Granville Toogood Reveals Strategies for "Home Run" Presentations

Leadership Communications Coach and Best Selling Author Returns to TPR: "The Art of the Pitch"

Granville Toogood

Granville Toogood is one of the most experienced and respected authorities in the executive communications industry. His clients have included more than two-thirds of the Fortune 500 CEOs and thousands of executives and managers from other blue-chip companies, including GE, Deloitte & Touche, NBC, Morgan Stanley, Swiss Bank, UBS, Credit Suisse, NYSE, Northrop Grumman and Citigroup, among others.

In his second interview with Peter Clayton, host of Total Picture Radio, Granville talks in-depth about a methodology he developed called Communications Value Added. Almost everyone uses PowerPoint when making a presentation, but, according to Granville, "most are done all wrong... many times, people in the audience are trying to figure out how to escape!" Several techniques Toogood offers in the podcast include, "Always begin and end your presentation with just you talking, and "Introduce your next slide while the old slide is still on the screen... This way, you're seen as being in control of the presentation, not the presentation controlling you." (Show notes and resource links on next page).

In preparing for the interview, Peter Clayton had the advantage of having seen Granville Toogood in action, attending a Liminal Group event last year in which Toogood demonstrated the same advanced presentation techniques he has taught to to thousands of Fortune 500 executives.

Based on the twin theories that three minutes with the right audience can be worth more than a year at your desk, and that mere talent and competency by themselves are no longer sufficient to lead successfully, Granville invites an audience member to give their "best pitch," and then, step-by-step, works through their presentation (with lots of audience participation), to create, in Toogood's vocabulary, the "Perfect Presentation." According to Clayton, "the interactive style Granville employs, really engages everyone in the audience, and you leave having learned how to make you presentations, your ability to sell your ideas far more effective." Peter added, "it really is amazing to watch Granville take a jargon-filled 5 minute pitch and carve it down to an 8 second pitch with clarity and impact"
Show Notes: What Peter Clayton asked Granville Toogood:
One thing I’ve learned doing Total Picture Radio is there are many different kinds of leadership coaches.
Over the least 25 yrs, you've coached almost 2/3 of the Fortune 500 CEOs.  What kind of coach are you?

What is a Communications coach? What skills do you teach that an organizational coach (for instance) doesn’t cover?

Has leadership changed?  In numerous conferences I’ve attended, the focus is on Emotional Intelligence not command and control leadership.

Tell us about Liminal Group, what does the organization provide?


I’ve had the good fortune to attend one of your leadership seminars – which are very different because you don’t lecture – you have a very interactive style that generates a lot of audience interaction. One of you tenants is that three minutes with the right audience can be worth more than a year at your desk, can you expand on that?

One of the really valuable presentation strategies you teach involves the ubiquitous PowerPoint presentation. Most of the time, They seem to be used more as a crutch than a sales tool.


In your book, The Articulate Executive, you talk about Communications Value Add....CVA....what is CVA?

What is the biggest mistake that people make when giving presentations?

###

CVA (Source: Liminal Group)

Granville has developed a proven methodology called Communications Value Added (CVA). Based on the belief that what you say and how you say it can determine the success of your business, the seven principles of CVA will dramatically enhance your daily performance and make you a stronger, more capable leader.

1. Always be interesting – never bore

2. This would seem like an obvious admonition. But it is amazing how many people ignore this fundamental guideline and it is even more remarkable how few people in business view it as necessary. If you fail to elicit interest from your audience, all your preparations and efforts are doomed.

3. Always provide something extra, something of value, something memorable to every audience

4. This may mean taking a position even though you may not have realized you had a point of view buried in all that data. Or it could mean teaching the audience something they could not have known until they heard you speak.

5. Always be master of your presentation – never allow your presentation to master you

6. Three important rules are adjuncts to this principle.

• Always begin and end your presentation with just you talking.
• Use only graphics, schematics, tables, illustrations, or photographs – try hard to avoid using word slides.
• Introduce your next slide while the old slide is still on the screen.

7. Speak only about what you know

8. Too often people accept invitations to speak, and then discover they have agreed to talk on a subject they are not competent to discuss. If you expect people to listen, talk only about what you know.

9. Always to be sensitive to the needs of your audience

10. Nothing makes businesspeople more impatient than the creeping suspicion that the time they are giving to the speaker is not time well spent. Never make an audience of busy people sit and wait for you to get your point. Always try to anticipate exactly what your audience wants to hear.

11. Speak in pictures

12. Use anecdotes, analogies, illustrations, and hard facts. Vague notions, general ideas, and abstractions, no matter how worthy or noble, just can’t cut it.

13. Prepare

14. A minimum amount of preparation can yield maximum results, especially if the planning and design of your speech or presentation adhere to five simple components: strong start, one theme, vivid examples, conversational language, and strong ending. Preparation usually means tighter, crisper and briefer, all of which are good. Preparation also means clearer message, higher interest factor, greater depth, longer retention, more fun for speaker and listener alike, and overall a much higher level of quality.

About Granville Toogood:
Granville is Chairman of Liminal Group, President of Granville Toogood Associates, a best-selling author, consultant, seminar leader and speaker who has inspired audiences all over the world. His clients have included more than two-thirds of the Fortune 500 CEOs and thousands of executives and managers from other blue-chip companies, including GE, Deloitte & Touche, NBC, Morgan Stanley, Swiss Bank, Philip Morris, UBS, Credit Suisse, NYSE, Northrop Grumman and Citigroup, among others. He is creator of the benchmark Perfect Presentation concept, and author of The Articulate Executive: Learn to Look, Act and Sound Like a Leader, published by McGraw Hill, which set new standards of excellence for corporate and executive communication. He is a former Life Magazine and television reporter who produced The Today Show News, and produced network news programs for NBC and ABC. He is also author of The Inspired Executive: The Art of Leadership; The Creative Executive: How Business Leaders Innovate by Stimulating Passion, Intuition and Creativity; and the recently released, The Articulate Executive in Action: How The Best Leaders Get Things Done.

Resources:
The Articulate Executive in Action: How the Best Leaders Get Things Done

Comments

Add New

Write comment

Name: Email:  do not notifynotify Website: Title:   Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.26

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

---