question to the audience momentarily allows you to subtly shift the focus to your audience and might offer you the breathing room you need to settle in. (Of course the question has to be one you’re reasonably certain will draw the right response, or a survey with no right or wrong answer that helps you set up your points). You might also use a prop, or a handout to momentarily draw people’s attention to something you’re about to speak to. You might even start with a short video or other visual after the briefest of introductions.

Go with what works for you

Many executives heave a sigh of relief when the presentation or briefing is over and they can move on to answering questions. If that’s you, don’t feel constrained by formats. Keep the presentation shorter and lengthen the q and a. You’ll still need to deliver some key messages about your conclusions, but you can save the detail for when your audience signals they want it; by asking a question. Just tell your audience what you’re doing (“I have a brief overview and then I want to get right to your questions about what this means”). Remember to present with your audience first and foremost in mind: what is the essential information THEY need?

Treat the symptoms

Fear causes a physical reaction in us, as our brains signal to our bodies that we’re in some kind of danger. Our breathing becomes more rapid, our voices might shake, our palms sweat. It’s those ‘symptoms’ that many presenters fear displaying, so have a plan for handling those reactions. Know that no one can hear what you’re thinking, and are oblivious to your fear. Tell yourself you’re going to be great, remind yourself of past successes, and visualize how good it’s going to be to hear the congratulations afterwards (even if you don’t believe it). Tell yourself: You’ve GOT this! Remember no one knows what you were supposed to say, so if you forget something, just move on without apologies. If you forget something, it’s a good time to pause and ask, “any questions so far”? Don’t try to banish your nerves, channel them. It’s the same energy that will help fuel your performance. Expend a bit of it if you can just before your presentation (a quick walk, some deep knee bends and long, slow deep breaths).

Remember, the more presentations you do, the easier this will be. Don’t avoid speaking to your own ideas and your own capabilities. Remember how scary things were the first time you tried them, that you now do with ease. You can build this ‘muscle memory’ of success, one presentation, one briefing at a time!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9634281

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But is that because PowerPoint is widely considered a successful mode of communication? Anyone who has suffered through their share of bad presentations knows the answer. Very often, audience hopes of an interesting presentation are dashed quickly as soon as the lights are dimmed. So if you’re someone who wants to break the mold, doesn’t want to present their ideas using slides filled with bullets and text just because everyone else does, how would you present your ideas?

Ask yourself to consider how you might do things differently:

Bring back the visuals in visual aids

Ask yourself if you could get through a presentation without reading or asking your audience to read. How would that change your presentation? It definitely forces the presenter to be very clear about their purpose and key messages. By putting the burden of communication on the presenter, and excluding text, it forces a shift in the way presenters communicate their ideas. Are there photographs, drawings, or renderings you could use to show your ideas and help your audiences understand them?

Think outside the box

If you do decide to rely on visuals rather than text, think of those ‘visuals’ in the widest possible sense. There might be a simple prop you could use to demonstrate how your ideas work. There might be a video that helps you set the stage for your ideas. Then again, you might try simply interacting with your audience to lead them through how to consider your idea. Think about what your messages are and what your goal is for this audience. What are you trying to get them to understand or be persuaded of?  Removing text from your presentation might force you to find more creative avenues of communication. Remember, everyone loves a good story.

Keep it moving

When presenters use PowerPoint, the materials tend to drive the performance. Presenters often want to address each bullet on each slide, regardless of what their audience may be interested in, or the time allotted, because it’s there.  Without those bullets, with or without visuals, presenters become far more aware of having to reaching their audience successfully. That may mean presenters are motivated to stop for questions along the way, or find new ways of interacting with the audience as they present. A lively engaged audience is far more likely to forget about the time and absorb what’s being communicated.

However you present, remember the materials are secondary to you, the presenter. Don’t be afraid to try some different ways of communicating those ideas and to never take a back seat in your own presentations!

The post Leaving PowerPoint Behind: No, You Don’t HAVE To Use It appeared first on The pincus Group.

The GOP nominee is now using the machine he used to scorn, except really badly.

S.V. Date Senior Political Correspondent, The Huffington Post

WASHINGTON ― Donald Trump has become what he has long mocked.

After a full year ridiculing his rival candidates for relying on a teleprompter and finding himself on a shorter leash from his new handlers, the Republican presidential nominee has fully embraced the tool. There is, of course, one key difference: He is bad at it.

“If you’re just going to be staring at a monitor and shouting and gesticulating, then what’s the point?” wondered Aileen Pincus, a public speaking consultant and teleprompter coach based in Washington. “It’s painful.”

