Great ideas only see the light of day if you can sell them to your clients. In this episode, we will explore the critical things you need to work on to become a great presenter who can sell your work, understand what you are presenting, find your presentation style and understand the power of storytelling.
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http://thecrazy1.com/episode-12-trends-fashion-technology-and-shoes-that-may-change-everything/
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Great ideas only see the light of day if you can sell them to your clients. In this episode, we will explore the critical things you need to work on to become a great presenter who can sell your work, understand what you are presenting, find your presentation style and understand the power of storytelling.
SHOW NOTES:
http://thecrazy1.com/episode-12-trends-fashion-technology-and-shoes-that-may-change-everything/
FOLLOW THE CRAZY ONE:
Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook
What is going on everybody? Welcome to the 12th episode of The Crazy One podcast. I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership, design, and a whole host of other things that matter to creative people. And you found me in the midst of, well, a rather interesting moment today. And it's one of those rare moments in my career where I actually stop and reflect or appreciate on something I've done. So I was in a pretty good mood anyway, this morning. But right before I started recording, a friend of mine texted me to point out that this show is now broken into the top 200 podcasts on iTunes. It sits at number 186. And while I will certainly admit that at no part in my career, have I ever aspired to be the 186 best at anything? Well for being 10 episodes in, it's not bad. And so I'm going to give myself the rare moment to stop and appreciate what it is that I built and I'm sure as soon as I'm done recording this, I'll go back to what I normally do which is simply repeat In my work apart, only seeing the mistakes and shortcomings and somehow feeling like I all need to do it all a lot better than what I am. But until then, until we're done with this, we are going to let the good times roll. And we're going to do that. Because today we're actually going to talk about something that I really love. But it's something that I have really had to work at. And it's something that I know a lot of other people really have to work at. So this is going to be the first three shows that I'm going to do on presenting and presentation skills. And the reason why I want to do this is because I think that a lot of people feel like this is a skill they should have. They see some people where it comes very, very naturally to them. It's even something where in a lot of cases people will point at me and say that's something that I do really well. I speak on stages in front of thousands of people all over the world giving talks and lectures and present work you know, throughout the company all the time. And that's always been kind of cited as one of my strengths. Well, the reality is that it's not that this is something that I've had to learn. And it took me a long time to do it. Because even up until probably even whenever I was in college, I was terrified to speak in front of more than three or four or five people, that this is something I've had to learn. It's something that I've had to work at. And I know that that workout is a theme that we revisit that seems like almost on every show that we do here. But I think that this is something that I really want to try to teach people. And so for these three shows, we are going to talk about presenting and presentation skills, which is a little bit different than public speaking. And so public speaking I'm going to do a different show on and for me public speaking is I have to stand in front of some size of an audience at an event or something like that and deliver a speech. This is going to concentrate on presenting and presentation skills. Which is really just the art of whenever you have created something, how do you get a client to buy into it? How do you get somebody to see the potential in it. And that's what we're really going to focus on. So I just want to make that delineation a little bit clear up front. But I think it's also important that people understand why this is an important skill on this show. We always ask why. So let's start there. I think that for me, I'm the son of a creative director. I've been around creative people for a really long time. And because of that, one of the things that I recognized fairly early on was that whenever you go from the role of just being an executioner of somebody who just create something, to being the role of a leader, or being viewed as something more than somebody who just has execution, one of probably the biggest parts of that comes from your ability to present, share and get buy in around your ideas. And I read An interesting stat not too long ago, that at Carnegie Mellon University, they found out that 85% of your financial success is going to be due to your personality, your ability to communicate, and your ability to lead, that only 15% of it is going to come from your technical knowledge. And so I think that alone, that stat alone, kind of proves out my point, that as you want to climb the ladder as you want to progress in your career, the ability to present is incredibly critical to that. And it's just has to be part of that evolution. But I think that a lot of people just don't know how to start that they don't know how to do it. And I think in many cases, they don't have the leadership that has the understanding for how to teach them. So that's what this show is looking to correct. And we're going to do that by starting to talk about four foundational elements to presenting And those are just going to be looking at. Well, first off, is it really presenting? Because I think just that word in itself is kind of a trap. We're going to look at figuring out what's your presentation style? What are some of the most common challenges? And then spend a little bit of time talking about how do you actually tell a story. So that's what we're going to focus on in this first episode. In the next episode, then we're going to move on to what really are going to be the nuts and bolts of how do you put together a presentation and how do you deliver it. But I really felt like we need to start with some of these foundational elements that go into being really good at presenting. So that's the agenda for today. And let's start with just looking at the word presenting. Because I think that in itself is a trap. Because the reality is, if you're a creative, you aren't presenting. If you have a spreadsheet full of numbers, if you have Something that is not debatable. You can present that what we're doing, because creative is subjective, is selling. And I think that is a critical critical difference in mindset and an approach for what it is that you're trying to do. Because presenting is passive, it's just simply presenting it, I guess. Whereas selling is something different. And