Most of us get easily nervous, especially when presenting to a large audience. How will you perform if you have an important presentation coming up, but you’re having doubts within yourself? In this episode, Darren CdeBaca shares strategies and tactics to overcome unnecessary stress when presenting to effectively connect with your audience. Using and practicing these tactics will help you build confidence and be more comfortable speaking in front of people. Listen and be the best presenter!
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Connection Tactics For Presentation
I want to take a moment to thank you for reading this episode and if you are not taking notes, don’t be afraid to come back and reread any part of this to get those meaningful thoughts, suggestions, or frameworks back into your day relative to this topic. This topic is all about presentation skills. It is called connection tactics for sales presentations. If you are an individual or a team selling a product, vision, or concept, you have come to the right place because I’m going to share with you some tactics that will sharpen up your ability to command trust, information flow, listening skills, and presence of information that will catapult into a nice smooth presentation once you become a practicing practitioner of the connection tactics for sales presentations.
Before I start this topic, I want to share, as I do with everyone in my show, the phrase that defines our work at DCB Strategies and the phrase that captures the result of achieving bold goals with a plan of accountability and purpose. If you have a bold goal of making yourself a better presenter, you are going to have accountability of making sure you practice and a purpose of why you are doing this, whether you are in a profession of sales skills, a personal setting, or an athletic world. Are you ready for the phrase?
The phrase is this, “Being the best and average have nothing in common.” Now, say that to yourself and when you say that to yourself, you turn on your brain. Your brain says, “Am I part of the best or the average?” Intuitively do that. We were not here to judge at DCB Strategies. We were here to share toolsets that make you the best you can be because these toolsets come from observational work and learning about this for decades. Being the best on average doesn’t have anything in common, but there is a sense of accountability, purpose, and practice. If you go into the effort box or the effort bank and get some effort out of there and put some effort into this, magic is going to occur.
When it comes to sales and speaking to your colleagues, prospects, clients and/or the public, I have witnessed the common fabric of the best presenters for many years. I feel obligated to share an integral part of the successful sales process, and the integral part of success in the sales process is the presentation itself.
Before we dive into this, I want to make a big call out to my friend and former Professional Presentation Coach, Ms. Holly Church. She coached me numerous times, and I have had the privilege of being trained by her and witnessed hundreds of training sessions for other financial professionals over a couple of decades and colleagues over many years. She was available to compare notes on this topic for this episode. Thanks, Holly. I told her I was going to give a shout-out on this beforehand. A big thanks to Holly Church for making this happen.
Being the best and average have nothing in common.
With her notes and my notes, we have a nice tight package about the tactics that are invaluable when it comes to speaking face-to-face, Zoom, phone, or group presentations. She is the best. She used to take the meek, mild and fearful and turn them into powerful, memorable presenters and in multiple industries. That is a heck of a lift. Presentation skills and efforts are very concerning to many people out there, but once you start becoming confident of it, you can’t turn yourself off. You want to continue to do it because it works when you get these tactics and skillsets in play.
Let me introduce you to the presentation tactics that make up the common fabric of the best presenters, which I will call the connection tactics or guidelines of presenting. What type of presentations are there and how do these tactics apply to the various formats? The bottom line, you are selling a product. You are selling a vision and a concept for others to own for themselves. Let’s clarify a little bit about the settings of presenting. You got face-to-face meetings of three or less. You have a phone and/or Zoom presentation. We will categorize those together. You have face-to-face to an audience of ten or larger groups. I’m trying to generalize with three different settings.
Connection Statement
These are eight tactics you are about to acquaint yourself with or the ones for face-to-face or Zoom type presentations and phone. Once you get the a-ha or are comfortable with these, you are going to realize that 80% of these tactics also apply to group settings, which I will share some additional and vital tactics for group settings as we close up at the end of this show. Let’s discuss the eight tactics. Write this down if you can. Tactic number one is the Connection Statement. If you are on the phone with an individual or you are in Zoom with a small group, or you are on it, desk apart from each other for 2 or 3 people across from you. Have a connection statement.
