The Power Presenter: Techniques, Style, and Strategy To Be Suasive, Second Edition
By Jerry Weissman
Contents:
■ Foreword to the Second Edition………………………………………………………………xvii
■ Preface: Show Me the Money…………………………………………………………………..xxi
■ Introduction: The Deer in the Headlights……………………………………………. xxvii
Fight-or-Flight……………………………………………………………………………. xxvii
Adrenaline Rush Remedies………………………………………………………….xxviii
The Mental Method……………………………………………………………………… xxix
Book Conventions…………………………………………………………………………. xxx
■ Chapter One: Actions Speak Louder Than Words………………………………………1
Audience Advocacy®………………………………………………………………………… 1
The Power of the Visual……………………………………………………………………. 3
■ Chapter Two: Creating Empathy with Your Audience……………………………..11
Empathy……………………………………………………………………………………….. 11
The Science of Empathy…………………………………………………………………. 12
The Effectiveness Matrix………………………………………………………………… 15
■ Chapter Three: The Butterflies in Your Stomach……………………………………. 23
Fight-or-Flight: Internal Dynamics………………………………………………….. 23
Fight-or-Flight: External Dynamics…………………………………………………. 26
Presenter Behavior/Audience Perception…………………………………………. 29
The Yikes! Moment………………………………………………………………………… 30
■ Chapter Four: The Quest for Content……………………………………………………… 31
Slides…………………………………………………………………………………………….. 32
Script……………………………………………………………………………………………. 33
Teleprompter (Also Known as Autocue)…………………………………………… 34
Comfort Monitors………………………………………………………………………….. 35
Advanced Technology…………………………………………………………………….. 36
Five Simple Steps to Develop Your Story…………………………………………. 37
■ Chapter Five: The Mental Method…………………………………………………………… 45
Concentration………………………………………………………………………………… 45
The Mind–Body Connection…………………………………………………………… 46
The Mental Method……………………………………………………………………….. 49
Delivering Your Message………………………………………………………………… 59
■ Chapter Six: The Learning Process………………………………………………………….. 61
Change………………………………………………………………………………………….. 61
The Four Stages of Learning…………………………………………………………… 62
Comfort Zone Paradox……………………………………………………………………. 63
Repetition over Time……………………………………………………………………… 65
The Yikes! Moment………………………………………………………………………… 68
The Suasive Master Skills Cycle………………………………………………………. 69
■ Chapter Seven: Speak with Your Body Language…………………………………….71
The Historic Kennedy–Nixon Debate……………………………………………… 71
External Factors/Audience Perception…………………………………………….. 76
Visual Dynamics…………………………………………………………………………….. 77
Vocal Dynamics……………………………………………………………………………… 92
Putting It All Together……………………………………………………………………. 96
■ Chapter Eight: Control Your Cadence: The Phrase…………………………………. 99
Cadence………………………………………………………………………………………… 99
Complete the Arc®……………………………………………………………………….. 100
Rising/Falling Inflection……………………………………………………………….. 102
Complete the Arc in Action…………………………………………………………… 107
■ Chapter Nine: Control Your Cadence: The Pause………………………………….. 111
Unwords………………………………………………………………………………………. 112
Ten Benefits of the Pause……………………………………………………………… 120
Speak Only to Eyes®…………………………………………………………………….. 120
Phrase & PauseSM…………………………………………………………………………. 122
Cadence Summary……………………………………………………………………….. 124
■ Chapter Ten: Tools of the Trade……………………………………………………………..127
Position……………………………………………………………………………………….. 127
The Presentation Checklist……………………………………………………………. 130
Putting It All Together………………………………………………………………….. 133
■ Chapter Eleven: SlideSynchronization…………………………………………….. 135
Design/Delivery Balance………………………………………………………………. 135
The Suasive Meta Design Concepts………………………………………………. 138
Seven Steps of SlideSync Delivery…………………………………………………. 141
SlideSync Delivery in Action…………………………………………………………. 148
■ Chapter Twelve: SlideSync Narrative……………………………………………………..149
Describe……………………………………………………………………………………… 149
Narrative Continuity…………………………………………………………………….. 154
Three Simple Steps of Continuity………………………………………………….. 155
Putting It All Together………………………………………………………………….. 156
■ Chapter Thirteen: Masters of the Game………………………………………………..157
The Great Communicator…………………………………………………………….. 157
Sir Winston Churchill…………………………………………………………………… 160
President John F. Kennedy……………………………………………………………. 161
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. …………………………………………………. 162
Reverend Billy Graham………………………………………………………………… 163
The Great Communicator Redux…………………………………………………… 165
The Great Orators: Conversation and Empathy………………………………. 167
■ Coda: Ending with the Beginning………………………………………………………….169
■ Endnotes………………………………………………………………………………………………….173
■ Appendix A Video Links……………………………………………………………………….187
■ Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………………..193
■ About the Author……………………………………………………………………………………195
■ Index………………………………………………………………………………………………………..197
Preface:
Show Me the Money
Case Studies: Cisco IPO Roadshow • Twilio IPO Roadshow • NetRoadshow
Cisco originally expected to get $13.50 to $15.50 per share for its stock. “But during the road show the company was so well-received” that it managed to sell 2.8 million shares at $18 apiece, Valentine [Cisco’s then-Chairman of the Board] said. He attributed “at least $2 to $3” of the increase to Weissman’s coaching.1
Kathleen Pender
San Francisco Chronicle
July 9, 1990
Shortly after starting my own company, one of my earliest coaching assignments was with Cisco Systems, at the time a young Silicon Valley networking technology company that had decided to sell shares of its stock in an Initial Public Offering (IPO). An important part of that process is to develop a presentation called a “roadshow” that the company’s senior management team pitches to potential investors. Over two hectic weeks, the team travels to about a dozen cities across the country—and often across the oceans. At the time, Cisco—as did every other company going public—had to deliver the same pitch several times a day, or about 30 or 40 times each week. Now, with the advent of streaming video, that process is very different, as you’ll see below, but in all cases then and now, the management team must suit up and show up at the same number of investors’ offices. The IPO roadshow is the most demanding, high-stakes presentation any executive will ever deliver.