a lot of the times whenever I come in, and I try to work with creative teams that are struggling, that difference is one of the places where I see that they're falling down, the thinking could be great, the work could be really great. But all that they're doing is they're walking into the room, putting the work up on the screen and asking the client to tell them what's wrong with it, as opposed to selling which is walking in with options and a recommendation and an opinion and a story about why that opinion is right. And actually going through and selling somebody on something. So the question then becomes We're selling, what the hell are we selling? Because I think this is the other thing that people don't necessarily think through. Because the obvious answer that most people will give me, is what we're selling whatever our creative is, we're selling design, we're selling words, we're selling images, whatever that is, that's what we're selling. Why would I beg to differ? Because for me what I think you're selling, especially whenever it comes to creatives, what you're selling is trust and confidence. Because creative is subjective. And it's one of those things where whenever you start and if you're asking your client to give you a problem to solve, the outcome is unknown. And whatever the outcome is unknown, I need to trust the people who I'm investing this with that they're going to get me to the other side. Let's think about this in a slightly different way. So if I was going to be traveling somewhere, I'm going to board an airplane and whenever I get on the two pilots are standing in the are having a discussion. And I can hear them arguing about how it is that they want to land, the plane. The technique they want to use the direction they want to go, any number of these things, but they're having a disagreement. Well, the reality is in that case, that is going to be an incredibly unpleasant journey, because I'm not going to have very much trust and confidence that they're going to get me to the other side and where I need to go. I don't necessarily think that the creative arc is really much different. Because you're asking your clients to get on the plane, you're asking them to trust you as the pilot to get you where you need to go. And if they can't trust, if they don't have confidence in you, they're either going to be really worried or they're going to be up there in the cockpit with you trying to fly the plane, none of which are good outcomes. But here's the good part is that trust and confidence are emotions. And just like with any emotions, you can use those to manipulate people. And the thing that I would say is, I think Any great presenter manipulates their audience. And it could be very literal presenters like Steve Jobs who would use things like his line of you know, but one more thing at the end of the keynote, which everybody would be waiting for. But really any storyteller any presenter manipulates their audience and I don't think manipulation is a bad word. Because a comedian manipulates his audience through phrasing and timing and the way that he tells a story to make it funny. every writer songwriter and anybody like that that tells a story manipulates their audience through a series of events. And the reality is that I've been manipulating you for the past, however, it's been 10 minutes, because there is nothing that I do when I talk that isn't intentional. Even the way that I'll start a podcast to try to make it a little bit funny in the beginning to try to make it relatable to talk about my childhood to talk about my shortcomings so that it's something that people can identify with. To try to have some big revelation in the beginning where, you know, we talked about how it's really selling and not presenting, these are all things that are deliberately done to draw the audience in. Because just like when I'm on stage, doing a medium like this, you have to hook the audience, I have to get you engaged, somehow I have to do that manipulation. And so this is one of those things where you have to be able to think through these sorts of things and to think about how can you start to sell trust and confidence. And so it's great that emotions can be manipulated. But how do you actually sell those things? And so I would argue that I think you do it through a few, probably three main things. I think you do it through storytelling. I think you do it through psychology of just understanding the human brain and how do people actually interact whenever they're receiving information, and then you do it through presentation structure. And so I think that was themes are going to be woven through all three of these episodes as we go through, because I think those are just the foundational things to being good at this. But how do we become a bit more practical? Again, manipulating people trust and confidence. It all sounds very interesting. But how do you actually bring it to life? What are the tangible things that you can do and think about with you and your team to actually do this. And so there are a few things that I will always teach my team and a few of the things that I think you always have to concentrate on to bring this to life. The first, the biggest, and always the most important is to think back to those two pilots, and to think about the disagreement that they were having in front of everybody. And what that really demonstrated more than anything, is that it was perfectly fine for them to have that disagreement, the discussion needed to happen. It was just the context and the timing of it. That was wrong. And so the first thing that I would tell you to do is whenever you and your team are presenting to any of your clients You absolutely have to present with one voice. Because if I'm trying to get a client to trust me if I'm trying to get them to have confidence in me, and I'm acting like those two pilots, where my team and I are disagreeing, we're cutting each other down, we're contradicting each other in front of the client, not building trust and confidence. It's not one of those things where they're going to feel like we're going to get them to the other side. And they're going to be okay. So this is one of those things that you have to think about. It's one of those things you have to coach your team on, is that it's fine if there's a disagreement, just understand when and where to have it. Because the client needs to see you with one voice with one approach with one way of doing things so they can buy into that. I've gone so far as with some of my other teams, and especially whenever we would work with particularly difficult clients, that there are actually hand signals that I would use. So the team would know what it was I was thinking and how did we want to handle what was going on because If a client was getting particularly upset, or if things weren't going well, I needed to be able to indicate to everybody what should happen next. That if it was going really badly, that I didn't want any of them to talk that I wanted to be the one who's going to handle what happened next. Or it'd be one of those