hi everyone kevin here today i want to show you how you can become a more effective communicator to help with this i have the esteemed cliff kennedy he works as a professional communication coach and we’re going to show you five different strategies that you can implement right now to improve the quality and the effectiveness of your communications about a month ago i asked all of you the youtube community if you had your very own communications coach what would you ask and what would you want to learn lots of different questions flooded in and cliff is going to go through those and he’s going to share his thoughts on some of those questions i met cliff about a year ago at a massive microsoft event called microsoft ignite ignite typically sees about 40 to 50 000 attendees and i was leading a session with about 250 people on office.com i was paired with cliff and he was my communication coach and he gave me lots of strategies for how i can improve my presentation and ultimately reach the objective that i wanted he did such a great job that i thought it would really be valuable if he came on to this youtube channel to share some of his thoughts so why don’t we jump in and i’ll let cliff introduce himself thanks kevin it’s great to be here and actually that’s my very first uh strategy for for improved communication is to tell your audience that there’s no place in the world you’d rather be than right here right now with you so thank you very much for this opportunity i’m very excited to be here with you um as you mentioned i’ve worked with you at microsoft i’ve worked with a lot of other large enterprises and i think the key you know to me and my approach is my background and you know i’ve basically been a writer creative director producer of large corporate events for most of my career and i shift over to coaching about the last 10 years ago and so i really have an understanding about creating experiences that connect audiences and whether it’s you know on a big stage or in a conference room or like this on a screen it’s all about engaging your audience and and from there you can then empower them and energize them to act and cliff one of the things that i really appreciated when you came into microsoft to train our organization on how to become better communicators i remember you came in and you you shared five steps on how you could improve your communication right now and i thought that was extremely valuable and a lot of people commented that they really enjoyed that and so i was wondering if maybe you could share that uh with my audience i’d love to and so um it is so i call this my you know five communication success strategies and just as reminding that tips and tricks because you know i’m a consultant so i can charge more for a strategy than so um you want to do that but these are you know five strategies that you can implement and begin with right now and basically make a huge difference in your effectiveness so um the the first one is i’d like to say is embrace your audience and now i have to say in an appropriately hr appropriate manner of course but this is recognizing that you know you and your audience are part of a team that you know without your audience you’re not going to have a communication situation so this idea of you know thinking about them and you know who they are and more most importantly again what is your purpose what’s the value you can deliver to them and so one of these phrases i always like to think of is is wifta you know what is the wifta which stands for what’s in it for the audience and you know it goes along same with whiffy which what’s in it for you and with them which what’s in it for me but this idea of creating you know something meaningful for your audience can think about it they don’t want you to i’m sorry they don’t want you to deliver a presentation they want you to deliver something of value to them and again this idea of embracing your audience also goes into how you think about the communication situation you know is this a you know recitation of information or is this this conversation that you’re having with your audience and i always like to remind people that you know no matter how large your audience is if it’s you know it’s not one to ten thousand or one to one hundred or one to fifty it’s really one-to-one that many times you know you’re creating a continuous conversation that goes along with with your audience one thing that was really interesting and one thing i tried to do at ignite when i was presenting there as the audience members came into the room i think i ended up presenting it maybe it was in front of 100 or 120 people and as people came into the room i would introduce myself to them and i asked them you know why are you here today what do you hope to learn and that way when i got on stage i knew how i could cater my presentation exactly to their needs and i felt like that really helped a lot i agree you know the more you think about this as a you know you know i always go is this a transactional communication situation where you just okay i’m here to get some information see you later or is this transformational where you’re trying to change people’s beliefs ideas behaviors and you know the more you know about your audience and the more you understand them especially you know what they need what they’re interested what what’s important to them the more effective you’re going to be idea our second strategy is you know it’s simple but it’s hard to do and that’s to slow down and you know when i’m uh working another thing about me is i’m an amateur musician you know been one for a long time and i’m a drummer so you know i’ve worked with a metronome quite a bit and it’s it’s actually a tool i’ve brought into my coaching practice with other people to help them you know kind of basically get to the point where i called owning time and where you’re comfortable in what time is because when you’re in a communication situation you know the old fight or flight reflex