Your Speech Insurance Policy

Media and presentation skills coach Edward Segal contributed today's post. Edward has helped hundreds of executives deliver memorable presentations. His advice is based on his experience as a journalist, public speaker, PR consultant, press secretary, and association CEO.

Opportunities to speak in public can be golden opportunities to discuss or demonstrate your expertise, accomplishments, activities or opinions. 

Here’s my checklist of items to keep in mind before you accept any speaking invitation, and suggestions on how to prepare for and get the most out of your presentation. 

Consider it, if you will, your speech insurance policy.

Invitations

• Don’t accept speaking invitations for which you are unqualified or unprepared (don’t let your ego get in the way).

• Ask the organization if there is anything special you should know about the audience or the group (forewarned is forearmed).

• Know the basics of the speaking situation (format, length, time, location, etc.). 

Appearance

• Dress appropriately (usually one level above the audience). 

• Remove any distracting jewelry, name tags or badges before you start (it’s all about you). 

• Stand out from your backdrop (dress in contrasting colors so you don’t disappear).

• Check yourself in a mirror before you go on (lipstick, food in teeth, straighten tie, check zippers and buttons, etc.). 

Equipment

• Test out the mike beforehand to know how far to hold it from your mouth. 

• Adjust the mike so it does not hide your face.

• Do not assume that just because you may a have a loud voice people will be able to hear you without a mike. 

• Assume nothing will work the way it should and plan accordingly (Murphy’s Law). 

Content

• Prioritize and limit your messages (limit them to 3 or 4).

• Customize your presentation to meet the needs of the audience or organization. 

• Answer the two key questions every audience has for every speaker and topic: Who cares? and Why should I care? 

• Make sure they understand you (refrain from using jargon, buzzwords, and technical terms and phrases your audience may not understand).

Rehearse

• Practice your presentation, but not to the point where it sounds memorized.

Don’t Talk to Strangers

• Greet people as they arrive (this will guarantee that you will not be speaking to strangers, but to people you’ve just met). 

Waiting to Go on

• Take one last bathroom break (better safe than sorry).

• While waiting to be introduced or, if on a panel, do not look bored or distracted while others are speaking (pay attention!). 

Delivery

• Know your stuff (your material, arguments, facts and figures).

• Know what you will say to open and conclude your remarks, and eliminate any unnecessary information in between. 

• Be sure to thank them for inviting you. 

• Tell them why you are there (don’t assume they know).

• Show your story, don’t just tell it (find and use charts, slides, props, etc.).

• Keep the audience awake (don’t bore them).

• Don’t get rattled if you forget some of your points; the audience will not know what you forgot to say. 

• Arrange for someone to give you a two-minute warning (don’t speak longer than scheduled). 

• Do not thank them for listening (it’s demeaning to you and to them).

• Give the audience the gift of time (end early).

You Must Remember This

In a prized scene in Casablanca, the crooked cop Louis orders the patrons to leave Rick's Café Américain.

"How can you close me up? On what grounds?" Rick demands.

"I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" Louis replies, and pockets his winnings without missing a beat.

Hey, Louis, would you be shocked to find that 96% of customers think marketers lack integrity? Only 4% think otherwise, according to the American Association of Advertising Agencies.

It's little wonder, when every ad, email, brochure or news release—like Louis—wants to "round up the usual suspects:"

Acme, the industry-leading provider of unique, customizable, feature-rich software, is proud to announce its dynamic new end-to-end solution designed for exceptional performance and total scalability for massive worldwide deployments with maximum flexibility in meeting today's most urgent business needs.

Marketers, take note: When your claims are more enticing than the customer experience, you jeopardize your integrity.

Why not stick with the facts?

You must remember this: a kiss is just a kiss.

To Gate or Not to Gate, That Is the B2B Content Marketing Question

Customer acquisition and retention expert Ruth P. Stevens contributed today's post. Named one of the "100 Most Influential People in B2B Marketing" by B2B Magazine, Ruth consults to large and small businesses and teaches at business schools around the world. Her latest book, co-authored with Theresa Kushner, is B2B Data-Driven Marketing.

