Dahle Communication

Avoid making the big mistakes - what the Minnesota Vikings can teach us about public speaking

 Growing up in eastern South Dakota means one thing when it comes to professional sports - we usually follow the Minnesota teams. This is not always the case (I'm actually a Denver Broncos fan) but you will see a lot of purple and gold during the football season and the Minnesota Twins are our adopted baseball franchise.

This means that Sunday was not a good day for eastern South Dakota. My twitter feed was filled with a variety of people commenting on the Vikings and their eventual demise. I am pretty sure that the productivity in this state and in Minnesota is not going to be very high this week.

While checking out the game stats I noticed something - the Vikings actually dominated the game. Let's take a look:

Stat Minn NO

1st Downs 31 15

Total Yards 475 257

Time of possession    36:49 27:56

Inside Red-Zone 6 3

Turnovers 5 1

If you ignore the turnover stat for the moment and just focus on the first four, you would have to say that the Vikings won the game. They dominated in yards gained, first downs, time of possession and had twice as many opportunities in the Red-Zone as the Saints did. If you do that in a football game, 99% of the time you are going to win. However, it is the final stat that brought down the Vikings. If you turn the ball over 4 more times than your opponent, you will lose 99% of the time.

It was when looking at this that I had a thought about public speaking. As public speakers, we can do a lot of things correct. We can work on our speeches for hours, we can practice over and over again and we can have a flawless presentation - however, it is the big mistakes that can cost us. I'm not talking about having to be perfect when giving a speech, but the more mistakes that we make during a presentation, the less likely it will be a success. 

All of us make mistakes when speaking. However, it is avoiding huge mistakes (like having to rely on a projector and then having it not work - or having a really horrible slide) that are important. The Vikings made some mistakes - a penalty here and there or a missed opportunity. Those mistakes didn't cost them the game, much like small mistakes won't hurt your speech very much. It is the big mistakes that you want to avoid.

So, the next time you are getting ready to give a speech, make sure you are prepared to avoid the big mistakes: too much text on your slides, having to rely on your slides or not practicing to name a few. If you do this, you can be successful.

Guest Post: Joey Asher from Speechworks - Public Speaking Tips From my Dog Balou

One of the benefits of having this blog has been getting to know various people around the world that I never would have met before. The following post comes from Joey Asher from Speechworks. 

Public Speaking Tips from my Dog Balou

 By Joey Asher, President Speechworks

My dog Balou is a 60-pound, black-lab mix that we adopted at a PetSmart rescue day last year in Sandy Springs, Ga.   And if he could only talk and write on a flip chart, I’m sure he’d be a great public speaker. That’s because he understands how to connect with people better than most humans.

It’s about connection not perfection

First, Balou understands that you can do a lot wrong if you establish great rapport.

Balou makes lots of mistakes.  He eats the insoles out of shoes. He chewed the upholstery on our nice living room sofa. When he vomits on the kitchen floor, it’s truly disturbing.  And I won’t bother describing the foul and prodigious “gift” he left for us in the basement on Thanksgiving morning last year.  I guess we forgot to let him out the night before.

But we forgive Balou’s mistakes because we love him. When I’m working at the kitchen table, he sits at my feet. When my kids come home from school, he runs to the window and starts barking for joy.  And he does this hilarious thing with this ratty stuffed panda where . . .  Well you get the idea.

Like Balou, great public speakers understand that you can overcome mistakes with connection.  They’re not worried about forgetting a point, using an awkward phrase, or having their hair out of place. They don’t worry if the projector breaks.  They know that if they connect with the audience with energy, eye contact and stories, all will be forgiven.

My Dog Displays Lot of Passion

If Balou were a public speaker, his best trait would be his passion.   Balou has no trouble expressing his excitement. When I’m about to take him for a walk and he sees me grab his leash, he goes berserk. He leaps, twirls, and sneezes repeatedly (Sneezing is how Balou shows excitement).   That excitement is contagious and endearing.

Great speakers also show passion. I worked with an attorney that gave a presentation on how women attorneys can balance work and family.  As she spoke, her face lit up, her voice became intense, and her arms moved wildly.  Her passion was obvious and I was riveted.

Balou Makes Great Eye Contact

Balou knows that to connect with people, you need great eye contact.  If I say, “Hey Balou”, he looks up at me.   If he wants to go outside, he looks at me and barks.   When I come home from work, he shows he’s happy to see me by looking right at me and wagging his tail.

Similarly, great speakers understand that eye contact is critical. I worked with a project manager recently who had great energy but looked at his feet when he spoke.  We helped him by making him hold the eye contact for three to five seconds with individual listeners.

