Presentation Skills Coaching with Jamie Ryan: Episode 9

In this Mic Drop Mindset episode on presentation skills, speaking coach Jenn coaches client Jamie Ryan.

Jamie shares her signature talk, “Swag to Swagger” (SWAG: Scientific Wild Ass Guess), using a Toyota Supra break-in metaphor and a COVID test company example to show how founders can overfocus on “cool tech” without proving differentiation and value. She advises doing competitor landscape analysis via patents, PitchBook/Crunchbase, and startup news, tracking findings in a spreadsheet, and validating whether buyers will pay for added cost/complexity. 

Jenn praises Jamie’s storytelling, clear structure, memorable opening/closing, and strong time management, then offers coaching on clarifying “landscape analysis,” reducing filler words like “so,” and using purposeful stage movement.

Want a copy of the Speaker Feedback Form Jenn mentioned on this episode? Email her at jegoswam@bweightless.com

About Jamie Ryan:

Jamie Ryan spent nearly 15 years in Silicon Valley as an in vitro diagnostics innovator and technology scout, addressing the world’s most pressing problems.  From creating tests for diseases from swine flu and COVID pandemics to drug-resistant “superbugs,” she learned the path from prototype to market is full of surprises.  Evaluating 100+ medical device startups as a subject matter expert in strategic business development, mentoring, and pitch judging showed her that many of  these “surprises” can be anticipated - and addressed - if you know where to look.

She started JL Ryan Consulting LLC to improve medical device startup success rates by identifying and addressing risks early, before costly pivots are needed.

Jamie offers advisory sessions and pitch reviews to MedTech startup founders, and speaks at accelerators, incubators, and industry conferences.

Visit Jamie at https://www.jlryanconsulting.com/

00:00 Welcome and Topic

00:14 Meet Jamie Ryan

01:44 Talk Title and Audience

02:58 Supra Story Hook

03:55 Cool Tech Cautionary Tale

05:23 Founder Action Steps

07:05 Coach Feedback Storytelling

08:26 Structure and Strong Ending

10:14 Timing and Clarity Notes

15:22 Stage Presence and Movement

16:56 Racetrack Focus Strategy

17:54 Final Thanks and Wrap

Have a question or suggestion for a future episode topic? Email me jenn@jennspingo.com.

Ready to deliver mic drop moments in your next presentation? Schedule a call to learn more about coaching www.calendly.com/jennchat

Looking to book a speaker for your corporate or association event on topics including leadership and communication? View my programs at www.jennspingo.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Mic Drop Mindset. Now, today's episode is on presentation skills. So part of the work I do here as a speaking coach is I help you not just with mindset, but also with the mechanics of speaking and creating a speaking business. Today in the studio we have Jamie Ryan. Welcome, Jamie. Thanks, Jen. Great to be here. Oh, it's so good to have you here. Now, Jamie has worked with me before. Jamie has been creating her signature speech and making a lot of progress. But let me introduce her properly to all of you who are listening. Jamie Ryan spent nearly 15 years in Silicon Valley and somehow ended up in Minnesota. She was an in vitro diagnostics innovator and technology scout, addressing the world's most pressing problems, from creating tests for diseases from swine flu and COVID pandemics, which impacted most of us here, to drug-resistant super bugs. She learned the path from prototype to market is full of surprises. Evaluating 100-plus medical device startups as a subject matter expert in strategic business development, mentoring and pitch judging showed her that many of these surprises can actually be anticipated. Anne addressed. If you know where to look, she'll tell you more about that in just a moment. She started JL Ryan Consulting LLC to improve medical device startup success rates by identifying and addressing risks early. Before costly pivots are needed, she shares her feasibility to exit insights with early stage entrepreneurs. Some of you may be listening right now, empowering you to see the risks before investors do. Audience members will walk away ready to assess their product investment readiness and plan the most efficient next steps, plus nail those investor meetings.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

What was the title of your talk? Yeah, so it's SWAG to swagger, with SWAG being the acronym Scientific Wild Ass Guess. Scientific Wild Ass Guess. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Very cool. So we're not afraid to use colorful language in our talks here.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