We summarize this as small talk. Notice something about them, share some knowledge in a fun way and guess something interesting about them. Mention things specific to this place or time that you are talking about. “Happy holidays. I hope things are going well. What are you doing this holiday season?” Again, connection. Mention them in previous presentations and then thank them very specifically for something that they may have shared with you, such as a referral, last piece of business, or a COI that you can connect with.
What is the connection statement right off the bat as tactic number one when you engage face-to-face, Zoom or the small party for presentations? That is tactic number one, an additional connection of having to know underneath this same connection statement. You got to know 1 of these 3. Your audience is always going to be different when it comes to what they gravitate to as it pertains to what I call the three and me. The three represent the three different communication and connections. Individuals have three ways to connect. It is either visibly, vocally, or kinesthetically.
Let me go over to that real briefly. When you are speaking to a person on the phone, whether you are speaking to a group on Zoom or a small group in a desk-oriented setting, they may say, “I see what you are saying when you are speaking. I see this is working.” It becomes they are in a visible mode, or they may say, “I hear what you are saying. It means a lot to me. This makes a lot of sense the way you are telling me about this.” They are in a vocal mode. Now, if they are about feelings, it is like, “I feel like this is going to work. I feel good about this.” They are in a what we call kinesthetic type of person.
There are three kinds of people. They are either visible, vocal or, for lack of better terms, feelings. When you think about that, you can’t say, “That is the one way they are.” No, that is the one they gravitate to the most. Keep in mind, be very aware that they are gravitating to 1 of the 3 more often than not. It allows you to connect once you get the a-ha when you listen for those cues when you are making a connection statement. When you make a connection statement, you are getting more feedback.
They may say something that has to do with something visible, vocal, or kinesthetic, which is the feeling side. Keep that in mind. It is again a sharpening of your listening skills to see what they say. “I hear what you are saying. I see what you are saying. This feels good to me,” and then stick with it. Continue to frame up your presentation accordingly. It is a connection right off the bat.
Showing Respect
The number two tactic is Showing Respect. We call this RBI formula. The R stands for Respect, B stands for Before and I stands for Important. Here is how it goes. “Darren, I respect the time we have for our discussion. Before we dive into this topic, is there any other information I should know about this topic that is important to you relative to this topic that we should bring up before we start?”
What I talked about is, “I respect your time,” then I went on, “Before we dive into this topic.” Again, before the R, B, and the I is, “Is there any information I should know that is important to you relative to this topic?” When you have that simple phrase, you would be surprised half of the people may say to you, “No one has ever said that. I appreciate your sharing that with me.” Specifically, when you are making a product presentation to other financial industry observers or other industry observers of your choice, you are trying to sell them a product. It is nice to know that they know you are respecting their time and if there is anything else important that you should know about. Again, connection statement and respect of their time.
Individuals have three ways they connect. They connect either visibly, vocally or kinesthetically.
mIRROR
The number three tactic is Mirror. Try not to come in there with arms blazing and voices shouting. Try to understand their physiology. Are they meek and mild or firm up, chin back, shoulders back? Mirror that with them and be aware of the setting with them. Zoom is a little difficult. Face-to-face is game on. With phone, you can’t tell and speech rate, you can. Try to get a flavor of how quickly they speak or how slow they speak, and then monitor yourself accordingly so they are comfortable in that setting. Volume is very key, especially when it comes to female and male.
You don’t want to have one yelling at each other that doesn’t work and what happens and so forth. Make sure that we have an opportunity to have the volume understood about that. Another part of mirroring is tone and pitch. Try to understand that your tone and pitch may be aggressive, light-handed, more professional, and so forth, but it is very key, and then key work is rephrase.
When you have the ability to see how they rephrase things and some of the main important phrases or important elements you are trying to share with them, be aware of whether or not they rephrase to reclarify or anything. Again, you are trying to make sure you are mirroring physiology, speech rate, volume, tone, and pitch, and then rephrase accordingly as they are rephrasing.
