"Serve a Sizzling Steak, Not a Cold Potato
How to Make an Effective Presentation"

(Warning: Due to the enormous importance of this enormous topic, this issue is longer than normal. You have now been duly warned.)

So I'm walking through Barnes & Noble recently, and I'm doing what I've done hundreds of times before. I stop and browse the discount table. In all the years I've done that I've never found a good bargain. And then suddenly one book leaps out at me. For $4.95 I found a hard copy edition of the book called, "The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Speech that Inspired a Nation" by Drew Hansen.

I couldn't believe it. Here was a blow-by-blow description of the evolution, delivery, and style of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" Speech. In my opinion this is the single greatest speech ever delivered, and here was a book that explained every detail of the making and delivery of the speech. It's like having a detailed blueprint of how the Egyptians built the pyramids. For me, it was like learning how Albert Pujols developed the greatest swing in baseball.

While speaking at the level of Martin Luther King, Jr. is beyond even my wildest dreams, I want to share with you some insights that I have learned about presentations from over 15 years of public speaking and several hundred presentations.

Hone Your Craft through Real-World Training

Public speaking is not a natural experience. No matter how natural some people appear while they're doing a presentation, I can assure you that there is a ton of practice and training in the background. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his magnificent speech at 33. People think he was a young, inexperienced speaker. The truth is he had been honing his speaking skills for more than 15 years.

To me, speaking is an out of body experience. No where else does a group of 200-300 pay me to speak while they sit and listen. Outside of a public presentation, I can't pay people enough to listen to me for five minutes. My five-year-old son, Ben, can listen for about 20 seconds before he's out the door to play ball.

Consequently, you need training. For my money, the best public speaking training in the world is still the Dale Carnegie course on Effective Human Relations and Public Speaking. The second best training is the extraordinary Toastmaster's International. I took the 14-Week Dale Carnegie course in 1990 and then served as a Teacher's Assistant in 1991. Those were magical days.

Dale Carnegie taught us how to tell a story in less than two minutes, make a meaningful point in less than 10 words, and do it all without a single note. That sounds so easy, but I would spend hours honing those two minute speeches. Here's an embarrassing moment from my speaking past. From 1985 - 1989 I was a head college soccer coach. I would write out my pre-game speech word for word on a legal pad, and then I would read the speech word for word to the team. Players would roll their eyes. They wanted to hear from my heart, not from my script.

Many people who are not experienced public speakers have no idea what to do when they are handed a microphone. Invariably they'll be given five minutes to speak and they will speak for 20 minutes or 20 seconds. It takes a lot of practice to tell a complete story in two minutes and connect it to the audience with a powerful point. At the Dale Carnegie course, the instructor starts clapping at the end of two minutes and everyone joins in. That's a pretty effective way to say, "Hello, your time is up."

Toastmaster's is the best investment in the world. For a nominal fee, you get together with a group of people once a week who want to improve their public speaking skills. You might give a three to five minute speech one week, evaluate a speaker the next week, speak extemporaneously the next week, and be the timer the fourth week. There is no professional trainer in the room. You're getting real-time feedback from real people. It forces you to stay real and practical, and not to speak from the proverbial ivory tower.

The third type of training is what Brian Tracy calls the key to great speaking. He said, "If you want to be a great speaker, then speak and speak and speak." To really hone your craft, you need to get in front of an audience 30-40 times a year. When I started out I spoke to high school students, college students, senior citizen groups, chambers of commerce, singles group, religious groups, and the Mother's Club at St. Louis University High, where I was a teacher. Speak as often as you can and, if you're like me, then you will fail over and over and over again. That's good because with every "failure" you will learn one or two more insights into what it takes to be an effective speaker.

Make It a Collaborative Process

The night before his greatest speech, Martin Luther King, Jr. pulled together a group of advisors and went over his plan. Each person weighed in with his or her opinions. After about 90 minutes, King thanked the group and said he now had to go to his room to make his final decisions.

