Peter Knight

How to make a Presentation

When I coach presentation skills my summary is:

1. Have a very clear idea of what you want people to think, feel and do as a consequence of your presentation.

2. Summarise the key points/messages that will cause the changes in your audiences' mind.

3. Create stories for each of these messages.

4. Consider tone - funny, serious, emotional - or a mix.

5. Write your presentation out (longhand is best I feel).

6. Read it out loud, over and over.

7. Edit and refine.

8. Have a great intro'...and an even better finish.

9. Consider what you will do if you have to cut by 10/15 minutes (this can happen quite frequently, "I'm really sorry, you have 30 minutes now not the 45 we originally allocated")

10. Once you know your content, (really know your content), then consider how you will illustrate.

11. Do you need visual aids? (Only use them if they truly add to the presentation and never ever have text slides unless it's a single word or similar)

12. Work on the assumption that the power will go down or the projector will blow and you have no visual aids - how will you adapt?

13. Consider your position on the platform - behind the lectern or walking to front of stage (front of stage is so much better btw) or walking amongst the audience (not always possible/appropriate but can be powerful)

14. Consider "spatial marking" - "on the one hand (show your left hand) and on the other (show your right hand)"

15. Mirror your audience - your left is their right, e.g. if you're drawing a graph showing results improving off the scale use your finger to move from your bottom right to your top left

16. Exaggerate gestures - the bigger the audience the bigger the gesture

17. Practice pausing and then pause for twice as long as you feel comfortable. Use the pause for impact and to allow your audience to digest your material (you know it off by heart, they're hearing it for the first and only time)

18. Remember your audience has no idea what you're going to say - you can't go wrong therefore.

19. A serious face in the audience is often a really good sign that people are concentrating. I've received 10/10 scores from people who I thought hated every minute of my presentation!

20. Allow the showgirl to come out - enjoy yourself.

The second half of leadership

The second half of my 5k run each morning always requires more effort than the first. Indeed, I hardly think about feeling tired at all until sometime after I've past the halfway post which I noticed this morning is the only indicator I have for the first 3k. Thereafter I have several, five to be precise, points that I note with increasing pleasure as I tick them off on the home run.

This observation reiterates to me that leadership is more necessary in the later stages of a project than the earlier ones. Sure the direction and goals need to be defined and agreed however once people have a general sense of the desired result and the guidelines around how they can achieve it, often they can be left alone during the early phases as typically they'll be full of energy and excitement. It's during the hard yards, some time shortly after the halfway point, that the leader's input, encouragement and reinforcement of the purpose is so valuable. Many projects that fail tend to do so halfway through in my experience, perhaps if leaders planned to step up their involvement at this point they would see a much higher completion rate.

"5 a day"

I've been working with several clients on the ridiculously simple, yet highly effective "5 a day" strategy and reports are that the results are spectacular.

Here's how it works:

Firstly, identify an activity that if done every day, five times a day, will have a significant impact for your business - for example, mine is to make and complete five contacts with business prospects whereas for a colleague of mine, her 5 are to review and update 5 records on our database.

Next schedule a specific time to complete each of the 5, ideally as early in the day as possible.

Then deliver on your commitment.

5 actions a day equals 25 a week equals 1,125 over a 45 week year. Making over 1,000 new business calls or reviewing over 1,000 contacts on the database or over 1,000 of anything can seem daunting - but broken down to just 5 a day, every day is both very achievable and fulfilling

“Words are all we have.”

I’m indebted to Colin Blundell, the finest teacher I’ve ever known, for introducing me to many concepts and in particular helping me to understand better the power of language. “Words are all we have” said Samuel Beckett and whilst some might argue that we can communicate through other mediums such as pictures or even music we tend to label the landscape and describe the emotions using words. And of course we speak to ourselves using words and it is the choice of these words that is my current fascination.

Are you talking to yourself now? Of course the answer has to be “YES” as we rarely if ever cease. Some might be saying “what a load of old bollocks” whereas I hope others are saying “this is interesting and worth reading,” of course whatever you are saying right now will be different to anyone else and will change again should you choose to reread this at any future point.

Stephen Covey offered the idea that you make the greatest changes when you change your paradigms. Building on this, I actually believe the trigger is to review your language and it’s tonality too. Some clients tell me they have a very critical inner voice, some that it’s quite aggressive and challenging, “Come on idiot”…”This is going to be too hard”… “I’m going to cock this up…” My response is to encourage first a change in structure so that every thought is communicated positively – “Now I’m dealing with this”….”I’ve succeeded before and will do now”…”I’m looking forward to this…” Next I suggest the tonality is softened, perhaps even adopting another gender or accent – Colin for example chooses Marilyn Monroe to whisper to him! Finally, I suggest the speed of dialogue is reduced as well, ideally to half the normal speed or even slower. This of course takes practice and begins with making a correction every time you fall back to the old patterns, you will discover quite quickly that the change takes hold, probably around the 30 day mark, although for some much sooner.