I’m proud to say that my coaching of the Cisco team resulted in the quote at the beginning of this preface. But why should you care about a 30-year-old article about Cisco’s roadshow? What does the IPO of one of the most successful companies in the world mean to you and your career? And what does an endorsement of my coaching mean to you?
After all, only a few hundred companies go public in any given year, and you are more likely to win a national lottery than to launch an IPO. But you’ll almost certainly have to deliver a high-stakes presentation or make an important speecha at some point during your lifetime. And whether you are a businessperson or an ordinary citizen, your challenge is to be as “well-received” as was the Cisco IPO roadshow.
The same techniques, style, and strategy that I provided to the Cisco executive team and, subsequently, to the executive teams of more than 600 other companies preparing for their IPO roadshows (among them Intuit, eBay, Netflix, Yahoo!, Dolby Labs, RingCentral, Twilio, Trulia, Talend, Mobile Eye, Zuora, Sonos, and Lyft) can help you with every presentation you will ever have to deliver. Those very same techniques have also helped thousands of managers, salespeople, engineers, and finance executives at Microsoft, Intel, Adobe, Ericsson, Experian, and thousands of other companies to sell their products or services, propose partnerships, seek approval for projects, or raise financing. This book will provide you with the same techniques that I provide in my private coaching sessions.
As important as delivery style is in business presentations, it is of equal importance when soliciting funds for a not-for-profit cause or when speaking to a professional association, community organization, club, church, or synagogue. In all cases, whenever and wherever you stand and deliver, your challenge is to make your presentation a success. John Morgridge, the CEO of Cisco at the time of the IPO, was faced with such a challenge. Having held senior management positions at Honeywell Information
Systems and GRiD Systems before Cisco, John was an experienced executive who was focused more on delivering his data than on his presentation style and technique. His challenge was further compounded by the fact that Cisco’s innovative networking technology was complex, which made the company’s story difficult to explain to the nontechnical audiences of institutional investors. In our work together, I coached John to craft a story that was comprehensible and meaningful to potential investors and to deliver it with poise, confidence, and enthusiasm. Through it all, I helped John to feel natural and appear comfortable. History is witness to John’s success. He went on to build Cisco into a Because the main focus of this book is presentations, I will be using that term primarily; but because the methodology is universal, you can consider presentations to also refer to speeches, pitches and, as you’ll see later in the book, the rapidly expanding format of virtual presentations. a formidable business enterprise; and now, having retired, he is building a formidable philanthropic enterprise.
Around the time of Cisco’s IPO, another CEO experienced another challenge during his roadshow. Just as his two-week tour was about to begin, the CEO learned that there was a problem back at the home office. To deal with the problem, he often had to get on the telephone between presentations. As a result, whenever he presented during that first week, he was distracted. Not surprisingly, his presentations suffered.
Over the intervening weekend, the CEO finally cleared up the problem. No longer distracted, he presented smoothly during the entire second week. At the end of the roadshow, the investment bankers tallied the results of their efforts. The investors in the cities they had visited during the first week placed light orders, and those in the cities of the second week, high orders. The content was identical both weeks; the only difference was the CEO’s body language and voice. Speaking style and delivery can impact the value of an IPO.
In 2016, Jeff Lawson, Founder, CEO, and Chairman of Twilio, Inc., a cloud communications platform-as-a-service company, faced two big challenges heading into his IPO:
Our business model is unique (we are a platform, not a SaaS application) and the markets were unfriendly (with no Silicon Valley IPOs before our offering in June 2016). Our training sessions with Suasive were integral in conveying the attractiveness of our business in our roadshow presentations. 2 Lee Kirkpatrick, Twilio’s then-CFO, quantified the result: Twilio went public during an unfriendly market, yet the strength of our presentations…helped us close 92% above the offering price.3 In the time between the Cisco and Twilio IPOs, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) changed the way roadshows were done forever. The SEC gave a company called NetRoadshow permission to stream video roadshows over the internet.
NetRoadshowb is a website where, after clicking on a Preliminary Prospectus disclaimer, anyone can view a streaming video of a company’s IPO presentation. b Accessible to the public at http://retailroadshow.com