Richard Butterfield's Blog

Four New Powerbites and a Workshop to Help You Lead through Uncertainty

Power of Persuasion veterans — You already know the Powerbite helps you communicate with precision, clarity and confidence. Now, in our new Next Level Powerbites Workshops, you will take your skills to the next level with four purpose-built Powerbites. 

Skip to workshop design

The Blueprint Powerbite

Clarify meeting goals, the key points you’ll land, and the messages you’ll deliver.

The Navigator Powerbite

Guide your audience through challenging, complicated slides.

The Illustrator Powerbite

Start with the Powerbite and build a single slide around it, creating an Illustrator Powerbite.

The No Detours Powerbite

Keep yourself and your meeting on track and focused when addressing tough questions.

 

See the Next Level Powerbites Workshop Design to learn more. 
Contact us to book your Next Level Powerbites workshop today! 

 

The post New! Next Level Powerbites first appeared on Butterfield Speaks.

We’re pretty sure every grandmother gives the same advice: When Life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. Well, 2020 gave us an orchard full of lemons. The way we work changed more in March than it had in last decade. Our clients had to pivot, adjust, and rethink what they do and how they do it. To serve their customers, many had to accelerate their digital transformation plans and saw five years of transformation in five months. We’ve been honored to help them bring their newest flavors to the lemonade stand.

Along the way, we came up with our own unique flavor that we’re pretty proud of. The Moment of Truth presentation skills training allows us to leverage the pivot to the virtual enterprise and help our clients tell a powerful, confident story using a medium that makes few people feel comfortable or confident. Here’s why it’s special.

Three World-Class Points of ViewEvery coach brings their own style and sensibility, and some clients have said comparing Dick, Amy, and Andrew is like comparing apples, oranges, and bananas. We think it’s more like apples, fish, and granite. Our three perspectives together give any workshop remarkable depth and dimension, but getting all three of us on-site for a full day can be a logistical challenge. Our virtual Moment of Truth package gives workshop participants multiple opportunities to work with each of us, take advantage of our combined decades of coaching expertise, and harness our particular strengths.

Brief Bursts of BrillianceRemote engagement provides us with a remarkable opportunity. The Moment of Truth is a series of two-and-a-half-hour sessions spread over two to four weeks. Each session offers intense exploration and practice and drills deeply into a specific Power of Persuasion tool. Participants share their work with their peers and collaborate on better practices, and the session ends while energy, focus, and enthusiasm are high. The spotlight then moves to the next tool.

Technology and the Arithmetic of ExcellenceIn every workshop, we strive to give each participant as much practice time and one-on-one attention as possible. It’s simple math: time / number of participants. Thanks to the technology of virtual engagement, The Moment of Truth has the math on its side. We use plenary sessions to unpack the tools, then shift seamlessly and instantly to practice in breakout rooms led by multiple coaches. Each participant gets ample time in the spotlight and generous one-on-one attention from the coach. The team gets a trip to the communication gym, collaborating around better practices for message and delivery.

Now is the Time for Presentation Skills TrainingIn this moment in time, every opportunity we have to persuade, to create consensus or move the needle exists in a virtual engagement. The Moment of Truth was designed for this moment in time.

If you have a team of eight to sixteen emerging thought leaders who need to tell their story or land their message in this moment in time, The Moment of Truth is for you.

Sample Agenda



The post The Moment of Truth Workshop first appeared on Butterfield Speaks.

Best Practices for Broadcast in the Age of Zoom



We help our clients prepare for their annual events by bringing communication excellence to their keynote speakers, demo teams and breakout leaders. 


This year, our clients have faced a new challenge: prepare speeches, presentations and demos — and now, add recording for live broadcast! If this is you, too — dive in for the run-down of our best practices for video presentations. 





Develop a Potent Script
LEAD WITH YOUR LEAD: Your introduction should hook your viewers. Tell them why they are here and why they should stick around!


REDUCE THE SAUCE: Streamline and sharpen your language. Reduce your 35 minute speech to 20, or even 15 minutes.


USE POWERBITES:  The Powerbite template to make your points in a concise, powerful way;  Conclusion + Three pieces of evidence + So what?


STICK WITH HIGHLIGHTS: Think “breaking news” rather than “lecture.” This is your “best of” reel.


KEEP IT NATURAL: Use a transcription app and record your ideas. As you iterate aloud, the script will morph into something that sounds the way you speak, rather than the way you write.


FEATURE A HOST: Consider writing in a host (home team or Guest) to ask you questions and create a Broadcast News feel.


