Right before Thanksgiving, I was a featured speaker at the Women’s Entrepreneurship Day conference here in Wisconsin. Since I had just started a company focused on financial education for women, of course I spoke about … presentation skills. That’s right—I gave a presentation on presentations, a talk on … talking. WHAT WAS I THINKING 😆?
Apparently, after 20 years of both giving and sitting through presentations, I had a few things to get off my chest.
What do presentation skills have to do with our finances? If you’re in the middle of 30 days of recording every cent you spend or perhaps staring woefully at your split ends or, like many of the women at the conference, starting or thinking about starting your own venture, you may get a nagging sense that you’d like to have a little bit more money (yay, money!). You know what helps with getting a little bit more money? Good communication skills. Seriously.
I’ve had jobs where the most important thing I brought to the table was the ability to write a clear memo. Also, jokes. Sure, I ostensibly worked in Marketing or Finance or Test Prep, but when I really think about it, what I actually did in those jobs was present on Marketing and present on Finance and present on Test Prep. And from watching the presentations of many, many others, I figured out rather quickly that no matter how smart you were or how good you were at your job, if you weren’t skilled and practiced at public speaking, you weren’t viewed as having leadership (i.e. more money) potential.
So I’m going to tell you what I told those women—in high stakes (i.e. so close to more money, you can smell it) moments—a board presentation, a job interview, an investor pitch, a salary negotiation—be intentional about what you’re actually communicating … because you are communicating something even if you’re not aware of it. What do you want to convey? And some of the most important things you’re sharing are never explicitly spelled out:
I know what I’m talking about.
I believe in my idea.
This is important to me.
With me, we’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning.
OK, maybe not that last one.
All too often, though, I’ve seen these messages undermined by the way they were delivered—poorly-organized slides, an unfocused narrative, an abundance of nerves. LADIES! Let’s get better at this!
And you can.
I didn’t say people were viewed as having leadership potential if they were gifted at public speaking … I said if they were skilled and practiced. Good communicators are made, not born. I won’t go into everything I went into at the conference, but let me give you three big NO-NOS and one big YES for important presentations large and small … the latter more commonly known as conversations:
NO to:
Poorly-thought-out slides
And what might these contain? Difficult-to-read graphics, words read verbatim, anything described as an “eye chart”. Your slides should be intentional, too. What do you want them to convey?
Qualifying language
Which exchange do you think will lead to a better result?
Manager: “What salary do you propose?”
You: “Maybe $65,000?”
Manager: “What salary do you propose?”
You: $65,000.
You might have very good reasons for softening your language with words such as maybe, just, kind of. You might not.
Um, uh
Can we please all agree to never use these two interjections ever again? The next company I start will be called Don’t Sound Stupid and will be dedicated to excising these two words from the English language.
What to do instead? Slooooow dooooown, repeat what you said previously, (silence), smile enigmatically, do the floss dance, REALLY ANYTHING ELSE WILL BE BETTER.
There are other verbal tics we need to eliminate, but let’s start here.
YES to:
Practice
There really is no such thing as too much practice. Find an audience to run through your presentation with. Set up a mock interview. Role play. Record yourself. Ask for feedback.
You’ll have so much money, you’re going to need some insurance.