TOOLS FOR DELIVERY

— YOUR WORDS

“I would never use a long

word where a short one
would answer the purpose.
I know there are professors
in this country who ‘ligate’
arteries. Other surgeons
only tie them, and it stops
the bleeding just as well.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

30 PRESENT for SUCCESS

Managing audience attention

A simple rule of thumb goes like this: Under the best conditions, a human
being will concentrate on what another human being is saying for as
many minutes as their age. So a one-year-old will listen for a minute, a
five-year-old for five, a 15-year-old for 15, and so on up to the age of 20.
After that, it levels off. As a result, it’s much too much to expect a group of
adults to listen attentively for more than a 20-minute stretch. This doesn’t
bode well when we have to give two-hour presentations!

What you do with your voice, your face, and your body will have a
huge impact on how well people to listen to you, but we will address
these areas in the coming chapters. In this chapter, we’re concentrating
on how you choose what to say rather than how to say it. So while
you must not expect the words to speak for themselves without added
emphasis, choosing good words and powerful images will certainly help
the message.

It makes no sense to develop a presentation that isn’t clear and relevant.

It also makes no sense to develop a presentation that is so simple it
leaves no mark on the listener. The trick, then, is to come up with a blend
of style and substance that is meaningful for you and appropriate for
your audience. Much of the style and substance will come from how you
choose which points to make and which structural tools you use to deliver
them. Much will also come from the individual words you say.

Keep it simple, with impact

Fast Fact

Humans have not only limited time, but also a limited

attention span. You need to respect this by keeping
your presentations simple and engaging.
 TOOLS FOR DELIVERY — YOUR WORDS 31

Contrast these two sentences:

#1 “Unfortunately, our organisation has not been able to

manage the disparity between its output and the demands
on its financial base.”

#2 “We’re broke.”

While the second sentence contains only two syllables, it has many times
the emotional power of the first. It comes straight to the point, and doesn’t
hide behind difficult terms. Now, if your goal in your presentation is to
pull the wool over your listeners’ eyes, then by all means go overboard
with the vocabulary. But if your objective is to be clear, interesting and
motivating, stick to words we all understand, and keep your sentences
relatively short.

The well-placed “zinger”

While you are sticking to punchy, powerful words and manageable,
coherent sentences, it’s a nice touch to throw in great descriptive words
that really capture the imagination from time to time. This is especially true
if you like to use stories in your presentations. To see what I mean, read
through these two examples and see if they feel different to you.

Story 1 “I have a client who was very nervous about his company’s
prospects. He was regularly losing staff, and he was
concerned that he couldn’t keep up with the competition.”

Story 2 “I have a client who was desperate about his company’s

prospects. Staff were leaving in droves, and he felt like
easy prey for the competition.”

In the first example, the words are simpler, but the message takes longer.
It’s clear, but a bit dull. Most audiences will feel concern, but not very
deeply. In the second example, more descriptive words are used to
intensify the feeling, and the image of feeling like prey drives it home.
32 PRESENT for SUCCESS

The language is accessible, but also compelling due to its stronger

emotional content.

Keeping your language robust

There are several ways in which we undermine the strength of our
message. Beyond a weak structure and lack of clarity of purpose, we
also use words that dull our impact. Primary among these are out-of-date
language, weak verbs, and passive verbs.

Out-of-date language
In a misguided effort possibly to sound authoritative, some people choose
language that went out of date with our grandparents. Things like this:

“It is my great pleasure to be in attendance at this event

today. Heretofore, our organisation has had the privilege
of helping to select the candidates for this award. Being
on the receiving end of the reward is an honour we had
never allowed ourselves to imagine. We are extremely
grateful.”

While such language does indicate how seriously the speaker is taking
the moment, it also indicates how seriously she takes herself, and is
a lot of language to wade through for the listener. Try something like
this instead:

“I am absolutely delighted to be here today. Until now,

we’ve been privileged to be on the selection committee.
We never imagined that we would be chosen ourselves.
What a great honour. Thank you all so much.”