Command of Conversation
You don’t want to be exactly like them but you certainly want to make them feel at home because it is comfortable. That is the number three tactic. Again, 1) Connection statement. 2) Respect. 3) Mirror. 4) Command of conversation. This is where voice and volume and voice inflection come into play. Here is a little bit of information. Evidence results from a study at the University of Chicago. Various studies reveal that the average human ear can distinguish almost 1,400 noticeable differences in tone. By comparison, we can only distinguish about 150 distinct colors.
There are listening skills and a very sharp versus our visual skills. Based on this scale, hearing is almost ten times more sensitive than our eyesight. Their research also showed how you say something is five times more important than what you say. You got a great story here. I had a great pal that was making a presentation to Jerry Jones, the owner of Dallas Cowboys, and my pal is very passionate. He is going through this presentation to Jerry Jones. Talking about how he can coach his team and specific things with their coaches. Jerry Jones said, “I didn’t understand a lot of what you said, but I felt it.” Clearly, the research shows that how you say something is five times more important than what you say. It is how you say it. Say it with passion, with follow-through, and with eye contact.
They are feeling. They may not get it all but they feel pretty good about it, whether it is kinesthetic, feeling, visible or vocal. They are all intertwined, but again, this person was like, “I feel good about what you said.” Downward and upward inflection set the attention zones, whereas the level of inflection most typically indicates disinterest. Keep in mind that when you have a downward inflection or upward inflection, you always want to be a presenter of upward inflection. When they concern themselves about something, tone it down and make sure you understand so they don’t continue at that level, and you can bring them back up.
Trust
The fifth connection tactic is Trust. Trust is built by eye contact. Eye contact through full completion of sentences and/or ideas. This is a tough one to practice, but when you get it, does it make a difference? Eye contact creates a bond between speaker and listener. It is a connection that is beneficial to both parties. When you look at someone in the eye, they are more likely to look at you, listen to you, and buy into your message when you are running and scanning around to 2 or 3 people at the desk. It is tough on Zoom, I get that, but face-to-face and one-on-one are easy.
We will talk a little bit about that in presentations for large groups but have eye contact with complete sentences. Let me give you an example. There are three people on the other side of the desk I’m presenting to. My first sentence is, “The purpose of this presentation is to make sure that you completely understand the vision of your future.” I go to the next person, “In the future, as you repeat it to me, is very important relative to your valuable presence.” I go to the third person and say, “When you think of the value of the presence of your investing, we were going to uncover some of the thoughts there and expand a little bit further.”
Open-ended Questions
What I have done is I have looked at all three with different three sentences and it is bringing the engagement on. Plus, they know they can’t gaze away because I’m going to come back at them again. It also builds trust because you are bringing everyone else in that is in the party of interest. The sixth tactic, where I call to get more with less is, The Power of Open-Ended Questions. Open-ended questions are powerful because they get the prospects talking. Our research has shown that the most successful salespeople do a heck of a lot more listening than talking. In fact, all-stars rarely talk more than twelve seconds at a time, other than me, because I’m talking to twenty minutes plus.
More importantly of all, with the power of open-ended questions, you are presenting, and you have open-ended questions. When they bring something to your attention, instead of that closed-ended question, yes or no, black or white, you have a way of saying, “Tell me more about that.” They may say, “That investment vehicle doesn’t make sense for us.” Instead of saying, “What does?” Don’t say that but say, “Tell me more about that? Why do you bring that up? Can you elaborate about that?” These are powerful. Try them in your own home setting. “Tell me more about that. Why do you say that? Why did you bring it up? Can you tell me more about why you bring that topic up?”
You should know how to sharpen your listening skills to see what people say.
You will be surprised by how much information you get. The advantages of open-ended questions are this. It allows for unlimited responses of the person you are talking with. You can get more information. You can deliver new and often unexpected insights that they may bring to the table. They may ask you for more details so you can provide them. It allows you to offer deeper and more qualitative data versus quantitative data.
This is the key. It allows you to understand their sentiment and opinion. A key tactic for presentations when you are looking for information, or they give you a response, asking an open-ended question. These are the three magic ones. “Tell me more about that. Why do you bring that up? Can you elaborate more about that?” You can go divergence of those and sit back and listen. You have got to be disciplined and listen.