Trump’s staff has for months realized that his tendency to wander off topic or unleash personal insults made any effort to deliver a serious address risky. So Trump has, beginning with his speech to a pro-Israel lobbying group in March, resorted to a teleprompter to get through important speeches.

But although the machine was designed to help public speakers appear more natural and maintain eye contact with their audience, it appears to have the opposite effect on Trump.

During his acceptance speech at the Cleveland Republican convention, Trump squinted for much of the address. In his Aug. 15 speech about terrorism, he appeared at times to get confused about what he was reading, leading to awkward pauses and sentences that trailed off. And on Wednesday night’s much-touted speech on immigration, Trump seemed fixated on the lefthand screen for long stretches.

On occasion, Trump also has misread words, sometimes to embarrassing effect. On Aug. 24 in Tampa, he said Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had created a private email server “deliberately, willfully and with pre-medication,” before correcting himself: “premeditation.” And on Wednesday, Trump read “amnesty” – a key trigger word among his hardcore, anti-immigration base – as “amnety.”

Pincus said Trump’s problems with the machine are common for beginners. “It’s not unusual at all,” she said. “What’s unusual is that this man is the Republican nominee for president.”

Trump’s campaign did not respond to The Huffington Post’s queries about how much training the candidate has received on the device. One Republican consultant close to the campaign acknowledged that Trump could use some help, but isn’t particularly interested. “He resists all attempts to change, train, educate, generally,” said the consultant, speaking anonymously because he didn’t want to anger the nominee.

Trump’s resistance to the machine appears tied to his overarching concern to be entertaining and never boring, at all costs. He has said numerous times over his campaign that he could be “presidential” if he wanted to, but his audience wouldn’t like it.

He repeated that thought on Laura Ingraham’s radio show Thursday. Ingraham, who supports Trump, asked him why, at his Phoenix rally Wednesday night, he didn’t use the low-key tone that he had used in his remarks earlier in the day in Mexico after meeting with President Enrique Peña Nieto. “We had this unbelievably energized crowd,” Trump replied. “And if I would’ve used the tone that I used in Mexico, I think everybody would’ve fallen asleep.”

The new reliance on the machine ― which uses transparent screens on either side of the lectern that display the script ― began with Trump’s installing Kellyanne Conway as his third campaign manager in as many months. Top Republicans urged Trump to tone down his public persona and keep to a strict set of messages on immigration, trade and attacks against Clinton, using a teleprompter to stay focused.

The switch, though, comes after 13 months of mocking other candidates for using one.

On Aug. 14, 2015, Trump told a Hampton, New Hampshire, audience: “If you’re running for president, you should not be allowed to use a teleprompter,” and then rotated from side to side to mimic someone reading from one screen and then the other. “You shouldn’t be allowed, because you don’t know what you’re going to get. Look what happened with Obama, where he’s a teleprompter guy.”

On Oct. 10, in Norcross, Georgia, Trump told his crowd: “I’ve always said, if you run for president, you shouldn’t be allowed to use teleprompters,” to big applause. “Because you don’t even know if the guy’s smart.”

As late as July 6 in Cincinnati, Trump mocked Clinton for using the device in her speeches. He stared at an imaginary screen to the left: “North and south,” then turned to his right, “or east and west,” and then turned to the left again: “Donald Trump is a bad person.”

In his mockery, however, Trump resembled mainly himself.

“There is something truly unique in his delivery and affect in his teleprompter speech, and I don’t mean that as a compliment,” said Rick Wilson, a Florida GOP consultant and a longtime Trump critic. “Some of it is his raging ADD. He’s trying to race ahead of his message and do some ‘acting.’ It’s clumsy and weird. And for people who aren’t for Trump, it’s incredibly off-putting.”

Pincus, the speech trainer, said Trump could easily get some professional help. A two-to-three hour session with her firm would cost a few thousand dollars – considerably less than an hour’s worth of jet fuel consumed by Trump’s personal 757 airliner.

“I doubt it’s the money that’s holding him back,” she said, but hastened to add that she personally had no interest in volunteering her services. “I’m quite sure there are plenty of other people who can help him.”

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Presentations are powerful things. When they’re done well, they can persuade an audience, enhance the presenter’s credibility and motivate action. So how do you know when you’re hitting the mark with your audiences?

For most presenters, the answer is to simply ask a colleague or audience member afterwards. The problem is, a simple “How’d I do?” isn’t likely to be answered with an illuminating response. Many people are uncomfortable at giving anything but the most positive or at least neutral feedback (“I thought it was fine.”) Of course, getting helpful and precise feedback is one of the reasons executives hire presentation coaches. You can get good feedback though after your performances if you learn to ask the right questions.