things where maybe I wanted somebody else to be able to answer that question because I thought the client really was going to need to buy in and invest in them. So there were a series of very simple hand signals that we would use that were basically undetectable to anybody who is in the room. But what it lets us do is to communicate with each other. So we were sure that we were always on the same page without having to do something as clumsy and as awkward as texting somebody or passing a note or pointing at them or doing one of those odd segways where you try to get somebody to come in to come in and take the answer. But I just think it's one of those things you have to not only think about but coach is to not cut each other down and to be one team because that's the biggest thing. That's going to really get in there and help the client have trust and confidence in you. I think the next thing you have to think about, quite honestly, is that you have to think about, how does the client see the work. Because, again, if they're gonna have trust and confidence in something, they have to understand it, and they have to buy into it. And I think whenever it comes to creative, and especially if it comes to anything in digital, this is where it really becomes a problem because no client wants to put their hand up, stop a meeting, and say, quite honestly, I don't understand the concept that you're talking about. I don't understand this technology. I can't see it in my head for what it is that you're talking about. And this will most often manifest itself. Whenever you'll have a meeting, it'll go great. The client will say that they love everything. They'll give you a few revisions, you go back, you make those changes, you come back and you present them. And suddenly this group that was in alignment where there was agreement and approval suddenly has come on done. The client doesn't like it anymore, they were thinking something different. They were seeing something different. And so I think this is one of those things you have to think about is for somebody to trust you, you have to make sure that they understand what they're getting. And the reality is, is that not everybody's brain is wired the same way that a creative person's brain is wired. That comes to as a shock to no one who's been around creative people. But the example that I'll use actually comes from something that happened with my wife. I don't know what a few years ago, we built our house. And that meant whenever we moved in, you moved into a house that is basically completely bare. There are no blinds, there's no paint, there's no anything, you just get kind of the shell of what it is you want. And so over the course of the next few years, we went through trying to furnish the house and time and time again, the same thing would play out. We would go into New York, we'd go into a furniture store. Let's say we were looking for bookshelves, we would walk around I'm looking at the different bookshelves. And then finally I would see one that I thought looked really good. And I would point at those I would say, Honey, you know what, I think those would look fantastic in the living room. And she would look at them and kind of wrinkle up her forehead and say, You know what, no, I don't like them. And so the day would, and we wouldn't find anything we liked. Well, I was convinced that those one set of bookshelves, those were the ones that were going to be the ones that looked really good. And so I would set off for the next few, whatever it would be weeks or months trying to convince her of this fact trying to wear her down, often to the point where she would just simply give in, I think just to shut me up honestly, agreeing that those would be the ones we would buy. So I would go back to the store, order them, have them delivered. I'd stay home from work one day install them waiting eagerly for her to come home where I would present this, you know, grand solution to her. And time after time, she would come home with this thing that she was sure that she hated. Look at it on the wall and go oh my god, I love it. And my soul would die. Little. And what I realized was that the way that her brain and my brain are wired when they aren't the same, because what I could do is I could walk into that furniture store, I could see those bookshelves on the wall of the store, and I could take them and transpose them in my head to be in our house, I could see how they would look. She couldn't do that. That's why she literally needed to see it there before she knew that she liked it. So because of that, I've changed tactics. Now whenever I see one of those things, I'll carry a photo of wherever it is, we want to put whatever piece of furniture, I'll take a photo in the store of whatever it is we think we want to buy. And I'll just use, you know, Photoshop touch or something quickly mock the two of them together so that she can actually see the way they would look together. Because then she can see it in her head because she needs to be able to see that she can't do the transposition just in her brain. I think the clients in many cases are the same way where I don't Assume that they can see it. If we're talking about an idea, I don't assume that it's one of those things where I'm sure that they have it in their head. This is why so often I'll joke that I have a speech impediment where I can't talk about new ideas without drawing some part of it. Well, part of the reason why I do that is so that I'm sure that there's some sort of visual indication that everybody can see that gets us on the same page. So I think that that's one of the other things is just to understand and don't assume that your client can see the concept or the idea that you're talking about. Because if they can't, they're not going to trust you or they're not going to have confidence and it's going to come back and bite you in the ass later. I think that the other thing to think about and to coach your team on is that whenever you're presenting everything you do communicates, because whenever we talk about manipulating emotion, a lot of what we're doing is subconscious. That if we try to take the brute force method if we try to go in and force somebody into fuel feeling something? Well, they're not going to that's not the way that it works. So, but the reason why I think that it's important to think about how everything communicates, is because all of those little details go into building trust and confidence. If there are typos in your deck, if something is out of order, if you look pissed off, if you're slumped over in your chair, if half your team isn't paying attention, all of those things communicate. And what they communicate is that I'm not sure that I should have confidence in this team, because I don't know that this really matters to them. I don't know that they're watching the details. I don't know that this is something they're really bought into. And because of that, I'm not sure if I can really trust them with this. Again, these are all very subtle things. These are things that I think people often don't think about. So