 





Practice… Out Loud!
LEAD WITH YOUR LEAD: Your introduction should hook your viewers. Tell them why they are here and why they should stick around!


BREAK IT DOWN: Break your script into bite-sized chunks to help you get to know each segment well. Focus on communicating ideas, rather than getting the words right.


USE SHORT SENTENCES: Help your audience follow you by using simple, clear language and short sentences.


CONVERT SCRIPT TO NOTES: Create your cheat sheet for your performance. Tape notes below your lens, or use a teleprompter app.


PRACTICE ON ZOOM: Schedule a run through or two with a colleague and get their feedback. Are you making eye contact through the lens? Is your language sharp and clear?


WARM UP: Variety! Dynamics! Clarity! These are our goals for your performance, and a vocal and physical performance will help you get there.


 





Produce Your Show
USE THE BEST TECHNOLOGY AVAILABLE: Use an ethernet cable and connect to your router, if possible. Use your highest quality camera and microphone.


LEVEL UP THE LENS: Make sure the lens is between eye and forehead level to maximize engagement and create a flattering picture.


LIGHT YOUR FACE: Put your light source behind the camera, not behind you. Minimize overhead, back and side light to avoid shadows. Try facing a window. Natural, filtered light gives an even glow. Remember, natural light changes during the day. Play with your setup in advance and plan accordingly.


CURATE THE SCENE: What’s in the frame? Aim for an uncluttered, pleasant backdrop. Colorful walls are nice, as are book-cases or pieces of art. Remove small items or things which may be distracting. Plants or vases are great, but make sure they don’t appear to grow out of your head!


CONSIDER STANDING: Standing gives you energy and turns your performance into an event.


PREVENT DISRUPTIONS: Prevent your family members or pets from traipsing through your scene and ruining your best take. Turn notifications (Dropbox, etc) off and silence your cell phone.





Dress for the Camera
ESTABLISH TONE: How are you presenting yourself as a team? What is your role? Is it professional dress or business casual?


STICK WITH SOLIDS: Large prints can be dizzying and overwhelm the speaker. Small patterns can create a ripple effect on screen that is also distracting.


GO DARK: In general darker colors like navy blue work well on camera. Reds and bright pinks can sometimes read as “hot,” or make lighter skin tones look flushed.


LIMIT THE BLING: Avoid jewelry that catches light and can cause glare.


CONSIDER BACKDROP: How does your attire look with your background? You don’t want to blend in, but you also don’t want to clash. The key is to keep the viewer’s focus on you.


POWDER YOUR NOSE: You may want just a dab of powder to tone down shine on forehead, cheeks or nose.





Connect
MAKE EYE CONTACT: Look directly at the lens to make eye contact with your viewers.


HIDE YOUR COLLEAGUES: If other people are on your screen while recording, turn off their video so you won’t be tempted to look at them on your screen. Your focus is on the lens.


IMAGINE YOUR AUDIENCE IS IN THE ROOM… they’re just on the other side of the lens!


ENGAGE: Talk to the lens like you’re talking to your best friend.

SCENARIO 1: Landing Your Ideas
Our first example of making vocal impact comes from the world of Quarterly Earnings Calls. Does voice really matter? A certain CEO I work with thinks so. Having listened at his request to a recent call I immediately recognized that one of his leadership team was dropping the vocal ball. While his content was perfectly acceptable, his ability to land his ideas was not.


This presenter put colleagues across the table (I recommend you stand) and reached out and grabbed his audience with his vocal choices. His voice went from monotone and un-engaging to animated and persuasive. He projected more authority and confidence.


Tip – When reading from a script into a microphone, perform “as if” there are living human beings in front of you worthy of your engagement. You must look up, speak to them and check for understanding as you engage.


SCENARIO 2: Add Drama with Vocal Variety
Looking for a presentation panache break through? A recent client (call him Randy) proves that if you change your voice you can change your presentation.


Using the tools described in my Change Your Voice, Change Your Life video series, Randy took a solid but somewhat somber presentation and turned it into a barn burner. By practicing the opening and close of his presentation for vocal variety – pitch, volume, rate, and inflection – Randy unleashed the passion, created more drama and transformed his power of persuasion.


Tip – Next time you have a high stakes presentation invest one rehearsal in vocal discovery. Rehearse the open and close as a Baptist Preacher, a Drill Sergeant, a Shakespearean Actor, or as Mystery Theater. The vocal extremes you discover will surprise you and many of your choices will find their way into your final performance.