There’s a spirited debate in B2B marketing about whether it’s best to give away information (aka “content,” like white papers and research reports) to all comers, versus requiring web visitors to provide some information in exchange for a content download. In other words, to gate your content or not to gate. The debate involves aspects of both ROI and philosophy. Myself, I lean toward the “gate it” camp, and here’s why.

I know that plenty of very smart and well-respected Internet marketing experts argue that free—unimpeded—distribution of content encourages both trust and, perhaps more importantly, wide dispersal and sharing of information. You’ll get to a much bigger audience, who will be educated on the solutions to their business problems, will be grateful for the free info and, one hopes, will think of you when they’re ready to buy.

The problem is that this model leaves marketers in a serious quandary. We don’t have any way of knowing who is reading our informative, educational and helpful content. We are left sitting on our thumbs, unable to take any proactive steps toward building relationships with these potential prospects. All we can do is wait for them to contact us and, we hope, ask us to participate in an RFP process, or, more likely, give them more info and more answers to their questions. Is that any way to sustain and grow a business relationship—not to mention meet a revenue target? In my view, it leaves too much to chance.

Myself, I grew up as a marketer in the world of measurable direct and database marketing. So it’s no surprise that I favor the gating side of the fence. I like marketing campaigns that provide predictable results. Where I can stand up in court and show a history of my campaign response rates, conversion rates, and cost-per-lead numbers. And most important, where I can reasonably expect to deliver a steady stream of qualified leads to my sales counterparts, who are relying on me to help them meet their quotas.

That’s my argument for gating content in B2B marketing. I understand the logic of the other side. And I see clearly situations where it makes sense to let the information run free—as a teaser, for example, to persuade prospects to come and get the richer information that is so useful that they’ll be falling all over themselves to give me their name, title, company name and email address. But what about you? Where do you sit in this debate? It’s a biggie.

Expectations

Washington, DC-based freelance writer Dan Bailes contributed today's post. His clients include the MacArthur Foundation, National Geographic, the Smithsonian and the State Department. Between assignments, Dan explores storytelling through his blog, The Vision Thing.

We make assumptions all the time.

At a meeting we might say "yes" to an idea, a project or a goal, but what do we expect with that "yes?" We might assume we're all on the same page—but is that really true?

On the road to success, the easiest way to stumble is to ignore expectations.

We often run into unspoken expectations when we're asked to create something specific, like a report, a video or an event. Since expectations are rarely expressed, they don't come to the fore until you present your work. Then you might hear: "Oh, that's not what I had in mind at all."

We can have a conversation, agree on goals, move a project forward, and still hit a brick wall because we haven't asked key questions.

How do you tease out what your boss, client or colleague expects before you start on a project? You ask questions:

• What do you want to accomplish?
• Why are you launching this project in the first place?
• Who is the project for?
• How will the project meet unmet needs or solve a problem?
• Once this project is out there, what do you envision happening—how will people respond?

Asking the right questions up front will help you make better decisions down the road.

What's the takeaway? Don't assume—ask!

Parents, Quit Mollycoddling

"Helicopter parents" have spawned a generation of incompetents, says Stanford’s former dean of freshmen Julie Lythcott-Haims and author of How to Raise an Adult.

She recently told the Los Angeles Times that a helicopter parent is incapable of raising a future worker, "Somebody who pitches in, who rolls up their sleeves and says, 'How can I be useful here,' instead of, 'Why isn't everyone applauding my every move?'"

Before powered flight, texting and nanny cams, our forebears had a term for helicopter parenting: mollycoddling.

Coddling in the 18th century meant to treat someone as if he or she were an invalid. The word derived from caudle, a drink served to the sick. Molly derived from an 18th century pejorative for a gay man.

A man who was considered timid and ineffectual was thought to have been raised by overprotective parents, or mollycoddled.

Thank goodness, invalids no longer have to drink gruel; or gay men, prove they're courageous.

But I like old words.

So I urge overprotective parents: you're jeopardizing America's competitiveness and your child's future income! Quit mollycoddling.