kicks in and your perception of time gets completely out of whack and so what i do is actually tell um the people i work with to download a free metronome you know doesn’t that be a fancy one or anything like that and then set it to 45 beats per minute and i’m going to play it here and what this does is not to to tell you to speak slowly like this but what it is it’s a reminder what’s happening your time really is so that if you stop talking for a minute a minute i’m sorry stop talking for a couple beats nothing bad happens and it actually what it does it allows you to stay present and in the moment another thing i joke about is you know i’m originally from chicago but now i live in california so i can say this it’s this beat it aligns you with the pulse of the universe you know in this way and uh it but it really you know changes how you think about time and what’s so cool is my work with people after a while they’re fighting it they’re fighting it they’re fighting it and then eventually just kind of okay boom i get this i own time it’s like it’s total [ __ ] it’s it’s really interesting too when i when i first started doing my youtube videos when you have a pause between say sentences or points that you’re making it feels that so much time has gone by and you’re just trying to fill with the next sentence or the next word but then when i go back and i watch the video after the fact it turns out that it was just a fraction of a second and it’s like yeah i think that owning time and i think the metronome is a really good strategy to just reinforce that hey actually not that much time is going by you could take a moment you could pause to kind of compose your thoughts and think of what to say next exactly and especially you know if you you know like in the world of sports and everything it’s like letting the game come to you and this whole idea of being present if you’re playing a sport you can’t hit you can’t shoot the basketball until it’s time to shoot the basketball you can’t swing the bat and hit the ball unless the ball is there um or in music you can’t you know play the next bar while you’re supposed to be playing the current bar and um so all these ideas it’s just kind of being being patient and letting things come to you and then most importantly it actually allows you to stay present and in the moment or you have present focus because the biggest problem that happens so often is you know you’re you go ahead and start thinking about where you’re going to stay next and your mouth just keep going and you know your mouth without your brain is usually not your friend no i’ve noticed too when i slow down my speech it also gives me i think to your point more time to think about what i say next and it tends to improve the quality of my overall speech which you know which then goes actually to the next strategy that i have which kind of goes along with slo you know firstly slow down and then then even take it another step further which is stop talking and this is this whole idea of you know i i call it um you know refer to the the concept and design called negative space but it’s the same kind of idea so in you know you have negative space you may have you know here’s this image of the phone which but it’s everything around it that helps make that image more meaningful and make that you know everything and so it’s the same kind of idea about creating space around your big ideas and using a pause to emphasize so instead of going this is important going this is important and tells your audience you know that they need to listen and you know kind of shift that whole idea and let them know something something’s happening yeah it’s funny when i uh when i pull together my youtube videos i i’ll typically have pauses between points but then when i’m editing sometimes i’ll remove those pauses just so it’s a quicker video but i might have to rethink that strategy and go back and leave those pauses in it it turns into those legalese at the end of the commercials that everyone cranks through right but the idea you know this again it’s you know that’s you know and i didn’t coin the phrase the power of the pause but it is it does it’s a you know it means of pulling your audience and keeping them awake and then not awake engaged and then the other thing is you know the more you stop talking you the more clear and concise you become you know what you start finding out is that you you know you say something once you don’t have to keep saying it over and over again your audience gets it and actually the the more succinct and direct that your language is the more succinct and direct you know your audience understands you know what you’re saying oh absolutely yeah sometimes what is it the famous phrase sometimes less is more oh you know well it’s uh the uh i like to use a quote from antoine sonic zupery who says you know perfection is found not when there’s nothing left to add but when there’s nothing left that’s a good one um and also this whole idea of stop talking it actually becomes a gift to your audience it gives them a chance to digest what they just heard and you know contemplate it and you become more engaged and think of them you know actually you know it’s not a direct response but actually responding to you in a way no that’s really good definitely definitely something to practice it’s it you know in this whole idea of um you know and the other idea what tends to happen a lot is uh you know this idea of disfluencies where the ums and the odds start happening that’s usually a you know instead of listening for the um’s and odds listen for silence and put you know use pauses because and then stop talking because this is again it’s the whole idea of your brains thinking about what you’re going to say and leaving your mouth on autopilot your your mouth without a brain goes uh a lot so yeah that’s a that’s a really good point and actually that was a question that came up from our community where people said hey how do we avoid filler