Transcript
Dave Bricker (00:07)
Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia Media brought to you by speakepedia.com. I’m your host, Dave Bricker, bringing you straight talk and smart strategies from visionary speakers and thought leaders. My guest is an award-winning speaker and speechwriter who coaches executives, engineers, sales teams, and other professional speakers.
The National Speakers Association elected her their first woman president, and she’s the creator of a unique online learning platform for powerful, persuasive presenters. She’s the co-author of Deliver Unforgettable Presentations, and she just happens to be the sister of rock guitar legend Robert Fripp. Please welcome the grand dam of speaking and presentation, Patricia Fripp.
Patricia Fripp (01:00)
Well, nice to know you think I’m a thought leader and brilliant mind.
Dave Bricker (01:07)
And I do. So Patricia, why are speaking and presentation skills so important at every level of personal and professional life?
Patricia Fripp (01:18)
Simply, you can position yourself ahead of the crowd, above your competition or the person to be promoted if you are a clear, concise and credible sounding presenter. It does not matter what industry you’re in. Good communication skills will give you a competitive edge.
Dave Bricker (01:45)
I couldn’t agree with you more. That’s the question I like to get asked. So I threw it at you. So many people seek presentation coaching because they’re nervous. They actually call on us to talk them onto the ledge. And every coach approaches this differently. Share a few thoughts on how to keep stage fright from turning into stage flight.
Patricia Fripp (02:08)
Well, one, that is not the reason clients come to me. Clients come to me because they have important presentations or they need to develop their repertoire. Obviously, some of them are nervous. And if they say, I’m a terrible speaker, I’m nervous speaker, I say, stop saying that. You’re programming yourself for what you don’t want. You are an untrained speaker.
You’re brilliant, you’re just untrained. And I tell my clients, it took you a certain amount of years and training to be able to do what you do superbly well. And I promise you, becoming a great speaker is not gonna be nearly as hard as what you’ve already done. So that’s partly, and I say one, once you understand
the proven principles, the frequently overlooked techniques, and we work on a presentation that is the best of you, you’ll find a lot of your nerves will go away. There is a certain anticipation. You know, we have both been speaking for years, but you’re in some circumstances where it’s not that you’re terrified.
But you know, the last 150 groups loved me, but I’ve never been in front of this type of group before. I’m not quite sure. This is why in showbiz, security is knowing your lines. So I coach my clients.
Once you understand what works, why it works, and you internalize your message and you know you could be woken up in the middle of the night, your spouse could elbow you and you can deliver your opening few lines because that’s when you’re going to be most nervous. When you see people smile, when they laugh or they sit forward, you’ll feel much better.
And I also tell my clients and other speakers what I have always done. No one taught me from day one I knew to do this. I wander around talk to the audience before I speak to them because it’s very difficult to go from nothing to presentation dynamic. You have to warm up your body and your mouth and by building rapport with your audience ahead of time.
Dave Bricker (04:19)
and those.
Patricia Fripp (04:48)
It’s the law of reciprocation. You extend yourself to them and even if this is not one of the persons you’ve been talking to, other people are watching you do this. You’re not just coming out like the celebrity, you’re a real person and they feel obligated to give you their attention at the beginning. Now it’s up to you to then keep it.
and it’s all these good habits and principles to get into and you might be excited and slightly nervous but not paralyzing.
Dave Bricker (05:29)
And you’ve brought up two important points. One is connecting with the audience before the presentation so you know who they are, what they care about, and maybe they get to know you a little bit. Developing some of that rapport is extremely important. And then there is this idea of the importance of those opening lines.
Patricia Fripp (05:57)
Well, if we’re talking about opening lines, you have to understand what is the purpose of your opening. The purpose is to arouse interest in your subject. And even clients who are not going to script their entire presentation, I would say you must script the opening.
You need to know exactly what you’re going to say. And some clients say, I’m going to wait till I get there and see what happens. I say, no, you have your sure, true, tested, always successful opening. Then if you want to tie in something that happened, do it after you’ve aroused their interest. You know what will work.
Dave Bricker (06:47)
And so many, think this is one of the mistakes so many speakers either they start off with the dreaded good morning, I can’t hear you, which yes, it’s just horrific. But they just start off with an agenda, for example, today we’re going to talk about A, B and.