you need to be able to coach your team on this, that if we're in a big meeting, don't sit there on your damn phone, going through Facebook, don't sit there and go through Instagram or do these other things looking like you have something better to do. Because the reality is you don't, that we need to be in this moment, we need to understand how critical it is we need to get this person to buy in and trust us in this moment that you know what, after this, go take an hour and go into Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, whatever the hell you want to go do. But for this moment, understand that your actions have an impact and understand that it all communicates. And I think the extension or a bit of the inverse of that is to also understand that it's okay to have passion and authenticity for your work. Because I think too often, especially whenever you get to working with clients in a corporate setting, people suddenly get very, very self conscious about their personality, and should they have one, or should it just simply be this by the numbers robotic transmission of information? Well, the reality is it shouldn't because the people that I trust the people that I have confidence in are the people who really do Believe in what it is they're doing. And so that if I can show up and show my clients, that I'm excited about this, that I care about this, that I am passionate about this, well, that's something that people want to be a part of that's, you know, the basic psychology of a movement or something that people can really buy into. So that's the other thing to think about is to really figure out what are the ways you can authentically show the passion for what it is that you're doing. But I think that this is why you always just have to think about some of these basic things. Think about how are you selling trust and confidence really, as a foundation for you and your team? that it's not just coming in and presenting the work? Because the reality is, if I do what I do, right, if I do what I do, well, if I can sell that trust and confidence to my clients, a really funny thing happens. And what that is, is at the end of the presentation, I've walked them through My thinking, they trust me. And what happens is that the way the problem is being solved, almost starts to matter a little bit less. The design, the words, the execution of it take on less importance, which may sound strange, but it really is means that what you're doing is you're winning them over. Because what they know is that they know you've thought it through, they know that they trust you, they know that you have passion for it. And that that design, that copy deck that whatever the creative output is, well, that's just simply the expression of all of that, that can be changed or tweaked, but they know that the thinking and the passion and the trust is there. And if that's not there, what you see clients do is they go like a bull in a china shop rampaging through what it is that you created trying to find it because you haven't given it to them. And that's a real, real problem. Whenever you're trying to sell people on something, so like I said, just take some time. Think about the last presentation you did. Think about the next one you're going to do, is that something that you're taking the time to make a priority, and to think through. So the next part is probably a bit more personal. But it's something that you also need to be able to think about, and to be able to coach your team on. And that is, what is each person's presentation style. Because the reality is just like leadership, just like creativity. I think presentation style is incredibly personal to every person. Because it's you, your it's your personality, and how are you going to figure that out and be compelling and to really sell whenever you do this. And again, like so many other things I talked about, there's not really a magic bullet for that. But what I'll do here is and I know one of the most popular episodes What I've done so far has been the one on personal branding, and how do you build your personal brand? So we're going to borrow a little bit from one of those techniques in there. Because in that episode, I said, it was really important for you to understand your brand and to understand the story that you were going to tell. Well here, when we talk about your presentation, persona, your presentation style, it's not terribly different. Because what you need to do is you need to figure out what is your style? And what's the, what's the archetype that you want to embody, whenever you present. And so that the best expression of this, not surprisingly, came from TED Talks, that whenever you read about or you talk to the people who put on TED Talks, they really will define any speaker as in one of three personas. And that this is often if you go back and watch TED Talks, you'll see that they fall into one of these three styles or persona Whenever people present, so here's what these three are. And I'll again, I'll put them in the show notes. So you don't have to stop and scribble all this stuff down. Now you can go back and get it later. But these are the three. And as I'm talking through this, think about which one of these categories Do you think you fall into? The first one, they call the educator. And this is somebody who really is just seeking to understand the nature of things. How do things work? So often, these are people who are inventors, they're scientists, they could just simply be people who want to teach people something. But that's really just that's an educator persona is somebody who really has an inquisitive mind, but they want to educate people on something. The next one comes in the form of the entertainer. And this is somebody who so often whenever they present, they really want to share some secrets of their craft or some secrets about the way that they do things. And so often this will come in the form of a comedian A magician or even an artist, where you may see their work, but it's really it's it, let's talk about the process behind that, and what goes into their craft. And finally, you have what they call the change agent. And this is somebody who really is looking to inspire people. These are people who are activists, they're gurus, they're entrepreneurs. And that that's the thing that they want to go through and do is that they really want to not only personally change things, but they want to empower other people to change as well. And I think that the thing that I've realized is that the best presenters, the best people who do this really well, well, they actually can use all three personas as they go through and do a presentation. I think it's one of the things that I again, very deliberately think about. Whenever I do this show, whenever I talk on stage, I want to try to make sure that I'm doing all three of those things. That so often it it starts as the entertainer trying to be funny trying to hook you in so often then moving to the Educator of the meat of a lot of the shows, or a lot of the sessions I do, tries to teach something that you can walk