Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Good day, everyone, and welcome to another edition of let's Be Diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts and never be forgotten.
Today our topic is presentation prep. In the workplace, people are always pres. Prepping for presentations. Business people are presenting presentations to potential clients. So I thought this would be a great topic to talk about today. And I'm so lucky to have as my guest today Claudio Senher. He'll talk about himself a little bit more. But, but before we just start taping, he has mentioned to me that the last few years he's present and helping out a lot of potential contestants who would be on Shark Tank. So a lot of you, I'm sure, know that show very, very well. So I'm pretty excited to hear what he has to say today. Welcome to the show, Claudio. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today.
[00:01:15] Speaker C: It's a real, real pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me. It's an absolute pleasure, honor and will be a lot of fun.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: It certainly will. Claudio, how are things with you? What's going on in your world? What's the tea, the deets? Give us it all. What's going on?
[00:01:34] Speaker C: All right, all right. So I'm a presentation coach, a high impact presentation coach. And I basically people come to me for two reasons. One is to prepare for a high impact presentation that can be something as extreme as a Shark Tank participation. But it's mostly about keynotes, about investor pitches, Preparing for perhaps TED and TEDx talks, those kind of preparations. I help people as a coach. And the other side is over the last three, four years, I've been teaching more and more people how to be effective in online meeting meetings, how to be effective with online presentations. Because that is a totally different world now and it requires a slightly different skill set also when it comes to the preparation of such a presentation.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Absolutely. It is definitely a different world. For sure. It's changing and it is amazing with technology how we're able to do that. Years and years ago, you would have to be face to face, but you don't necessarily have to be face to face. I've been seeing a lot of conferences and stuff which are done online where people don't actually have to go to the event. They can just click online and they can see the different speakers. So it's Pretty cool and innovative how it's changing. For sure.
[00:03:06] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: For sure.
[00:03:07] Speaker C: Yes.
And so one, one part of my work this year has been I've created a community for specifically online presentations. Oh nice. And just this week we had our six month happy versary if you want. So it was on Halloween and it was a lot of fun because I asked all of the members to either dress up physically or dress up their screens. Right. Because this is the beauty about online meetings. We can do some really, really fancy stuff with having a ghost appear on your screen and passing through or even change yourself the opacity so that you are slightly translucent and come across in a really, really spooky way. So that was a lot of fun, Andrew. Totally, totally enjoyed. Enjoyed that.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Absolutely. That sounds amazing. And you're bringing a lot of engagement into the meeting as well, which is super important, especially for those who are working from home. They are missing that engagement. So this is a great way to increase that engagement. I really like that. So I'm super excited to hear more about that presentation stuff. But before we begin, I always have a fun, thought provoking question to get things going. Are you ready for your, are you, are you ready for your question today, Claudio?
[00:04:33] Speaker C: I am, I am sure.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: So my question to you is, if you had the opportunity to get a message across to a large group of people, what would your message be?
[00:04:47] Speaker C: My message probably would be to be more careful with the words that we are using when we communicate.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: I love that I have a motto that I say that it's not the words, it's the tone. So sometimes people worry about the words and yes, the words are very important, but you can say certain words in a different tone and it has a totally different meaning. So for example, if you're a leader and you're writing a letter or an email to an employee and if it's written in all caps, bold and in red, it is such a big difference to something that is written in normal color. You get a totally different meaning. So I love that you saying that. Be more careful with our words because it is super important. And like you said earlier, it's a different world and we have to adapt a little bit differently. People are different, everyone takes things a little bit differently. So we have to understand that as well.
[00:05:50] Speaker C: Yep, yep.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Well, I appreciate you having a little bit of fun with me this morning and that's such a great answer. I know you talked a little bit about what you do as far as a living, but I'd like to you to tell us a Little bit about you, like yourself and your why and why you started getting into what you do.
[00:06:11] Speaker C: Absolutely.
