Shut Up and Use One of the Most Powerful Communications Tools We at DPK Public Relations appreciated a recent post by Dan Rockwell, "How to Capture the Opportunity in Awkward Silence," from his Leadership Freak blog. It describes the value of leaders allowing silence in the midst of meetings or interviews. So often, silence in a meeting ratchets up tension and anxiety. It is the third rail of interpersonal communication - touching it can be deadly! However, this negative response to a moment of contemplation can be harmful. It can prompt people to rush and make statements or offer solutions that lack a solid foundation and are ill conceived. Right out of college, I worked briefly selling cars. As is the case with many salespersons, we were coached to capitalize on the discomfort created by silence. Make a closing statement and …
Many Thanks to Clients, Extended Team Members and Friends for a Very Lucky 13! Looking back on our first 13 years in business, it is amazing to reflect on the change in what we do. When we first hung a shingle in 2003, the concept of "social media" was not well defined or understood and RIM's Blackberry was the dominant mobile device, offering a hint of what smartphones would become. That said, the writing was clearly on the wall. We were de-emphasizing traditional media relations and urging clients to incorporate interactive elements into their websites. In 2003, social networks were in their infancy, with MySpace, Friendster and Linkedin all launching in 2002-2003. For us at DPK Public Relations and other public relations counselors, this was a period of experimentation. I remember Web marketing expert and client Ed Schipul speaking to …
Big purposeful gestures help you stand out and are immediately memorable It has been five years since we posted the article, "Fundamentals of Public Speaking: Using Nonverbal Cues," so it is overdue for us to drill a little deeper into the idea of purposeful hand gestures. In that article, we encouraged presenters to use their hands to reinforce their ideas. In the same way that a picture can help to quickly explain what otherwise might be an overly complex idea, meaningful gestures can serve as visual aids to help the audience understand and remember important points in a story. We are careful to describe these gestures as purposeful to distinguish them from gestures that lack purpose. Since public speaking inherently puts us outside our usual comfort zone, many speakers lapse into self-destructive bad habits that make them feel a bit …
Define what a successful TV interview would look like and build from there We were surprised to find that an article we wrote 10 years ago on the subject of how to effectively prepare for TV interviews had recently risen again to become our most visited page on this website. We can't explain why things like that happen, but upon reviewing the content of the piece it occurred to us that an update is in order. So here are the new and improved top 10 tips for how to prepare for a TV interview. Imagine what success looks like. Answer these questions: 1) What do I want my audience to know? 2) What do I want my audience to believe? 3) What do I want my audience to do? If you answer these three questions, you have set clear and …
Preparation and Practice Ensure Your Public Speaking Performance is Powerful! Every aspect of a presentation should be planned and rehearsed. We call this preparation and practice -- two of the "3 Ps". The third "P" is performance, the realization you can't just sleepwalk through a presentation -- you must unlock your inner performer. Preparation starts with knowing as much as you can about the audience, which leads to the development of messages that are built around the audience's interests. If your presentation is going to educate, engage and mobilize your audience, it has to focus primarily on the wants and needs of your audience. If it's about you, you're sunk. Preparation for a presentation stretches beyond defining what you will say and includes how you will say it. This should start with asking if you want the information interpreted positively. …
Don't Give Your Competitor the Valuable Publicity You Earned. Keep It for Yourself! When we conduct mock interviews during a media training session, we often ask interview subjects to name two or three competitors who they admire. There are numerous iterations of essentially the same question. It can be naming the competitors who are keeping them up at night. Or perhaps it can be a question about the competitors who pose the greatest challenge over the next three to five years. It’s all a trick to see if the spokesperson being trained can be lured into naming competitors at all. We have found that it is common for an untrained spokesperson to fall for this simple trick and start rattling off names. Sometimes they speak more naturally and glowingly about the competition than they do about their own products and …
Is the candidate re-writing the rules or simply a celebrity getting special treatment? For weeks we have been trying to understand the implications -- if there are any -- of the phenomenon of Donald Trump's success to date in his pursuit of the Republican nomination. As has been well documented, Mr. Trump has violated many of the fundamental rules of public speaking and media interactions, yet he has established and held onto a solid base of support. Some aspecs of his communications strategy seem pretty straightforward and are rooted in polling that suggests a portion of voters find conventional political behavior repulsive: He espouses a hatred for many journalists, which excites those who distrust the media and believe bias unfairly colors the way news is presented. A September 2015 Gallup poll found that only four in 10 Americans say they …
Survey Suggests PR's Post-Media-Meltdown Evolution is Accelerating I have to admit, I’m not wild about the name chosen by Marketwired for its survey examining the continuing shifts in public relations. Floating the question, "Are You a #ContentMachine?" is unsettling, especially considering the advances being made in automating content creation. That said, the survey findings reinforce what I’ve been witnessing during the past 15 years and especially the past 30 months. The diminishing power and influence of traditional media has elevated the importance of PR as a strategic content creation engine. As with most blockbuster developments, this latest trend is not really new at all. Nearly three years ago I helped client Aaron Long with the article, “Picking and Choosing: Content Strategy in the Age of Opportunity Overload,” published in The Public Relations Strategist. What is new is the elevated importance …
Succeeding in news interviews comes down to preparation, practice and performance I was surprised when I reviewed the Google Analytics report for this site that an article I posted more than nine years ago, "Top 10 Tips for Preparing for a TV Interview," was again one of the most popular articles here. Not sure how or why that's the case, but everything changes over the course of a decade -- I don't know anyone who still uses a Blackberry! -- and I wanted to provide an update for those who are seeking PR advice prior to conducting a video interview. Before we get too far into this, let's pause for this brief commercial announcement: Contact DPK Public Relations to arrange Media Interview Skills Training today or call 800.596.8708. The biggest thing that has changed over that time is the rise of …
Want to be unforgettable? Start by dumping all but three or four key messages. An inconvenient truth that constrains the success of every spokesperson is the limited ability of the audience to remember. Humans do a lot of things well, and one of them is taking in urgently needed information about threats and opportunities. In order to take in and process that information, our brain is wired to immediately forget information that either isn’t clearly understood or isn’t perceived as important. Your audience isn't aware of this, but they are constantly assessing everything you tell them. If it isn't perceived as important, they are unlikely to remember what you want them to remember. If it takes work for them to understand, they are wired to let the information drift away. First, some background. Working memory, or short-term memory, is everything …