words where you say um and ah or you insert kind of unnecessary words in your sentences but it sounds like just slowing down stop talking that’s one strategy to kind of cut back on these filler words one and the key is you know it’s it’s being present and being aware of what you’re doing so if you are present and you know it’s like i always do like this like you know hey i’m present i should stop flapping my arms like a chicken and i’ll i’ll do that and so it’s this idea of being aware of what you’re doing and you know again being there and all goes about goes back to the idea of creating value to your for your audience and then i i know i i think one of the other uh steps was uh putting your headers to work and i thought this one was really interesting correct that is the fourth strategy um this all comes down this whole idea of building your your presentation your communication on conclusions that so often especially in the technical world you know people love to go evidence evidence evidence evidence evidence evidence evidence evidence therefore conclusion and by the usually by the second or third evidence people have already made up their own mind in their conclusion and unfortunately a lot of times it’s not the same conclusion as you have so my approach is to really drive your conclusions build everything off of basically your declarative statements or primary messages so there’s in in you know you have primary messages which is your conclusion or declaration and then the secondary messages are the the data the stories all these kind of things that support that message and as you find the more you have the more direct your conclusions are the less you know backup that you need depending on your audience if you’re seen as credible you don’t need much backup at all or if it’s you know things are somewhat obvious to an audience again they can you know you don’t to do that so it’s all around you know driving conclusions and you know and i always like to say making these conclusions nicely provocative you know that they should you know this idea of you know yeah it’s great if everyone agrees with you but in some ways it’s almost a better result when people disagree with you or at least to a certain extent because that creates the dialogue which then creates consensus which leads to consensus and this whole idea of you know engaging your audience in this kind of dialogue whether it’s literal that you’re actually talking back and forth or it’s more of like you know asynchronous in a way but it’s still people start becoming you you come to the same agreement you know by working together through this process and you know the secret to persuasion is making them think it was their idea and so this is how you you do that with that and then you know the whole when we talk about putting your headers to work so this whole idea is okay and your slides put your headers make them your conclusions so that instead of like you know a topic which is q4 results you make it a conclusion a great q4 or you know q4 we’re in trouble um and so this way your your audience already knows what your conclusion is and then they can start listening to why you you know they agree or disagree with you yeah no that’s a really good point and i don’t know how many presentations i’ve been in even at microsoft where you just have like the q4 results as the header and then you have to listen to the entire story before you know kind of what is the ultimate point or what do you what is the objective of this and that’s a that’s a really good tip exactly so it’s i always ask my the people i work with you know who’s working for who are your slides working for you that means they’re supporting everything you’re saying or are you working for your slides basically you’re just kind of the slide says everything and you’re just there you know as the window dressing that leads us to the fifth strategy and that is um to take control and from this you know typically what that means is confidence and so you know how often um you know you’re about to give a presentation have this kind of high stakes communication opportunity and you and you’re not feeling confident you’re feeling that all these things are out of your control and that’s and that’s like the the primary source of anxiety in humans is this feeling that we’re you know we’re not in control of the situation and what i’d like to remind you know my the my like the people i work with i hate the word cochi um so i always like to avoid that so it’s the people i work with is you know you’re in control of just about everything in a communication situation you know what you say how you say when you say it one thing you’re not in control of you know how your audience responds but then you’re in control of how you respond to how your audience responds and so this idea of building confidence and taking control is is critical and to help you do that you know my magic formula for preparation is 50 50. that you spend 50 percent of your your prep time putting your content together and then actually 50 the other 50 actually rehearsing it saying it out loud because think about your communication is a physical activity that you know if you want to get better at something you know you practice like you play you know basically and you know so you want to practice communicating and speaking out loud and that’s where you’re going to you know you’re going to get the um you know the the confidence that you need that you can actually and it’s interesting cliff and this was a question from the community but one thing that i think a lot of people deal with is you start in some type of presentation situation and it’s always those first 15 to 30 seconds that are the hardest that’s where you really feel the butterflies how do you get over that just initial fear or anxiety like typically what i found is you know once you’re five or ten minutes into your presentation you kind of you know you hit you hit your stride and you know you feel a lot