Page 50 - The New Articulate Executive_ Look, Act and Sound Like a Leader

THE STRONG START 41

elaborate PowerPoint show, working and reworking his material,
adding and subtracting information, changing the text, editing, and
generally driving himself crazy.
But when the big day came, his message was garbled in a moun-
tain of data, and he seemed to take forever to get to his point. After-
ward the audience spent more time talking about how tedious his
presentation was rather than about what he actually said. Another
key opportunity lost and another presentation that certainly did
more harm than good.

2. Tell a personal story that makes a business point. This does not
mean trying to be funny. Telling your own story is certainly one of
the most engaging and personal ways to capture the attention of any
audience. Say, for example, that you want to make the point that
globalization is an essential ingredient for the future success of your
company. You might begin (after a pause) this way:

When I was shopping at Harrods in London on a recent business
trip, I noticed that even though the shelves were filled with mer-

chandise, I wasn’t able to find any of our own products—no

matter how hard I tried.
By contrast, yesterday I was in Bloomingdale’s in New York,
and our products filled the display cases of the cosmetics
section.
The problem is that in London, people were buying. In New
York, Bloomingdale’s was practically empty, and the cash regis-
ters were silent.
You don’t have to be a business school graduate to see that
there’s a basic economic sea change in progress here.

In this case you are sounding a kind of wake-up call to your audi-
ence, drawing their attention to the need for global strategic plan-
ning within your organization or perhaps within your industry.
This is the kind of beginning that might work, let’s say, for a
marketing vice president speaking to a trade association.