I don't recommend you wait until the night before your speech, but I do recommend you run your ideas by other people to hear their insights. Of course, this experience can be painful to the ego. You did your very best to develop your speech and you feel great about it. Then you run it by a few people and suddenly they're giving you insights that are better than what you were planning on doing. To be an effective speaker, detach yourself from your ego. The goal is to add value to the audience, not to work in a vacuum. If someone has a better idea than you, then use it. I can almost always trace my growth as a speaker to an insight someone else shared with me.

HOWEVER, be careful about taking input. Public speaking is a lot like major league baseball. It looks easier than it really is, and everyone has an opinion on what you can do to get better. If you listen to all the "experts" and try to incorporate their suggestions, you will wear yourself out and deliver presentations that are a mess.

Define the Purpose of Every Presentation

When I get asked to speak, I always ask two questions, "What's the date, and what is it you want to achieve as a result of the speech in the 90-120 days after it is over?" In other words, I need to know if I'm available, and I need to know the desired outcome of the speech. A speech without a clear purpose is a complete waste of time. It's just words with no relevance or meaning. Nothing drives an audience crazier than having to sit through a presentation that has no relevance for them.

Every effective presentation is the answer to some question or questions. The question or questions begin with one of the following words: how, what, why, when, where, and who. Go to the person in charge of the meeting and ask what purpose he or she wants your speech to fulfill.

If you're in charge of the group, then ask yourself, "What question is the presentation trying to answer?" Are you explaining WHY a new initiative is so important, HOW to implement the initiative successfully, WHAT tactics need to be executed, WHO is going to be responsible for certain aspects of the initiative, WHEN each phase is going to roll out, and/or WHERE the work will be done. Before you design your speech, write down the question your speech is trying to answer. In answering it, you will fulfill the purpose of that presentation.

The Steak Has to Sizzle, and There has to be Meat on the Bone

When I started out someone told me that the key to a great speech is the delivery. They said 93% of an effective speech is the sizzle, the delivery, and only 7% is the steak, the content. I instantly rejected that advice. Audiences today are bombarded with communication: e-mail, voicemail, advertising, internet sites, cable television, and satellite radio. Given the option, I think a lot of people would prefer to stare at a blank wall than to hear one more schtick from some presenter.

People are sophisticated. Don't dumb down your presentations. Give the audience the meat they deserve. Provide them with useful insights, practical advice, provocative questions, relevant stories and statistics and analogies, and sprinkle in a healthy sense of humor so the audience doesn't become overwhelmed with ideas. If your goal is to impart a meaty message, then don't crack 15 jokes, make one point, give a high five to the audience, and walk off the stage. Give them the depth and breadth of ideas they deserve.

Before you design the delivery and pacing of your speech, put down on paper the ideas and information you want to get across. Also, keep in mind the impact of Google. Information is a commodity today. An effective presentation does more than just provide an update. Insert the information in a way that causes people to think differently and behave differently. And then add the sizzle with humor, intensity, and variances in tone and volume and speed.

If people behave the same way and make the same decisions after a speech as opposed to before the speech, then there was no need for the speech. People are either moving forward or backward at all times. A great speech causes people to think differently and enhance their decisions and their behaviors.

Make It Interactive As Much As You Can (Bowmanize Your Presentations)

The most important objective in public speaking is to get the other person's brain in the game. If I give a speech and no one is mentally engaged in the ideas, then I've wasted a ton of time. I've already heard the speech so I don't need to hear it again. If I'm not engaging the audience in thinking, then I've wasted their time and my time.

In my opinion, the best teacher in the world at creating interactive learning experiences is Sharon Bowman. Read her books! I repeat, read her books. And, if you can, go see her speak. I try to never give a presentation until I "bowmanize" it. I can trace one of the biggest transitions in my speaking career to the day I met Sharon Bowman. I encourage you to go to her website: www.bowperson.com. I repeat, "Read her books."

Inject Your Style

Now it's time to get personal. At the end of the day your presentation has to be YOUR presentation. You need to forge your own style. I have seen every style work and every style fail. I've seen people tell sex jokes and the audience loved them, and other people tell these jokes and never be asked back. I've seen highly successful speakers who never moved from the podium and others who never stopped moving. I've seen successful speakers who tell a joke every four minutes with the efficiency of a Swiss Watch and others who never crack a smile. When it comes to public speaking, every style can succeed or fail. It all depends on the speaker and his or her ability to connect with the audience.