Next time you present:

MAKE FEEDBACK EASY: You can construct a simple feedback survey on index cards to hand out after your presentation if it’s an outside audience. This removes the uncomfortable hurdle for some people of having to tell you in person, should they have anything but positive reactions. Always include at least one open-ended question about what could have been improved. For internal audiences, you might select a few people to ask the same questions via email.

ASK SPECIFIC QUESTIONS: If you know someone who’ll be attending your presentation, ask them ahead of time if they’ll listen for specific things you’re working on. For instance, if you’re working on reducing the “uhms and ahs” or other verbal fillers when you present, tell a colleague to listen for those as you present. If you make it clear that you’re welcoming that feedback precisely, you’re more likely to get accurate feedback on how you did.

PICK YOUR PRIORITIES: Don’t ask for more feedback than you can handle at one time. Select one or two priorities at a time, such as slowing your hurried pace, or making more eye contact with the audience. You’re much more likely to make real improvements by narrowing your focus.

TAKE IT IN STRIDE: The purpose of feedback is to better your performance as a presenter. Consider the feedback you get but don’t use it as a substitute for your own best judgement. If you have good reason for doing what you do, and it’s working for you, take that into consideration as well. Remember, presenting isn’t “acting”, so if any suggested changes make you uncomfortable, stay true to yourself.

Every time you present, you want your audience to see you at your best. Put the effort into improving this key executive communication skill so others can truly appreciate what you have to offer.

The post Powerful Presentations Depend on Feedback appeared first on The pincus Group.

The remote presentation has some unique challenges, whether it is a webinar that includes video of the presenter or one that relies on slides. The presenter may not have the full attention of the audience, who may be distracted or engaged in other tasks while watching. It’s also harder for the presenter to know whether he or she is connecting with the audience, without being able to see reactions.

Still, the new technologies in remote presentations have made them increasingly popular. Webinars do allow for ideas to be shared between distances, and between greater numbers of people. They can be a useful tool when presenters take full advantage of the medium and avoid the pitfalls. Here are some tips to help you make the most of your opportunity:

BE PRESENT—EVEN WHEN YOU’RE NOT: Your audience has their distractions, but as the presenter, you need to take care you do not give them any additional ones. Silence everything around you that might distract you or your audience; phones, cell phones and emails. Make sure you’re fully engaged in your presentation. Your audience will hear that engagement in your voice and pacing, even if they can’t see you.

PREPARE AS YOU WOULD IF THEY WERE IN FRONT OF YOU: Remote presentations are more difficult, precisely because you’re not in front of the audience commanding their attention. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that means they’re expecting less of you. Take your preparations for your presentation seriously. That means not only building the right content for the specific audience, but rehearsing out loud and in real time so you’re purposeful about your presentation.

KEEP IT MOVING: Slides that stay up too long or presenters who don’t vary their delivery, pitch, and content, quickly bore an audience. You don’t want to rush through the information in your presentation, but neither do you want to move so slowly, you invite people’s attention to wander. Keep your pace conversational and comfortable, but make sure the visuals you use do their part in creating interest. Make sure what you’re saying matches what we’re seeing when we’re seeing it. Rehearse until you can get this timing down.

DON’T READ YOUR MATERIALS VERBATIM: Your virtual audience no more wants to be read to than any audience does. Virtual presentations are not an excuse to load your audience down with detail and long explanations. Treat this format as you would any presentation: Limit the number of key ideas you’re presenting, and then talk your audience through the presentation as you guide them toward some action.

BE PREPARED FOR TECHNOLOGY FAILURES: Always have a full printed copy of your presentation with you in case the audience can’t see your slides or there are other mishaps. Make sure you’ve you’re your materials ahead of time so your audience can follow along in another way if they have to. Know your key messages well, so that at any point you can return to them if need be. Have a backup plan (i.e. second head-set) at the ready; just in case it’s needed. It always helps to have a facilitator so that someone else can worry about recovering in the case of a technology failure, while you concentrate on the presentation itself.

YOUR VOICE IS VITAL: If your audience can’t see you, your main tool is your voice. Yes, you’ll want to build a presentation that has great visuals to keep your audience tuned in, but it’s your voice that serves as the real guide as to whether your audience will pay attention. You’ll need to vary your voice and use it appropriately. That means letting your audience hear your enthusiasm, your passion and your belief in what you’re saying. Think about how to ADD voices of others in your presentation to keep interest up. You can use a co-presenter or you can build in video to change things up for your audience.

