There are such huge dangers in following a formula and sounding the same as everyone else!!
In a hilarious talk capping off a day of new ideas at TEDxNewYork, professional funny person Will Stephen shows foolproof presentation skills to make you sound brilliant — even if you are literally saying nothing. (Full disclosure: This talk is brought to you by two TED staffers, who have watched a LOT of TED Talks.)
Try watching it a second time with the sound off!!
This is a client story.
Not a testimonial,
a client story.
It is a classic hero’s journey – ordinary child, snatched into something he could not control, that challenged him almost beyond endurance, of a saviour/guru who took him out of the challenges and gave him the opportunity to create a different life. It even includes the return – coming full circle, with the hero feeling he was able to go back and reassure his mother, knowing that she would be proud of him and happy to see that he was settled and successful.
It has a message – several in fact – but it IS an advertisement.
It IS marketing.
Western Sydney University made it possible for him to return, to complete the circle, to wipe out the horribly challenging life and to be proud of what he had achieved.
What do your clients want? – pride in achievement, overcoming the challenges faced now …? What do they want to be able to do, have, be?
What is their story
… your “client story”?
THAT
is YOUR
marketing.
………………………………………………………………………..
If you would like help with writing and using your client story, please contact me here
It’s the ONE STORY you really need to tell, to use, to unpack, to make your marketing work seamlessly and easily.
Oscar award-winning actor and producer Kevin Spacey spoke to 2,600 marketers from 50 countries at Content Marketing World 2014, held September 8-11, 2014 in Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. Spacey broke down the elements of a story: conflict, authenticity and audience during his 60-minute presentation.
The conflict between what is and what could be and what is expected.
Stay true to your voice. Stay true to your brand.
The device and the length are no longer relevant.
I suspect this was well-rehearsed and yet seemed so natural, so conversational.
Do you want to speak to inspire?
We could all do well to learn from this man and the presentation –
repetition,
a mantra,
storytelling skills,
timing,
structure …
Images are becoming the new language of content communication.
As David McCandless says … “We are being blasted every day, all of us are being blasted by information design. It’s being poured into our eyes by the web and we’re all visualisers now, we’re all demanding a visual aspect to our information and there’s something magical about visual information.”
The fact that “a picture paints a thousand words” is now mainstream.
As speakers, we use them in our social media. We use them in our blogs. We use them in our presentations.
“By visualizing information, we turn it into a landscape that you can explore with your eyes, a sort of information map. And when you’re lost in information, an information map is kind of useful.” says David McCandless.
If you’ve watched this TED talk than you will know … if not, then watch right now, and know … that David McCandless inspires with his presentation style, and his amazing ways of designing infographics.
Be reminded of, and inspired by, the possibilities for you as a presenter, and renew your enthusiasm for creating graphics that will allow your audiences, the visitors to your websites and your social media peeps to understand that you have the power to create meaning for them.
I was prowling around Youtube this afternoon (as one does on a Sunday when the grey day does not permit any exploration outdoors!!) and found this beautifully lucid, simple and yet strangely powerful way of putting together an elevator pitch. I love it. Next networking meeting, I’m going to try it out …
The emotionally charged story recounted at the beginning Dr. Paul Zak’s film—of a terminally ill two-year-old named Ben and his father—offers a simple yet remarkable case study in how the human brain responds to effective storytelling.
As part of his study, Dr. Zak, a founding pioneer in the emerging field of neuroeconomics, closely monitored the neural activity of hundreds of people who viewed Ben’s story.
What he discovered is that even the simplest narrative, if it is highly engaging and follows the classic dramatic arc outlined by the German playwright Gustav Freytag, can evoke powerful empathic responses associated with specific neurochemicals, namely cortisol and oxytocin. Those brain responses, in turn, can translate readily into concrete action—in the case of Dr. Zak’s study subjects, generous donations to charity and even monetary gifts to fellow participants.
By contrast, stories that fail to follow the dramatic arc of rising action/climax/denouement—no matter how outwardly happy or pleasant those stories may be—elicit little if any emotional or chemical response, and correspond to a similar absence of action. Dr. Zak’s conclusions hold profound implications for the role of storytelling in a vast range of professional and public milieus.
Ingo Titze demonstrates an easy technique that uses a simple straw for hard-working voices. Variations of the straw technique has roots in Northern Europe and has been used for several hundred years. Professor Titze has studied this specific technique scientifically resulting in several scientific peer reviewed publications.
It works!!
Learn how to turn your anxiety into a great public speech with this free video lesson from a professional public speaker.