The stars do a heck a lot more listening than talking when you present by the power of open-ended questions. If you get good at this, as I hope you do when you practice, you can ask a set of open-ended questions and it gets you to your sale. I will give an example. When I’m talking to financial advisors, “What concerns you most in the capital financial markets globally in the next 3 to 6 months for your clients? What is the most exciting part about global capital markets in the next 3 to 6 months? This tells me more about that.” “I’m uncertain about that asset class but I like this one.” “Can you elaborate on that?” “I liked that asset class because I discovered it is inefficient, and I’m looking for inefficient ideas.” “That is interesting because we do have a small-cap value fund that is based on inefficiency for global markets. Can I tell you a little bit more about it?” Do you see how I got to that? The power of open-ended questions is genius once you get the art of that.
Value Statements
The seventh tactic is to Listen and Value Their Statements. Listen carefully. Lead-ins. They may say, “This is a tough market.” You say, “It is a tough market. Tell me more about why you brought that up in this topic?” Value their statements. “It is a tough market. I understand what you may be saying but can you share with me a little bit more about why you brought that up now?” Listen and clarify.
Another way of saying that is, “What you have told me so far is this,” so you share the presentation and they give you some information to clarify their stance. What you do is you say, “Let me make sure I got this right. This is what you are saying and we were set up for this in the right way. Is that right?” Again, you are listening, clarifying, and valuing their statements.
The last connection and tactic for sales presentation is called the Call To Action Summary Statement. This is the key. You go through all this work, listen and value their statements, get more for less with open-ended questions. You build trust. You command the conversation. You have a mirror presence. You respect them, in terms of the presentation, the RBI. You have a connection statement.
Now, it comes to a call of action after your wonderful presentation. Take a moment to think about how this plan will work for you and the vision that you have expressed. That is a call to action. How does this sound like a solution for clients who are a large part of your book here at the specific firm? I make a presentation to a financial advisor in charge of people’s money. “I have the presentation.” The call to action is, “What we have talked about so far is how you see this fitting in the next three months in your business.” That is a call to action statement.
It is the same thing with clients. In this presentation, we went over your retirement for the next five years. How do the action steps that I spilled out sound for you now, so we can get on track with your journey? “They sound great. Let’s get to work on them.” Do you see where I’m going here? Whether it is a product, a vision or a concept, how does this concept sound to integrate so we could be the best at what we could be as a team with this concept in mind three months from now? How does this sound for us to start now? Call to action summary.
Let me remind you of the eight presentation tactics for one-on-one, phone, and Zoom. 1) Connection statement. 2) You are building respect with RBI. Respect, before and important. 3) Mirror. 4) Command of conversation with voice, volume, and inflection. 5) Develop immediate trust with eye contact. Remember, one person at a time. One sentence at a time. One thought at a time. 6) Power of open-ended questions. You get their sentiments and opinions. As you get good at it, you get to the end of your sale before you know it. 7) Listen and value their statements. Listen, reclarify it and value it. 8) Call to action summary statement.
Those are the eight nuggets for presentation sales skills for one-on-ones, phones and small Zoom meetings. Now, let’s break open a little bit more as we close up this show. Introduce a few what I call difference-making tactics and guidelines for speaking to large groups, ten or more. I’m talking 10, 100, or 200. Number one, if you are presenting a visual or PowerPoint, rule of thumb, 10 slides, 20 minutes presentation, and 30 font, so everyone can see it.
There’s a big difference with your listening skills and visual skills.
Number two with big audiences, stand with confidence, shoulders back, and balance your stance. Don’t be leaning to one side like you are disinterested. Balance your stance, hands to your side, and shoulders back. Number three is exude a powerful voice. Here is another story about another gentleman who trained me. His name is Bob Lilly, original communist bond, where I was originally getting trained many years ago. He said, “I’m going to train you on your voice inflection and I want you to speak out loudly when you present.”