No, as you mentioned earlier, I'm a Californian. My husband's a Minnesotan, and apparently they all come back. So after our Silicon Valley stint, he decided he wanted to see snow again.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Mmm. Well, I'm glad you came back to Minnesota because that's actually how you and I connected initially. I'm super excited about this talk because you and I have been working on this talk, and I feel like you've made so much progress in terms of understanding who your audience is. So tell us a little bit more about who the audience is for this particular talk.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

This talk will be aimed toward groups of early stage medical device founders. So typically first-time founders who may not have had a ton of experience in an audience through an incubator or an accelerator or a presentation at a startup conference.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Wonderful. I love how specific you've always been with who your audience is and what level they are. I think a lot of us when we get started, we say, I can speak to anyone who will listen to me. And I think you've you're taking a unique approach in who you help, and you're very specific around that.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Five years ago, I bought a new Supra. It's awesome. So the manual says to stay under 100 miles an hour for the first 1200 miles. If this were you, would you have waited for break-in or would you go full throttle? Would you have even read the manual? So after evaluating hundreds of medical device startups, I see parallels between how people would work with the car and work with their tech. So some of the founders are really super focused on their cool tech, not always understanding the need to slow down and think. So why does this matter? Money. Investors and subject matter experts have seen it all before. So things that entrepreneurs think are unique about their technology, something that investors probably could put on a bingo card. Even worse is when you have an ego insisting that their tech is going to be the one to change the world. So everyone remembers the early years of COVID, right? We had products coming on the market left and right. You could buy tests to give to your social worker mother and tell her how to figure out. It's a little bit difficult. And so I had a conversation a few years later with a sales guy from one of those at-home COVID test companies. And it stayed with me for the past few years. The company's product is expensive and it involves complicated new technology. And whenever I'd ask a question about their tests or their competitors or how they fit in this very crowded market, he always answered with, but our cool tech. And I asked a bunch of questions around, you know, how sensitive is this? How quickly can this determine whether someone has an infection? And he'd just avoid it. And he'd go, blah, blah, blah, my cool tech. And we'd go back to the cool tech over and over. So finally I got fed up and I looked up the answer online because it's public information. And their sensitivity was right in line with cheaper, simpler competitors. And a nose swab tested on each would have given about the same result. So you get no benefit from those extra hundreds of dollars. And after that, a few years later, they filed bankruptcy after almost a half a billion dollars in funding. Was that worth it to them or to their investors or to the public? So what can founders do? How do you avoid this? Think back on how much time has been spent looking for folks doing similar work. Did you check patent filings? Did you search Pitchbook or CrunchBase for who raised money? And do you follow startup news sources? So put together a spreadsheet and update it regularly. Who else is out there? What do they all have in common? What's their success? What are their differences from you? And if you think that I'm just telling you what to do, know that before I bought the Supra, I did a landscape analysis to figure out that this was the right car. So look at your product. Do you, you know, what's your secret sauce? Is it truly special? If it is unique, like the company we talked about, what are the cost or complexity impacts? Will your buyers pay more for it based on that technology? And have you asked them? The startups who do this right really stand out. So I was on a diligence call for an angel investing group, and one founder nailed it. She not only showed how her product stood out, but she gave us actual numbers on the money that would be saved by hospitals. Early stage diligence is all about assessing the risk. You need to see a clear value proposition to build your investors' confidence. So, where are you now? Are you full throttle or do you need to spend some time breaking in that engine? Even if it slows you down, make sure you deeply understand your differentiators. Stand above the rest to investors and increase your chance of success. Do you want expert guidance? Find me online at JLRyanconsulting.com.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

So let's talk a little bit about your talk. I have some notes here in terms of what I noticed that really stood out to me was your storytelling skills. They're like seriously unnatched. Did you feel that yourself when you were sharing the story?

