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How to Wow by Frances Cole Jones is about proven strategies for presenting your ideas, persuading your audience and perfecting your image.
Loaded with key precepts on personal communication she gives chapter by chapter tips on how to make it work in the every day life of business. Such as... introducing yourself with impact, meetings and interviews, speeches, power point, writing and social interactions. These are ruddy communication skills that make you stand out as a business leader.
How to Wow is organized in a way you can use it as a reference source to get timely business savvy tips for a specific event you are about to become engaged.
Here's a few of her tips, but by no means exhaustive of all the down-to-earth business experiences Frances covers.
Face to Face communications
Know the 7-38-55 rule. 7% of influence comes from your words, 35% your tone of voice, and 55% your body language. Remember the James Bond memorable line. "My name is Bond... James Bond." The pause after Bond makes it zing. When someone asks you how you are doing.. Avoid the "incredible, great" reply. Be more creative and paint a picture of what great may be like. More isn't better, better is better. And learn to breathe from your diaphragm... sounds better and calms nerves.
When one-on-one the eyes have it.
Watch eyes, look into eyes, read the eyes. When talking to someone state the obvious. Because it is obvious, many times it may not be stated because everyone thinks they know. The "I'm just jokin" comment may not be a joke. People say this to cover a truth in what they say so not to overtly offend you. What we dislike in others may be what we dislike about ourselves. People may give away their true colors by what they say about others. Follow up and stay in touch, especially when you say you will.
In the Meeting
Hand your handouts out at the end of the meeting. They will read ahead and not follow your build up in the presentation. Use them as a summary of what you said, to hand out at the end, so they can review what you did say. Keep your hands where everyone can see them. It says you are not hiding anything. When others are speaking, look at them like you would gaze into the eyes of someone special on your first date. When others talk give them that great-first-date look.
Always be clear on: the situation you are covering, the mission, the execution strategies, administration needs, and the communication pipeline you take on every project.
The Interview
Get there early and be in the vicinity early. Announce yourself about 5 minutes before your interview. Pause before you answer a question. In difficult questions use this as time to think. This makes you come off as a thorough, thoughtful thinker.
Ask, but in a way that shows respect for ourselves and the other person. Know your walk away number. Keep your sense of humor, and followup promptly, professionally, with polish.
Speeches... stand and deliver
Check out the physical environment. Note acoustics, ability to be seen and heard. When you are given a Mike instead of tapping on it, just ask first if everyone can hear you. If you are in a long room without a mike, ask the same.
The speech everyone hears and remembers follows the Rule of 3. Have 3 main points and 3 good examples for each point. Most people can't remember past three. The examples help them make a tie into their lives.
When you plan to open up for questions, play it safe by having someone planted in the audience to ask a first question. Before you give a speech, tell them you will be taking questions... so they can make a note of it during the speech.
When you finish, no matter what the response, act pleased. Walk away with a confidence you said what you needed to say. This makes the audience sense an importance to what you said.
Keeping power in your powerpoint
Come early and pre-setup the room and make sure everything works. Arrange the room so everyone can see, note the best place for you to stand and be heard. Use the 10/20/30 Rule. Show no more than 10 slides, no longer than 20 minutes, no smaller than 30 point type.
Keep most important information on the right. People go left to right in how their eyes flow and accept as truth more what is on the right. Right means good.
Put it in Writing
Emails should communicate facts and figures. Attempts at emotion in email can backfire. Avoid the ALL CAPs and extra exclamation marks!!!!!. People take these as yelling.
Your resume should be clean, concise, active in language, concrete in detail and tailored to your recipient. When using a cover letter, use the one-two punch. It's not to tell the whole story but get the reader to get into what you want to say. State "why I am writing you, what I bring to the party." Write, review, rewrite.
In a speech, bullet your key points and don't write word for word.
Making the most of Social interactions
Many avoid social interactions in that they may come across too pushy when introducing themselves and talking about what they do, or seem opportunistic or needy. Although skills in these settings are very important to advance life and business opportunities.
Count your assets
You have more to offer than what you may think when you stand comparing yourself to others in the room. Get excited before you enter the room... turn dread into anticipation. Introduce yourself. Use Mr. and Mrs. when talking to others. Use mutual friends to introduce you, but if they are not there you need to introduce yourself. You can never error by being too polite. And when you introduce yourself don't do a full frontal assault. Create interest, then ask to followup in a few days.
Verbal finesse
When in doubt of a person's intentions, ask them to clarify...actively listen. Your word choice is critical. Use the word "situation" when discussing a problem. Don't react to hostile questions. Pause, repeat your top line message.
Respond to "what if" with "what is." Always ask for more clarification, then redirect when necessary. When not knowing how to respond, commend the other person for an interesting point of view.
For more on Frances Cole Jones, Cole Media Management, and How to Wow:
http://www.howtowow-thebook.com/
The Spirit is a powerful, pinpointing force for speaking to others. Here is a comprehensive summary of how to walk with precision in Spirit in all you do.