ON CAMERA? OWN IT!: If your audience can see you, make sure you give them something to look at. Don’t look away from the computer or camera lens while delivering. You want to give your audience as much “eye contact” as possible and that means directly looking in their direction. Try and visualize speaking to real people (because you are), even though you can’t see them. Remember they are watching you, so don’t fidget, slouch or look distracted.

GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO LOOK AT: Give your audience a real “show”. Think about your content like a story with a beginning, middle and end. If they can see you, think about the use of ‘props’ you can display as you speak. If they can’t see you and you’re dependent on slides, than think about how you can grab and keep their attention. (Hint: it’s not going to be with more text). What visuals can you add to maintain interest? Are they unique enough, compelling enough, to keep your audience tuned in?

BE WORTH IT: Make sure you give your audience something they couldn’t have otherwise gotten from you. That means your materials are not your “presentation”, you are. Figure out what you can give your audience that makes their attention worthwhile.

Virtual presentations can and do serve a purpose. If done correctly, the virtual presentation can serve as yet another important communication tool in the toolkit of today’s executives.

The post The New Executive Communication Skill: Top Tips for Nailing Your Remote Presentations appeared first on The pincus Group.

If you’re presenting to clients or perspective clients about your company’s capabilities, your entire team should be capable of presenting powerfully each and every time. Having the right team leader is important, but it’s not enough to ensure success. Your team leader is there to guide the team toward clear goals but anyone listening to the pitch knows it’s the group effort that will determine whether those promises you’re making will be kept.

Before your next team presentation, make sure each member of your team learns to present powerfully and in concert with one another. Remember these best practices for team presentations:

IT’S ABOUT THE SHOW, NOT JUST THE TELL: If all you needed to win business was to detail your capabilities, you’d be able to win it just by emailing your proposals. There’s a reason for the oral bid or proposal even today when we have so many other options for giving and receiving information. Your potential clients want to “see for themselves” who you are and develop a level of confidence in the team. Make sure your team understands how to show their strengths. Each member needs to be truly comfortable with what they’ve been asked to present and fully prepared for what’s expected. Will they handle direct questions or defer? On what areas might they expect to be questioned or defer to others?

REHEARSE TOGETHER: However limited your time to prepare for the team presentation, don’t use that time solely for individual members to prepare for their individual parts alone. This is a team presentation and you’ll need to rehearse as a team in order to better see and hear the presentation the way your client sees and hears it. Give each other feedback on performance as well as content, with an eye toward how the potential client might view it.

IT ISN’T ACTING: Your team can’t “pretend” to feel confident, they have to be confident. If you see hesitancy or nervousness from a team member in their part of the presentation, get to the root of it before it can be displayed in front of the prospect. By the same token, if your team doesn’t know each other well, or doesn’t like each other, don’t ignore that. That kind of dissonance is exactly what your perspective client is on the alert for. A look of boredom or disagreement will send the perspective client exactly the wrong message about this team, despite what your words say. Understand your team cannot be stronger than its weakest link.

PREPARE FOR SUCCESS: Make sure your team has what it needs to present successfully. Share your due diligence with all members of the team, not just your team leader, so that everyone knows what to expect. Share your strategy too, so that each member of the team understands not only their part in the presentation, but your company’s strategic objectives and goals. Don’t give vague feedback (“keep practicing”)—make that feedback direct (“You need a stronger message to begin with. Make it more definitive.”)

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT: Work on the whole of the presentation, not just its distinct parts. Pay particular attention to transitions between team members. Does the whole of the presentation flow in a logical way, with each piece as strong as the next? Is each member paying attention to what was said (and literally referencing what’s come before or supporting what’s coming next?) If you can’t work with a coach, video tape your presentation and watch yourselves to make sure you’re not missing something a client would notice.

Successful team presentations don’t happen by accident. Work for it. Invest in your executives and in your company’s success with executive coaching.

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That doesn’t mean delivering an effective pitch is easy. Knowing what to leave out, of all the things you could tout about your organization, is always the difficult part. Furthermore, the work doesn’t stop there. Not only do you need to develop that pitch, you’ll need to periodically review it as your organization grows and changes to make sure it’s still working for you.

And what about the all-important delivery? It’s not enough to get the content right. You’ll also have to make sure everyone who potentially deals with your target audience, and certainly the senior executives and representatives of your organization, communicate your pitch effectively.

Keep these essential points in mind:

• IT’S ALL ABOUT WHO’S CATCHING (“THEM”):  A common mistake in elevator pitches is to tout what your organization does best. That approach asks too much of your audience. It assumes your audience not only stays interested (often through org charts and client lists), but will then do the work needed to figure out the synergy between what you do and what they need. Instead, do the work for them. Due diligence is all about figuring out what the need is for any particular client and then crafting your pitch exactly where it’s likely to be the most effective; how your expertise can help them meet their goals, solve problems and stay out front of their competitors.

