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Shine On Success
Shine on Success is a dynamic, story-driven podcast where extraordinary entrepreneurs, visionary leaders, and resilient change-makers share their journeys to success, revealing both the challenges and the strategies that led to their breakthroughs. Each episode offers a unique blend of inspiring personal stories, practical business insights, and actionable advice, allowing our guests to connect with an engaged, growth-oriented audience ready to be motivated and uplifted. By joining us, you’ll not only have the opportunity to showcase your expertise and inspire listeners but also to be part of a powerful platform that celebrates ambition, innovation, and the courage to turn dreams into reality.
Shine On Success
From Slides to Confidence: Unlocking the Power of Clear Communication with Oreet Kaufman
What if the key to transforming your career, confidence, and impact was hidden in the way you present your ideas? On this episode of Shine on Success, host Dionne Malush sits down with Oreet Kaufman, a clarity coach and transformation strategist who has turned presentation struggles into a powerful platform for change.
Orit shares her journey from corporate burnout to building a business rooted in purpose, showing us how “word dieting,” visual storytelling, and authentic delivery can turn fear into fuel. Whether you’re pitching, leading, or simply wanting to be heard, this conversation will inspire you to see your voice and your slides as tools to create connection, confidence, and results that matter.
Connect with Oreet here:
Website: https://www.ocdesigns.info/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oreetkaufman/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/powerpointbosslady/
Connect with Dionne Malush
- Instagram: @dionnerealtyonepgh
- LinkedIN: /in/dionnemalush
- Website: www.dionnemalush.com
- Facebook: /dmalush
- LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/dionnemalush
What if the only thing standing between your brilliance and the breakthrough you deserve is a slide deck that finally gets out of your way? Today's guest knows what it's like to see powerful ideas fall flat, not because they weren't good enough, but because the delivery didn't do them justice. Orit Kaufman has seen too many smart, capable leaders crumble under the pressure of poor presentation, and she's lived through her own moments of doubt where confidence had to be rebuilt slide by slide. But through those challenges she discovered a calling to help others rise. She isn't just a presentation expert. She's a clarity coach, a transformation strategist and someone who knows what it's like to face resistance and come back stronger. If you ever walked out of a room feeling like you left something on the table or, worse, like your ideas didn't land, this conversation is for you, Arit. Welcome to Shine on Success. How are you doing today Good? Thank you for having me. You're very welcome, so I always like to start with this question what is one thing you want people to know about you beyond your bio that I just read?
Speaker 2:That I don't take life too seriously. I like to have a lot of fun and I absolutely love what I do. I think you know I used to joke that it was so cliche to say love what you do, and when I, when I last left corporate, my manager said to me I want you to love what you do and I said I don't love what I do. I said I do what I do because I have to pay the bills and I finally found something midlife that I love to do, and so I am obsessed with what I do. I think about it, I sleep about it, I wake up at three in the morning and I literally have different ideas. I talk about it at parties, I talk about it in the car. I'm obsessed with what I do.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that, you know, and you said middle age, but I don't think you're that middle age. But anyways, I am past middle age. I'm on my way to 60. And I feel like I'm in that same space right now, like I love my company, I love the people, but do I love real estate? Not really, but I love the idea of what I can do to help the agents grow and I think that, for me, has been a big thing. We have about 205 agents in our company, so I have a great audience right, so I can share all of the things that I love. But at the end of the day, like you, the creative side is just amazing and I've looked at some of your presentations online and I'm literally blown away. So I'm very excited to meet you. So why do you think so many brilliant people struggle to communicate their ideas under pressure?
Speaker 2:I think you hit on the nail. A lot of it is under pressure. I think a lot of it is just get the words on paper on the slide and get it out the door. I think there's a unique skill set in learning how to balance the communication and your imagery and how to get that message across. Writing is not how we speak, but a lot of times people write as they speak and they just kind of brain dump on paper and just say, well, everybody will just know what I'm talking about or I'm speaking to people who speak my same language and they'll understand it and that pressure aspect as well. So they are just really hurrying out the door.