Boy, these cell phones are so distracting. People wanna pick up their phone and look at their email and you have to give them something more interesting, don’t you?
Patricia Fripp (07:09)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yes, so whether it’s a story or one of my personal favorites is an interesting statistic or little known fact. And you understand it can be multiple types of openings. You can tell a story and ask a question, tease them with an interesting statistic.
And I say to many of my clients which have technical presentations, find a statistic and bring it up from the body of your speech into the opening and then add an emotion. It might interest you to know. It might surprise you to know. It might horrify you to know.
Dave Bricker (07:53)
And it’s.
Patricia Fripp (08:00)
What is the emotion? And of course, Dave, you is the magic word. Anytime an audience hears you, it’s, what, what, what, what would interest me? So it’s a great way. you can say, my interest you to know that’s according to the Wall Street Journal, executives who can speak without notes make 72 % more money than those who can’t.
Welcome to Powerful Persuasive Presentations, Techniques That Will Get You Promoted. I wish you could have met Dave. When we first met, he said, Patricia, help, I’m 56. Okay, so you’ve got, you focused, you’re bringing them in, and then of course, it’s never, I would never say.
say I am going to talk about in the next 45 minutes you will either learn, hear or better understand.
Dave Bricker (09:05)
Completely agree with you. I think this is some of the stuff I clean up in people’s scripts all the time is changing all of those Is and wes and ours into yous
Patricia Fripp (09:18)
Now, if you were my coaching client, I would make you slap your hand. You’ve just said a naughty no-no word. Stuff. Stuff is rubbish and debris and does not belong in your mouth. These are all the type of suggestions and changes I make in my client’s speeches is what I believe you meant to say.
Dave Bricker (09:42)
And I will accept the slap. We are having an informal conversation, but yes, in a script, would follow your lead completely. And I probably should off screen and off stage as well.
Patricia Fripp (09:55)
Yes, yes, because as I tell my clients, if you want to improve your more formal presentations, you have to improve your everyday casual conversations that most people would think aren’t important. Because what we do when we’re nervous or under more pressure,
is we revert to what is comfortable even if we know it’s not as productive.
Dave Bricker (10:27)
And we both share a love for correct spelling, syntax, grammar, style. And according to the American Psychological Association, one in five Americans reads below a fifth grade level. So why is diction so important?
Patricia Fripp (10:46)
Again, it builds your credibility and credibility builds your confidence and the confidence in others that you are talking to. Here’s another I have noticed.
Dave Bricker (10:59)
Have you noted?
Patricia Fripp (11:01)
And I don’t know about you, Dave, but I find my clients have a tendency to get these bad habits all at once. Different industries, different job roles. I have noticed, and I don’t know if brilliant people are trying to stay modest, but a lot of kind ofs, kind of this, and I say, no, speak in black and white. You don’t kind of or sort of.
You do or you don’t, black and white. Because if you’re a leader talking about a new strategy, you don’t want to be using kind of language. These modifiers make people think he doesn’t sound as confident as she wants us to believe. Or if he were that positive, he wouldn’t be saying that.
Dave Bricker (11:57)
I think a lot of those qualifiers, people will say, well, this can grow your business. No, this will grow your business. And people are afraid this sounds arrogant, but the audience can make up their mind whether or not to believe you, but be bold and forthcoming, be a leader. Can all of these qualifier words weaken the prose and weaken the presentation, don’t they?
Patricia Fripp (12:03)
yes.
We need to sound confident without being cocky. Confident, speak in clear, concise language. And I would suggest shorter sentences because what we need to do is we want to speak to be remembered and repeated.
In other words, if you’re talking perhaps to a team of managers who are going to make a recommendation to their boss, they will be reporting on what they think you said. And that means if you speak too fast, it might sound good, but they can’t remember what you said. So when you pause more,
Not only do you get to breathe, which keeps your energy and think what comes next, much more importantly, it gives them time to think, that makes sense. We didn’t know that. she’s worked with this company. that that clients just like us. It gives them time to remember more. And hopefully when they repeat what we said.
We are speaking to the audience of our audience. Everybody goes home, well what do you do today? well we had this great meeting with this interesting new company we might do business with. what did they say?
Dave Bricker (13:46)
And then
Patricia Fripp (13:55)
It’s reporting to your spouse, it’s reporting the senior team, especially if we are competing in business against two or three other perfectly good vendors who are probably going to have the same offerings, probably going to be about the same investment. We want to speak in a way when our prospects have a debrief, they remember what we said.
more than the other perfectly good vendors.
