Month: January 2020

I guess it’s the most frequently asked question when it comes to languages and, unfortunately, it’s impossible to give one answer. The word fast is rather relative since the speed in making progress can enormously differ as it depends on the type of person that we are working with.

To generalize as much as possible, from my personal observations I think that watching films and short videos only with English subtitles is a great way to learn quickly and effectively. Let’s not get too excited, though… It is definitely not enough! Learning new vocabulary systematically, preferably via useful apps such as Quizlet, is also vital, especially when you get new words from those videos! Imagine watching a short programme or an episode of your favourite TV series where you are actually interested in the words that you hear. I can promise you that it will improve the speed of your learning process significantly (not to mention the sheer watching pleasure)!

In my opinion, the worst thing you can do is to excessively practise rules of grammar until you completely drown in handouts and copies. It’s an obsolete method taken from public schools where they need to comply with certain rules and time limits. Limits? Huh? For you, there are none. Remember that!

Ricky Gervais’ speech at Golden Globes went viral, mostly for the reason that his jokes absolutely slammed Hollywood. However, apart from the roasting content he produced, the speech was brilliant for the presentation skills he used. Ricky is a comedian that knows exactly how to grab the audience’s attention. We have analyzed which elements helped him succeed. Follow what Ricky does here, and improve your public speaking skills with us.

Roast Them. But Really?

“[…] Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, nearly three hours long. Leonardo DiCaprio attended the premiere, and by the end, his date was too old for him.”

This is just another joke/roast from the host. Who will be next? Who’s getting a hit now? That’s the question that everybody is asking themselves. Rick’s focus is on the people sitting there. His tongue is sharp. And so is his attention: not on the event in itself, not on himself, but on the audience. The people in the room are the protagonists. That’s lesson number one: if you want to get attention, offer it yourself, too. 

Lesson number two: bring your audience into an attentive mode. As Ricky’s main occupation is to mock people, he does that throughout his whole speech. No stops there. Even though the form of the performance doesn’t change (new topic, new joke), everybody listens carefully because they know that they or their friends may be next in the litany of jokes. How to learn from this? Structure your speech or presentation interactively so that the audience will impatiently wait for the next part. How? In business, you can dynamically ask questions directed to specific people. Distribute attention in a rapid mode, and keep the pace. Make sure the audience knows that they will be involved. 

Also, while talking about a particular task or projects, try to elaborate more on people who perform them, instead of focusing on the process. Let them feel appreciated and “called out”. That may be a less thrilling way than what Ricky does; however, if you know your environment is fine with that kind of jokes, go ahead! Roast! You will have a laugh, convey information and everybody will be focused and engaged.

Confidence and Body Language

Let’s face it, Ricky’s speech was truly controversial, and most probably you will not choose to do simulate it in a business environment. However, we can learn from the confidence he oozes. Even when the audience “boos” him, Ricky would never hesitate: he stands strong, gestures sharply, and never drops the character. His posture is in no way similar to the neat and kind figure below, even though the pressure on him must have been high.

He explains his point, although it’s hardly a popular one, and still carries on. What’s best, he doesn’t try to avoid the audience – he faces it, by saying for example: “I know he’s your friend but I don’t care”.

Surely, dismissing somebody’s emotions isn’t the best way to go around but you might want to use the confidence that goes along. The audience will know that it’s not fake and that’s exactly what you stand by.

How to show it? How to look more confident despite the negativity? Look at Ricky’s body language:

1. His open arms suggest that he doesn’t want to shield from anything. He’s not afraid and defensive; quite the opposite – with the open arms, he suggests “come at me, that’s just my true opinion that I’ve right to”.

2. Shrugging shoulders – is there any other more obvious way to announce that you don’t caret? That’s not the most friendly way to talk with your interlocutor, however in the times of audience’s attack it works perfectly. The integrity between what you say and what you show is the key, that’s why when he admits to not caring, he only strengthens the message with the shrug.

3. Talking about the “body-speech” integrity, shaking your head also serves as an element that highlights the message. See how clear that is in his talk? Non-verbal messages like that speak quickly, and are indisputably clear.

What’s the lesson then? Words will never last if the muscle doesn’t follow suit. The whole body needs to be involved if you want the audience to feel the authenticity (or persuasion) of what you are saying. Think about the integrity of what you preach and what you show. When you tell people that they should speed up with the project because it’s very needed, will you shake or nod your head? Will you open your arms and use dynamic gestures, or will you keep your arms crossed? Pay attention to this area: it may be a small element that will convince others to your point of view.

Manage Emotions!