Speaker 2:A lot of clients hire me for a deadline reason, but also because they just need the people on their team to do other things, and so there's that pressure. There is that. So you know whoever it is in that department that does the presentations today, he or she is under a lot of pressure to get the work done, get it out the door so they can do other things, and I think it just builds this pressure cooker where you kind of don't care as much, and that affects your message and that affects how your audience receives your message. It affects your credibility, it affects your reputation, it affects everything it's. You know, presentations are a critical communication and marketing tool and you gotta get that right. You gotta get it right so that you can drive the change that you need, make that impact on the audience and walk away ultimately impressing your audiences.
Speaker 1:So I've always been a big proponent of presentations in my industry. So, as a real estate professional, owning a brokerage presentation is huge for me, and so I've spent my career as a graphic designer prior to coming into real estate and always having the best presentation. So you know, when I started 21 years ago, we had Microsoft Word that's how people design things Right but I was over there working on my stuff and creating everything like a product. So you know, so it was just so cool because I could marry the two industries and they were perfect for each other, you know. And they stayed married so far for 21 years, but that's amazing.
Speaker 1:But so I was able to say even to our agents presentation is important. I went up against a lot of agents in my career where they'd walk in with like a piece of paper or some notes and I would come in with this beautiful presentation, all these pieces and parts, and I would win. And even if my number wasn't the right, the number they wanted to hear, the presentation was so good they couldn't say no. So I know that it does take an emotional toll on people because, especially when you have a good message. So if you have say, you do a presentation and they go in but it it doesn't land. What is that toll like on that person when you know when they're not using you and they come out of it and it's just extremely stressful.
Speaker 2:Well, it's deflating, right, and you start to second guess everything you know. So what could I have done differently, what could I have done better, what could I have said differently, said shorter? So part of what I bring to my clients is also the ability to help them what I call word diet, and so that's where I help clients cut down on their content and make it more concise and make it more clear and compelling. So when you walk away from a presentation that didn't work, you know, you start to, like I said, second guess everything, and a lot of the times it's the words that you use, the amount of words that you use, and ultimately, I think the success of a presentation comes down to making a connection with your audience. So you make a connection through the words that you use, the images that you use, what people, what resonates with people. And I think it's also important to remember that when your audience is sitting in front of your presentation, they only have about three to five seconds to take in everything on the slide.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of like social media.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. It makes you rethink. You know it's just a lot of self-reflection on what you could have done differently, but there's a lot, of, a lot of elements that go into it to make sure that those three to five seconds are impactful and memorable. Now, is every slide going to be memorable? Maybe, not necessarily. Thank you slide may not be most memorable, but it's about making that connection, speaking to what your audience is looking for and what they're going to get out of it. Like why should your audience listen to you? So that's part of making that connection as well.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense. So this podcast is about adversity and I want to ask you can you share a defining moment when adversity forced you to rebuild not just your career but your confidence?
Speaker 2:So I think it was my last year of corporate experience before I went out on my own. I had started this as kind of like a freelance gig on the side and my last year in corporate was a little bit challenging in terms of my ability to perform, my ability to show up. It affected my confidence and it kind of made me rethink everything that I was doing. It was a very stressful time and I thought back to boy. My manager said I should do what I love. Well, what do I love to do? I love to do and I was in sales training where I used PowerPoint all the time and we did presentations all the time and I said I really love this artistic aspect of communications. So I never wanted to be a copy editor or a writer, you know, just in corporate communications. But that visual aspect to it and telling that story and making sure that that story resonates, that narrative resonates with your audience through visuals and concise communication, that was kind of my breakthrough moment where I was like I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to do the hard parts anymore. I want to do the parts that I really enjoy and I know that I can succeed at.
Speaker 2:So I took that turn, I took that pivot. You know, I said to my husband I already have this business set up. What if we went full time on the road with this? And we took that leap and took that, that risk. You know, it's always a risk going out on your own, no matter what stage of life you're at.
Speaker 2:So we took that risk and I think that was a real moment for me to leave corporate, the stability and the safety of corporate, and go without stable income, without insurance, you know, and what does that mean in my confidence and my ability to do this job and do it well and sell myself, sell myself. So that was a lot of, you know, inner reflection that went through. But it was really the greatest decision. It was a great company that I worked for and I don't regret my time there at all. It was a fantastic company. It just wasn't a good fit for me in that last year and that's when I had to decide okay, what, what am I doing here? You know, what, what do I want to do from now on?