An excerpt from The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit by R.A. Torrey
True prayer is prayer in the Spirit (i.e., the prayer that the Holy Spirit inspires and directs). The prayer in which the Holy Spirit leads us is the prayer "according the will of God." (Rom 8:27) When we ask anything according to God's will, we know that He hears us, and we know that He has granted the things that we ask. (see 1 John 5:14-15.)
We may know it is ours at the moment when we pray just as surely as we know it afterwards when we have it in our actual possession.
But how can we know the will of God when we pray?
In two ways.
First of all, by what is written in His Word. All the promises in the Bible are sure, and if God promises anything in the Bible, we may be sure it is His will to give us that thing.
But there are many things that we need which are not specifically promised in the Word and still even in that case it is our privilege to know the will of God, for it is the work of the Holy Spirit to teach us God's will and lead us out in prayer along the line of God's will.
Some object to the Christian doctrine of prayer, for they say that it teaches that we can go to God in our ignorance and change His will and subject His Infinite wisdom to our erring foolishness, but that is not the Christian doctrine of prayer at all. The Christian doctrine of prayer is that it is the believer's privilege to be taught by the Spirit of God himself to know what the will of God is and not to ask for the things that our foolishness would prompt us to ask for but to ask for things that the never-erring Spirit of God prompts us to ask for.
True prayer is prayer "in the Spirit" (Eph. 6:18), that is, the prayer which the Spirit inspires and directs.
When we come into God's presence, we should recognize our infirmities: our ignorance of what is best for us, our ignorance of what we should pray for, and our ignorance of how we should pray for it. In the consciousness of our utter inability to pray correctly, we should look up to the Holy Spirit to teach us to pray and cast ourselves utterly upon Him to direct our prayers and to discover our desires and guide our utterance of them. There is no place where we need to recognize our ignorance more than we do in prayer.
Rushing heedlessly into God's presence and asking the first thing that comes into our minds, or that some other thoughtless one asks us to pray for, is not praying "in the Holy Ghost" (Jude 1:20) and is not true prayer. We must wait for the Holy Spirit and surrender ourselves to Him. The prayer that God the Holy Spirit inspires is the prayer that God the Father answers.
The longings which the Holy Spirit begets in our hearts are often too deep for utterance, too deep apparently for clear and definite comprehension on the part of the believer himself in whom the Spirit is working: "The Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." (Rom. 8:26)
God Himself "searches the hearts" to know what "the mind of the Spirit" is (Rom. 8:27) in these unuttered and unutterable longings. But God does know what the mind of the Spirit is. He does know what these Spirit-given longings which we cannot put into words mean even if we do not. These longing are "according to the will of God" (Rom. 8:27), and God grants them. It is in this way that it comes to pass that God's able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. (Eph. 3:20)
There are other times when the Spirit's leadings are so clear that we pray with the Spirit and with the understanding also. (1 Cor. 14:15) We distinctly understand what it is that the Holy Spirit leads us to pray for.
That we "Lack Wisdom."
We must be conscious of and fully admit our own inability to decide wisely. Here is where we often fail to receive God's wisdom. We think we are able to decide for ourselves or at least we are not ready to admit our own utter inability to decide. There must be an entire renunciation of the wisdom of the flesh.
We must really desire to know God's way and be willing at any cost to do God's will.
This is implied in the word, "ask". The asking must be sincere, and if we are not willing to do God's will, whatever it may be, at any cost, the asking is not sincere. This is a point of fundamental importance. There is nothing that goes so far to make our mind's clear in the discernment of the will of God as revealed by His Spirit as an absolutely surrendered will.
Here we find the reason why men oftentimes do not know God's will and do not have the Spirit's guidance. They are not willing to do whatever the Spirit leads at any cost. It is He who wants to do His will who will know not only of the doctrine but His daily duty. Men oftentimes come to me and say, "I cannot find out the will of God," but when I put to them the question, "are you willing to do the will of God at any cost?" They admit that the are not. The way that is very obscure when we hold back from an absolute surrender to God becomes as clear as day when we make that surrender. We must definitely "ask" for guidance.
It is not enough to desire; it is not enough to be willing to obey; we must ask, definitely ask God to show the way. We must confidently expect guidance.
"Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering."(James 1:6). There are many who cannot find the way, though they ask God to show it to them, simply because they have not the absolutely undoubting expectation that God will show them the way. God promises to show it if we expect it confidently. When you come to God in prayer to show you what to do, know for a certainty that He will show you. In what way He will show you, He does not tell but he promises that he will show you and that is enough.
We must follow step-by-step as the guidance comes.
As said before, just how it will come, no one can tell, but it will come. Often times only a step will be made clear at a time; that is all we need to know-the next step. Many are in darkness because they do not know and cannot find what God would have them do next week or next month or next year.
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