away with not just simply talk about case studies or the things that I've done, or if I do to make sure that it's relatable to people so they can understand the point of it, or I can use it to teach, often then going back to the entertainer to try to kind of give some of those insights of the craft, but most often trying to end whatever talk I do in a change agent persona, to try to get people fired up to get on my soapbox to try to empower them to try to make a change or to buy into something. And so I think that it's one of those things that I do try to go through and figure out, Okay, do I have all of these and whatever it is that I'm working on. So I would really encourage you to take some time to think about of those, which is the primary one for you. And then how can you do more of the other two, how can you round out your presentations and round out Your persona with those other things so that it doesn't just become one dimensional. But I would say go to the shownotes. Again, you can print those out and think about those, but use them as a bit of a cheat sheet whenever you're building the story that you want to tell or the presentation you want to make. So from here, I think one of the other foundational things that we have to be able to talk about our challenges, because I like I said before, this wasn't something that came easily to me and overcoming the problems that I had presenting the fear the kicks that I had the cases where you tend to often whenever you talk, you find yourself saying things like, um, or, you know, any other little tick, whenever you aren't sure what to say. How do you overcome those? How do you get past that because they're two things that happen here. And they these were the two things that probably let me understand that I could become better at this. The first was The recognition from studying sports psychology really, that fear and nerves are self imposed emotions, that if you're going to give a presentation or if you're going to speak on stage, there is no threat of physical harm. No one is holding a gun to your head, it's you imposing this emotion on yourself this fear, however conscious or unconscious, it's something that you can control. And that if you can control it, then you can overcome it. And we'll talk in a second about a few of the things that I've done to try to work through as an evolution for how to get through that. But I think that the other thing is honestly a lot of it is just getting comfortable in your own skin or in your own head. Because I think whenever you have those tics, they can become almost debilitating. Because the first time somebody points them out, or the first time you see a recording and realize just how much you do it and you had no idea. It can really become terrifying because you're so incredibly aware And then here again, how do you get over it? I've always phrased it or tried to teach people that it's getting comfortable with silence, that in the moment when you don't know what to say, in the moment, when you know that you're nervous to train your brain, and to train yourself to say nothing, as opposed to fearing the silence, needing to fill the silence with whatever that tick is saying, um, you know, right, like, whatever that little thing would be. And I think that this is something that I've had to work at quite a bit because I'm a big either guy, or I'm sure if you go back and listen old episodes every once in a while, I'll say, right, as just kind of like an affirmation because it was one of the tricks that I taught myself to make that my tick whenever I needed it, because it was at least audience engaging and that if I did that it was better or a little bit more engaging than saying the words like um, how do you overcome this though? How do you start to figure out how to get better at it. And I think the first part of this goes back to draw on something that I talked about in the episode on creativity. Because in the episode on creativity, I talked about the importance of self awareness to becoming more aware of what do you do when you have good ideas and becoming more aware of what do you do when you have bad ideas? becoming better presenting, is not that dissimilar? of knowing what are the things that I'm doing? Whenever I'm feeling confident, whenever I'm feeling good, whenever the nerves go down? What am I doing then? versus what are the moments where I'm getting really worked up? The nerves are getting worse. And that's really becoming something that's becoming almost debilitating for me. And I think that so some part of it is just starting to have self awareness that in the moment when it's going, well, making a mental note of what did I do running up to that and the moments when it's going badly? Again, making the note of what was I doing that led to this? Was it lack of practice? Do I not feel like I know the material was it something where I didn't get enough sleep or I got too much sleep or I Went out or I didn't, or there could be a whole host of factors about the way that you manipulate your brain to get you into the right spot. And so part of it is also just start experimenting. Because I think this was something that I started to do a lot was to figure out, how could I become better at at becoming a good presenter? One of the first things I tried, which I think a lot of people tried is I tried just writing it all down, literally making a script, pretending there's a teleprompter, something like that. And what I found is that that did not help me. Because whenever I read off a script, I sound like the host of a cable access show. It sounds very much like I'm gonna go through and I'm gonna read off this script. And whenever I get to the end, it's gonna sound like that. The cadence to that the tone of it, just the implied confidence behind that socks, if I sound like an idiot. So I realized very quickly that that was not the way that I needed to go that I was somebody that quite honestly Probably almost would be willing to sacrifice accuracy for storytelling, that for me, it's why I in so often, if you've ever seen me present, I use decks that are very, very minimal in the content that they have. And if you ever, whatever come around, come up to the front sometime look at the confidence monitor I'll have at the stage in front of me, it's usually no more than two or three bullets of two or three words. It's even quite honestly, the way that I build this show. And the way that I do it, is that it's one take, I treat it like I'm on stage. And as I'm standing here talking, I'm sitting here looking at my monitor that has a keynote that has the show all done with just simple slides with simple bullets of the flow and the story that I want to tell. It's how I can go through and do all this and know what it is I want to talk about. But make sure that I cover the subjects that I want to cover. Because it's just it's a simple way for me to be able to do this, but it allows me to riff to talk to be in the moment and to sound more convincing than if I use the script. But for some people that really works, but experiment that and see, some of it