Speaker 1:Well, I understand what you're doing because I've been an entrepreneur pretty much my entire adult life. I tried to have a job for a couple of years and realized that that wasn't the space for me to be in and I wasn't good at taking orders and I wasn't good at the idea of having a job. So I love being an entrepreneur and it is rocky, it's wild, it's a roller coaster. You know there's so many things that go wrong, but there's so many that go right and the freedom and flexibility that we have to grow the way we want to right. So if you want to grow, you just put in more work, It'll happen. It just is amazing what happens if you love what you do.
Speaker 1:I love what you do Like never everybody went doing this and I was so excited about it. I was like, wow, what a smart idea. So tell me this what's the process? To take someone who feels overwhelmed, which many people today like I feel? Post-covid, overwhelmed is a word that people use a lot. So let's just talk about a client maybe that's overwhelmed, and you gave them a presentation they were proud to deliver.
Speaker 2:It gives them great confidence. It gives them that confidence to get out there and talk, whether it's the board you know the board or it's a keynote speaker, or it's you know your quarterly results. Whatever it might be gives you that confidence. So not only does your message look great, but it's you're saying the right words and they feel like on top of the world. You know, and the fact that I can do that and help them do that, and ultimately the best result is when it actually drives the change that they were trying to get out of it.
Speaker 2:You know whether it's a sales call or whether it's a pitch deck. You know when my pitch decks helped raise over $1.3 million and I was like, wow, I'm so excited and this invention was like biotechnology and so critical to the medical field of research and I I feel happy. But they also have that confidence. They can get the money that they want for the research. They can drive that action, drive that sales and they feel, like I said, on top of the world, when they can do that, when you've got that presentation behind you. So it's not your story, it supports your story, it needs to complement your story. So it's a great feeling for my clients, which that is a great feeling for me.
Speaker 1:Of course, and I I feel like it's like taking someone's fear and turning it into their power. You know it feels like. You know, when you're sitting here talking, I can feel the energy and the idea of getting the words right, having the beautiful presentation. It's just not one thing the words and sometimes people you said something about a word diet where they just keep blabbing and blabbing and blabbing. Right, and it keeps. They just keep talking themselves right out of a good presentation and you're teaching them how to speak it and how to look amazing, which I think the whole idea of it like think about. I just don't even know what this industry looks like you talked about. You know people that are doing keynote speeches and other people like what other industries use your services? Tell me a little bit about your perfect client.
Speaker 2:Sure. So every client, most we like to think, is a perfect client, right. But I really work across all different industries. I typically do a lot of company overviews, I do pitch decks, I do sales calls. That's typically what I'm seeing across different industries. It could be anything from town halls as well, from medium to large size companies. It's mostly external communications more than internal. A lot of times companies think that they're internal like they'll just do it themselves, they don't care what it looks like and I think you know I respect that, but you know at some point it's also your inner should reflect your outer and vice versa in terms of a company and the image that you project. But I respect that, that differentiation. So it's mostly external, facing Most things that most companies that want to drive change and encourage its audience to act, and more faster. I'm extremely creative.
Speaker 1:I have amazing tools at my fingertips. My speed is unbelievable. Like I can do things. People watch me sometimes and they're like how did you do that? It's magic, right. So how has AI affected your business?
Speaker 2:So I think there's a lot of talk about AI and replacing presentations. I know there's a lot of software out there that can do that. I just had a client that hired me this week actually last week who said I tried to do this on ChatGPT and I failed. So I think it's very and that was a big sustainability deck I'm sorry, a big capabilities deck that he was doing for his company, and I think AI is good for small internal presentations that are not large scale. You know, reaction changing events.
Speaker 2:I think it there's a listen, you could do AI and you could spend hours working on it and then you're like well, I just spent hours working on it and now it's not how I want it, you know. But again, a lot of times it works and if it works for you, that's great. I would say, for large scale communications, complex communications that have to interpret your charts and your data, I think you're better off with a human. I think also, humans are able to make decisions and understand that critical decision making process, knowing your audience and knowing how they might respond to it, knowing the tone. I think there's a lot of those human aspects that go into creating a presentation and knowing your audience that right now AI doesn't do.