If you have done research on your listeners, and you know that they
expect you to use a lot of complicated language, by all means do so, if
you can pull it off. They might feel a lack of respect if you take a more
casual approach. But these days it’s much more common for listeners
 TOOLS FOR DELIVERY — YOUR WORDS 33

to appreciate a speaker’s effort to be clear and engaging, as if their

presentation were a conversation rather than a speech. Watch out for
using dusty old language that will put a distance between you and your
listeners rather than bring you together.

Weak words
While it’s important to keep our language simple, above all for those of
us who speak to international audiences, it is equally important to keep
our language lively. Some words are simply more powerful than others.
Here are some examples:

Sales rose very fast. Sales skyrocketed.

Nothing is happening in the The market is lifeless.

market.

Our window frames have a Our improved window frames

new design and will satisfy will amaze you.
your needs.

Sally was very scared. Sally shook like a leaf.

You can see how often the more lively word is one that serves as a
metaphor or analogy. These words paint pictures that speaking literally
just cannot.

Other weak words are those we use to sound humble, but which damage
our credibility and lower our status. Try to shift toward a more definitive
voice, as in these examples.

I hope to be able to show I will show you…

you…

If you don’t mind, I’ll now I’m excited to be able to

discuss… discuss…
34 PRESENT for SUCCESS

Maybe you’ll be able to I’m sure you’ll see very clearly

understand how… how…

In this presentation, I’ll try to This presentation offers you…

give you…

I know that in some contexts — for example when speaking to a very

senior colleague in a very hierarchical company or country — it will
benefit you to soften your language so as not to cause offence. What’s
important is to recognise that if you do so at all times, you may well be
judged as cowardly. Understanding your audience will help you decide
which words will have your desired effect.

Danger Zone

Albert Einstein is attributed to have said that

everything should be made as simple as possible,
but not simpler. He was referring to science, but the
same goes for presentations. Beware of simplifying
them so much that you suck the life out of them.

Passive verbs
Passive verbs mean that something is done to the subject of the sentence,
rather than the subject being active.

Passive: The investigation was concluded by the client, and the

paperwork was signed.

Active: The client concluded the investigation and signed the

paperwork.

Can you see how, when we use the passive voice rather than the active
voice, we inadvertently drain a bit of life out of our message? Consider
this text:
 TOOLS FOR DELIVERY — YOUR WORDS 35

“Our pet food campaign was noticed by the advertising

industry awards board, as it was considered to be both
original and meaningful. We were asked to be part
of the showcase at their annual convention, and also
invited to speak on a panel. As you can imagine, we
were delighted to participate, and were much enriched
by the ability to share our experiences with other
marketing professionals at the convention.”

Think for a bit about how you might make the verbs active. There are
certainly many ways to do it. What approach would you take?

If you’re not quite sure, here’s one possible way:

“Our pet food campaign caught the eye of the

advertising industry awards board for its originality and
its meaningfulness. As a result, they asked us not only to
be part of their annual convention showcase, but also to
speak on a panel. It was a great honour, and of course
we said yes! The opportunity to share our experiences
with other marketing professionals at the convention was
priceless, and we had a truly enriching time.”

By using the active voice you’ve made your pet food campaign the
hero of the story, rather than the awards board. Can you see how using
active rather than passive language adds energy to the text?

Aha! Moment

When I change my passive verbs to active verbs, I will

immediately sound more dynamic.
36 PRESENT for SUCCESS

Jargon as a foreign language

It’s wonderful how industries develop their own specific terms, acronyms,
and abbreviations. However, it’s important to remember that these terms
are a completely foreign language to people outside the industry.
Terminology might not even be consistent within an industry as different
terms can be used in different countries. A British friend of mine with a
financial business in Asia had a meeting with some Americans working
in the same field in the United States. When they began using a term he
didn’t understand again and again, he didn’t want to appear ignorant,
so he excused himself and went into a nearby office to look up the term
on the Internet! You don’t want any of your listeners to feel this way, so
it can be very good for your relationship to check in with them as to
whether or not the terms you are using are familiar to them. And if they
are from outside your industry, naturally it is best to use layman’s terms
instead of the very specialised language you use with your colleagues.