• VARY YOUR PITCH: If you understand that “It’s All About Them,” then you know you can’t use the exact same pitch with every potential client. Yes, it’s easier to have top executives work out a pitch that everyone will then work off of in speaking to potential clients and other audiences. The problem is pitches are never effective if they’re only crafted top down. You’re going to have to allow your people, who are likely after all to be closest to those potential clients and their concerns, some latitude. Yes, you want your teams on the same page and familiar with key messaging for your organization, but remember to allow them to find their individual best pitch for individual clients. Don’t ask your executives to memorize a script. Ask them to internalize and absorb a set of values and messages about what sets your organization apart. Remember, this isn’t acting. You want your executives to be able to speak with passion and authority about what they truly believe.

• PITCH PERFECT TAKES PRACTICE: Whether you choose a professional coach or tackle honing your performance on your own, there is simply no substitute for practice. Countless organizations complain there is no time to hone the pitch. If you don’t, it means you’re practicing that pitch in front of the client and no organization should be doing that. Practice also doesn’t mean simply emailing written materials around to the team either. It means being in the same room and hearing the pitch the way your target audience will, orally. No matter how tight the deadline, how busy the team, oral practice simply has to be part of your preparation routine.

• DEVELOP SOME BENCH STRENGTH: Every organization wants to rely on its best come game day. However, this is a skill that takes some cultivating. Begin cultivating your next tier of talent by giving them some role in these oral pitches. They’ll need ongoing practice and ongoing feedback to bring their skills up to where they need to be.  Executives shouldn’t be waiting until they have “the title” before learning how to speak for the company with both internal and external target audiences.

• IT AIN’T OVER ‘TIL IT’S OVER: One of the recognized great political orators of our modern day, Bill Clinton, famously had coaching before every major political speech throughout both terms in office. Recognized industry presentation greats like the late Steve Jobs famously practiced presentations as full productions, complete with story-boarding and onstage rehearsals. No one gets good and stays good at these oral skills without ongoing, frank and pointed feedback.

It’s hard to think of another skill that has as much potential to impact success as oral presentation skills. Devote the time you need to honing and developing them for yourself and for your organization.

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For Immediate Release:

In Far Country, Stories from Abroad and Other Places,  veteran USA Today journalist Timothy Kenny takes readers to places where there are “Dark Nights and Feral Dogs,” where Serb snipers shoot at reporters along a road called Sniper Alley and where a “Month in a Far Country” in the Caucasus is a teacher’s delight.

Kenny’s collection of creative nonfiction stories brings alive the places he has lived and the people he has known as a foreign news editor, Fulbright scholar and University of Connecticut journalism professor.

Far Country “is memoir,” Kenny notes in the book’s introduction, “an account of events that I witnessed and remembered. My intention was a simple one: to tell readers something about the ways in which unusual places are indeed, different, and why that is so.”

Trish Harris, editor of the Pea River Journal, says that in Far Country “the connecting thread is not the obvious adventure but human relationships. Each essay is a story we fall into, story after story connected through relationship and observation, from darkness to the next darkness. Kenny’s essays are not just reports from the front but a fascinating set of hard-won observations on any front, any complex of situations that any of us might encounter.”

The author, who was born and raised in Detroit, also writes stories “closer to home,” as he notes in the collection. In “The Fall of Detroit,” Kenny describes a city that has slipped from grace, and recounts his stunned and unbelieving reaction after years away. In “On Turning Sixty-Six and Six in Umbria,” he writes about the joys of raising a daughter who is sixty years younger than he is.

A reporter since 1972, Kenny began traveling abroad in November 1989, when the fall of the Berlin Wall changed the world’s political order and opened the door to a life spent observing other cultures and other lives in forty-five countries, as well as his own. He is currently of Vice President of International Training for The Pincus Group, which specializes in media and presentation skills training for executives.

Far Country is 152 pages long and includes photos. It is published by the independent Midwest publisher Bottom Dog Press, as part of its Harmony Memoir Series. Far Country is available at bookstores and online. The author will hold a series of talks and book signings at libraries and bookstores this summer and fall.

Review copies are available upon request. For interviews, contact Timothy Kenny at: Timothy.Kenny2011@gmail.com. Bottom Dog Press editor Larry Smith may be reached at Lsmithdog@aol.com.

Books by The Pincus Group Trainers:

• In Far Country, Stories from Abroad and Other Places
• Essential Managers: Presenting

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