Some say that “professional” means “unemotional”, “dispassionate” or even “reserved”. Maybe, maybe. We love to go different way – and that’s because we know that emotions are exactly what grabs attention. So, would you rather go with monotonous speech or add a bit of emotional intonation? If you choose the latter, the chances of remembering your speech are much higher.

In this bit, Ricky highlights an important fact: most audience members watch Netflix instead of the network TV or movies in cinema. He does that in a weary-like, almost impatient manner. As a result, he grabs the audience’s attention and shares a bit of his attitude towards this trend:

Add a Twist, Please!

What else raises engagement? A surprise. An unfamiliar, unexpected element. A twist. What’s true for books, films, plays, games and football games is also true for public speaking. If everything is predictable and stable, our brains switch to stand-by mode; they can predict what is going to happen. If you avoid conventional structures and add a twist instead, you will surprise the brains of your audience (as weird and creepy as that sounds)!  So, not only controversies can be effective; twists will do as well. Let’s see how a pro did that:

Witty, right? Start with a compliment regarding the TV show and then highlighting its hypocrisy. However, the speech you want to present doesn’t always have to go from good to bad. It’s all about a surprise in it. Let’s see an examples:

Dear all, it’s been a harsh time, number of clients reduced their orders in our company due to economic crisis, 5 of our employees left the job. So, what’s the result? We have still doubled our income comparing to the last year’s outcomes! And it was all thanks to your engagement, motivation and hard work!

What’s the drill?

1. Start safe. Present a goal you want to convey – thanking employees, stating the importance of your job, passing results from the quarter.
2. Find counter-elements; obstacles, stats from the industry, other people’s opinion, your own predictions to the contrary.
3. Develop the thought about the opposites and end it with a two-sentence twist presenting your point. The outcome will be spectacular! However, remember that the point you make should not be too long. Firstly, you raise engagement steadily as the brains of your audience are just about to predict what you want to say, and then – surprise! Keep your twist segment about 1/3 of the length of the preceding segment.

Juggle, Change, Juggle, Change…

Let’s be clear – structure is extremely important for presentations. Without it, both you and your audience would be lost. But! What would happen if you decided to use a juggling-type of presentation that balances between chaos and order? I’ll tell you what would happen! You would win your audience’s engagement!

Let me ask you: does this Golden Globe speech have a structure, and the bits Ricky says are somehow connected? Well, after the speech, all agreed that his performance’s point was to slam and mock Hollywood, so most definitely his jokes create a bigger picture.

Now, there is more than one way of structuring a story, presentation or speech. You don’t have to start with:

1. Introduction
2. Body (arguments/opinions)
3. Summary.

Although you can. But check this: Ricky presents an idea that can be brilliant in any kind of presentation. Chop your talk into paragraphs and reshuffle them so that one doesn’t result from the other. There can be confusion on your audience’s faces at the beginning. However, when you get to the end, to the “bigger picture” and your punchline, you will see that the audience listens to you extremely attentively to find out what the purpose was.

CONTROL, CONTROL, CONTROL

That’s about it. Some say that Ricky is not kidding at all in the talk – he lays out plain facts, and everybody thinks it’s a joke. Whether that’s indeed the case or not, one truth is to be universally acknowledged: the better you manage your audience’s engagement, the more spectacular effects you can expect.

To conclude. Talk to your audience about them. Avoid theoretical generalizations, point (with words) at the exact people watching you. Ask them questions, laugh at them or with them and continue with the next person. While presenting, don’t forget about your body posture. Let their minds focus and observe your body language. What’s next? Think about your voice, and about what emotions it conveys. Don’t avoid the emotional tone – it can help if you know where your going. But avoid letting emotions go off the orbit. Last, but not least – a twist. It’s almost an instant engagement boost so think about stating two pieces of information that are not linked in any obvious way. Try to surprise and entertain your audience a bit. Juggle the content. Micro bits of information or stories that you present, make sense when you make sure the audience sees the whole picture in the very end. 

Oh, yes, end. Time for it now. 

This article is a part of larger series where we find the best presentation examples and show how you can nicely improve your performance. See any material worth to cover or have any questions? Write at julia@languageextreme.pl

Presenting at an exhibition or conference abroad is an exciting – but daunting – task. Apart from complex logistics, there are communication matters that need to be addressed. If you handle these well, the trip to a distant land will not be a mere exotic journey, but a chance to establish yourself in new relations. We have prepared dozens of customers to effectively speak, talk, and exhibit in an international environment – and would now like to explain what you should focus on.