For vocal workouts and performance tips check out Change Your Voice, Change Your Life.


 




Change Your Voice, Change Your Life

How often do you walk away from a day full of meetings feeling unproductive and uninspired?


It’s time to step up: PREPARE, UNIFY, CLARIFY, INTENSIFY, and UNLEASH your teams.  You can run meetings that generate engagement and create a forward-moving agenda.





Meetings don’t just happen. They require preparation. 



Review the context. Do a situational assessment and determine the who, when, where and how.
Think about the opportunities and risks.
Determine objectives and develop KEY MESSAGES.
Anticipate tough questions and strategize responses.




A sense of unity sets the tone for a more meaningful engagement.



Rekindle the why – Restate your vision and mission. Point to your North Star.
Celebrate success by sharing hero stories. Catch team members doing the right things.
Express your gratitude –  Acknowledge the team’s hard work and dedication.



People need to understand the purpose of the meeting, their roles and what you’re hoping to achieve.



Articulate clear meeting objectives. Are you educating, inspiring, solving problems, or all three?
Clarify each person’s mission-critical role. If they are not mission-critical, don’t invite them.
Finish this sentence: “At the end of the meeting, our goal is to …. “




Create value, turn up the heat and collaborate – that means everyone. 



Educate to establish context.
Promote the sharing of ideas.
Facilitate problem solving.
Drive toward consensus and calendarize actions. – ABC (Always Be Closing)





Good meetings become great when you harness the momentum to catapult forward.



Connect outcomes to vision and mission to illustrate the value of the meeting.
Clearly articulate go-forward expectations.
Deliver a strong close. The options are many: call-to-action, heart-felt thanks, pep-talk…

When you structure your meeting using these five steps, PREPARE, UNIFY, CLARIFY, INTENSIFY and UNLEASH, your teams will leave your meetings fired up and ready to tackle the world!

We feel your pain. You’re a good presenter. You’re compelling. People listen to you and you’ve got a lot to say. But this time your presentation is about what somebody else had to say. You’ve inherited 30 slides, a forty-five minute time slot, and some pretty dense material.





Don’t Worry. Just because you didn’t write the show doesn’t mean you can’t be the star. Follow these five guidelines and you’ll win every time!





Consult that resource early and often. Get clear on the author’s intention for the story, and how much leeway you have to adjust. Request the three-minute version: beginning, middle, and end. Take the opportunity to experience the author’s way of navigating complicated slides. Then confirm your understanding by re-telling it your way.


You are not there to narrate as you click through someone else’s ideas. You’re the keeper of the wisdom, and we pass on wisdom through storytelling. Find the clear and compelling story you want to tell, and simply use the deck to illustrate it.





So prepare for it like you built it. Discover your compelling Hook, Promise and Roadmap. Return to your Hook in the close. Rehearse the Open, Close and Story Arc as often as you can. Pay special attention to your Transitions. Smooth transitions between slides are especially hard when you haven’t built the deck.





Some slides need to be complicated. Teach them. Take your time. Build the ideas. And summarize as you go, especially if you don’t want to dive into the details. “What I want you to take from this slide is…” “What I need you to know here is…” Make sure your audience always gets the point.





Sometimes you want your audience to receive the product of a collaboration. When you can, call out the author’s expertise. “Jill wants you to see…” Meanwhile, don’t throw your author under the bus with phrases like, “I’m not sure what Joe meant here…” You’ll only undermine the hard work of the team.


Other times, your author is a ghostwriter. You’re presenting it. Own it!





Every star realizes that the show is ultimately about the audience and how the story impacts them. Apply these five guidelines. Rehearse. Rehearse some more. And you’ll present every deck like it was written just for you.

— Andrew Hurteau

Many organizations have some kind of process for preparing a presentation, even if it’s just “this person writes the PowerPoints, and that person makes them look good.” But when I started out as a communications coach and consultant, I was surprised at how few clients have any kind of disciplined method for executing the most fundamental task: figuring out what they want and need to say. Fewer still have a grasp of the rhetorical and structural tools that make their key messages forceful to the ear and memorable in the mind.


Sometimes I run into clients who resist the preparation protocol for their public speaking engagements. They feel quite sure they know what they want to say, and they don’t see any point in taking the time to go over it or delve into it. In the end, these clients profit from the preparation process every bit as much as – and sometimes more than – those who start out with only vague ideas of what they want to say.


In my experience, effective leaders invest substantial time and energy in message discovery. Often, this is because they look beyond the event they’re preparing for. They may be plotting a new course for their organization. They may be kicking off an extended communications campaign. Or they may be formulating an entire strategy for their enterprise.