is, again, I think the recognition that the hardest moments whenever you have to present is the first one. Because in that first moment, you have to get everybody to stop talking, you have to get them to pay attention, you have to get the meeting going, you have to get the cadence of what it is that we're going to talk about. That's an incredibly daunting moment, that for most people, they're actually perfectly fine once they get past that moment. But that one, that first paralyzing moment of having to jump into your fear, and to start is so often the hardest. So sometimes it's the recognition that if that's the case, have somebody else start the meeting for you have your boss or somebody else actually be the one that starts talking to get things going, and then once you're past that, terrifying, first minute or two, you jump in and you take the bulk of it, because it's one of those things where if you do that, you're over your fear and you can be off and running. You can see that the meeting has started. You're still breathing, the world has not ended. And everybody's still there. And I think that the other thing is to also to think about if you're doing presenting and you're truly that scared of things, come up with a safety word, as comical as that might sound. But if you're in a place where you just you just feel like you know what, there is some chance that I might actually just start to panic and shut down, or that I might really blow this. One of the things that I've found is that people almost always, never will. If they know that there is a safety word or an escape hatch that could save them in that off chance that it does, that there is a backup plan. And so, go to one of your colleagues, go to your boss, it will take a little bit of courage to tell them the struggle that you're having. But tell them why. And tell them should that moment arise. And suddenly if you say the word banana, or Homer Simpson or falafel or whatever, I mean, obviously, some of you wouldn't say in everyday conversation, but if you Look at them and say that word in a sentence that you need help. Because just that backup plan, it's amazing the confidence that it can give you or just the peace of mind that you know that. But I think these are all things that you have to start thinking about and experimenting with. Again, they're born out of the ability to have some sort of self awareness to what do you do whenever you do this? Well, and what do you do? And what are the things that are holding you back from being better at it? Because I think that's really where the power of so much of this comes from. The other trick that I'll tell you that I've learned is that and I know this is true for executives at Apple. I know it's a true for executives, that a lot of other big tech companies and I know that it's something that Steve Jobs believed in, was that seven is the magic number seven is the number of times that if you practice something, you will become confident in your material. run through it seven times. Practice it seven times, that if you do that, you'll have a confidence in it, you'll have a command of it, you'll have an understanding of it, that will get rid of a huge amount of those nerves. And I know that seven may seem like it's a lot, just think about that number seven. And that practice really does breed command of material, it breeds confidence in it. And we're going to dive into a lot of those sorts of things. And when we get to the next episode, because then the next episode is going to be a bit more about the nuts and bolts of some of these things. But I really would just tell you to think about how do you do things when you do them? Well, whenever you present and how are you doing things whenever it's not turning out quite as well. So from here, we're probably gonna get to the heart of what I think you need to do to be a great presenter. And that's telling a story. Because the problem that I see with far too many creatives is what they do is they spend 95 98% of their time on the work, which makes sense. But the problem is by leaving 5% or less of your time to think about how you're going to tell its story to think about how you're going to present it. Well, then the problem is, you're honestly probably disrespecting your work. Because if other people can't buy into it, if other people aren't going to approve it, all of that work isn't really going to add up too much. So I think that you need to think about how do you approach that a little bit differently. I personally will probably spend on any project probably 80% of my time on the work, and probably about 20% of my time, thinking about how we're going to tell this story, and how we're going to present it at the end. And this is honestly from the very first concept of meeting all the way through when we're almost done with the work but it is really going through and figuring out all through this, how am I thinking about shaping this story? And here's the reason why. Another stat that I saw, I kind of On stats are some of this stuff sometimes. Another stat that I saw is if you give a presentation, and you go back to your audience Two weeks later, and ask them, What is it they remember? Well, the funny thing that you'll see is that 15% of them will be able to remember facts or numbers that you presented, whenever you did your presentation, however, 85% 85% of them will be able to remember a story that you told. So if you want your work to have impact, if you want your work to stay sold, turning it into a story is critical to being successful. Because that's what really being a great presenter is it's being a great storyteller. So let's just take a quick minute and actually study storytelling because this is one of those things, but this is the way that I approached it. Because, like I said, Before, I sucked at it. I didn't know how to tell a good story. I didn't know how to do this sort of stuff. So I had to set about studying it. And one of the biggest breakthroughs I have was whenever I found a book by a guy named Joseph Campbell, who really looked at all going all the way back to Greek mythology, how do you tell a good story? What's the arc and the steps that you have to do to tell a convincing story. And so if you want a more modern example of Greek mythology, is the work of Joseph Campbell has also been referenced and is the foundation for a few other creatives who are good at storytelling, including Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and a bunch of other people so that if you took Campbell's work and actually map it back against Star Wars, Indiana Jones, et john, any of the big movies that you can think of, you'll see and almost one to one comparison, because this was the outline that these guys used to figure out how to tell a good story. And so it really is looking at, it's called a hero's journey. And the hero's journey is broken up usually into three acts or three different people. parts. And so what we'll do is we'll quickly walk through what are these three acts. And here again, I'll put these in the show notes. So go to podcast, Stephen Gates comm go to