Choose Your Team Wisely

That’s one of the most crucial things; carefully select those who will go to the expo. Firstly, focus on the number. Depending on your position and the fairs type, you may want to let 2–4 people go and represent you nicely. Too many is a crowd, and one person’s always in need of a companion. A practical rule of thumb: make sure there is enough of you to take care of your booth, and to check what competitors do at the same time.

Secondly, think of experience. You don’t want to choose only noobs or top professionals. Pick one person that will be great with technicalities in case your interlocutor asks “hard” questions. Depending on the number, choose those that come from different areas (like sales or customer support), and can come in handy at the expo. Think of the audience who will come – will they be engineers that search for partners or rather managers a more general picture? Make sure your team is adequate to the audience and diverse enough so that you can address most of the possible questions on the spot.

Another thing to think about is what roles the team members will have. Who will be responsible for small talk and gathering people near the stand? Who will initiate the talks at the stand? Will there be a person responsible for the logistics and technicalities of the stand in case something happens? Of course, the situation changes, so don’t try to give your team members one and only role but rather make sure they know which role is their main responsibility.

What Does Your Stand Communicate?

Learn on the mistake of one of our clients. Before their first big expo, we were preparing them for the communication challenges they might have encountered. All went smooth and after a while, they felt truly confident; they created their sales pitch, learnt how to approach people without much struggle, understood how to say a lot in a short time, not so waste the attention of the visitors. Splendid!

So, when they got back, we wanted to know how it went. One of them answered: “Well, it was all great, I mean we didn’t have any problem with communication and initiating the talks, we fulfilled most of our goals but… nobody knew what our company does!”

It turned out that the name of the company and the banner they had, didn’t say anything about the sector they were in and the services they offered. Pure enigma. So, when people were approaching them, they were guessing what they company does.”

On one hand, that’s a good hook: a lack of information raises curiosity; on the other, if there are visitors that don’t care enough to approach and ask, they will probably miss an opportunity to learn about their prospect partner. Lesson learnt: make sure the stand (the main message on the banner or any other stand you take) clearly states what your expertise area is and whom you can help. See the example:

      Language Extreme

Waste no words

      Language Extreme

Communication Trainings. Language Courses. Translation.

We waste no words.

Clarity. Legibility. Key message. These three.

What’s Your Key Message?

The more you analyze and prepare your message, the more people you will talk to and get interested in your business. This was the main problem of some of our clients: many of them thought a generic pitch will do.

“Hi, my name is Mike. We do stuff. We take care of [list of about 10 services]. Would you be interested in any of those?”

That’s not how you establish relation at all! Here are a couple of things you can do instead:

1. Select key words.

Nobody wants to know the history of your business until they ask about it. At some point in your conversation, the visitors would want to know more, and they wouldn’t like to be disappointed. Use this moment well. Choose the information that argues for what you want to convey the most: the attractive essentials.

 

For instance, do you want to appear as reliable or quick?

If you go for “reliable”, say how long you have been on the market, with whom you have been working (if those are big players), highlight the facts which show that your customers can trust you – like sticking to the deadlines, advising them in case of any problems etc.

If you want to present your company as “quick”, mention the stats that show your solution can be implemented really fast. Give average costs or any other data that can matter to this person. Don’t overflood the interlocutor with information, choose the relevant bits only.

See the example:

      We do a lot of work in trainings: you know, some crazy stuff, some serious stuff. We started in 1910 and then grew slowly, and then grew quickly, and then were bought by the Americans, and then started work abroad with competences in various areas related more or less directly to communication and so on. And now we struggle to grow again.

      We teach efficient communication and show how good presentation, negotiation, emailing and conversation skills can help companies save money. Why? Because we believe communication competence is the new technology.

See? This makes perfect sense: if you don’t know how to speak about your job properly, are you sure you know what you do? Words make worlds, don’t they?

 

2. Don’t murder with slogans. Prove that what you have just verbalized so nicely is part of your ethos. Example: if you claim effective business relations are your key ambition, try to highlight it in an authentic manner. How about bringing a coffee machine to your stand so that you can sit down and casually discuss the business pain of your interlocutor? The atmosphere and individual approach is the most important thing. Check how our friends at Nava Ship Design did this last year with their Smart Engineering Alliance at Rotterdam’s Europort fairs: httpss://bit.ly/2NNOcRd Craft beer at an engineering expo? Splendid choice!

 

3. Ask questions. Yes, that’s part of your message, too. Your attentionyou’re your readiness to serve. Focus on the interlocutor to match his interests and needs with what you offer. Learn as much as possible about what brings them to the fairs, and what they would like to take home. A simple “Hi! What are you looking for?” can move mountains in this case.

Should I stay or should I go?