I originally started out my career at a fairly young age. I had the pleasure to go through an apprenticeship, a business apprenticeship with one of the largest computer companies. And I started that program when I was 15 years old. So I got a real, real head start here. And because I did my first steps in that environment, it became very, very quickly my passion. And the technology became my passion and helping people embrace paradigm shifts. So for about 20, 25 years, I worked as a technology evangelist.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:06:57] Speaker C: I introduced technologies that were truly the bleeding edge. For example, in or the early 90s, I introduced a product called the NCR Notepad, which was the first tablet computer, one of the first two tablet computers in the world. This was 20 years before the iPad came out. So this was really way, way ahead of its time. And my job was to travel the world and introduce people to these new, exciting technologies. And the feedback that I always got was that my presentations were entertaining and really to the point. And I took this after 25 years in 2008, and I said, you know what? I think it's now time for me to help other people present in a more effective way. And that's when I moved to Thailand. At that time, we had Skype, and I did my work, my coaching through Skype, and I did that for, you know, a good while until Covid hit.
And when Covid hit to me, it was almost a positive thing because all of a sudden, the entire world started to move towards online meetings. And because I'm such a geek at heart, I immediately realized that this is an opportunity for me to help other people to look and sound really, really good in online meetings, because we know this, right? The better you feel about yourself and your capabilities, and the more in control you are of your technology, the more confident you are and the easier it is to get your message across, not just into the minds, but into the hearts of people that listen to you.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: I love. I love your story. And you. I'm sure you learned a lot of tricks, a lot of techniques, and you probably seen some struggles and you probably seen some things, and you've continued to grow, and you still continue to grow throughout your time. And I'm a firm believer that we just. We never have made it. We always have to continue to learn and to grow and develop as. As individuals. And if we do that, if we continue to do that, then we can definitely see us develop. I know myself doing this podcast from the first episode to the most recent one that I've released, it is a total different person. You would think that it's two different people that were hosting it. And that first episode was the person who was not confident, was. Was very nervous, was worried about how people were going to accept the episode or if they were going to be interested in it. So as time's gone on, it has become or becomes so much more easier and I find that I learn something from each one that I do and I take mental notes of each episode that I do to improve on the next time that I do an episode. So I love what you're saying there.
[00:10:16] Speaker C: And this is the absolute key, right? Because I always say if you really want to get better at something, you have to put in those reps. And in your case, it's your show, your podcast, and you're doing it consistently. By the way, congratulations on, you know, such, such a long run with these part, with this particular podcast, because I know from experience I'm having a. Well, it was weekly. Now it's a monthly live show on YouTube where I'm doing something very similar. I have guests come in and we have a 45 minute engaging conversation live on YouTube. Very similar to you as well, Right. The first time I did that, I was like, you know, and this is my job to help other people to present themselves. But nevertheless, I was nervous. I was doubtful whether people really would want to hear that. And then with every single week also taking in the feedback that you hear, paying attention to the things that you are not so happy with and become better and better and better. Right? So to me, it's like presenting or communication in general is really something that the more we do it, the better we get. Like any other skill, right? And you cannot, you cannot just participate in a communication skills training or a presentation training and watch and think that you are going to make any improvements. It just doesn't work that way. You have to do it. Nobody has ever received a black belt in any martial art by just watching the lessons. You have to do it.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: So what I want to know from you is what is presentation prep and why is it so important?
[00:12:16] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I base my entire career right now on a quote that's attributed to Benjamin Franklin. And that quote is, if you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.
And to me there is such a truth behind that. Right, so what is preparation? Well, preparation is really to go through your material.
It's a process of distilling your thoughts into a logical order.