Dave Bricker (14:30)
And I’d like to touch what we’re talking about, the kind does, the likes, the you knows, these habits, and habits of course can be unlearned once people realize that they are habits. But I’m not going to name the name, but I recently heard one of the Supreme Court justices speak. And I think 80 to 90 % of this person’s sentences contained ums.
I had a fellow speaker who attended this event with me and every time it was this and that and we would just cringe and it wasn’t that the words being spoken weren’t meaningful, but a person at that level of leadership should be able to state their sentences clearly and pronounce the word nuclear correctly.
Patricia Fripp (15:25)
Nuclear, nuclear. Yeah. And really, when the ums come in, it’s a matter of getting comfortable with silence. Because silence is not nothing. Silence is time to reflect, time to breathe, time for the audience to think.
Dave Bricker (15:28)
Not nu-cu-ler
Patricia Fripp (15:54)
and perhaps wonder, this is good. What comes next?
Dave Bricker (16:00)
Yes, just because you’ve stopped talking does not mean you’ve stopped speaking.
Patricia Fripp (16:07)
Everything we do and say adds to or distracts from our message.
I said to a woman the other day, now this really relates to women. I said, would you like to look as if you have smaller hips? Yes. Well, I said, well, do you realize you’re gesturing around your thighs? You’re going to bring a ttention
So you need to bring attention closer to your mouth. Now you don’t want to cover your face and I always tell women, especially if you have long red fingernails, keep your fingers together. You don’t want your hands to appear as big. So just bring attention. And there’s another day if you’ve probably noticed, we a couple of years ago, I think it three years ago at the NSA convention,
We have three MCs and one of them for three days every time they were introducing the morning, the after the break, the afternoon, this one speaker, every gesture was repetitive and you don’t want every gesture, each hand to be mirrored. It was irritating. I couldn’t watch her. I wanted to scream.
And a good exercise is we sell locally, nationally and internationally, locally, nationally, internationally, just get used to different gestures. Larry Wilde, who died last year, very good friend of mine, he was a great humorist. He’d been opening act for Debbie Reynolds, Sonny and Cher, Jack Jones, when he was a comedian.
and he’s written 56 books on humor.
And he said when he used to train comedians, they could walk on and do their act and they couldn’t use a gesture more than once. Now you can put your foot on the chair, you could scratch your ass, you could scratch your head, gestures you would not normally use just to get in the habit of not repeating a gesture. And he said,
it was almost impossible to remember your lines that you knew well when you had to focus on not doing more than one gesture. You can’t repeat a gesture.
Dave Bricker (18:57)
Now we’re talking here about stagecraft and I often refer to speaking as the art of fourth wall theater. But many
Patricia Fripp (19:07)
That’s a great way to look at it, yes.
Dave Bricker (19:10)
glad you appreciate that. many speakers are afraid to be too theatrical, even though the best actors don’t look like they’re acting. So talk a little bit about this relationship between speaking and theater.
Patricia Fripp (19:27)
Well, first of all, I tell all my clients, I’m not trying to make you me. I’m trying to make you the very best you. And if you are an analytical, technical expert who is brilliant but shy and modest, you probably are not going to do what someone with lots of confidence and outgoing personality might do. However, you are correct.
I have watched executives, not those that I’ve worked coached, but those I coached they’re engineers and content experts. And they think being dynamic is to walk up and down. They think they’re Tony Robbins with no talent. Up and down, one.
delivering their best lines to the wall and when you’re in these enormous three, four thousand people auditoriums, they’re on iMag and so you’re watching them do this, it’s so irritating and I sit with their engineers, say can’t watch him, he’s making me nervous with the movement. Every actor who came
from the theater and went into movies, found it very difficult to adjust. One great example, of course, is Richard Burton, who came from the stage when he made Cleopatra. He was complaining to the director, she’s not doing anything, she’s not acting.