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yeah, I mean, this is how I typically present stuff. And I really like being able to tie through the entire presentation, some sort of theme. I did one that was all Alice in Wonderland, which is a bunch of fun because I got to tell my company we're all mad here. But yeah, once once I figured out how this needs to go, then I enjoy it.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

I could tell like you had a different light in your face when you were presenting because you were talking about things that are fun to talk about. Your Supra, oh my God, that poor guy who lost a bunch of money with the COVID example. I mean, you had some really good stories. And even though I'm not in this space and will never be, I could resonate with the stories you shared. I noticed too, our studio audience was nodding along and they were right there with you. So you have this unique ability to connect with people who maybe aren't experts or aren't even close to what it is you do, but you still have that way to speak about these things in a way that we understood. So I think that was one thing that really stood out for me.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Thank you. Yeah, I really enjoy getting to know people as people and understanding and sharing and just having fun. I mean, even our serious topics are fun.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

And I think you also followed a particular structure. And I've talked about this structure before in my podcast episodes, the 321 method. And Jamie and I have worked on modules when it comes to developing speeches. Each takeaudience takeaway has a module. And so you can build your story before and after. You had a great before and after story, in particular, the COVID example, where you're like, okay, you actually had to look up the answer because he was being dicey about the tech is so great, the tech is so great, and you got frustrated. You're like, fine, let me look at this thing. Had to look on Google for the answer. I mean, that's something that I will remember probably going forward. And I think many people in the audience will remember that. So how specific your stories were was definitely a strength you had. I think a lot of us when we're speaking, we're trying to uh speak to anyone. So we're speaking to many different examples. So it's the breadth more than the depth. And I think you go on the depth. And that is definitely a skill set that many of us can cultivate when it comes to being on stage because that's where the connection points are. The fun stories where we can have a good time, we can laugh with each other. And I can see that in your face too, as you were sharing. Yeah. So would you have gone full throttle or would you have waited? I'm not a full throttle girl, so I love that you challenged me with that question. And I also want to point that out too, the full throttles. So you started with this idea, you had this red thread throughout of the full throttle. Powerful, powerful way to share that. Because you began with it and you ended with it. This is one thing that we talk a little about on this episode in particular is people remember how you started, they remember how you end. Everything in the middle is kind of bonus, it's kind of awesome, it's kind of fun. Right. We can play with it, we can experiment, we can see what happens with the audience, we can react to the audience, but how you start and how you end is what the audience is gonna remember. From a memorable standpoint, it was very memorable. Thank you. I also have to put kudos out there. One of the biggest challenges a lot of speakers have is time management. And I think I reiterated to folks so many times like when you're gonna be delivering a presentation, you have to end on time. Your event planner, your event organizer is counting on you ending on time, and you were short of your time. You even ended sooner than you needed to, and I didn't feel like you were rushed. That is also a skill, like the time management of you being able to manage things because you might have an event organizer say right in the middle of your presentation, got it short. Great. And you've probably had this happen to you in the past.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yeah, I've been at plenty of conferences where the first speaker runs late and then that kicks everyone else late until the last speaker has to shorten, or else you won't be able to move to the next session.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Another reason why nobody wants to be the last speaker, because God knows your presentation will go from 45 minutes to 20 minutes. Yes. Unfortunately, agendas run late. We we've all been there. Now, one thing that one question that came up for me, because as we're looking at this feedback I'm providing to Jamie, and you can get a copy of this feedback form as well, just email me or comment below this podcast episode. I'm happy to share this form with you. It's a form I use with clients. But you said something about landscape analysis at one point. And because I'm not someone in your audience and I recognize that I may not understand what that is, is that something that your audience would know just without explanation?

SPEAKER_01 11:34

It probably needs a bit more explanation. So the format is the same. Basically, I had a list of criteria around the question of which vehicle I should buy. So I went out and I looked at everything that was pretty zippy, that was within a certain price range. Um, at the time I was driving about 25,000 miles a year. So we also had to pay attention to gas. And so I found everything that we had and I listed them out. This is all publicly available online. You can see how much miles per gallon this four gets or how many horsepower the Supra has. Yes. And laid them all out on a spreadsheet. And then I was able to go in and weight those factors depending on what was most important. So if you're pressed on budget, maybe that's the top priority. And speed or power or anything else is lower. But putting it all out there or creating a landscape allows you to whether it's a car purchase, whether it's an assessment of your competitors, whether it's seeing who's out there as a possess as a potential acquirer, getting it all in one place and adjusting based on what matters to you is really important because then you can also find what are they missing? Right. What does everyone come up with the same score in this? And is that something that you need to change to really be able to stand out?