Balou just loves you

Finally, Balou understands that you win affection by showing affection.  We love Balou because he loves us and shows us in dozens of ways.

The same is true with great speakers. They show their affection for their audience by addressing their key concerns rather than giving a generic speech. They leave plenty of time for questions. They then answer those questions with a helpful, sincere tone.  Audiences return the love that you give.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that Balou knows how to sell himself so well.  His livelihood depends on it.

Joey Asher is President of Speechworks, a selling and communication skills coaching company in Atlanta. He has worked with hundreds of business people helping them learn how to communicate in a way that connects with clients. His new book “How to Win a Pitch: The Five Fundamentals That Will Distinguish You from the Competition” is available on Amazon and at www.speechworks.net.   He is the author of “Selling and Communication Skills for Lawyers” and “Even A Geek Can Speak.” He can be reached at 404-266-0888 or joey@speechworks.net.

Sherlock Holmes, Guy Ritchie, Robert Downey Jr. and Style

 I love a good movie. A movie that not only entertains, but is intelligent and witty or has great action scenes and special effects. Most movies give you one one or the other - never both. When a movie can capture both I usually will end up enjoying the movie so much I'll buy the DVD when it comes out. It is rare that a movie will cause me to either buy the book it was based on or want to see it again in the movie theater. However, Guy Ritchie's new movie Sherlock Holmes is causing me to do both - and apparently a lot of people feel the same way.

What is it about this movie that made it so enjoyable? First and foremost is the directing of Guy Ritchie. Ever since Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels came out, Ritchie has directed several movies that have a very distinct style to them. Very action and fast-paced, with my favorite being Snatch  (especially Brad Pitt's portrayal of a 'Pikey').

The second part of the movie that made it so good was the acting of Robert Downey Jr. It's hard to believe that the guy who plays Ian in Weird Science and has been arrested several times for drug problems is one of the biggest movie stars today. However, Downey Jr. has always been considered a great actor and it is his style that he brings to Sherlock Holmes that removes the stuffy pipe-smoking persona that most of us think of when we imagine who Sherlock Holmes is. Downey Jr.'s performance is summed up great in a Washington Post article:

In the plus column is Downey's performance. The actor gets one important thing just right. That's a sense of Holmes as a brilliant misfit, a kind of autistic savant who hears, sees and remembers everything.

Who else could have pulled this off? Who knows - there are a lot of good actors out there. However, it is Downey Jr's style of acting that really brings home the character and the entire movie.

If you are curious as to what this has to do with communication I am sure you are not alone. Style is a very important feature in public speaking that a lot of people don't think about as much as they should. Style not only in their presentations, but in their language, structure of their speech, gestures, movements - everything. The style of your speech can have a major impact on its success or failure. Don't let a good speech - content wise - turn into a bad speech because you didn't think about the style of the speech.

This is much like a movie. The director and actor's styles can alter a movie - for good or bad. That could have happened with Sherlock Holmes. With a different actor or Director, the results could have been horrible - even with a good story. Luckily (for me at least) the combination of this director's style and the actor's style fit perfectly for a great movie - and I can't wait to buy it on DVD!

One Year Down - A review of my favorites

 One year ago today I published my first post on communication here at Dahle Communication. I wasn't quite sure how much I was going to be able to spend posting articles or what I would talk about all of those times. After one year though, I have realized that there is a great deal to talk about and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon!

With that said, here are my top 10 posts from the past year. They are not the top ten in views or comments, but what I feel are the 10 bests posts. Best can mean a variety of things, but to me it represents a post that was thought provoking, got some good feedback and has continued to attract interest not only from everyone out there, but me as well.

10. Presentations to watch: xBlog: Did You Know 4.0 - I put this post in the top ten because of how good the video from xBlog is. Its a great presentation that has given me some inspiration and has also gotten me to think about the world.

9. Prezi - A Revolution in Presentations or Just Another Program? - Prezi is a presentation application that has made me re-think the way presentation CAN be done. However, much like anything new, its novelty has worn off some for me. However, I think it is still a great presentation tool that can be added to any successful presenters repertoire.

 8. A Good Story Helps Propel Supreme Court Nominee Sotomayor - Justice Sotomayor's profile has decreased quite a bit since she was nominated and confirmed as the most recent Supreme Court justice. Her rise to fame however allowed the Obama administration to show all of us how to use a story to get your audience on your side.