Once you have started talking more positively with yourself you might then discover how your communications with others have improved as well, in fact I guarantee it. Words are all we have, so choose them carefully.

Charitable business

Over 100 estate agents played football at Wembley yesterday in the Estate Agency Foundation (EAF Charity) Property World Cup. On the same day Northfields, the winners of the competition, were also sponsoring Pittshanger’s “Party in the Park” where several thousand locals turned up for a great event on a summer weekend. These examples of estate agents getting involved with charities and local communities is the norm – every week, up and down the country, estate agents are involved with local projects or fundraising for great causes. And yet, as a group, the estate agency industry is not nearly recognised enough for all their hard work, indeed I doubt there is any other business sector in the UK where such a high percentage of the workforce get involved.

As part of The Estate Agency of the Year Awards in association with The Sunday Times & The Times we have recognised the estate agency which has made the greatest contribution with the Cecil Jackson Cole award, named after the philanthropist who founded Oxfam, Help the Aged and many other charities and funded these through his estate agency business, Andrews. There are going to be many contenders this year including estate agents who have cycled across the country and the USA, others who have won several marathons and triathlons. Then there are those who have held coffee mornings and other less strenuous but nonetheless important activities for their local communities. But my vote, if I had one, would currently go to Greg Young and his team at Intercounty.

Last weekend, led by Greg, 10 estate agents slept rough for Shelter. And this wasn’t pretending to sleep rough; for 24 hours they had a litre of water, a sleeping bag and that was all. Two members of the team tweeted about their experience although one had his phone stolen and experienced just how frightening being homeless can be. I particularly admire this as they actually experienced hardship, whereas all the charitable activities I’ve taken part in have normally had a benefit for me personally, such as getting fit or seeing an amazing part of the world, or both!

Since helping to set up the Estate Agency Foundation, (whose purpose is to eliminate homelessness) I’ve seen how charity and community work can be seriously beneficial for business. Not only does the local community see you involved, as importantly the team are engaged together on activities other than their day-to-day roles and often discover new things about each other whilst having a shared experience. The Estate Agency Foundation is inviting estate agents to become Ambassadors by making a minimum commitment to raise just £100 a year, although many firms will raise considerably more than this. As an Ambassador you will have access to fundraising resources and ideas, receive first invitations to events like the Property World Cup and be able to display the charity logo on your marketing materials. You will also be contributing to the idea that everyone deserves a place they can call home, something we’re totally committed to. For more information please visit eafcharity.org

Multiple-I’s

I’ve been taking careful note of my “I’s” – or the parts of my personality that are present in different circumstances, following several years of selecting specific “I’s” for various situations. For example, if I’m coaching a client on a one-on-one basis I select attentive-I, concerned-I, listening-I and when I’m working with a large group I’ll choose presenter-I, communicator-I and so on. Right now I’ve engaged writer-I, thoughtful-I, and quiet-I too, and later I’ll select editor-I to hone this blog into something critical-I will accept.

I mention this as I’ve also been noticing which of my I’s are activated when I receive good and bad service. Last night a taxi booked for 7.15 turned up 15 minutes late despite a phone call at 7.10 to say he would be arriving imminently. The driver then proceeded to lie saying he’d been waiting outside (he didn’t know we had been standing on the pavement from 7.15 until 7.25 when we returned indoors to call the company). He reversed down our street onto a busy road causing a car to swerve, then took a ridiculous route and when I asked him to make a U-turn and follow my directions his reply “I know my job and this is the best way” caused irritable-I to be replaced by angry-I along with stingy-I as he certainly wasn’t getting a tip! I’ve noticed that at the very first moment of receiving poor service several quite negative-I’s are activated that in turn cause the issue to be compounded. By contrast, when receiving good service, a dozen positive I’s come to the fore that then amplify the experience. In other words, from the first good or poor impression I’m actually determining the sense to which I regard the service I’m being given as good or poor. First impressions have always counted, this is universally accepted, what I now realise is how much they alter the state to such a significant degree.

When observing good service I can palpably feel the effort being initially exerted which then can be relaxed as the recipient, or their positive-I’s, takes over. The key, I think, is to be able to activate the group of I’s that together make up “excellent-first-impression-I” such as friendly-I, approachable-I, carefully-observing-I and above all listening-I. Almost without exception, I notice listening-I to be present when I receive or observe great service. And it’s listening-to-really-understand-I rather than partly-listening-I that’s engaged.

