It’s not hard to go the extra mile. It’s just we often don’t think that it really matters or don’t wish to expend the time and energy. But it matters.
I’ve been traveling this week. That usually means I’m either the recipient of kindness or overlooked for some.
Marriott always seems to exceed expectations. From a friend who used to work there, I know that anyone who is within 10 feet of an employee is supposed to be talked to. I found that this week with everyone from desk clerks to housekeepers to food service. Nice.
The fine folks at Atlas Aviation were giving out all sorts of things to the crowd at Airportfest today. Fireballs. Water. Toys. Bags. And when I mentioned that the goodie bag would help me with the home presents, they immediately picked up that there were kids involved, asked how many, and quickly provided a second goodie bag to make sure there was equal joy in the Hoffler household tomorrow.
Air Traffic Controllers don’t always go the extra mile. We had kindnesses all along the East Coast today. First, Florence Approach alerted us that the U.S. Space Station was about to fly overhead. She could have just told us the altimeter setting. Instead, we got a five-minute warning (we didn’t even know it was a possibility) and a 30-second warning. Another pilot said it arrived (a high wing and a northward path prevented us from seeing it — OK, Piper fans, it’s ONE benefit, but even God put the wings on top). And even the usually gruff Fayetteville controller gave us a step-down pilot-controlled approach and had us cleared before we even asked for all three segments.
Then there were the Expo booth attendants that wouldn’t even talk to me as I looked at their products. Not only did I not get the extra mile, I didn’t even get the mile I felt was expected. They not only didn’t get business, they got poor feelings to boot.
Perhaps it’s a handwritten note (hats off to you, Jeff B and Karen T!). Perhaps it’s a kind word that wasn’t required. Perhaps it’s a follow-up phone call. Perhaps it’s giving more than is required or an extra tip. Whatever it is, it is likely to be appreciated, likely to help you be remembered, and will give you a yummy feeling regardless of response.
Go the extra mile. Do more than is expected.
Frequently, there are non-presenters who are part of the “presentation”. Perhaps it’s someone from the sales team who isn’t speaking at that particular moment. Or maybe it’s the wait staff at a conference that has catering. Or perhaps it’s the sound crew that turns a knob once during the presentation (as I saw today).
The presenter is standing at right. Audience members seated in front of me. Sound guy — browsing on his Blackberry — to the left.
An isolation shot of our intrepid sound man is included below. He did this for close to an hour. Problem, of course, is that it was in plain sight of every person in the audience. If he can’t pay attention, why should they?
This particular soul was a contract employee of the rather large conference. he has nothing to do with the content of the presentation and is so far removed from the conference he likely couldn’t care less if the presentation was a success or not. But the presenter pays the price.
A worse case I witnessed was a senior sales guy out with a junior sale guy and the technical presenter (pre-sales support engineer). The senior guy opens with the intro, hands off the junior guy and demo geek, and proceeds to go sit down, lean against the wall and… fall asleep. Just what message do you think that sent?
Control all public-facing people in your presentation to focus attention on you/your message.
Went to a seminar the other day on web marketing (Side note: look for BIG changes and announcements soon to this blog and web site!) The speaker gave everyone a chance to announce what they do, and he made a joke about me being a “speech coach” (not how I introduced myself, but it’ll do). It was a running gag (and great publicity!). At one point, I shouted back “Do you need a speech coach?” and he answered (laughing), “No!“. And then added, “Well, that’s not true. He (me) already knows and I know, we can ALWAYS get better. Everyone needs a coach. And that’s why you’re here.“ It was a great truth, great segue to his own content, and pretty quick thinking on his feet.
A lot of people ask me what the key ingredients are to making a great speaker. I believe that the #1 characteristic is just that: the knowledge that you can get better. I’ve found that teachers, trainers, sales folks, and upper management — people who talk a lot — frequently think that because they aren’t getting fired, they must be pretty good. And many of them are (and probably just as many aren’t). But we can all be better.
Tiger Woods is the best golfer in the world because he thinks he can get better. The minute Muhammad Ali declared, “I am the greatest!” he was doomed to get beaten. Any country (American, anyone?) that thinks its best days are behind it, will find that to be true.
Find something that you can improve on, and do it.
I recently made an order for custom marketing materials, including some ink pens. I made my vendor selection from the web based primarily on the visibility and their web presence. They are a commodity to me — I was unable to (quickly) make a local connection and went with convenient and cheap.
Upon a phone inquiry about the few questions I had — including a confirmation that I could get blue ink pens — everything was answered satisfactorily and I made the order. Because it is a custom order with my corporate logo, I was given very rigid directions about submitting artwork and the procedure. When the proof didn’t come at the time I was told to expect them, I inquired and was given the proof (1 day late). The artwork looked good and I approved the order, having the items in my hand in less than 10 days (which was better than promised). The pens look great.
But…
The pens had black ink instead of the blue I had specifically requested. I sent email. Left a voice mail. Left another voice mail. Left another email. Finally got a response that my voice mail hadn’t been received (?) and my email was in spam (like that’s my fault — I replied to an earlier email from their account.) I was told they’d look into it and sure enough today got the response they did.
“I have had the order pulled and I have reviewed the order notes and I do not see a specific color for the ink has been requested. The default ink color for the pens is black. “
This is the person I made the original order with. Their verification system apparently doesn’t spit out ink color, and all I have is my word versus his that I ordered blue.