7. Watch the context of your language - why MSNBC should learn slang - The reason I put this up on the top 10 list is that I am a political junkie. I follow politics a lot and like to follow how candidates and activists use communication - either to their advantage or disadvantage. Sadly, a lot of people apparently need to learn slang, because this issue is still around. Besides, this has quite possibly the funniest clip from The Daily Show ever!

6. Macworld 2009 Keynote - Minus Steve Jobs - All of us know how good of a public speaker Steve Jobs is. So when he didn't present at the Keynote address of Macworld people were concerned - about Steve and the status of Apple. Apple is so tied to Jobs and his ability to present eloquently that unless his successor can follow in his footsteps as a confident speaker, Apple might be in trouble.

 5. Pearl Jam Ten Redux CD - Addition by Subtraction - I put this post up simply for the fact that music is a big part of my life and I have used music on several occasions to prove a point. Other posts include one talking about Allison Krauss & Robert Plant, The Watchmen Trailer, Alice In Chains, Chris Isaak and Muse. Music can teach us a lot about communication.

4. Destroying a Brand the Tiger way - This has turned out to be a huge story. What's more amazing is that is it still unfolding in front of our eyes. By the end of 2010, we might know everything - but I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't.

 3. Are things like Twitter, Texting, Facebook and Blogging hurting communication? - This was one of many posts regarding communication and how it is being affected by on-line media. A lot of people have simply forgotten how important effective communication is.

2. Twitter vs Facebook - Why Simplicity Matters - I have posted several times about Twitter because of its impact on our world as communicators and on society as a whole. 

 1. Mantras versus Mission Statements? How about a Passion Statement - This post got a lot of responses from people about the idea of a passion statement. While reading Guy Kawasaki's book Reality Check, I liked his idea of a mantra instead of a mission statement. However, I like the idea of a passion statement even more - which is why you will find one of our pages on our website titled "About Our Passion"

These were just 10 of the 88 posts I had over the past year. I can't wait for the next year and what communication will have in store for us.

Tiger still hasn't learned anything - maybe I can help him

 Last month I talked about how quickly Tiger Woods destroyed his brand image with his actions. In that post I stated:

In today's world of instant news, gossip dominates coverage (which I despise) and videos go "viral" - events can change the way we look at something in an instant. Communication has changed so much with Twitter, Facebook, e-mails, blogs, etc. that you cannot control the message. It is impossible to control the message - you can have some influence as to the direction of the message, but you cannot control it. Tiger didn't understand that and he still doesn't. He has only given a couple of statements on his website, no interviews, no communication at all.

That was on December 14th - before sponsors had begun to drop him. At that point in time, Tiger had taken a huge hit in his brand - but it was still strong enough to garner the attention of companies who wanted to sell their products. Sadly, Tiger didn't realize that his lack of communication to talk about what happened was causing him harm.

Brett Duncan over at Marketing In Progress made an interesting comment on that post that I wanted to talk about here. He states:

It's really quite amazing what we've been witnessing with Tiger. Especially even since you originally posted this, he's lost quite a few sponsorships. Turns sponsorship into a great way to explain branding: if companies want to sponsor you, then you're doing something right with your brand.

As to the communication side of things, I'm curious as to how you think Tiger could have handled this better?

Brett makes a great point when talking about branding and sponsorship. If your brand is good, people want to ride that brand to help sell their products and want to sponsor you. Hence, if your brand is not good, they don't want to be associated with you. This is what Tiger has to realize - that his brand has taken such a hit that companies that have spend millions supporting him are now bailing on him. Companies add and drop people all the time, but they usually do it because of their skills declining and a newer, better version is coming up. This isn't the case with Tiger Woods - he is still the most dominant golfer in the world - they are dropping him because his brand is now THAT tainted.

To look at Brett's question on what Tiger could have done better, this answer is simple: Communicate! Tiger Woods loves his privacy and he felt that he could keep quiet about it and people would leave him alone like they always have. Unfortunately for Tiger, the news media smelled blood in the water and were like sharks. The media is like this - they like a sensational story - either sex or violence - and if its both, hallelujah - and this one had sex with some hints of violence (directed towards Tiger - with a golf club no less).

Had Tiger come out right away and addressed what happened the media might have been easier on him. However, because he has been so quiet, bloggers, pundits and anyone with an opinion has filled the gap. While he wouldn't have been able to cover things up - at least he would have been able to facilitate something to help himself and his brand. 

Is it too late for Tiger? I'm not sure. I am sure he will come back and be a great golfer and will continue to be the world's number 1 player for years to come. However, unless he comes out soon and starts communicating with people - either giving interviews or having a press conference - anything - he will continue to fall in the public's eye and will continue to destroy one of the most valuable brands in the world.