And the director made him, let’s sit down and watch the rushes from today. And that’s when Richard Burton saw that he was over the top because in a theater you have the entire space. But acting is about naturalism. Jack Lemmon said,
first time he went in a movie from the stage the director kept saying do less, do less, do less and he said I’m not doing anything he said that’s right that’s right and I tell my clients we want you to be the very best you on purpose
so you have to get comfortable with the stage and if you’re working with iMAG it’s if you look at an actor when they have a close-up
you know what they’re thinking. And it’s just by the way they look, the way they feel. Now we’re not actors, however, too much movement distracts from the message. So I always like to talk to clients, now, do you want to move or stand still? One, at the beginning, I want you to stand still. You walk out and you stand still.
because the audience is getting used to the sound of your voice because we all have accents to other people.
and how you stand represents the stability of your ideas and the stability of the company you’re representing. Then, so you might make your opening lines and then perhaps take two steps forward for dramatic effect when you are walking into the premise, into the body of your presentation. Now you say, you can move if you like.
but understand you move with purpose. It’s very obvious you intend moving, not just nervous feet fidgeting around. However, when you get to your key lines, you need to stand still and it’s almost as if you are underlining and put an exclamation mark on. Now the audience knows this is the point. This is what I write down. However, if you’re moving, you still have to look at the audience. Don’t give your lines to the wall. Then perhaps you’re going to move.
transition which might be first leadership principle this move to the second leadership principle the third now let’s go back to John who they met in the opening story now you’re going back in time so you walk to what is your right the audience is left so
And then of course there’s a movement specific phrase. So you might say, I walked into the boss’s office. Now, if you want to walk, that’s a movement specific phrase. If you were to walk into our headquarters.
and.
has to match our words. For example, if you said, I won’t tend the boss’s office. I said, boss, I deserve a raise. I work harder than everyone else.
Now one, what the audience sees is you walk in the boss’s office, you stand before the boss’s desk, you have a conversation. If you keep walking, and I’ve seen people do, you keep walking, your words are arguing with what they are seeing. You’re walking over the boss’s desk, you flatten them down and walk out the window. You hope it’s on the first floor because your movement isn’t matching the words.
I’ve seen great speakers and one he was talking about sitting there in first class.
And I said, but you’re talking about sitting in first class and you’re wandering all over the stage. What are you doing running up down the aisle in the middle of the plane? No, you’re taking us. So one, you need to stand because we’re seeing you in seat 2 B.
lot of executives believe once they’ve got the framework, the scripting, the PowerPoint, they’re done. I said no no no, you’re only halfway done, now you’ve got to get it in your body. So and you know my engineers, well they create their notes and their scripts and their PowerPoint but I said
You can’t read it. That’s your notes when you’re developing it. And because a lot for my clients, Dave, a lot of them are engineers and the marketing department creates the slides. And I say, well, that’s wonderful. It sounds as if it’s in your marketing brochure. However, the written word and the spoken word is different.
So we could go on, but this, no, I always, it’s, it’s, being a great speaker is not rocket science. However, it is to do it well, more complex than we initially believe. And I think Toastmasters is great. And it’s a great place to start and practice and build your confidence in a supportive environment. However.
Dave Bricker (26:45)
I… well.
Patricia Fripp (27:13)
Unless you have long time members who are really, really good, you’re not going to learn everything that you need to be a powerful, persuasive presenter.
Dave Bricker (27:26)
And I agree with you. I’ve been a Toastmaster for many years. I still go every week. And the reason is it’s the only place I know I can rent an audience for two dollars and fifty cents a week. Because practicing in front of a mirror is not the same as practicing in front of a group of professional people who might very well be in one of my audiences. So I’m a big Toastmasters fan.
Patricia Fripp (27:37)
Yeah, exactly!
Dave Bricker (27:55)
Another thing that you brought up is PowerPoint, which is one of the most frequently abused presentation tools there are. And yet it can be, with the right guidance, a wonderful support, a wonderful aid to a good presentation. Share a few thoughts, guidelines, principles on using PowerPoint to make your point with power.
Patricia Fripp (28:03)
Yes.
Well remember, PowerPoint is a visual aid. It is visual, not scripted. Aid.
The power is in your message, not in the PowerPoint. People, especially in technology, in business, it’s as if the speaker is working for the PowerPoint. No, you’re the boss. And if you imagine, now it’s much easier for us as professional speakers, if you turned up and the technology didn’t work,
Most professional speakers could give you a program. Now, our very dear friend, I’m a big fan of Lois Creamer but one day she spoke at our chapter and she said, you know, I’m sorry that for some reason the PowerPoint isn’t working. I said, Lois, you shouldn’t have told us you plan to use one. We didn’t know. You were captivating. You’re captivating without. And…
My approach is, one, the creative process is messy. Your speech and your PowerPoint’s messy. And of course, a lot of my clients, they’re in companies where they write on the wall. I’m not writing on my wonderful walls, but I do love the post-it flip charts. So you can have one on a mirror, one on here. So on one, you list everything that might go in your presentation.