What you don’t say can be just as important

It’s well worth the effort to spend time choosing the right words to say in a
meeting or speech, but we often then muddy our message with meaningless
words like “um”, “ you know”, “mmm”, “actually”, “sort of” and “ok?”

All these words pop out of our mouths when we feel the need to think.
Why? Because we are afraid of silence. However, it might help if you
take a moment to put yourself in the position of listener. Do you mind it
when a speaker pauses to think? Probably not. In fact, you likely welcome
a moment to digest what’s been said so far. What’s more, you will have a
much easier time remembering what is said if there are pauses here and
there in the presentation. But as speakers, fearing rejection, we worry
that taking a moment to collect our thoughts will reflect badly on us. Like
anything else, it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.

People who use these thinking noises and words to excess in their
presentations are largely unaware of doing so. You may be one of them,
 TOOLS FOR DELIVERY — YOUR WORDS 37

but have no idea that you are. So ask! Ask your colleagues to give you
feedback on how you talk and the words you use. Ask permission to
set up a camera in a meeting room during a team meeting, then play it
back afterwards to hear what your verbal tics are. I guarantee you will
be surprised. We don’t hear these thinking words as we’re saying them
because we hear our thoughts instead. Once you start listening for them,
they will pop up like mushrooms.

Aha! Moment

I’ll be able to start dealing with the filler words I’m

using once I hear them for myself.

Battling the urge to “um”, you know

My experience of reducing how often I say “ um”, and helping others
to do the same, has taught me that the best way to do so is simply
to slow yourself down. When you speak more slowly, you will calm
yourself down and you will have time to keep your thoughts organised.
An added benefit I’ve found is that I can literally hear the “um” coming
down the pipeline in my brain when I slow down, so I am more easily
able to avoid saying it.

Saying “you know” too much really reduces your authority in any type of
presentation. Fortunately it can be battled in the same way as “um” and
“ah”. Record yourself either on a voice recorder or on camera during
a meeting or public speaking engagement, or have a colleague count
how many times you say these things, in order to understand just how
severe the problem may be. Then slow down to a pace that allows you
to avoid saying the words. When you feel them coming, pause. Choose
your next words at a reasonable pace. Your listeners will appreciate the
effort you are making to be as clear as possible.
38 PRESENT for SUCCESS

The reality of “actually”

I wish I had ten cents for every time a presenter said “ actually” without
meaning it. The overuse of “actually” feels like a virus in some places!
You end up listening to language like this: “This slide actually shows
you the current market for mobile phones in Asia Pacific. We’ve actually
been watching for signs of a downturn due to the current economy.”

Maybe you’re so used to hearing “actually” used like this that you’re
wondering where the problem lies. The word “actually” is synonymous
with “in reality”. Look at those two sentences again and replace “actually”
with “in reality”. How does it sound? It’s ridiculous.

Give “actually” back its true meaning. Use it in sentences where you are
contrasting an opinion with a fact: “Many people think that teenagers
underestimate the dangers of smoking. Actually, when surveyed, many
teenagers believed that smoking is more lethal than it is.”

Sorting out “ sort of”

I recently heard a presenter say, “So that’s how I sort of see our sort of
plan for the pitch next week.” It was clear that he used “sort of” not only
as a filler word as he was thinking while he talked, but also as a way
to sound humble. Think about it, though. If he’s been asked to present
a plan for a pitch, his team will want to hear that he has confidence in
his ideas, won’t they? It’s confident, but not arrogant, simply to say, “So
that’s how I see our plan for next week’s pitch.”

A picture paints a thousand words

You will need more than an intellectual connection with your listeners if
you are trying to motivate them to act — to adopt your strategy, to buy
 TOOLS FOR DELIVERY — YOUR WORDS 39

your product, to employ you. You need to touch their emotions somehow.
Drawing some sort of picture with your words does this very well. There
are several ways to do this:

Personal stories
Telling a relevant story about yourself is a wonderful way to get into your
subject and to bring your listeners closer to you at the same time. For
example, the head of a department whose objective is to motivate her
team to get their accounts cleared more quickly might open with:

“I was at a management meeting last week where we

discussed the backlog of pending accounts, and it was
really scary. The number is mounting, and we’re about
to really start feeling the pain as a company. So today
I’m going to talk to you about my strategies for dealing
with this, and to assure you that we can certainly improve
the situation when we work to help each other on
this issue.”
40 PRESENT for SUCCESS

You can see how she is making her objective clear while at the same time
she opens up emotionally to the group, so that they know she didn’t call
the meeting to affix blame or to issue orders. She’s in this thing together
with them, and she’s got ideas to help. As a result, the group is more likely
to listen attentively and get on board.