Speaker 1:So and even if it comes to a point where it does do, it's enhancing, like. I definitely am not the naysayer of AI because I've seen where this happened in my own career, my own life, my own with our agents and the things that we can do. Now I agree with you, there's some things that just can't right and like, for instance, there's not. There's some things that just can't right and it like, for instance, you create a presentation, you can't move something from here to here. You can't pick it up and move it right. You have to give it a prompt to make sure the prompt's right. So if you don't know, you don't know how to do it.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've never. Yeah, I've never done it on AI, and somebody asked me one time. Also, it's so funny because in my career as an owner of a real estate company now, I decided one day that not every person had graphic design software. So I started creating everything for our company in PowerPoint, because I could, because there's so much creativity inside of PowerPoint. So I created all the flyers, all of the things, and they were able to use it because everyone had PowerPoint. There you go the flyers, all of the things, and they were able to use it because everyone had PowerPoint.
Speaker 2:There you go. So, yeah, I love that. Powerpoint gets a bad rap, I would say. And it should if you're still dealing with it and from 1998, you should. But I think it's the most universal tools and it's the most adaptable and everyone knows how to use it.
Speaker 2:So I primarily only work in PowerPoint and I mentioned earlier, like I'm not actually a licensed or a certified graphic designer, everything I learned is through my experience and through YouTube and Instagram. And my mother is a fine artist by degree and so we grew up with paintings and understanding the line of symmetry and balance and foreground, and you know background and how to balance pieces of art, pieces of colors, you know, and the color balance and all of that. So I think that's where a lot of my skill set comes from. But I know you don't have to be a graphic designer to do what I do and if you are, certainly that can help you. But I'm always looking for new ways to learn and what's what's trendy out there and what's not so much what's trendy per se is what's what's trendy and effective, let me say that.
Speaker 2:And effective, you know there's a lot of talk about animations and transitions and I feel like I tell clients it's not a show and tell, it's not like when you buy your new car and you want to try it, all the buttons, you want to try it, all the animations and the transitions. You have to use them effectively and I tell like, and I tell my clients like, I'll use animation to help control the story. So if you're showcasing four services that you have, I'll probably animate those so your audience doesn't read ahead of you. That way you can talk to each service independently and give it the time it deserves before you move on to the next one. So, using animation effectively, using transitions effectively you know I don't want to see the sparkles, transitions, you know, and all of that. So it's knowing that right balance, how to drive that message and stay professional.
Speaker 1:So what is a simple change that a business owner can make right now to communicate more clearly and confidently?
Speaker 2:redundancies in your wording, Look for redundancies. If you've got four bullets that all start with the same, the or a, you can slash that right away and put that in part of the intro. What really is your critical message you want your audience to walk away with in three to five seconds? So you know, pull out those key messages. If you've got a paragraph that talks about the repairs that you do in an auto shop, the point of that paragraph is repairs. Just put the word repairs. Don't make your audience have to read, Don't make your audience do math. So I've said this in the past of like. I used to see presentations that said two thirds of students. You know, in my head I would say just tell me, it's 66%. Don't make me start calculating fractions, you know. Just make it easy. Three to five seconds, Make it easy. Tell me your key message. Tell me what you want me to walk away with Reduce your redundancies and everything else can go in speaker notes.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to go a little bit back to overcoming adversity and challenges. How has your definition of success shifted after overcoming challenges?
Speaker 2:So my definition of success used to be just making more money, but now my definition of success is balance. So as an entrepreneur, I'm able to still make money and have time to go to HomeGoods. After this podcast, you know, I still have time to be able to do things that I want to do when I want to do them, as long as I'm working hard and putting the work in to get the results that I want. So I, you know I joke all the time. Something we all say is I want to make the most amount of money working the least amount of time. And people say, well, sure, everybody does. And I say, yeah, but you have to build a business strategy to get there. And so I'm still trying to build that right strategy and get the right clients, the right price point, the right you know style, all those different type of items, and that, to me, is success in figuring out my own strategy of how to get to that goal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. So before I talked about turning fear into power, and so do you have an example of a client that you worked with and just I'd like to hear a little bit about how it works. Like, how did you help them that were feared of a presentation get over it and become successful at it?
