Corporate Communications and Leadership Training
New SNP Client Account Manager Kyle Mott talks with Mary Beth Maines, SNP Vice President of Development, to see what advice she has for employers and employees during these tough economic times. Click below to listen in.
- Kyle Mott
I’m the new guy at SNP. While still adjusting to the idea that I will be working with Fortune 500 companies, I have been tapped with the responsibility to drive a video interview series featuring the big-wigs from those very companies.
Now SNP’s got all of the connections we need to find interviewees. If we want top brass from Google, Renn has the number. If we want someone from Oracle, Dave’s got the hookup. Should be simple, right? Align some schedules, bring a camera, and start asking questions.
As I quickly learned, much more goes into it than that.
The critical element is generating the content that the audience (mid to C-level execs) will want to hear. They are extremely busy and unless they see a benefit to watching, they will use their limited time to do something more meaningful.
Well we do know one thing on every executive’s mind right now: weathering this difficult economy. We also know that much can be learned from the approaches that others are taking- as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “Our best thoughts come from others.” Bam! There’s our topic for this series. Let’s interview some leaders about their best practices for managing and motivating in this less than favorable business environment. It’s a topic that’s interesting, urgent, and offers applicable information!
Now how do we spread the word about this series? Where should we post the videos? Not sure. This is a work in progress; I’ll keep you posted.
- Dave Imperiale
This has nothing to do with politics. That would be in poor form. This has to do with non-words, and more specifically, Obama’s “umming.” There is nothing that makes someone sound consistently less confident than umming.
You will notice this almost never happens during his prepared speeches or comments. Not surprising — he’s prepared, knows what he wants to say and has probably practiced a dozen times. It happens every single time he takes Q&A because he has to think off the cuff. So here we have arguably one of the most gifted presidential orators in our history sounding less composed than a well prepared kid on a high school debate team every time he gets a tough question.
What’s particularly maddening is that his communication people don’t force him to fix this. For most people it’s incredibly easy to correct. Three, simple steps:
1. Hear yourself: you can’t correct umming until you hear yourself doing it. Listen for it. If you can’t hear it, record yourself. Once you hear yourself be cognizant of it.
2. Shut up and think: this is the hard part – being comfortable with the silence. But go back and watch one of his answers from last night and imagine him being silent and thinking instead of the long, drawn out umming fits.
3. Speak: after you’ve thought for the 1-2 seconds that feel like a lifetime (only to you), then speak like an intelligent person.
I promise that Favreu, Moran and staff spent days word humping his ten minute address before the questions. While they should probably remove the phrase “ginned up” from his lexicon and vet moronic reporters from asking questions about Arod…for the love of God, coach this guy to keep his mouth shut when he’s thinking about his answers. Or give me two hours with him.
By Renn Vara
Many companies like ours are scrambling right now. It’s easy to understand why. Large corporations, which are our bread and butter, are seriously cutting staff and budgets. The result is the loss of dependable jobs and projects in the foreseeable future. For those of us who weathered the dotcom fallout, we know what’s coming. Instead of panicking, we know the key to surviving and thriving is to provide value to our longtime customers right now.
Here’s my short list:
>> It sounds counter intuitive, but don’t push your services or products. Instead ask questions and then listen intently. Find out what their pain points are, and determine if your products and services can adjust to help them. It not, don’t waste their time. (more…)
By Renn Vara
During my catch up reading over the holidays, I came across a number of articles saying this is a time for execution vs. big ideas. Tough times call for doers vs. thinkers I’m afraid. But that’s only half the story. Real execution requires a consistency of behavior, processes and metrics for gauging results. Not as much fun as big ideas but it works.
In his latest book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell makes the same point about successful people. According to Gladwell, studies show that the 10,000 hour rule really works. This is the idea that it takes 10,000 hours to master any instrument. Well, I guess it’s even more important than that. It seems it makes the difference between someone becoming a professional paid musician vs. a high school music teacher. Talent doesn’t even come into play. It’s all about the fundamentals of practice, practice, practice.