Then you move to the other flip chart or the left of your wonderful whiteboard and you start with the premise, the opening, the close, the framework, the skeleton under the flesh of your words is your structure. And then you look from this side, where is this going to go? Well, you know, we don’t have time for both those stories, which is the best for this specific audience?
and then I would say, script your opening, script your close, any transition lines you know you’re going to put in and then some clients are in the habit, they write their speeches, I say fine, but if you’re not it’s very difficult to write conversationally. So what you might want to do is turn on the zoom, stand up
Hopefully invite a couple of your pals around so it’s easier to talk to people. But you look at your framework and you talk to as if you were delivering it. You then take the script of what you said. Have it transcribed. Then you highlight all the Is to see if you could make it more you focused or even if you have an I don’t make it the first word of the sentence.
then you might look for any non-specific words. We all have our repetitive phrases we use that we perhaps want to eliminate and what you are doing is editing and dramatizing and specifying what came out of your mouth. So when I have to write scripts for people I interview them. I take what they said.
I do this, I make it more specific, make it tighter, take out redundancies. However, it’s their words, cleaned up words, so it’s easier for them to internalize.
Dave Bricker (32:09)
Yeah, and that’s that’s a very important skill to be able to practice because people get lost there. They can’t get past the first draft and into something that is going to connect. I have another PowerPoint question, and this is a conundrum I have run into because.
My background is graphic design. I have a master’s degree in graphic design. owned a studio for many years. now I do this for myself, but I take my slides very seriously. And one of my principles has always been great graphic design is a process of subtraction. And the same applies to writing and speaking. It’s getting all of that stuff on the screen, on the page, and then taking stuff away.
Patricia Fripp (32:57)
Getting all that what on the page.
Dave Bricker (33:00)
All of that material. Thank you, Patricia. Although in this case, most of the stuff you’re cutting away is stuff. So I’m going to ask you to give me a pass on that one. Right, right, because we could use other words, but we won’t here. Now in the world of startups, people come to me and they’re working on a big pitch and the investors are looking for a pitch deck. Now, this is usually not a deck.
Patricia Fripp (33:09)
It’s the rubbish and debris that you take out that isn’t needed.
Dave Bricker (33:29)
that would be of any value in giving a presentation because it is so cluttered and full of information that it would completely distract an audience from anything the speaker is saying. Now, I always tell them two decks. One is a brochure deck, which we really shouldn’t create in PowerPoint. We should create that in Adobe InDesign or some layout program. And then there’s the pitch deck, which is actually
the simple bullet points that support what you’re saying. So that’s what you’ve done too?
Patricia Fripp (34:01)
Yes.
very much because I always say yes well you can take the busy slide you know because it’s well not everyone’s going to be here’s the lead behind and I would like you I’d rather say well why don’t you make it a very beautiful special report that has the content you can even put a little picture down the side of the slide when you were talking about that but do it so that they could read it comfortably the
because you are more interesting. People in your audience, be it around a boardroom table or in a conference center or a training room, cannot listen and read at the same time. So less words, bullet point, just ideas and do them as a build so you’re not distracting. You would think PowerPoint has been around long enough that
Dave Bricker (34:46)
Nobody can.
Patricia Fripp (35:00)
just looking at other people’s decks that confused you or irritated you, you would think more people will say, how do I not do that myself? But we don’t mind being paid to give them the advice.
Dave Bricker (35:15)
Exactly. But it’s interesting because many times I’ll present and people will say, can I get copies of your slides? And I always say, well, the mark of a good slide presentation is that the slides are pretty much useless without a presenter to guide you through them. They’re going to be a bunch of meaningless bullet points for you without the presenter there. And if your slides are busier than that, more informative than that, you’re competing with yourself.
Patricia Fripp (35:30)
Yes. Yeah.