And then if you use visual aids, creating the Visual aids. And most importantly, prepare your mind that your mindset is in the right place. And the most important part of any preparation, whenever you are going out to talk with other people, is to understand those people that you're going to talk to. And I believe, you know so many people, they are just sitting in front of their PowerPoint and they're seeing the cursor blinking and they're dumping their thoughts onto the slides and use them more like a crutch for themselves. It's almost like a script for themselves. And that's about it. Right? And of course, the more important the presentation is, the more, the higher the stakes are in a presentation, the more you need to prepare. You need to rehearse.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: Your quote there. When you fail to prep, you prep to fail. If anybody listening, that is pretty much the key right there. And if, if you're the leader presenting to your team or, or if you are a team member that's presenting to everybody, or if you're a business owner and you're presenting your product to a potential client, you have to prepare. We talked about Shark Tank earlier. I watched that show on a regular basis and there's a lot of people who go on there and you can tell that they're just not prepared.
I think you gotta prepare almost like a lawyer. There's gonna be always questions after. You have to prepare for what could be possibly asked to you after the presentation. So if you are a leader to your team, you can be darn sure that people are going to be asking if you are doing an interview with a. With a potential candidate. You can be sure that the candidate specifically, even more today than ever, the candidate is going to be asking you questions. You better be prepared for the type of questions that the candidates are going to ask you because they are interviewing you as much as you are interviewing them. And the. If you're doing a presentation, your listeners are more invest. Are invested in you in the presentation as much as you are invested in them. So it's super important.
[00:15:23] Speaker C: You just said the absolute key word and that is the Q and A part, right? That. That needs to be prepared as well. And when I look at the work that we are doing with the Shark Tank contestants, I would say we focus probably 80 to 90% on the Q and A. The pitch is relatively simple. On Shark Tank, you know, it's 90 seconds and you can prepare that and you have enough time, right?
But where it really, really makes a difference is how do you react to the questions that are being tossed at you? And so Typically, with someone who is going to Shark Tank, we have maybe around 10 sessions, and in each session we walk through all kinds of questions. We actually simulate the entire studio environment and bombard the candidate with questions that they will hear. Maybe not exactly in those words, but the key is to prepare your mental states, right? Because in the Q and A, and it doesn't matter whether it's a high, high stakes show like Shark Tank or whether it's a interview situation, it's in the questions and some of the questions that are being asked. They can throw us off energetically. Right. They can throw us off. And all of a sudden we are not keeping the same momentum. And so preparing Q and A is as important or perhaps even more important than having a really refined presentation in itself.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: I love that. So I know we talked a little bit about what people might have trouble with, but I want to kind of delve into this a little bit more here. What are some of the things that people would struggle with most when doing.
[00:17:25] Speaker C: A presentation prep when they are preparing together with me? Right. It's a different set of issues than when they are preparing by themselves. What I mean by that is that the biggest issue that I see with preparation in general is that we are doing it in a vacuum. We are not doing it in a real life type situation.
And to me, whenever you're practicing a presentation, you want to be in as close to the real situation as possible.
Meaning you want your heart rate to go up a little bit. You want to have those nerves, you want to have that adrenaline rushing through your system. When you get that in a practice session, that's when it counts. But if you're just reciting your script in front of the mirror or wherever and there isn't that additional pressure there, that's one big factor on how effective you can make it. Or not.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: I was telling a story to somebody last week when I first started the podcast. I was all ready to go. And then I was doing some practice runs with some people that I knew. And a very dear friend of mine said to me, how was the podcast going? Because I told her that this is what I'm going to be doing. And so she asked me, how is it going? I said, oh, it's going very, very well. I'm all set to go.
And so she asked me, have you done any tapings yet? I said, no, I've done some tapings, but I haven't posted any. So she says, well, what are you waiting for? I said, well, I said, I want to make sure that I sound good, that I'm ready to go, that I feel comfortable doing it. And she said to me, listen, Andrew, I want to tell you I love you to death, but cut the crap, just go on, get a guest and do it. Because you're never going to be fully ready to go.
You're only going to learn as you go. So when you said doing live and feeling the adrenaline, I mentioned earlier that the adrenaline when I did that first one was high because I knew that this was going to be something that I was going to be posting any on the Internet for the world to hear. And so I had many different nervous points during that taping. So I had 10 minutes before I was nervous after the podcast episode. I looked at the my computer and I said, okay, now I gotta post this thing.