I’ve thought long and hard about what I wanted done. I was not planning to ask for a refund (it was a rather large order) but wanted to at least be seen as an important customer. I try hard not to read emotion into email — I can conclude that they think I did not order blue ink pens or do not care. At this point, I have no reason to ever do business with this company again. They’ve lost the lifetime value of my business to be seen as “right”.
Find out what is important to your customers. Ask them what they want.
P.S., blue ink is very important to me — I’ve always used it and will throw a black ink pen away. Blue contrasts with printed pages and makes notes easy to read.
My good buddy Jeff blogged about and I commented on Um and Uhs the other day. Low and behold, the question comes up in class today:
“Alan, I see the value in eliminating non-words, and I see how to do it. But if I let one or a few slip, wouldn’t that be OK. I mean, we didn’t even notice our classmates and they had more than a few.“
That’s a loaded question. Of course the world won’t stop when a speaker utters a non-word. But once we’ve decided they are OK, then the question becomes, “How many is OK?” Perfection is possibly unreachable. So why get hung up on it?
- The best hitters do occasionally (often?) strike out.
- The best Christians do occasionally (often?) sin (much to the delight of the athiests) — (Romans 6:1 seems to think this isn’t OK)
- The best athiests do occasionally (often?) find themselves in an logical loop (much to the delight of the religious).
- The best drivers do occasionally cut people off
- The best speakers do occasionally utter words that have little or no meaning, or worse
But in each case, those that want to be the best share a common trait — they want perfection, even if they realistically do not think it will ever come.
Once we’ve decided that it’s OK, then there really isn’t anything to motivate us to get better.
Don’t tolerate habits that lead to ineffectual communication.
Watched a presenter last week open (first slide and everything) with “Well, let’s tell you what this seminar is NOT about” and proceeded to go through a pretty comprehensive list of what he would NOT cover.
We all have things we don’t intend to cover, would prefer not to cover, and will never cover in our talks. It’s better not to lead with exposing those things, though.
Leading with the negative:
- Sets a negative tone for the talk
- Draws attention to things that might have gone unnoticed
- Gives the audience an impression we don’t desire discussion
- Takes the focus OFF the things we WANT to cover
Yes, caveats do head some things off at the pass, and if those things are pink elephants (everyone notices but no one wants to talk about it), we can garner some brownie points for addressing it head on. But most of the time, it only serves to make our audience mad. Far better to give them an idea of what they WILL get and give them a reason to listen.
Open with positive, motivating reasons to pay attention.
Presenter with PowerPoint (common). Presenter wants to move around a bit (!) and wants to have a visual to support his/her point (!) and doesn’t want to be blinded (!). So far so good.
Only now we have an issue with how to transition through The Beam Of Light.
Best solution? Don’t. Stay out of the beam. There are a couple of reasons that we, the presenter, want to stay out of the projector’s beam. First, it is distracting. The extremely strong light of the projector contrasts mightily with the ambient light of the room, and we need nothing more than a photograph to tell us that the contrast makes for distracting viewing. Second, there is likely to be a “flash” as we cause an eclipse of the presentation, assuming we have anything bright in our slides. Most importantly, we are confusing our audience. They don’t know whether they should watch the presenter or the slides.
I saw a presenter a few weeks ago who was close to solving the problem. Since the room had an overhead projector and the presenter was not tall, there was just a few inches of intersection between the projected slides and the path that she took across the room. I couldn’t figure out why the slides so consistently displayed on her forehead. Most of the time any text missed the actual presenter, but once the number 38 was clearly emblazoned across her forehead. For about 90 seconds. Long enough that people noticed.
As I tried to see why the bright light seemed to accentuate her forehead, I realized that she was moving forward until the light was out of HER eyes. The bottom of the slide would usually be just above her eyebrows, and she felt that since she could see clearly, it must be OK for the audience as well. That clearly is a violation of Rule #1, but it takes a walk-through to know where in the room we can roam and still stay out of the PowerPoint slides. Make that walkthrough.
Stay out of your PowerPoint projection.
I’ve seen a rash of presentations in recent days that have recycled PowerPoint slides. The mere fact that I know this is a problem. But it usually manifests itself in words as well as the faulty visual. Some examples:
- Presentation date wrong
- Presentation group or place wrong
- Times on slides (break at 2:15!)
- Custom information that doesn’t apply
It’s been accompanied with quotes like:
- “Well, the last time I taught this I guess we took a break at 2:15“
- “I guess you can tell we’re not at the San Diego Chamber of Commerce.“
- “I thought I had changed this slide. I meant to.“
When you don’t take the time to make changes to your slides EVERY TIME you present, you tell the audience:
- You are exactly like my previous group (or at least I think you are)
- I didn’t care enough about you to work at this
- This show will go exactly like all the others
I can’t imagine why a presenter would ever publish a time beforehand in a PPT slide, but even if you have a reason for that, you MUST change it. If there are slides in your PPT that need altering each time, might I suggest making a hidden slide that indexes ALL the changes you need to make, then consult that slide (or note, if you prefer, on the title slide) before you hit the stage.
As an aside, a presenter should strive to make something custom in every presentation, so figure out what you can use that is unique to that audience.
Make sure all references to previous shows are OUT of your PowerPoint.
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