Speaker 2:So I think a lot of it comes with that confidence. So when I had a client come to me who said, okay, we know it looks bad, it does it looks bad. He was the VP of marketing and marketing does a lot of great things. Marketing does lots of different activities, but I find that this little niche of presentation design falls in that crack of what they don't do well. And so he gave me a presentation from 2000, from 25 years ago, and he was going as a capabilities deck out to the audience and it made him feel like a million bucks. It made him feel like it looked modern, it was clean, it uses brand colors, the wording I pulled out the key messages.
Speaker 2:I removed a lot of the wording. I pulled out the key messages. I removed a lot of the wording. I remove wording, of course, with client consent, but I make recommendations of this is a better way, a shorter way and a more concise way to say things and it just transformed his message and he and his team felt great going out there to present and it just it feels great. It feels great to help somebody else go out there with a better image of themselves and of their company.
Speaker 1:So I can tell a story from yesterday where one of my friends, who's taken over his dad's business, and I pulled up the website. It was from 2007. And I'm like for you, kenny had the bouncing frog at the bottom still and I was laughing. So I have the software that I use and I went in and I created a site, I created a new logo for him and I sent it to him and he was like, oh my gosh, he goes. That looks amazing. And I'm like it is amazing, like you don't have to stay back in seven. So his dad, who owned the company, I said did your dad happen to see it? And he said yes, and he loves it too. And now they're already getting trucks done with the logo. Like this all happened. Yes, this is some.
Speaker 1:I was just having some fun and helping him out and I thought, just like that, we took something that's only 20 years they've been using this full. It's so bad to now modern, it's cool and it was just a very simple shift. But you know, for me it's simple. Everyone else like it's so bad to now modern, it's cool and it was just a very simple shift. But you know, for me it's simple, everyone else, like it's not that easy for me, you're, you do this, but it did bring the confidence level up and so whenever the guys are out in their shirts, they had this like really bad dirt at the bottom of the logo. It was like it looks so bad and I was like, oh my goodness, so now, like really god, they look like they're like race car drivers with the cool logo, right and it changes their credibility.
Speaker 1:It changes the reputation and that confidence gives you the boost you need to go out and make those sales yeah, that's what I do love about the creative business is the difference that it makes in someone, and they're shocked by it because they don't. They don't know how to do it at all. Yeah, and I tell the clients.
Speaker 2:I said, listen, I've been there, I've seen it, we've all been through those boring presentations where I just roll. You start eye rolling as soon as that comes on. So I tell them I've been there, I've seen the problems, I know how to fix them, I know how to take your idea from point a to point b. I can help you transform your message and make it better and more effective for those times when people are just like we said earlier they just, they just. I know it could be better, I just don't know how. So I help clients just transform that message to drive the action they need.
Speaker 1:That's great. So if a client's looking to get ahold of you or work with you, can you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Go to my website, ocdesignsinfo. There is, as I mentioned, a PDF you can download about word dieting if you need some help. You'll see my portfolio and client testimonials. You can reach me on LinkedIn and I'd say LinkedIn or email orit at ocdesignsinfo.
Speaker 1:So before we go, I would like to talk a little bit about word dieting. What a cool, cool name. Is that your idea?
Speaker 2:I made it up? Yeah, Because when I worked in sales training, part of what we had to do is communicate as concisely as possible. I used to call it parking lot training, that if those sellers were in the parking lot before they went to the customer and that was the only time they had to review their materials it had to be clear and concise and short as possible for them to know what they needed to say to go talk to the customer and make that sale. So I came up with word dieting, which is kind of the old fashioned teacher's red pen where you just kind of go through slashing. So online I've got some best practices of how you can look at your own work, start seeing some redundancies, repetition, how to pull up that key message, and it's a skill you just got to practice and practice. I find it so much, so fun.
Speaker 1:I can see this and your energy is amazing. You went from a corporate job to an entrepreneur and it's not easy and you're going to have adversity. So, all of you out there, if you're facing adversity in your business, your confidence or your communication, take this as a reminder. Your message matters and it's time that the world hears all of us clearly, because AI is here and a lot of things are going to be created in AI, but it can't create you. So be yourself and share your you know your love of what you do, because I can see how much you love what you do and it's awesome and I love it. I'm so glad you were here today, so thank you for coming on today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. I appreciate the time.