Should you hang onto your stand or go further to interest those passers-by in your business? Remember about the roles in your chosen team? That’s the answer. In general, there needs to be somebody near the stand, at all times. However, you need to have a person who will seek the visitors out.

Choose the roles, depending on their personalities. So, what should “the seeker” do? Well, definitely not this:

It’s not information you want to pass. That’s not why you’re at the trades. It’s the relationship you want to establish. It may be harder than just distributing leaflets or trying to talk to random guys, but hey! – quality over quantity! So, here are some tips for the “seeker”:

1. Research the visitors that you want to talk to. You can set up meetings at the expo even before the event starts. If you don’t know whom to target, go to LinkedIn, search the valid hashtag and research who you should meet and talk to.
2. Publish a post in LinkedIn that you will be visiting the expo with proper tags and hashtags. Thanks to this, others can find you and plan to visit your stand as well.
3. When you arrive, search for the areas that your prospects can visit. Go there and try to small talk to other people to see whether they would be interested in your business.
4. Use the LinkedIn feature that searches people in the same location. This may help you search for prospects.
5. Bring some business cards or any other thing that you have instead. Make sure they remember you and have instant contact number to follow-up. You can try the Linkedin scan code to exchange contacts, too.
6. Last but not least, you have to be proactive! Doesn’t matter if you’re the one that seeks the visitors or you remain at your stand; you have to be open to talk to prospects. Without it, there’s no way you can reach your business goals. Just don’t act in a pushy way. Focus on how you can help your interlocutor instead. Those visitors are there for a reason – they want to research some new trends or solutions, so your job is not that hard as it seems. Approach them as a partner, not a salesperson.

Velvet Your Voice

The tone of your voice is more important than you think. Before going to an expo, record how you would approach prospects. Listen to your greetings, to your farewells, and think how you can improve it. Maybe you speak too quietly? Is your voice to high? Are you loud enough? Remember that those places are extremely noisy. Maybe you can work on your intonation? If you have limited time as a prospect, you rather wouldn’t waste your time on a monotonous-sounding guy, right? Why? You know why.

Maybe you can introduce some new emotions to what you’re saying like excitement and feeling of passion and authenticity? That always brings attention. If your intonation isn’t flat and you show with you voice that you’re happy to talk to each person, that’s a win. It’s probably easier said than done as you will be talking to loads of people; however, try to remember that a first impression is truly important.

Have You Trained?

Strategic thinking is one thing, and muscle memory is another. If your performance is uncertain, make sure you have trained your communication before and developed a degree of confidence about what to say and how to say it. The bottom line is: you want your confidence to make the visitors feel more at ease – to make them feel they are in competent hands.

During our communication workshops, we train exactly that: self-presentation skills that build relations. We focus on content (words, images and messages), voice (intonation, tone, and pitch), and body language (yeah, the magic of handshakes, smiles, and eye-contact) to make sure our customers perform better than ever before. In an expo abroad, in an international conference, and in daily work, too. If you need assistance before a foreign business trip, reach us at contact@languageextreme.pl or call +48665257446.

A serious topic to analyze, isn’t it? Why on earth would we like to cover this? Miłosz’s not that old yet. Well, wonder no more! By watching Pash Pashkow’s performance, you can observe how to create an engaging presentation and convey complex and abstracts points that will get across to everybody. Read on to see what we can learn from this TEDx talk. Firstly, we recommend you to watch the presentation and then read the analysis below.

Hooks

Everyone says we measure the success of a presentation by how the audience liked it. How to build this liking, though? Simplest way to achieve this is to boost engagement by using hooks – key components like a joke, a provocative statement, a bit of surprising data etc. These are well known to grab the audience’s attention in an instant.

Pash seems to be a master of well-thought hooks that also happen to be part of a larger story. If the elements were not there, it would harm or alter the storyline. Hence, using hooks is not just a presentation trick – it’s a very natural component of a well-developed thought.

This hook here (which appears in the middle of the presentation) consists in listing numerous examples that support and develop the thesis that even though misnomers are common, they can have a negative effect. See this:

Point made, right? Well explained and very entertaining – sticking well in the memory of the audience, too.

Coming back to the hook used just at the beginning – stating that the presenter’s first midlife crisis was just at the age of 13. Funny as it is, Pash makes a point that at that time, with the announcement of Jim Morrison’s death, he figured out that me might have just lived half of his life already. Hence the idea of a first midlife crisis.

Bear in mind that the hook is intentionally built this way to strike as a surprise. What if the emphasis had been put differently like: “Jim’s death made me realize that I may not live till my 80s but die at 27. This would have meant that I was already halfway through with my life. And that’s when I got my first midlife crisis.”