That’s it, exactly. And it’s the same with speakers who have this wonderful sizzle reel introduction. I say, that’s fabulous. Now, can you be as interesting as your highly edited special effect intro? Because I’ve seen a lot of speakers that it’s downhill once they start speaking compared to the opening sizzle.
Dave Bricker (35:59)
You
Absolutely. I agree with you on that because it’s such a big production and it’s a bigger production than they’re going to be able to deliver on anything but a stadium sized keynote stage. The lights aren’t going to be there. The special effects. And I don’t think it’s necessary while everybody’s trying to build this fancy speaker reel. Get up and talk to the meeting planners. Talk to them. Just get up and talk. Speak. That’s what we do.
So Patricia, share a disaster story, maybe one of yours or one from your clients, a time when you or another speaker bombed or things went sideways at a speaking engagement.
Patricia Fripp (36:57)
Well, I will tell you, I was speaking to a pharmaceutical company, salespeople in Las Vegas, and I got on the plane and there were these young pretty people. They were being so noisy and so disruptive. I thought I absolutely…
hate you people and I thought I bet you’re gonna be my audience of all the conferences, all the meetings, all the hotels in Las Vegas. And you know I walked in and that was it. It was these noisy, bad behavior, pretty people from the plane were in my audience. And I don’t know, perhaps I needed to be seasoned more.
to not be put off, but my first impression, my first impression of the audience was so bad, it really affected my mood. Now, another lesson I fortunately learned this very easy in my career. And I tell all my clients, do not check your messages, do not call your audience when you begin to focus on your presentation.
because you call your office and what happens in my case my assistant had a challenge and she wanted to bitch about it and really I solved her problem but it irritated me and my irritation must have shown in my presentation
So we have to remove distractions. I don’t care how seasoned, how important you are. Don’t call anybody who might be trying to give you a problem. An hour later when you’ve finished, is it gonna make any difference? 99.9 % of the time, no.
Dave Bricker (39:07)
It’s interesting.
Patricia Fripp (39:08)
No, I would say both of those led to me not being at the top of my game. So I won’t say they were disasters, but they were they weren’t the best performances I was capable of.
Dave Bricker (39:26)
Yeah, any kind of distraction will do that. And I know, especially before an online event, I just turn the phone off for the 15 or 20 minutes because somebody’s going to try to text me, Dave, how do I get into your event? you figure it out. I’m preparing for an event. If you can’t figure it out, then sorry.
Patricia Fripp (39:41)
I know!
almost like in the middle of a presentation when you look at your emails after they say you know you see 10 minutes in they emailed you or I you know when I’m in an online webinar I don’t check emails I can’t I don’t even want to look at the chat I have to focus on what I’m saying and I always have a moderator and I say are there any short specific questions and I always tell Paul
Because I tell them, do you have any short specific questions about what you’ve heard? So when I’ve been talking about openings or connecting to your audience, if you have a question, like, well, what’s the best way to go about telling a story? That is two topics from that. So I always say to Paul, do not introduce any questions that are not about what we’ve just discussed. You can invite.
ask them later when we’re at that topic. And if people say, well, how do I get booked? Well, that’s really a different subject to how do you design your presentation. Tune in next month and we’ll handle that.
Dave Bricker (40:59)
Right, or connect with me offline, or maybe I’ll do a workshop on that. Something to politely dismiss those questions because otherwise, yeah, people will lead you on tangents. And perhaps it brings us to the next question because one of your sayings, one of your Frippicisms is specificity builds credibility. And certainly those specific questions allude to that. But what does that mean?
Patricia Fripp (41:02)
Yes.
Dave Bricker (41:29)
And what are a few other Frippicisms our listeners can take home with them?
Patricia Fripp (41:33)
Well, one, this is the list of Frippy No-No’s. Being specific. So for example, the words I use, it’s never stuff. That’s rubbish and debris. Second, and my most frequently asked question,
Dave Bricker (41:49)
Got it
Patricia Fripp (41:55)
is if we were not a thing, what would it be? And one of my favorite examples is one of my brilliant engineers getting ready for their customer conference. That’s a lot of my work, getting people prepped for their user meetings when they have, you know, thousands of people. And he said, there are two things people love about. So I asked him, if they weren’t things, what would they be?