more comfortable but how do you overcome just that initial hump it well it’s kind of being minute two ready at minute one kind of thing or zero um but the biggest thing usually is is really shifting this perspective and seeing this as this opportunity to create value for your audience that it’s not about you know it’s not about you it’s about them and you know this whole idea once you kind of elevate them over you it you know it shifts things it changes how you think about this so you know instead of being nervous about you know starting a conversation with someone you’re really excited it’s like you know i believe you’re you’re gonna get some value from here and i can’t wait to start talking about this versus you know oh you’re not going to like this or you don’t think it’s you know if you don’t think you’re creating value for your audience you shouldn’t be got it it’s almost like approaching it from a position of fear versus like hey i have so much value i just need to get the value to you and it’s going to benefit you so much and that makes you almost more confident to deliver it thanks for sharing those five different steps i think those are kind of great strategies that people could implement right away to really improve their communications we also had a number of questions from the community on how to improve communication skills and lots and lots of great questions came in and so i wanted to make sure we took a moment to kind of walk through some of these one person asked what if what if you’re speaking and you forget what you want to say next what do you do in that situation i know you talked about some of the things like well you know the more you practice the better off you are and you know you’re delivering value and so if you’re delivering value you’ll be more confident but what if what if you know you make a point and then you just can’t remember um well the key is you know your audience doesn’t know what you’re not telling them and you know and the the other thing is um so it’s that it’s so the key is if something’s going wrong you stop playing okay or you stop speaking i’m sorry i was thinking about jazz when you make a mistake you just kind of do repeat it over again and everyone thinks you mean it but um but the whole idea is you stop talking get become present you know you know oftentimes you do you know if you stop thinking for a second it’ll come to you um or the other thing is go back to your conclusion you know you may you know so often you’re forgetting data or some some other thing where it’s you know that’s not that critical but what’s important is you go back to your conclusion and so it’s like if you have a complete you know freeze you just go you stop and um this is a super you can’t do this this is the super thing but it’s more it’s better on stage but it’s i call a ponder and pivot where you kind of ponder and then you turn and you you think like something but you have to combine that with a walk on stage but um but so the key is you know stop talking stop digging your stick stop digging that hole and then go back to your conclusion and then keep them moving forward or just go to the next conclusion um it is and so it goes back to this you know being comfortable in time hey cliff thank you so much for running through uh both the community questions and also your five strategies for becoming a more effective speaker one thing i found is you know i watch youtube videos and you remember the points on that day or maybe the next day but let’s say a week or two or three weeks down the road how do you keep this fresh in your mind so you keep using these strategies to make your communication more effective great so um i agree so it’s so much easier to have reminders as you’re going forward and what i’ve learned it’s kind of a low-tech solution but i create these things called coaching cards which have like um so this one has all the reminders the five things you’re about to embrace your audience which is your purpose slowing down owning time stop talking negative space putting your headers to work which are your conclusions and you know taking control that confidence through control and so all these kind of reminders you kind of keep these cards with you and what eventually it’s going to do is going to start shifting your perspective about every communication opportunity and then if you change your perspective you know looking at things in a different way from a transactional to a transformational standpoint you’re going to raise your expectations you know instead of going oh here’s some people are going to get some information to here’s you know people changing their views of the world and then then you get greater results and yeah i’ve uh i’ve included a in the description of this video you can find a link to all of these materials to both the card and then also the slides that we ran through today any any final thoughts that you want to share cliff before we uh wrap up so my vision is that every time a speaker stands before an audience great things are possible so enjoy every communication opportunity thank you very very much for having me now that’s awesome thanks again for joining cliff and i know this was a new format that we use on this channel so let me know down in the comments what you thought do you want cliff to come back to share more thoughts on how to become a more effective communicator and just let me know what you think and whether these are helping you become a more effective communicator if you enjoyed this topic please give this video a thumbs up if you want to see more videos like this in the future make sure you hit that subscribe button that way you’ll get a notification anytime new content like this comes out and lastly if there are any other topics you want to see or any other videos that you want to see in the in the future leave a comment down below and i’ll add it to my list of videos to create all right well thanks for tuning in today i hope to see you next time bye you