And I was nervous, I looked at the computer. I'm like, oh, my God, what am I gonna do? I have to post this thing. So then I posted it and then the nervousness really set out because then I realized, oh, my God, now it's in the Internet now I can't take it back.
Everybody can hear it, everybody can listen to it. So I love that you said that, because that is exactly something that I experienced doing. Doing what I'm doing now.
[00:20:36] Speaker C: Do you actually have some kind of a pre.
Pre show ritual that you're going through? How do you warm yourself up or how do you get yourself into that energetic state that you reflect on the microphone here?
[00:20:52] Speaker B: I kind of just do a little bit of a mantra that I say to myself, which, this is going to be a great show and I'm going to be happy with it. Let's do it, let's go. And before the person comes on, I'll kind of do a little bit of a read of the stuff just to kind of get myself in tune. They say a lot of it is building rapport and it's a lot of acting. So I'm kind of getting myself in that mindset of, hey, I'm on. This is going to be taped. People are going to be listening to it. So I need to bring the energy to get people tuning in and not tuning out two minutes in. I want them to be engaged from the onset, right through the episode. So that is exactly what I do each time. So I even did that this morning before you and I came on. I said those same things to myself before we even started going.
[00:21:40] Speaker C: Very good, very good.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: So what are, what would you say are five factors to consider when you're preparing for a presentation?
[00:21:47] Speaker C: Oh, five. Five Factors. Well, the first thing is clearly if you, if you prepare for the presentation, right, the first thing is really to understand your audience.
This is the absolute key. Who are you talking to? Because everything is based on that. And the better you understand your audience, the better you find the words and you can guide them along whatever story that you're telling them. Now, my work typically is related to persuasive presentations where you want the audience to take some kind of an action at the end of the presentation, whether that is to buy a product, whether that is to arrange another meeting, whether that is to visit your website, whatever it is. And in order to do that successfully, you really have to know the audience. You have to know what is their current situation and where do they want to be ultimately. And with your presentation, guide them to that spot. And you can really only do that when you know the audience extremely well. Right. So that is one of the most critical parts in my opinion, is the understanding of the audience.
The second one I would say is to make sure that you are working with the right mindset that you are, that you're bringing the right energy to either the screen or the stage or whatever venue you are presenting in.
And there are again, there are several ways how you can do it. That's why I asked you about your pre show ritual, whether you have one, because that often gets us into the right state of mind and lets us focus again on the audience. Right. I think anybody who has anxiety, when I work with people who have anxiety, speaking anxiety, I usually find out that they are so focused on themselves and not necessarily on the audience and you know, how, how they can add value to the audience. That leads me to the, to the third one is to ensure that you are actually providing value. Right. And not to take yourself too seriously. I think this is another one, a big one, where sometimes we might perhaps almost over prepare a little bit. Right. And well, that can be a dangerous thing as well because then you are really sticking to your program, you're sticking to, and there's not a lot of flexibility. And what you really want at the end of the day is to communicate authentically to be yourself. And if yourself from time to time has an M or an in there, well then that's just part of the package. Don't sweat it so much. Don't shoot for perfection, shoot for excellence.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: I love, and I love when you say the genuine over prepare and being genuine.
I think that's super important. And I do listen to a lot of different podcasts and what I try to Aim at is focusing on two things, on rapport building and being genuine. That is the two things that I focus on. And when you're being. Because I feel like when you're being genuine. I want somebody, Claudio, when they turn into an episode.
So if they've talked to me either in person or over the phone or on a zoom, I want them to hear that or see that same person listening to an episode. I want to be the same Andrew in every different facet or any dealings that I have with people so that they're not saying, oh, Andrew's so different in this stage. You know, he's so different in person rather than over the phone, or he sounds so different on a podcast rather than in person. I want it to be the same.