Episode 12, under episodes, and you'll find all this stuff. So don't feel like you need to keep start stopping and starting taking notes furiously as we go through that. There are three acts. And so what I want to do is to walk through what are the pieces of each act? And then so this doesn't become just some disconnected mental exercise map that each of those steps back to then how do I think about that whenever I actually present my work, so that it forms an outline or a starting point that I can use for how am I going to present my work? act one. The first thing that you'll often see whenever you go through hero's journey is there's a setup of the world they always call it like the ordinary world. And this is the introduction to just what is going on around everybody. I think if you're thinking about this from a presentation standpoint This is like the welcoming introductions to the meeting, right? It's just simply the, we're going to get accustomed to the the world of this meeting that we're going to be in from there. So often in a hero's journey, there's some sort of a call to adventure, that something happens, good, bad or otherwise, that basically calls the person or the team into the adventure. And I think that, you know, for me, this is where we start to talk about things like the creative brief, or the passion for the project. Or it was just basically that moment of Inception whenever we got and started to think about this work from there. So often, if you think about a hero's journey, there'll be a phase called the refusal of the call. This is where they don't really want to leave home. They don't want to leave their loved ones. There's some reason why they can't or shouldn't, you know, go out and do this. If you think about Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, this is where he didn't want to leave his aunt and uncle. But that really what I'll do when I for the project is oftentimes quite honestly talk about how there was a lot A lot going on, we're being pulled in a lot of different directions. You know, we weren't quite sure that we would be up to be able to take this on. But at the end of the day, we knew that this was important and that we we really wanted to be there for our clients. After that, they'll often be a meeting with a mentor. This is the going to going out to see Obi Wan Kenobi sort of a moment and Star Wars, I will jokingly say, this is where the team should come to me for advice. But I would also say that for you or for your team, it is the moment where I do think that often, it is good to be able to meet with some sort of mentor or some sort of a person just to verify how you're thinking about kind of approaching this sort of stuff. And then the first act will end with what they call crossing the threshold. And this is that moment where whatever the excuses has been worn away, and the hero decides that they are going to go on this journey and take their first step out into the big world. And so we will usually end the first part of act one from a presenting standpoint of this is where we started to work on the project. This is where we started to kind of dig in and see what was going on. So that's usually just the first act. And it's just basically the setup. But what it does is it starts to get the client to come along the journey with us, that it is exposing them and letting them into our world that it's the understanding that creativity is a team sport, and that people do like to be able to participate in it. But to be able to do that they need the context and they need this journey. So then we move on to act two. And with Act Two is really broken up into four big kind of steps. The first one often comes in the fact of tests, allies and enemies. And this is really what are the this is the kind of the meat of the adventure, right? This is the the heart of the story. And this is one of those things where what we're going to do is we're going to start to go through what are the problems that needed to be solved in the brief? What are the things that we saw were opportunities? What did the research start to tell us? Because from there, then it goes into, they'll call it the approach of the innermost cave, followed by an ordeal This is really as we head towards that kind of climactic moment of whatever the big problem is that was lurking out there. This is the Darth Vader of your project, right? So this is where what we need to do is as we're going through and we're presenting this, we want to talk about what were the problems that we solved? What were the things that we struggled with, what were the things that we had to overcome. So often, I'll do this by presenting three different options. The first one very obvious, if you know, that's the the easy, safe stay at home one, but it led us to some problems that we saw. So we created this second option. The second option solved some of the initial problems that we had, but it created more. And it led us to the third one, which was really the recommendation that we're going to have, but it's letting them see the struggle. It's letting them see that journey that really will get us to the last part of the second act, which is the reward. And the reward is working on those problems that lead to the insights that we had it led to the work that we're going to recommend That that's really one of those things that you know, really to take them on that journey so that they can understand the pros and cons, the strengths, the weaknesses, this is why I never will believe in sending work over to the client ahead of time. So they can just simply flip through a PDF and come to their own conclusion. And then whenever I do this presentation, they just sit there patiently waiting for it to be over so they can render an opinion that they had without really understanding any of the struggle or the journey that we went on. And so with that done with the recommendation there, we had to act three, and act three, that's then you started with the road back, this is how do we start to get it back home? How do we go through and how do we start to shape that recommendation into why we think that it works into getting it to really illustrate and demonstrate how it solves the problem that we've been we've been given from there, then the resurrection will so often happen in a hero's journey. And this is really one of those things where What we want to do is we do want to go back and resurrect, and just again, briefly walk through, what were the three things that we did to walk through what that journey was do that once again, let us just to remind everybody tell them what you told them sort of a thing of where we've been. And then you know, the last part is that returning home, it can be returning home some journeys, we'll call it the return with the elixir or different things like that. But it really kind of just, it brings it all back, it ties it back up, we talked about next steps, we talked with the client and to really kind of again, just bring it back home, and to kind of close the story out. But it really is one of those things where it is thinking about all