Your style includes the way you dress, your level of intensity, your sense of humor, your cadence, tone, speed, timing, volume, and a hundred other details. The key to developing an effective style is to make sure it is your style and not someone else's. No matter what style you deploy, some people will like it and some people won't. That's reality, and just deal with it. Dr. Phil gives me the creeps, and my wife loves him. I think Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, and Colin Powell, author of My American Journey, are two of the best speakers in the world. Recently two people told me they thought Jim and Colin were stiff as boards and boring.

Just like opinions on art vary depending on the critic, opinions on your presentations will vary as well. Listen to feedback from trusted advisors, watch the reactions of real-life audience members, determine what adjustments you want to make, and then move forward. Not every one will like you. That's life. However, you can't make progress if you change your style with every presentation.

Oprah Winfrey has her own style. John F. Kennedy had his own style. Ellen DeGeneres has her own style. So did Johnny Carson. So does Chris Rock. And of course so did Martin Luther King. Each style was different, but each style worked because it was the individual person's style, not someone else's.

Develop A Variety of Approaches

Over time work to develop a variety of approaches that engage the audience and cause them to think differently. Here are a few approaches I've used over the years:

Cascading Stories

In this technique, the speaker tells five to six stories that are each 60 to 90 seconds long. You simply go from one story to the next without hesitation and without pausing to explain the point of the story. Then you go back through each story and explain the relevance to the audience. Or you can stop talking, ask the audience to write down the ideas they got out of hearing the stories, and then have them share their ideas with each other. It's an effective way to get people's minds in the game right from the get go.

Staircase Approach

In this technique, you tell the audience you are going to make 10 points (or seven points or five points), and then you walk them up the staircase one step at a time. You reinforce each point with stories, analogies, and statistics, and then you move to the next one. When you get all the way to the top of the staircase, you go back to the first step and you say, "Let's review the 10 steps I just covered." Then you sprint up the staircase with the audience as you quickly review all 10 points. It keeps the audience mentally engaged as you move them up and down the staircase.

Lean Into The Speech

As they taught us at Dale Carnegie 16 years ago, "To be enthusiastic, act enthusiastic." I think you have to lean into the speech and pour your heart into it. If you believe in your message, and you better since you wrote it, it is a whole lot easier to lean into your speech than if you're saying something you don't believe in.

John Paul Jones Approach

As the captain of a sinking ship, John Paul Jones ordered his men to burn his ship. The enemy had sent a cannonball through the side of his ship, and then attacked the ship. Jones had only one option: burn his ship and force his sailors to jump aboard the enemy's ship. They did, and they captured the enemy ship.

Speakers can become overly reliant on Power Point slides and notes to the point they lose their connection with their audiences. The next time you have a 60-minute presentation in front of 150 people, leave your notes in your hotel room and unplug your computer. I can assure you that you will be forced to concentrate like you've never concentrated before. But in doing so you will free yourself from having to look at your notes, and you will create a greater connection with your audience. You will be forced to look directly at your audience and deliver the goods. You will remove the chains that weaken your connection with your audience, and you will step toward your audience.

Research Your Audience

One of the worst speeches I've ever heard was from a very famous speaker. We all paid more than $100 to attend his session. After 15 minutes, I realized that the audience was completely inconsequential to this speaker. He knew nothing about us. It was like watching a human tape recorder. I'm convinced he would have given the exact same speech if he was in a recording studio.

If you want to impact an audience, then you have to know the audience. There are a variety of ways you can get that information. For the sake of making this point, let's assume you're the VP of Operations for a large corporation, and you have a speech scheduled in a month for the entire operations department.

First, you can interview six people throughout the organization and ask them what makes the department successful, what gets in the way of the department being more successful than it is right now, and what would make the department more successful. In doing so, you can uncover the hot issues in the field.

Second, you can interview a dozen customers in order to find out what their perspectives are on a variety of issues. You could incorporate their comments into your speech.