So I offer you this very simple idea – if you want to improve your customer service all you have to do is select “listening-to-really-understand-I” and then your customer will do the rest for you. Question – do you know how to activate “listening-to-really-understand-I” and what it looks and feels like?

Tyre Kickers

 

Right now I'm going to buy a car.  I've had my current one for six years, the longest I've gone without changing as a consequence of two things.  Firstly I felt it was inappropriate to get a new car in the recent climate but more significantly I'm no longer a petrol head, if in fact I ever was one.  I've come to realise there is no sport as mind numbing as F1 - I really would rather watch one man and his dog. Current car models do little for me, sure the latest Aston, Lamborghini or Ferrari will still turn my head but my days with exotics are over, I've had my fill, and most other cars on the road seem so similar and bland.  So whilst I know I'm going to buy a car I really have no idea which make and model I'll choose.

 

I've been weighing up the Jaguar but still struggle with the Arthur Daly association, the Mercedes range looks more geared for LA cruising than the autobahn, plus the depreciation rate on the last two I've owned cause me to feel I'm damned if they'll rip me off again. BMW's are no better, once they were so cool in my eye, so perfectly engineered, but now all I see is a huge backside and no offence to J Lo or others with a similar body shape, I've always preferred sleek and elegant. I've thought about the Lexus Hybrid every time I pay the congestion charge but actually I've become a fan of the tube and even if my choice of four wheels is electric I'll still take public transport, and talking of four wheels I've been wondering about a return to the Range Rover, not least given the condition of our roads, but not sure I really need one when 90% of my travelling is alone with just a briefcase. What I would really like is a vintage, my dream being a DB 5 or 6 - (many people don't like the 6 but I could be persuaded to buy it rather than the overhyped/priced 5) - but is this really sensible when I do need to drive long distances, sometimes following a long, tiring, albeit highly satisfying, day on my feet speaking and coaching?

 

So with absolutely no clear direction at all, it will be interesting to see the response I get from car dealers. "So, you don't have a price range, no preference for 2 or 4 door, engine size isn't really a factor nor is brand or type," - I could regard myself as a waste of time too, but the fact is I am in the market, and I will be buying a car.

 

I wonder how many businesses will lose my custom because they choose to ignore me or worse make me feel uncomfortable or stupid?  How often will a salesman lose out on a commission cheque for mistaking my indecision with an inability to proceed? But might there be one person out there though who will see me for the opportunity I am and truly help me with my search, guide me through the options with informed authority, assist me to narrow down my choices and finally, rather than selling, simply help me to buy?

 

I've heard many salespeople describe potential customers as "tyre kickers" and yet these people all live somewhere, all drive cars, all wear clothes, are all consumers - every tyre kicker becomes a customer someday - just not yours if you treat them as a tyre kicker to start with.

Focus on your strengths

A principle of my coaching work is to encourage people to focus on their strengths rather than wasting energy attempting to correct their weaknesses. After all, if you're 30, 40 or 50 something and you've always been poor at one activity it's unlikely you're going to become expert at it now. On the other hand, investing in further improvement of the things you already do brilliantly well, and more importantly, really enjoy, is likely to yield a much larger dividend.

Now, despite knowing this and coaching the principle to many clients over the last decade I found out this week why the theory is so much easier than the practice. We ran an event two weeks ago, "Marketing LIVE" which was attended by 92 people, most of whom completed our feedback forms. Now despite an average score of 9.1 out of 10 for the event I found myself drawn to the two people who scored us 4 and 5 respectively. I've been agonising over these scores, wondering how we went wrong, trying to see how we could have done better and in the end it took a colleague to remind me of my own words to cause this unhelpful fixation to cease.

Why are we so drawn to the negative? What is it about human nature that we spend more time focusing on our failures than on our successes?

I think the problem starts at school where our reports (well mine anyway) cause parents to focus on the D,E & F grades rather than on the A's & B's. When my Maths teacher wrote "his ignorance of the subject is almost complete" and my art teacher wrote "whilst he will always struggle at this subject it is unfair to describe him as completely hopeless" (both comments made when I was 8 years old) I'm sure they thought this might somehow cause me to focus more or to work harder but actually it had the reverse effect. Similarly when performance reviews are carried out at work how much time is spent praising accomplishments compared to discussing "issues"?

I truly believe that "catching people doing things right" is the most direct route to improved performance, and anyway, it's so much more fun for all concerned.

It's good to talk...and listen

Increasingly it's become the norm for people to have their mobiles and PDAs switched on during meetings and to then answer calls and emails once they have finished talking. Rudest of all are the people who answer calls without knowing who the caller is, effectively saying "anyone calling me, including a salesman from Mumbai, is more important than the people gathered together for this meeting."