I want to be the same person so that, you know, you know, when you're dealing with Andrew, if you're listening to someone Andrew, you're talking to Andrew, you're in person with Andrew, it's the same. You're gonna get the same person.
[00:26:38] Speaker C: Right? Right. And this is one of the things I think, especially when somebody's new to presenting, they. They adopt this presenter's Persona, somehow they change all of a sudden. Right, Right. And it's hard to avoid. And so over time, then I think that's when we get back to becoming more natural, more authentic and becoming ourselves. Because we all know, right. I mean, AI has already impacted us tremendously in every single aspect of our professional lives, and communication is no exception.
[00:27:18] Speaker B: Right.
[00:27:19] Speaker C: Meaning that very, very soon we can create videos that we just have to type the text and, you know, there will be a video generated in your own voice. In your own voice. Right. But there is still something lacking, that humanness of making a mistake here or there, stumbling from time to time. And I believe as we go forward, this will become even more important, that we are ourselves, because this is what's going to distinguish us and differentiate us from all the tech that's available to us right now.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: So you, you mentioned AI and you mentioned how we talk. I want to kind of delve into this a little bit as far as presentations and what, you know, how you're teaching people and what you're seeing in presentations. Do you see presentations changing down, you know, in the future?
[00:28:25] Speaker C: Well, the biggest. The biggest change that I see in the future as it relates to presentations are online presentations. Because right now we are still, you know, when we approach an online meeting, we approach it kind of like a real life meeting. We are using the same old slides. Right. And we are sharing Those slides in our zoom meeting, we disappear all the way up into the right right corner. We are occupying 5% of the screen. Our slides are occupying 80% of the screen.
And I believe that over time, and this is one of the missions that I'm on, is to help people to understand that this is such a different medium that you can do things differently. For example, when I present online, I do not share slides. I bring the visual elements that I want to use to underline my spoken words, right? I bring them up to the screen right next to me in all kinds of. Because there are some really fabulous tools like OBS Studio or ECAMM Live, which I'm using myself, that allow you to do multimedia stuff right on your screen, right? So I believe that will be a big, big change that we realize all of a sudden that hey, it's not about slides, not at all, but it's about a screen. That screen has 1920 pixels wide and 1080 pixels high. And it's all about what are you going to do with that space?
[00:30:16] Speaker B: I love that you're saying that.
[00:30:18] Speaker C: Yeah, there's so much that can be done, right. I always say that your on screen presence has become the new business attire.
And what I mean by that is like, like a good looking outfit and an outfit that really, really fits you and it's comfortable gives you that extra boost of confidence.
So does the knowledge that you're coming across on screen professionally.
And it immediately boosts our confidence. If we are mastering the technology that we are using and very, very similar to, to attire to an outfit, there are basically three sources that you can tap into. You can buy your outfit off the rack, right? You're just going and shopping and you find something, you try it on and it works. And I compare that to those that go into online meetings with their built in camera, with the built in microphone and nothing in between, no software in between. Just like today, most people join a zoom meeting, but then you also have the designer clothing that's a little step up. And those are the people that I see that invest a little bit into an external webcam just to make sure that the picture looks even a little bit better. Perhaps an external microphone instead of the built in microphone. And perhaps using some of the tools to engage the audience with polls and quizzes and things like that. And then the third level, that's the handmade suit, the bespoke suit, right? That's at the top end of the line. And similar to that in an online presentation scenario, you would be using perhaps a DSLR or a mirrorless camera, something that really, really, really brings a very sharp image to the screen. You might invest even more money on an external microphone and again, use some tools like OBS or ECAMM to do some things that leave lasting impressions on the other side when people see it.
[00:32:52] Speaker B: Right. No, I love that for sure. It, it totally makes sense. And I'm seeing too a lot of people. For example, on Instagram, you talked about it earlier about the US and the ums. I think people were so nervous about going online and doing taping. I'm seeing younger generations of like 13, 14, 15 year olds that are doing stuff on Instagram. They're posting stuff. It's not the most beautiful cameras or whatever, but they're posting it. I use the word genuine before. They're just being genuine and they're not worrying about what it looks like or what they look like or what have you. They have something to say and they're going on and they're saying it.