Like great plays, compelling messages “have legs,” as we say in the theater. They can carry you far beyond the speech, presentation, or high-stakes meeting you’re preparing. Propagated through an organization, elaborated for various audiences, media, and events, they can become a campaign, a strategy, a recipe for success. But, just like good plays, great messages take time and effort to discover and develop.

One of my clients is a large man, almost any way you look at it. He’s a CEO of a company with thousands of employees, and he’s got a big personality with a huge laugh. He’s also about 6’4” and 280 pounds. And… he’s got a big need to get his point across.


Before we started working together, John asked me to join him at an event and take a look at his latest presentation. He took the stage. He started big and got even bigger, stalking from left to right, glaring his audience into submission. He hurled facts and figures and data at the audience like hand grenades, the portrait of martial authority. He was right, and no one in the audiences was going to dispute his command. He got to his big finish: “We can change this industry! We can do it now! We can do it the right way! And we can start tomorrow!”


After the audience left and the dust had settled, he stood center stage mopping his brow with his handkerchief. We both knew that his Herculean efforts had not paid off. I looked at him and said, “John, they think you’re going to eat them.”


Now, I don’t tell John’s story because John lacks passion. John has an enormous amount of passion for his industry, his job, and his message. Frankly, I’ve rarely met a leader who doesn’t. I tell it because John chose to communicate his authority instead of his passion. The result: we weren’t moved. We never felt his passion because he was too busy being right.  It was, on some level, impressive. It was not, however, inspirational.


If you’re trying to move people to do, think, or believe differently, it’s not enough to have passion. You have to share it. You have to communicate it.


And it’s never been more important. Our clients are experiencing enormous change, and they’re working hard to inspire their teams to lead that change. When we work with our clients, we help their leaders access their personal and professional passion, and then help them effectively incorporate that passion into their messages.


— Andrew Hurteau

 

Every audience wants structure. You might even say that every audience needs structure. Beyond giving you a way to organize your presentation, structure helps your audience follow your presentation, keeps them tuned in and helps them remember your message.

Structure is independent of content. Your particular purpose – exactly what you want to persuade your audience to believe or to do – will always drive the content of your presentation. A trial summation is different from a sales pitch is different from a press briefing is different from a conference keynote.

So I can’t lay out some one-size-fits-all way to organize your thoughts. What I can offer is a foolproof blueprint for two of the three basic structural elements of a presentation: the beginning and the end. The middle, being the substance of what you have to say, is up to you. But the beauty of this approach is, even if you don’t already have a thorough grasp of the substance of your presentation, this blueprint will both force you and help you to do so.

Watch and share Structuring Your Presentation through November 30th

In December: Effective Rehearsal Techniques

Maximize your rehearsal time by focusing on select parts of your presentation. Next month, we’ll share powerful strategies for efficient, effective rehearsal.  Subscribe now (or confirm your subscription) to get your link to Effective Rehearsal Techniques next month!

 

Enjoy time-bound releases of Richard Butterfield’s video curriculum!  Join us each month to learn to tap your professional passion and tell a better story.

Many organizations have some kind of process for preparing a presentation, even if it’s just “this person writes the PowerPoints, and that person makes them look good.” But when I started out as a communications coach and consultant, I was surprised at how few clients have any kind of disciplined method for executing the most fundamental task: figuring out what they want and need to say. Fewer still have a grasp of the rhetorical and structural tools that make their key messages forceful to the ear and memorable in the mind.

Sometimes I run into clients who resist the preparation protocol for their public speaking engagements. They feel quite sure they know what they want to say, and they don’t see any point in taking the time to go over it or delve into it. In the end, these clients profit from the preparation process every bit as much as – and sometimes more than – those who start out with only vague ideas of what they want to say.

In my experience, effective leaders invest substantial time and energy in message discovery. Often, this is because they look beyond the event they’re preparing for. They may be plotting a new course for their organization. They may be kicking off an extended communications campaign. Or they may be formulating an entire strategy for their enterprise.

Like great plays, compelling messages “have legs,” as we say in the theater. They can carry you far beyond the speech, presentation, or high-stakes meeting you’re preparing. Propagated through an organization, elaborated for various audiences, media, and events, they can become a campaign, a strategy, a recipe for success. But, just like good plays, great messages take time and effort to discover and develop.

Enjoy time-bound releases of Richard Butterfield’s video curriculum!  Join us each month to learn to tap your professional passion and tell a better story.