So what does this have to do with our current predicament? Well it seems consistency trumps talent or a brilliant idea. The old adage of muscle memory is true. The more you do something, the better you become at that task or function. (more…)
By Maureen Taylor
Based on what we’re all going through these days, this has to be THE theme for corporate leaders in 2009. Great leaders know they need to tell the truth to their customers, employees, partners and investors. It’s good business. And it’s really good business right now with all the fear and trepidation.
So here are a few suggestions for corporate leaders in 2009:
1. Don’t let your handlers script you. Sure, they can help, but make sure you figure out your message.
2. Understand what your constituency needs to know. Keep your finger on the pulse of what they are thinking and feeling. You need to trust your audience for this truth…and it usually doesn’t come from your direct reports. There is a lot of skirt blowing when people are afraid.
3. Candor, truth, even hard truths, is what your stakeholders desperately need. Give it to them.
4. And finally, realize that this conversation has to be consistent and clear.
Communication for today’s leaders is a hands on role. Now more than ever. It’s the key to true transparency. Take it back.
By Dave Imperiale
I recently sat down with MaryLee Sachs, Global Director of Consumer Marketing at Hill & Knowlton. We talked about how technology and social media is affecting the way H&K communicates internally with employees and externally with their customers.
Despite the economy, H&K had its best year ever in terms of generating top line revenue. But they’re still reorganizing their business to deal with the continuing financial maelstrom in 2009. My guess is New York will be the first to see cars set on fire.
» Given the economy and coming out of best year…full participation marketing
(more…)
By Renn Vara
Cisco recently announced new products to help companies deliver video to their customers and stakeholders. They believe that 90% of Internet traffic will be video in the next few years. That’s a lot of corporate video. Scary.
This got me thinking about an interesting conversation last week with a senior executive from a top security software firm. His team had conducted an internal survey to determine what employees and sales people wanted from their intranet. Most of the usual stuff came up, like refreshing the content, having a good search tool, better categories, and in general making it more user-friendly.
One of the questions asked was whether they’d like to have audio and video content on the site. Only 1 in 5 said they would. This was considerably lower than most any other category. So my customer said his team is now questioning whether to use video for communicating or for product training at all. It got me thinking. (more…)
By Renn Vara
We’re offering our customers free weekly Headliners during the months of December and January.
A Headliner is a two-minute, tactical audio message distributed via the internet and/or mobile device giving direction from the executive or director level. We launched this idea during the dotcom bust, and because it was so effective, we have continued to produce them for our customers.
Headliners take no more than 15 to 30 minutes to create soup-to-nuts, and they’re cost-effective. Whether communicating to a sales force, partners, customers, investors or the overall employee base, leaders find Headliners to be essential to effective leadership. (more…)
By Renn Vara
Good content, strong skills, and an understanding of what the audience needs to hear is the base of any good talk. But a number of other questions come up during our training sessions:
>> How do I maintain eye contact when I have to refer to my notes? The rule is only talk to eyes, but if you do need to refer to notes, always end your thought or idea looking up at a pair of eyes. Think in terms of punctuation and transitions. Look directly at someone as you come to a period, comma or transition.
>> How do I keep my volume up if I’m wearing a lapel mic or am forced to stand at a podium? First of all, do everything possible to get away from the podium. Secondly, keep your volume up because it keeps your energy up. Adjust the distance of the microphone or force the resident audio engineer to adjust it.
>> Can I walk around, and what do I do with my hands? Yes you can. But make sure you’re walking or moving your hands with a purpose. For example, draw visual ideas with your hands. But when there is no purpose, like when you’re listening to an audience question, balance your weight on your flat feet and put your hands by your side while holding good eye contact. And anytime you need to delivery a key idea or thought, stop walking and firmly direct it to a single audience member. (more…)
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