And I find that people are being a little bit more vulnerable today than they, than they used to be.
[00:33:45] Speaker C: Absolutely. I think vulnerability is probably one of the key words of, well, at least 2024, I think, where the world really starts to wake up and say, look, you don't have to be perfect. Not at all. None is. As a matter of fact, if your presentation is too perfect, you might lose a little bit of the believability. Right. People might look at this and say, you know, this is just a little bit too smooth. I wonder what's being hidden here. Right. So it's all right to be yourself. This is the one thing that I work the most with people, with my clients is to, to really get their own Persona out again.
[00:34:34] Speaker B: Right. No, that's, that's, that's super cool.
So in closing today, what is one takeaway you'd like our listeners to get from this episode?
[00:34:48] Speaker C: The biggest takeaway is really that, you know, you need to prepare. You need to prepare. Even if it's an internal company meeting, if you want your communication to be effective, you need to prepare well.
And if you do go onto a stage to deliver some high impact presentation, seek help. Right.
Look for a coach. It doesn't have to be me. I'm not, I'm not advertising my services here. But really, really a coach, no matter who it is that has experience, will be able to show you blind spots that you are not aware.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: Right, right, right, Absolutely. Listen, if I'm gonna use a call to action. We talked about call to actions. My call to action, to people today would be exactly like you said to just do it.
Be genuine and be authentic and just go out there and do it. So if your leader is telling you to prepare for a presentation, take the opportunity to take advantage of that and. And build that presentation out and. And show others your depth and show others your vulnerability and that you can do it. And I think once you do it the first time, you're gonna be. Feel so much more comfortable and you're gonna want to do. You're gonna want to do it again and again and again. But it's just that first time, it's that saying there, we need you take 21 days to create a new habit. So you need to, you know, do it that first time and then continue to do it to create that habit. And once you've started that habit, then it becomes easy peasy after that.
[00:36:42] Speaker C: That's it. That's it. You know, I assume now that most of your audience knows how to, let's say, ride a bike. We've learned that as a kid at one point. Right. And very similar to riding a bike the very first time we get onto that bike, you know, we are not sure of ourselves and everything is wobbly and we might even fall down from time to time.
[00:37:12] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:37:13] Speaker C: Get up again. Get on the saddle. Try it again.
As you mentioned before with your podcast, the first few episodes, they were way more difficult. And today, so many of the things have become second nature to you that even if something goes wrong, you are in a totally different position now to fix it or to work around it than you probably were in episode one, two, or three. So it's just a natural process. And even. Even if public speaking isn't your favorite activity, give it a try and try it again, and try it again, because you will get better. And the better you get, the more doors will open for you in your career, in your life, in your business.
[00:38:15] Speaker B: Absolutely. Listen, I want to take the time to thank you, Claudio, for coming on. This has been a fantastic conversation. I believe that the audience is really going to enjoy this, and I. It's such a great topic, an important topic, and something that a lot of people are not talking about. So I. I appreciate you taking the time to come on and chat with me today.
Your insights were fantastic and I was really enjoy. I really enjoyed listening to you speak today. So thank you so much.
[00:38:49] Speaker C: You're doing such a wonderful job as a host. I felt very, very comfortable already before we started here. So thank you again for the opportunity and all the best for many, many more episodes, many more years of your podcast. Andrew. I really enjoy it.
[00:39:10] Speaker B: I appreciate your kind words. Claudio. On behalf of myself, my guest Claudio, I'd like to thank you all for listening today. Until next time, be safe and remember everybody that when we all work together, we can accomplish anything you have been listening to.
[00:39:25] Speaker A: Let's be diverse with Andrew Stout to stay up to date with future content. Hit Subscribe.