Third, if you really want to customize and personalize your remarks, then go be in the field for a week. Get up early and ride with different members of the department. Don't critique them, just observe them. See for yourself what they are seeing and what they are dealing with. When you insert those observations into your speech, you will instantly gain more credibility with your audience.

Once I gave two presentations for Cassens Transport. These are the folks who move cars for a variety of automobile manufacturers. They have hundreds of big red trucks on the highways of America. I spoke to 80 union truck drivers. The first time I spoke I bombed. I had only talked to the corporate executives before my presentation, and the truck drivers knew it immediately. Before my second presentation, I asked if I could ride with a truck driver. I didn't know that in some trucks there is only one seat up front. So the driver put a box on top of a board and that was my seat for the next 11 hours. He and I rode together, loaded and unloaded cars, and talked for 11 hours. When I went back to talk to the 80 truck drivers, my presentation was a huge hit. The only difference was this time I spoke to them from their perspective. Suddenly my points had more relevance than before.

Stop and Start Over

Every once and awhile take out a sheet of paper and start from scratch. Of course, you never really start from scratch because over the years you've developed your own style, a variety of approaches, a stack of short stories and analogies, and experiences of what did and did not work in the past.

Recently I gave a keynote for Toyota Financial Services. Between the challenges that the client provided me with and the challenges I provided myself with, I decided to scrap all my earlier keynotes and start with a blank sheet of paper. It caused me to carefully place the elements of the speech on paper and then move them around and around and around until I found a pacing that I could live with. I went to five different cities to study their organization. I created new stories and new ways of delivering new ideas. The more fresh material I created, the more excited I got. Suddenly I had the same enthusiasm and sense of excitement that I felt when I gave my first two-minute speech at the Dale Carnegie class in 1990.

In the end, I was reminded that "Stopping and Starting Over" is a bar raising experience. If you do it the way you've always done it, then you're done growing. Every once in a while, stop everything, take out a sheet of paper, and design a completely new speech. Implement new approaches, insert new stories, research for new insights, and link the new pieces of the puzzle together. You might just come up with a breakthrough presentation.

Accelerator Tip for June 2006

Take public speaking seriously. The ability to effectively speak in public can accelerate your career, enhance the performance of your business unit, and improve the impact your organization has on your customers. At the very end of his career, Jimmy Stewart was asked if winning an Oscar was his ultimate goal. Jimmy Stewart said, "No, my ultimate goal throughout my career was to hone my craft." If you keep working to hone your craft, you will impact the lives of thousands of people.

Resource Recommendation

• The Dream by Drew Hansen
• The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie

Dan Coughlin

Accelerate Update This section is always current to the current month

I suppose every book changes an author's life to a certain degree. My first book, which was self-published in 1995, was called Inside Out: A Catalyst for Conscious Living. It's out of print now for a number of good reasons. The layout, which yours truly did, looks like something a first grader could do today. And the ideas are very theoretical, which doesn't fit my approach anymore. However, I read the book a few months ago, and I was pleased by how clearly I had explained my early thoughts on improving performance.

My second book, Corporate Catalysts: How to Make Your Company More Successful, Whatever Your Title, Income, or Authority was published in 2005 by Career Press. That book was a step forward in clarifying my ideas on improving performance and understanding how to write a whole book. It's one thing to dream about getting a book contract and another thing to write a 70,000 word manuscript.

My third book, ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Momentum, which was published in May 2007 by Kaplan Publishing, has changed my business dramatically. Up until that book was published, I mostly did projects for four companies: McDonald's, Marriott, GSD&M, and Toyota. In the past 12 months, I've worked with business owners, executives, and managers within dozens of small, medium, and massive organizations in more than 20 industries ranging from boats to banks to software to financial services to trucking to lighting to home healthcare to hospitals to optometrists. It's been an exciting adventure.

If you want to see my speaking calendar for 2008, which we'll try to update every two weeks, please click here.

Currently, I have 66 speeches scheduled for 2008. If you would like for me to speak at one of your events in 2008 or 2009, feel free to contact me at dan@thecoughlincompany.com and I will be glad to see if we can make it work.

If you want to see my speaking topics and a video of footage from some of my keynote speeches, please click here.

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