I did that. I presented, and he said, “How loud do you think from 1 to 10?” I said, “It was about an eight.” He said, “No, we went around the room. Everyone agrees about a 4 or 5.” I was shocked. He said, “Bring it to an eight.” When I brought it to an eight, it changed the dynamics of my stance, my presence and the way I was communicating with confidence. Exude a powerful voice when you are speaking up in front of a large group with the right voice inflection and the right tone as opposed to shouting. This is about command with strength.
Number four for group presentations, present called the visual. This is the presentation dynamic of using a visual. You are standing up, you have a slide to your left, you touch the slide in silence, you turn in silence and you talk to one person in the audience about that slide. Go to the next slide, turn, go to one person in the audience, and talk about it. What happens is it keeps everybody engaged. It is very powerful.
Again, touch and silence, turn in silence, and talk to the person regarding a thought of that slide. You can use the scale we talked about. You have a slide that talks about three different bullet points. Talk one bullet point to that person, another bullet point to the person in the audience and etc. Move around to keep them involved, but don’t talk to the slide. Don’t talk while you are turning. Talk when you get to that person. The power of the pause, when you do this, gets them glued to you than the speaker and your message. When you gesture to a big large group, this is number five about powerful presentation skills, groups gesture from above the waist and from your shoulders.
Number six, complete eye contact. One thought per person in the audience. If you have 100 people, glue them into one of the backs. It makes a difference in the world and how the entire audience stays glued to you. Number seven regarding talking to large audiences. If you have any questions out there, sweep with your eyes and silence, recognize the audience, the question, so they ask a question, break visually for that person, rephrase the question, and your question is, “How do we know that the market may not do well in the next three months?”
“Let me share with you our dynamics in looking at how markets perform under these circumstances. Show us next three months. The market should be set up for this.” Do you see how I rephrase that? It is your parts of that with different parts of the individuals in the audience. You break from the question the person who gave the question, rephrase it to everybody, come back to that person, and get parts of that answer to him or her and other parts of the audience.
As we said in the initial one, the eight tactics of individuals and Zoom in small groups is to conclude with your call to action statement to the audience. It’s the same thing. This has been fun. We have talked about the eight connection tactics for presentations. We talked about the face-to-face, the Zoom, the small group and that is the primary eight.
As additional ones for large group meetings, the second eight, as a reminder. 1) PowerPoint, 10 slides, 10 minutes, 30 font. 2) Stand with confidence. 3) Exude a powerful voice. 4) Make sure you touch the slide, turn in silence, talk to one person to explain the slide. The power of the pause gets them. 5) Gesture above the waist and from your shoulders. 6) Complete eye contact, one person to another. 7) About questions, the artful way of breaking visually, rephrasing the question, and share parts with other individuals and the answer. 8) Conclude your call to action.
As a wrap, practice this. Get your presentation that you are going to say and you are going to talk about 10 times a day or 10 times during the week. Practice the bullet points. Practice it in different skillsets. The best way to do this is to practice when people aren’t looking. They work earlier in the morning when people don’t even know. This is our opportunity to dedicate ourselves since we were designated to sell to dedicate ourselves to the art of presenting and elevate ourselves to become amongst the best of presenting.
The call to action is, “I want to take this opportunity to make sure that this informative show has huge presentation, tactics, and nuggets.” If you want to write these down, please do and practice them the best you can. Remember, we are all designated to present. It is a matter of what we want to dedicate to become amongst the best presenters with these tactics. When we do, we become very good with them. We elevate ourselves amongst the best and guess what else takes off? Your sales. That is what it is all about. Making a grander experience for both parties, you and the audience.
Thank you for your time and interest in this segment of connection tactics to presentations. About a product, vision or concept and do visit DCBStrategies.com for more information relative to growing your professional mindset and taking on new habit sets because this is a new habit set. We were asking you to elevate yourself in the new actions and new habits to get new results. If you have any questions, contact me at Podcast@DCBStrategies.com or DCBStrategies.com. Hit the contact form and give me an email. It has been great. Hopefully, you enjoyed it and I wish you all the best health, stay passionate and make the best presentations you can. Thank you very much for your time. Until next time.
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