There have been many important speeches from presidents of the United States throughout my career as an executive speech coach.   But I’ve never watched one like tonight’s speech by President Bush.

It was one of the only presidential speeches that I would categorize as a speech which needed to educate us. Only by educating us, could the president PERSUADE us that his plan was the right one for these dire economic circumstances.

Our individual and collective financial futures are at stake and most of us couldn’t tell what a mortgage backed security was if it was Fed Ex-ed to our front door.   But mortgage-backed securities, as well as other complex financial terms and issues, needed to be explained to us in simple terms. It could have been done much better.

Let’s analyze the speech from the 3 questions I always use with my clients:

1.  Has the speaker given us a good road map, so we know where the speech is going?

On the whole, Bush’s speech was well organized.   He began with a brief overview of the problem and then acknowledged that we citizens wanted to know the answers to 3 questions:

• How did the US reach this point?
• How will the proposed financial bailout work?
• What does it mean to my financial future?

Good questions that were repeated each time he got to that section.

2.    Are there appropriate “speech landmarks” along the road, so that we can comprehend the information in a way that is memorable?

In this case, no.   Although it was well written, it screamed for visual aids.   This information is way too complex to rely only on words to tell the story.

This wasn’t a radio speech.  It was a television speech.   So how could his speechwriters forget to use visuals?

You don’t see a TV news anchor explain complex financial information without some graphs.

Most people rely on visuals to absorb and process information.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get that option this evening.

3.    Is the auditory trip filled with interesting highs and lows, twists and turns, to make the voice easy to follow?

In this case, yes.  BUT…and a big BUT it is…President Bush spoke very quickly, which was unusual in itself.  BUT when the information is complex, it doesn’t hurt to slow down or repeat information.

Recommendation to the White House: If you want to persuade American citizens, you might want to sharpen your PowerPoint skills.   For a $700 billion dollar bailout, there must be a few extra bucks to hire a graphic designer.

If you want some PowerPoint tips, visit my website and check out “Easy Ideas for the PowerPoint-Impaired.” I may send an extra copy of it to the president.

http://real-impact.com/learning/learning.htm

Jean Palmer Heck

www.Real-Impact.com

Sarah Palin, the Republican Vice Presidential candidate, took the stage Wednesday night and wowed everyone in her audience, including many watching her on TV—like me.   Her speech ranked up there with those of Joe Biden, Fred Thompson and Michele (yes, Michele, not Barack) Obama.

Just as Joe Biden set the stakes high for his “boss,” Barack Obama, to overwhelm the audience with substance and style, Palin has set the stakes high for John McCain to take the crowd on a trip into the future of our country.  I don’t think Obama’s speech lived up to that.  Will McCain’s?

Palin showed strength, warmth, and humor in a wonderfully worded speech.  Her comments were naturally spoken, not shouted like way too many political speakers. I give her an A++ .

HINT:  Watch how she uses the teleprompter.   Some speakers say a sentence and then turn to the next prompter, say another sentence and turn again.  Their patterned action makes them look like robots.  Palin gracefully slides between the 3 prompters.

HINT:  When you write you speech, for the TelePrompTer, put it in 16 point font or 14 point bold font, in upper and lower case letters.  The old broadcast standard of writing in all caps is too difficult to read.  (I’ll never know why that became a standard.)

Also observe Palin’s great facial expression.   It adds to the warmth and variety in her voice.

As good as she was, her show was stolen by 7-year-old Piper, who, while holding her baby brother in her arms, licked her own hands and then tried plastering his cowlick hair down.

If you’d like an analysis of your speaking style, please email me at  Jean@Real-Impact.com, or call me in the U.S. at 317-873-3772.

Disclaimer:  This is a NON-partisan blog.  Its purpose is to point out the good, the bad and the ugly of giving speeches.

Day 1 of GOP convention

Best speaker:  Fred Thompson.   Worst speaker:  Bill Gross

If you have any uncommitted time, google “Fred Thompson’s GOP Convention Speech” and watch it.  He is a master, as you might expect from this senator-turned-actor-turned-presidential-candidate-turned-supporting-politician.  He gets an A ++.

Here are the positives you need to think about in your speeches before large crowds.  And some of these pointers might surprise you.

1.    He used “but,” “uh,” and “and” throughout his speech.  While there are speech coaches worldwide who will tell you to eliminate those words from your speech persona (and I do, too, if they’re an annoying habit) … his speech sounded so conversational with these 3 tiny words included.   Reason: There are very few people who never use these words in every day conversation.