The example above would no longer be witty information that serves as a hook. That’s what Pash teaches us – that the hook can be made from pretty much any information. It just depends on its formation and putting the emphasis in a right way.

 

King of examples and structure-forming

What Pash tries to convey is a bit abstract, hence complicated to explain. If you struggle with a similar obstacle, one of the most common methods to make your talk seamless is structuring your content with the following order:

1. Explanation of background story.
2. Aim that you want(ed) to achieve.
3. Actions taken to fulfill your goal.
4. Results or aftermath of those actions and a summary.

For instance:

1. Our recruitment process lasts about 3 months.
2. It’s because we aim for hiring best people to our team.
3. So, we have come up with 10 diverse recruitment steps that verify whether a person has all the competences, fits the team, is capable of handling the given responsibilities and if they plan to stay in the company for longer.
4. With such an uncommon attitude towards the recruitment process, instead of losing time and workforce, hence money – we earn more as more clients trust us, and the rate of work satisfaction soars. Having this experience with our recruitment strategy, we won’t change it, at any rate.

Clear, precise, easy to form, right? However, Pash goes further – he starts with an example, and adds more of them whenever his message may not get across.

The whole speech begins with a hook that was mentioned above, which also happens to be his personal experience – an example of a midlife crisis. Through that, he states his thesis. The whole performance revolves around examples. I let myself write down a plan of his presentation. Take a look:

Thesis: Midlife crisis needs a rebrand.

1. Examples from his life to make a point that age does not define when a midlife crisis will strike.
2. Forms a thesis and adds a yoga instructor example.
3. Defining a midlife crisis from a branding perspective.
4. Showing a solution to the branding problem which was compared to the identity crisis. Example of Target.
5. Shows that because of branding disconnect, it’s harder to solve identity crisis.
6. Shows disparity of the original statement and contemporary definition of midlife crisis. Gives numerous examples of similar cases and possible stigma examples that have also a wrong influence on people’s reaction.
7. Giving the example of the apes study that shows that dips are natural not only to us – human beings.
8. Explaining the importance of dips (crises).
9. Highlighting the branding solution that can be implemented to a midlife crisis.
10. Summary with killer whale and funny bone examples.

To each step in developing his thought, he adds examples that show what he means. He either starts with them to generalize the thesis after, or uses it as a reinforcer of what he said. This way of organizing the presentation can be only a benefit, as audience loves examples, especially the ones that are hooks at the same time. It brings not only more engagement into the performance but also more understanding of a complex issue.

So, the next time, try to operate on examples, mostly to make sure your audience gets the idea. Definitions and abstract explanations surely make it easier for us to generalize and categorize an idea, but examples are those which make us understand the interlocutor.

Intonation

Would any of those above mentioned areas matter if Pash intonation was flat and dull? Content and the structure is extremely important, hooks can bring great engagement, too. However, one of the reasons we want to listen to somebody for longer is intonation.

It needs to show emotions and suggest to the audience what the real intention of the speaker is. What if a presenter at your business meeting said “We have finished all the work before the deadline!” with a flat, unconfident, silent manner? Would this message be trustworthy? Would it be even noticed in all the dull-sounding content? Would the team of this guy feel proud of their work or would they think that it’s being ignored by their boss?

When Pash makes a point, he takes great care of the pitches and emotions that create the intonation. With his voice, he lures you into the story and examples. And you exactly know when he makes a joke and when he’s troubled or saddened by a situation. Like when he talked about his father’s death:

See how powerful this one is?

What about using intonation to summarize and to make the very last point? When you watch the video below, you will see that Pash highlights the importance of his thought by slowing down a bit, and accentuating each syllable. When he makes a joke, he adds a bit of a higher pitch. Listen to the ending, which illustrates how he employs his voice to make his point:

Want to improve your intonation? Try to record yourself and analyze what you say, not minding the content and the words. Speak gibberish, but try to convey the thought through the intonation and emotions only. That’s a great exercise to realize the unfulfilled potential of your voice.

Conclusion

Pash Pashkow’s presentation is much more entertaining than most of the TED talks that flood the internet. He’s natural, entertaining and creative when merging the branding and identity problems. The mentioned areas that we can learn from this presentation is just the tip of the iceberg. However, the hooks, the content developed through examples and the intonation that grabs attention are the ones which will help you boost your performance in no time. So, remember – appreciate the value of examples, create your content so that the hooks seem natural and highlight your point with appropriate intonation.

This article is a part of larger series where we find the best presentation examples and show how you can nicely improve your performance. See any material worth to cover or have any questions?

Write here

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