Depending on the situation, it can be appropriate for you to use quite a

long story in your presentation. Some people also split them, starting their
presentation with the beginning of a story, then finishing the story in the
conclusion, in order to underline their points and take them a step further
in a very satisfying way.

Quotes

We often hear speakers quoting famous people in their presentations,

and this can be very interesting. Sometimes, though, it feels as if the
presentation was designed around the quote, rather than the quote having
been chosen to support the presentation. Also, when you quote a famous
person, they are not usually talking about you or your company, so there’s
no guarantee that the audience will feel the link.

An effective alternative is to quote someone closer to home by thinking

through relevant conversations you’ve had with important people in your
life. Have they said anything useful lately? Let’s imagine you sell cat
food. You could start a pitch to distributors like this:

“The other day my neighbour said to me, ‘Your cat’s fur

is so nice and shiny, so healthy-looking. I’ve heard that
feeding them raw egg can do that. Is that what you do?’
I told her about the egg in our newly formulated dry
food, and now all three of her cats are hooked too.”
 TOOLS FOR DELIVERY — YOUR WORDS 41

In this way, you not only get to underline the important ingredient in
your new product, but you also show that you’re fully engaged in the
product yourself.

Aphorisms
An aphorism is a familiar saying, which means people will probably
recognise it. That’s good. But it also means that unless it relates in an
interesting way to your subject, it can sound trite. For example, it’s pretty
dull to say that dogs are Man’s best friend if you’re talking about dogs.
But what about this?

“Dogs are Man’s best friend. I think we agree. So I’m

looking into which canine qualities we, as a company,
can adopt in order to be our customers’ best friend.
Here’s what I’ve come up with.”

Rather than boring your listener with a tired old phrase, you’re using it in
a new way. And they’re still listening.

Analogies: similes and metaphors

In a simile, you say that two apparently unrelated things are like each
other. With a metaphor, you actually say they are each other. For example,
“My son eats like a vacuum cleaner” is a simile. “My assistant is an angel”
is a metaphor. Both are ways of making analogies.

Analogies are wonderful for introducing verbal imagery into your

presentation. I find this is particularly true if the content is quite technical
and you are speaking to a less-than-tech-savvy audience. Here are a
few examples:

“You can think of this innovation as a metronome. The

software has always been playing the right notes, but
now it is doing so at exactly the right time.”
42 PRESENT for SUCCESS

“My office is like some sort of no-man’s land in the middle

of a cold war. People from accounting come and talk to
me, and people from design come and talk to me, but I
can’t seem to get them to engage with each other.”

“We’ve positioned our company on the high dive. Plenty

of our competitors are doing their tricks down on the
springboards, but we’ve made it clear that our goals are
higher. It’s a risky position we’ve taken, but it offers us the
chance to distinguish ourselves. What we need now is to
make sure that we are in perfect shape for the dive.”

Statistics
You can’t just introduce numbers into your presentation and expect them to
have impact on their own. You must choose your statistics carefully, and
deliver them with emphasis. Using a striking statistic in your opening, or
at the beginning of a section, can be an excellent way to get and keep
audience attention. Here’s one:

“We tend to think of smoking as being on the decline.

At the moment, smoking related-diseases kill one in ten
adults globally, or cause four million deaths. But by
2030, if current trends continue, smoking will kill one in
six people.”