Surprised?  These little touches show humanity.  I’d guess that the But’s & And’s were added to the text of his speech.  HINT:  Very easy to add “but,” “and,” “well,” “so,” & “therefore” to your speech text at the beginning of sentences.

The Uh’s were probably a part of his own “acting” technique to make it sound like he was speaking extemporaneously.   HINT:  It takes practice to be able to use “uh” and “um” effectively to give that effect.

2.    He coughed and wiped his lips with his hand.  This was good.  Surprised?  In its analysis, MSNBC made it sound like his coughs were mistakes that should have been technically corrected by giving him a microphone cough switch.  Come on!  This cough was real. It was NOT a nervous habit.  He obviously had some kind of tickle in his throat and probably spit while he was talking.  Ever happen to you?   HINT:  If you are a confident speaker, you can get away with this.  If it is a nervous habit, you’d better overcome it. Videotape your speeches and see if it is a problem for you.

3.    Lots of humor throughout the speech.

And I can say without fear of contradiction that she (Sarah Palin) is the only nominee in the history of either party who knows how to properly field dress a moose … with the possible exception of Teddy Roosevelt.

Also here tonight is John’s 96-year-old mother, Roberta. All I’ve got to say is that if Roberta McCain had been the McCain captured by the North Vietnamese, they would have surrendered.

Now, John’s father was a bit of a rebel, too. In his first two semesters at the Naval Academy, he managed to earn 333 demerits. Unfortunately, John later saw that as a record to be beaten.

4.  He moved from funny to serious very well.

Humor first:

He never violated the honor code. However, in flight school in Pensacola, he did drive a Corvette and date a girl who worked in a bar as an exotic dancer under the name of Marie, the Flame of Florida.

Thompson slowed down the pace of his words, lowered his pitch and gently eased us into the description of horrible events.

And the reason I’m telling you these things, is that, apparently, this mixture of rebellion and honor helped John McCain survive the next chapter of his life:  John McCain was preparing to take off from the USS Forrestal for his sixth mission over Vietnam, when a missile from another plane accidentally fired and hit his plane.

5.    He also knew that it was important to bring the audience back up after relating somber/serious/emotional part of a speech.  HINT:  a semi-funny part of the story helps the transition.

He was beaten for not giving information during interrogations. When his captors wanted the names of other pilots in his squadron, John gave them the names of the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers.

6.    He used irony to make his point.   WARNING:  Brain research shows that older people don’t process irony as well as they did in younger years.  Know the age of your audience members.

Now our opponents tell you not to worry about their tax increases. They tell you they are not going to tax your family. No, they’re just going to tax “businesses”! So unless you buy something from a “business”, like groceries or clothes or gasoline … or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small “business”, don’t worry … it’s not going to affect you.

7.    He made use of a technique all of us can and should use—visual analogies.  In this speech:  Bucket of money = bucket of water.   Money = water.

They say they (Democrats) are not going to take any water out of your side of the bucket, just the “other” side of the bucket! That’s their idea of tax reform.

8.    Lots of variety in the pacing of his sentences.  Lots of variety in the pitch of his sentences.  Lots of variety in the length of his sentences.   Just listen to the first minute of his speech and you’ll understand what “vocal variety” means.

Listen to this part of his speech where he changed the pace to rev the crowd up.

This man, John McCain is not intimidated by what the polls say or by what is politically safe or popular.  (Thompson speeds up here.) At a point when the war in Iraq was going badly and the public lost confidence, John stood up and called for more troops. And now we are winning.

Here’s the example of how he went from complete sentences to phrases.

So then they put him in solitary confinement…for over two years.
Isolation … incredible heat beating on a tin roof. A light bulb in his cell burning 24 hours a day.
Boarded-up cell windows blocking any breath of fresh air.
The oppressive heat causing boils the size of baseballs under his arms.
The outside world limited to what he could see through a crack in a door.
We hear a lot of talk about hope.
John McCain knows about hope. That’s all he had to survive on.

9.  Finally, he used a very tried and true technique; he asked the audience questions.  HINT: By asking questions, you re-engage the audience and make them part of your solution.

It’s pretty clear there are two questions we will never have to ask ourselves, “Who is this man?” and “Can we trust this man with the Presidency?”

On second thought, I’ll give him an A+++.
More tomorrow on lessons learned from speeches…and a  review of the worst speaker on Day 1 with hints on what YOU should avoid.

If you’d like an analysis of your speaking style, please email me at  Jean@Real-Impact.com, or call me in the U.S. at 317-873-3772.