Dahle Communication

Blue Angels and Practicing

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to watch an air show held in Sioux Falls, SD. The airshow included paratroopers, stunt pilots and of course the Blue Angels. Each of these performers were fantastic. The stunt pilots were doing things that I am sure would make most of us throw up had we been riding with them. My wife and I were asking ourselves a simple question while watching them "How do you first practice those moves?" I suppose it is something that takes a lot of training, but at a certain point, they are doing things that are not taught - someone had to try it to see if they could do it without crashing to the ground.

If you have never had a chance to see the Blue Angels flying together, you should try to catch a show sometime. The skill it takes to fly that close together and do certain tricks at that speed is nothing short of spectacular. The pilots who fly those planes have to go through extensive training and they have to continually fine-tune their craft by practicing constantly.

All of us can learn something from the performers I watched this past weekend when it comes to our speeches - we can all practice more. If you want to be a great speaker you need to practice. Do you need to practice as much as the Blue Angels or other stunt pilots? No. However, if you want to move beyond just giving a speech and being a great speaker, then practicing will get you on your way there.

Travis

Walter Cronkite and the Death of Communication

Over the years, there are certain individuals that have made an impact on American culture. Martin Luther King Jr., JFK, and Ronald Regan are just a few of those who have made that impact. Walter Cronkite was one of them. Over the past few days, we have seen the enourmous impact that Mr. Cronkite had on a generation of Americans and beyond. 

I am too young to remember watching the CBS News with Walter Cronkite since he retired when I was only 4. My memories of him come from those instances when was doing a special report or an interview or when studying history and listening to his reports on certain events in American History. His report on JFK's death, the landing on the moon, his commentary on the Vietnam war and every other major event that happened during his time as the face of CBS News are times that people will never forget. Bert Decker has a great post about how Walter Cronkite was trusted and why, which is a great post and a must read.

Walter Cronkite was a communicator. He was able to communicate with his audience what was happening in America and people felt like he was communicating with them instead of at them. It was a sad day for communication when Mr. Cronkite passed away. I hope that others can learn from his example.

Travis

 

Stop Advertising and Start Communicating

One of the things I like about social media is that it is getting businesses and people to communicate with each other. Twitter is a great example. On Twitter, I can have a conversation with someone or several people. It is not a normal conversation where there is an immediate feedback on what you have tweeted, but it is a long-term conversation. Sometimes there is immediate feedback with the RT's and DM's, but for the most part, it is a long-term building process.

Old media is nothing like this. Businesses who use old media advertise at us instead of communicating with us. They interrupt us. Commercials, ads in newspapers, billboards, radio ads, etc. all interrupt what we were doing. We were constantly being interrupted when watching a program on TV, reading something in a paper or listening to the radio.

Unfortunately, some people have not realized that social media is NOT old media. It is not something that should interrupt my day. This morning when I opened up TweetDeck to join in on some conversations I was being interrupted by old media types. Reading things like "3 steps to Make More Money - $125 in 24 hrs Guarantee" or "Who's interested in working part time to earn a few thousand to several thousand dollars a month working from home?" and "I just become a member of this AWESOME site that gets you TONS of followers." I felt like I was reading my junk e-mail inbox!

To those of you doing this: please stop! Stop using social media to promote yourself this way. All it makes me do is un-follow you. I want to be in a conversation with you, not be a target for advertising. Trust me when I say I am not the only one. Brett Duncan at Marketing In Progress has also talked about this in his post "Stop Shouting on Twitter." Johnathan Thomas of Presentation Advisors also posted about it and did a great job of tying it to giving a presentation (which I didn't realize until he added his comments - thanks John!).

 

Our advice is simple: start communicating and then we'll listen to what you have to say.

Travis

Research if you want to do it right!

Over the past couple of weeks Dahle Communication has been working on a pretty big project for a client. Without getting too deep into the details, we're working on helping them create a core message for their clients. Being fairly intelligent people, we started out by discussing what we thought might be those core messages and had a great brain storming session. However, what we came up with instead is going to be far more effective - we decided to go straight to their clients and ask them.

Over the past week or so, we've tried to talk to as many of their customers and potential customers as possible and get their thoughts and perspectives. This has really increased our knowledge base of what the message can and should become. Because of this, the message itself is going to be stronger and it will impact more people. In the end, our client will be a lot more satisfied with the end results because of it.

Make sure you do this when working on your speeches. Make sure you do your research when you are preparing. Does that mean you have to include all of that information in your speech? No. In fact, I would argue that you shouldn't because people are more likely to follow emotion then logic (which is another post for another time). What it will allow you to do is make sure that you are creating the most effective message that will appeal to more people so you will be more successful.

Can you put together a good speech without a great deal of research? Sure. Would we have done okay without as much research? Probably. However, as I stated last week - don't let good be enough - it is the enemy of great. Do the research and be great.

Travis

Style versus Substance

This is an interesting question that you need to ask yourself when you are preparing a speech. Should I focus more on the style of my presentation or should I focus more on the substance of the speech itself. Ideally you would have both in your speeches.

A speaker who is eloquent and has something interesting to listen to will be more successful than his contemporaries. However, those speakers are few and far between - most of us have to work hard to reach those heights.

This is what I tell my clients who I work with: focus on the message and we'll work on the presentation. Your message should be the most important part of your speech. If you don't have the substance, it doesn't matter how much style you have. You might be successful at first with just style, but sooner rather than later, people are going to realize that you are not telling them anything useful and will leave.

However, I also stress not to ignore the style part. It is essential in winning over your audience and getting them to listen to you. Bad habits can become a distraction - the audience is now focusing on that part of your speech instead of what you are telling them. This has happened to a lot of speakers.

Does this mean you have to be flawless? No. You don't have to be Winston Churchill. What you do want to become though is comfortable. If you are relaxed and love what you are speaking on and believe in it, the audience will see that and listen.

To me, substance wins over style, with a caveat: make sure your style is not distracting from your substance. If you don't have anything to listen to, people will not listen even if you are flawless in your delivery. If you do have something interesting to listen to, just keep working on that delivery and you will continually build up an audience.

Travis

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