SPEAKER_00 13:05

It sounds like this is a process that might be something you use with clients. Would that be accurate?

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Yeah, definitely getting people on board to look at this early. And that's the hard part. Right. Because everyone's very excited about their technology. And a lot of the first-time founders are new. They just finished their PhD and they've spun out technology from the school into a company. So they know the tech. They've been working with the tech through their PhD and potentially beyond. So getting scientists to step outside into a business persona or into a what else is out their broader view rather than being super laser focused on their area of expertise can be hard, especially if you don't understand why it matters. Okay. And the sticking point is why it matters because there's just a ton of cool tech out there.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Right. And it sounds like because you're familiar with both the MedTech space and with this landscape analysis, that might be a bridge to a call to action. Yes. As part of your presentation. Yes. Um, I know your call to action was visit me on my website, but it could be an opportunity to also include a I did this landscape analysis on my Supra. You might also find value in using this for your product development or as you're putting your product out to market or with investors. So that could be an opportunity in the future as you're developing the speech and going deeper into it to either encourage people to use that as a call to action or to connect with you as you would help them with that if they don't know how to do it.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yes, that's something we've spoken about before, and it's definitely on my to-do list because I think it'll be a valuable ad. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Yeah. Excited to hear that. I come from Toastmasters, so I had to count people's ums, uhs, ands. Um, sometimes you can't escape that once you got used to paying attention to it. You tend to start your sentences with sew. Okay. You're doing a lot of sewing in your presentation. So not that this is and I use sew too. You just heard me say it. We're doing a lot of sewing between the two of us. That might be something to pay attention to as you're presenting. You tend to start your sentences with that. Not a bad thing, and not that you should remove it entirely, but pay attention to how often you're using it. And as you rehearse, you would be using it less frequently. Yeah, I appreciate the feedback. And then one other thing, too. This is a studio, it's not a stage. So sometimes when we're standing in a studio, we have a defined space. We're not supposed to move outside the lines, so to speak, in this area. When you're on stage, do you find yourself moving more? Yes, I do. Okay. Because today I sense that there was a bit of stiffness, not a lot of movement, especially from chest up. So there might be some opportunities for you to use the stage. How would you typically use the stage?

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Yeah, so I typically like to address the whole audience because again, going back to making connections with the people who are listening, if I'm standing on one side or the other side or straight in the middle looking forward, I'm missing a large percentage of the audience. So I tend to physically move from side to side if I can. If I have presentation behind me, that's where I go. Um, it usually works sometimes if I'm on a movie theater stage. I have to try not to fall off. Yes. But but yes, so there's generally a lot more emotion involved.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Okay. Okay. And another way you could pump that up would be to pace yourself so that you internalize your message as part of your movement. So what that could look like is this is my very first audience takeaway. I'm going to stand in this spot. I'm creating some drama with this moment here. I'm going to back away from the audience so that they lean into me. Those are could be other opportunities you use as you're doing the natural movement you do because we want to do it bigger, bolder than we would do in a small studio or in a small camera setup setting. So those could be examples of how you could use that. What is most useful for you?

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Yeah, I think one of the things for me is that I kind of need to have part of my brain going in one direction in order to be able to focus on what I'm doing. So going back to the Supra, I was on the racetrack with an instructor. And I found that when I was moving from point to point, saying, hey, I have to look for this landmark. I have to turn my head here, I have to do this, it got in the way of the driving. So what I did, much to my instructor's chagrin, probably, is I narrated mRNA vaccines while running a lap at Audubon. So he said that it was kind of ridiculous. But also that I ran a nearly perfect lap. So I think if I has had to focus on hitting my marks, hitting my timing, that may be difficult. Gotcha. But certainly going back and saying, okay, how do I emphasize this and just muscle memory and make it natural?

SPEAKER_00 17:53

I love it. I love that you're finding ways that work for your own natural inclination, what works for you, because that's what the work is here. And you're doing a great job out there. I'm sure many of these listeners have learned a lot from what you do and how you help people. Thank you so much for being on Mic Drop Mindset, and I will see you on stage. Thank you so much.