It tends to be the boss who defines and dictates the behaviour (for this and all other protocols) - if the boss takes calls, answers emails, tweets during a meeting then it's fine for the team too. I attended one meeting recently where 5 of the 7 people present took a call or answered an email - and no one seemed put out in the slightest!

Not only do I find it incredibly rude but also incredibly distracting and so I've adopted a new policy - I now start a meeting by asking if anyone has any calls to make before we start and if anyone has anything so important that they might need to be excused from the meeting to deal with it. So far, everyone has stated they haven't anything that significant and the meeting has proceeded uninterrupted however when I see someone on their blackberry taping away I just stop whatever I'm doing and wait for them to finish. On the 3 occasions is has recently happened the crackberry addict has stated: "it's ok, carry on" to which I now reply, "No, I'm happy to wait until you've finished." Sometimes is isn't enough, and the individual just continues at which point I point out that whilst they might be blessed with the ability to multitask I unfortunately can only give my full concentration to one thing at a time.

In coaching sessions I'm building in breaks now every 60 minutes, never more than 90, as it's clear some people just cannot be disconnected from their network for any longer - this is a sad indictment of how technology is now our master rather than our servant.

It's good to talk, even better to listen.

Are awards worth winning?

As the deadline for entering The Lettings Agency of the Year Awards in association with The Sunday Times & The Times fast approaches*, (I thought I’d get a quick plug in early), I’ve been pondering their value and the reason why I first set them up almost a decade ago.

I remember very clearly one lunchtime eating a sandwich at my desk and reading several stories criticising estate agents, (the news must have particularly thin that week as these were all the same old tales lazily rehashed without any research), and thinking no one ever says anything about all the good things estate agents do nor highlight the best performers – and that was the moment that the longest running awards in the industry were conceived.

I don’t judge the awards myself, instead an expert panel is chaired by The Property Ombudsman, but I do know from the judges that the standard of entry has improved every year as has the number of entries, up by over 100% in the last two years. So we are definitely achieving one of our founding aims – to provide incentive to raise the standards of the industry ever higher, but how do we score with the other goals we set, to reward the achievements of the best agencies and to help raise the profile of the industry?

I’m grateful to Gareth Ashington of Ashington Page in Beaconsfield, who won Gold for his Best Small Agency in 2009, for sharing his experience. Using his achievement to spur his team on even further, the following year he increased turnover by 54% by repositioning his agency towards the higher end of the market, which resulted in double the sales of properties over £750,000. Of course it wasn’t just the award, Gareth gave his office a facelift and produced a new marketing campaign, but he confirms that the award actually won him business as a consequence of displaying it on all his communications plus it helped to give his team the confidence to know that they could compete with everyone in this highly contested area. Many other winners have told me that thanks to the awards they too have enjoyed huge publicity, won business and increased their profits.

As for raising the industry profile I fear we still have a long way to go. The tabloid media had a feeding frenzy when they learned that the number of complaints to The Property Ombudsman doubled last year although none chose to pick up on the Ombudsman’s report that the amount of compensation awarded in each case had halved which suggests that the issues people are complaining about are much smaller than a few years ago.  I’m not so naïve as to expect the press to run a story along the lines of “estate agents do a great job selling over 90% of all properties in the UK” however when we carried out a survey of 1,562 home movers recently, 84% did say they would recommend their estate agent, a statistic few industries would be able to claim and something I’m keen to get covered in the media.  We will persist in our pursuit to put the record straight – many sales and lettings agencies do a fine job for their clients and comprise teams of highly entrepreneurial people who contribute a lot for the general economy and to society as The Estate Agency Foundation charity, and many other examples of good works, clearly demonstrate.

The awards have rightly attracted criticism as well as plaudits, the most common being the judging process and we take all constructive points on board and have made several changes as a consequence.  The trouble is I don’t think a perfect judging system exists; some suggest the public should judge but how can they compare and contrast estate agencies when they normally only instruct one and move on average once every eight years?  So yes the judging has an element of subjectivity but this is true of all industries awards and each year our panel has had new blood, categories rotated and the format changed to include an interview with every single entrant rather than just relying on a written submission.  I’ve only had two rather nasty critics, and both made me smile recently when they were themselves the recipients of other awards similarly judged by a peer group but overall winners and losers alike have been very helpful and positive.

As both sales and lettings agencies struggle to find and to communicate their unique competitive advantage for their customers I feel that the awards are doing their bit to help the best performers differentiate themselves and so conclude that they are worthwhile and worth winning.  Of course only those who enter have a chance so with less than a week to register and two weeks to make your submission you’d better get your skates on.

*The deadline for entering The Lettings Agency of the Year Awards is still the 31^st March however the deadline for submissions has been extended to the 6th April. You can register to enter at www.estateagencyevents.com but only until 31^st March.