Imagination
Asking your listeners to imagine something along with you is a sure-fire
way to keep their attention. It’s just about impossible for human beings
not to imagine what they are being asked to imagine. If I say, “Imagine a
pirate ship,” you see it in your mind, don’t you? Your listeners will do the
same. You can use the tool like this:
 TOOLS FOR DELIVERY — YOUR WORDS 43

“Imagine one of your staff has an irate customer on the

telephone, and is beginning to get frustrated and panicky
because he doesn’t know how to handle the situation.
He hasn’t been trained. So he just says what comes to
mind…”

It’s everyone’s nightmare to have an employee damage business because

of mishandling a phone call. By getting them to imagine the situation and
feel the unhappy emotions that go along with it you can easily drive home
the need for training.

Questions
Asking questions is another tried and true way to keep your listener’s
mind with you, to begin relating to them, and to work some emotion into
the mix.

Some presenters like to ask questions that expect a show of hands:

“How many of you have ever struggled through a leveraged buyout?” If
people actually do raise their hands, you’ll benefit from having an idea
of how knowledgeable your audience is. You’ll also be able to follow
your question with something like, “Well, those of you who have will
know how painful it can be. I’m here to talk to you about how to avoid
the pitfalls again.”

If no one raises their hand, it can be awkward, but you can easily follow
up with, “No one? Perfect. I’m here to tell you how to avoid the many
pitfalls involved if it should ever happen to you.”

You might want to ask a rhetorical question instead. These questions

don’t require answers; they just get people thinking and serve as a
stepping-off point for your presentation. For example:
44 PRESENT for SUCCESS

“Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night

after a nightmare about a leveraged buyout? Chances
are most of you have. I’ll be glad to spend the next
45 minutes with you discussing ways either to avoid
it completely, or to navigate its treacherous waters if it
does happen.”

Rhetorical questions are wonderful for opening presentations. A bit later

on in the talk, people may be more comfortable answering specific
questions with a show of hands or even a verbal answer. If you choose
this approach, consider leading up to the question with a statement like
“At this point I think it would be interesting to see how many people
agree that leveraged buyouts are getting more vicious as we speak.”

All of these tools — stories, quotes, aphorisms, analogies, statistics, and

questions — can be effectively employed throughout your presentation.
Beware of using too many, in case your message becomes too complicated
by the many ways you are putting it across, but also absolutely beware
of not using them at all. They will help you begin your presentation in
an interesting way, and will clarify the distinctions between your points.
They will also help you end in a way that sends your message home in
a memorable way.

Danger Zone

Watch out for using these tools in your presentation

but getting set in your ways. Remember to investigate
your audience so that you make sure you are using
analogies that will work for them, and questions that
are pitched to their level.
 TOOLS FOR DELIVERY — YOUR WORDS 45

How else do we remember?

Fast Fact

Some things will be easier for your audience to

remember than others.

You can make sure your listeners remember what you intend for them to
remember in more ways than just the ones we have just looked at. We’ll
be looking at physical choices in Chapter 6, and in Chapter 7 we’ll talk
about your slides. But here’s an interesting exercise before we move on.
Try it out in a group:

Try This

Write down a list of 20 words. Make sure one of the

words is repeated three times within the list. Have
some unusual words in the list, and some compelling
words. Ask a group of friends or family members to
listen in a relaxed manner as you read your list out
clearly and slowly. Tell them this is not a test to see
how much they remember, but rather an exercise to
see what people do remember. Once you’ve read
out your list, have them write down the words they
remember.

This exercise will show you how often people remember the first word on
the list. This is called the primacy effect. They also often remember the last
word, and this is called the recency effect. Naturally, they will recall the
46 PRESENT for SUCCESS

word that was repeated, and can often tell you how many times you said
it as well! Beyond these words, some people will remember words they
can relate to while others will remember words that they find unusual. It’s
hard to predict. So it’s a good idea to include a mix of the familiar and
the unusual in your text.

The fantastic thing about learning to employ the tools discussed in this
chapter is that not only will your audience have an easier and more
interesting time paying attention to and remembering your presentation,
but also you will have more fun delivering it. When you introduce a
strong verbal picture, you will see it yourself and it will guide you through
your presentation. When you choose memorable words and place them
effectively, they will continue to ring in your listeners’ ears after you have
finished speaking.
 TOOLS FOR DELIVERY — YOUR WORDS 47

Star Tips for using the words

that will work best for you