of these steps to almost think about wherever the movie is you love. Pixar uses this Lucas Spielberg, like you name whatever the popular story is that you like, it uses this arc. So think about that movie, think about how it maps to this and then think about how can you tell this sort of story Whenever you go through and you do your work, because this was the outline that I would use to try to get better at presenting to be able to write out and make sure that I was covering these bases that I was telling the story, and I was letting the client in, I was taking them on this journey and really letting them see what it was that we were doing. Because once I did that, the trust the confidence, it went through the roof, because all of a sudden, they were on this journey with us, and they were so much more bought in. So that again, whenever we got to the point of actually showing the work, it took on a different importance than what we had ever seen before. So let's do a quick recap. We talked about what are you really selling, that it is selling and it's not presenting? And that you have to think about how are you really conveying trust and confidence above anything, whenever you're presenting and working with your clients and that the single most important thing to do whenever you do that is to do it with one voice. From there thinking about what is your presentation style? Are you the educator, the entertainer, or the change agent? And then how can you actually spend more time being all of those things? How can you get that mix? Whenever you present, to be able to make sure you're really drawing and keeping your audience in the moment and in that story, to then go on into think about the challenges? What are your strengths? What are your fears? How do you start to get more aware of them? How do you start to overcome them? How do you start to experiment with doing things different ways to find what's that magic combination that's really going to work for you, that's really going to help you become better presenting, and to get over those things that are holding you back. And then finally, to really think about storytelling, that people remember stories, they don't remember numbers, that whenever you talk about your work, it needs like any great story, a beginning, a middle, and an end. It needs to take your client on a journey, it needs to respect the work that you did the time that you put in the thought that went into it. And it needs to really showcase that so that people can see the passion and the authenticity that leads to that trust and confidence that you have to have to be successful. Because I think that's the biggest thing is that if you can get these foundational things down, if you can become the great storyteller, who's in command of their emotions, who understands their persona, and are really the people that can go through and deliver a great story, that that will fundamentally and completely transform the way that you work. Because I really have seen it time and time again, I will take the exact same team and simply start to apply this model to the exact same work. Instead of going in and presenting one particular piece of work and asking if it's right or wrong. We show up with multiples, we tell a story. We let the client in and all of a sudden the team that was being vilified because they weren't doing work. That was quite smart enough, shows up with the exact same work in a different presentation format. And it suddenly hailed as the hero, the people who are suddenly so much better the work is four or five, six times better than what it ever was before. Nobody got smarter. Nobody got a brain transplant, nothing radical happened. All that it was was just simply respecting the work, respecting the client, and respecting the process enough to be able to let people in so they could really go through and work on this stuff and really see the value in it, to trust it and to really believe in it. So next time, like I said, we're going to dig in more about what are some of the tangible tips and insights for two incredibly critical areas? Because once we get past these foundational elements, you still have a presentation to do. What are the things you need to think about and what are the tangible things you need to do before you do that presentation? As you start to think about it as you start to set it up? What are those things and then whenever you're actually in the room, You're actually there with the client, and you have your story to tell. But there are, again, some very nuts and bolts very tangible things that you need to be able to think about to be really good at it. And then in the final episode, and the third in this series, what we're going to talk about is really understanding your audience, understanding who's in that room and understanding their psychology, because the first two episodes are really going to concentrate on you and your team. When that third episode, we're going to start to look at your audience. And we're also going to look at now after you understand that audience, and after that presentation is over, how do you manage and think about the aftermath? How do you keep it sold? How do you keep it out there? And how do you understand the ecosystem that so often tends to happen past that meeting, that again, can be so incredibly critical. So that's the plan for the next two shows. That's it for this show. As always, I will ask, beg, plead, possibly even grovel, but I'm probably in too good of a mood to have that happen. If you get a chance head over to we'll all admit it. Whenever we look at the numbers, let's just say iTunes, this time Because that's what the numbers bear out pretty much everybody's listening to this on, head over to iTunes and leave a review. We had 15 at last count, I hope for more because I can see that the audience is certainly bigger than 15. But one of the things that helps the show rise up the charts and hopefully to get to 180 fifth best design podcast are those reviews and the numbers of coming out and actually listening to the show. So it's the only currency I ever asked for. So if you get a moment please please please pretty please head over to iTunes and leave a review. As always, you can find out more about the podcast head over to podcast, Stephen Gates, calm, the show notes and everything we've talked about are going to be over there. Just go under episodes, scroll and you'll see Episode 12 right up there at the top. If you have any questions, there's something you wish I would talk more about less about loved it hated it. anything in between. Feel free to let me know. And just shoot me an email at ask at Stephen Gates calm. Stephen has s t e p h n no V's around here gates. calm. And as always the boys down illegal want me to remind you, all the views are my own. They don't represent any of my current or past employers. And I say it every time because I mean it every time but thank you for your time. Time is the only true luxury we have. And I'm always more than a little humbled that you want to spend any of it with me. So until next time, and as always, stay crazy