He said, innovative upgrades. I said, there are billions of people in the world. What people love your innovative upgrades. He said, systems administrators. I said, who’s in your audience? 80 % are systems administrators. So even with these technical presentations, this is how I help my clients. Rather than two things people love, there are two innovative upgrades.
that systems administrators love. So I look at, that’s what I mean by being specific. It’s never a thing. Is it a habit, an idea, a suggestion, a technique, a formula, a discipline? And this came, I was sitting in the back of a coaching camp. I was delivering with Darren LaCroix.
and everybody who got up to deliver the little presentation was, there are three things that will make you successful. There are three things that did this. And so in the back of the room, I came up with over 40 words they might have meant instead of thing. The other is, if it’s not fruits or vegetables, it’s not a bunch.
I went to this NSA meeting and met a bunch of interesting people. No, you didn’t. You went to this wonderful meeting. There were 50 people of which you managed to talk to 30. You had six really meaningful conversations that you’re following up and meeting with them after. That’s specific. Tons. There are tons. Patricia, you gave me tons of ideas.
Are you going to weigh them? No. I took six pages of notes, 12 actionable items. That’s specific. Now let me give you an example about, we were talking about the pictures you create. Did the pictures argue? I was working as a speech coach to the executives, a lot of the speakers at this big direct sales organization.
and they had, these were all the winners, they’re super achievers. And like many direct sales company, they tapped out of America. So a good portion of these, now they’re achievers, come from other countries and don’t necessarily speak English or don’t speak English well. And they showed a wonderful demo. This woman said, scene one.
My husband and I are both in the army and we wanted a part-time business that we can make more money. Great. Next scene. We’ve been, we really love it that we don’t have to have any inventory. Great. Next line. Next scene. We’re so excited. We’ve had tons of orders. Now.
When I hear tons of orders, what I see, is a UPS truck, a brand uniform, a hand truck, putting boxes and boxes into your garage. That’s what tons of orders mean to me visually. So she could have said, my husband and I both in the army wanted a part-time business.
We really love this opportunity, no inventory, and we have been thrilled. In just four months, we have had hundreds of orders that get shipped from the warehouse.
Dave Bricker (46:13)
Something that’s visualizable, hundreds, stacks might be a good one. But I understand that, absolutely. And another one I’ll throw in here that bugs me is when speakers refer to the audience as you guys.
Patricia Fripp (46:33)
me you know I’m talking to these tech people I said well give me a model president I said you’re talking to Goldman Sachs executives what do you do calling them you guys
Dave Bricker (46:34)
Yeah.
And I hear women do it.
Patricia Fripp (46:49)
And that is because remember with these not considered important conversations at team meetings, don’t talk about your colleagues as you guys, say you. How you all doing? Not you guys, because in times of stress, you’ll go with what you normally do. Now here’s another example of specific words. I was helping a lawyer develop her speech on modern-day slavery.
I get all the motivational topics. I said, well, you have to tell the story from the point of view of a man, a woman, and a couple. And you’ve all seen, you know, everyone’s seen the stories on law and order, we know. But one line she said, and you can imagine the situation, she said, he promised her many things. I said, no, he didn’t.
He promised her a life of romance and adventure. And those two words, well-chosen emotional words, gave her audience enough information to imagine why this young woman would leave the safety of her home and go off with this man.
That’s the power of well-chosen words.
Dave Bricker (48:34)
Love it, completely agree. And I could geek out about language with you for the rest of the day and I’m sure I would enjoy it. But Patricia Fripp, thank you so much for being my guest today.
Patricia Fripp (48:48)
That’s absolutely my pleasure and if any of your listeners want to know more Frippicisms or more Frippy advice, I suggest you go to Fripp, F-R-I-P-P dot com. From there you can get my special reports free, special reports free up at the top right.
Get on my mail list, hear from me every Tuesday. And if you go across, click on FRIPP VT, which is my FRIPP virtual training online learning program. Take a trial. You will get smarter. You’ll be glad you did. And Dave.
Every presentation should have a last words linker.
What I would say is all learning requires repetition and reinforcement. Learning is not something we did, it is what we do. Ongoing and consistently work to get better, certainly in speaking and every other skill.
Dave Bricker (50:03)
I’m Dave Bricker, inviting you to explore the world’s most comprehensive resource for speakers and storytellers at www.speakopedia.com. If you’re watching this on video, please love, subscribe and share your comments. If you’re listening to the podcast,
Keep your hands on the wheel, stay safe, and I’ll see you on the next episode of Speakipedia Media.
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