[MUSIC] And I was getting a broadcast degree, and
I recall coming back from an assignment. JD would appreciate this. Nice Italian professor of mine, very nice. When you, when you have a name like Carmine you get along with Italian
professors really well. But JD, I came back and I didn't have a
story because there was no story. At least that's what I told the prof, and
he yelled at me and he just got into me and grilled
me. There's always a story, Gallo! There's always a story. That advice served me really well in my
career as a journalist at CNN, as my, in my books, in my writing, and certainly in my career today as a communications
consultant. There is always a story. So, all of you have a story to tell. Some of you are better than others at
telling your story, but you all have the ability to tell a better story, to share your ideas, to inspire people with those
stories. And so I think as future business leaders,
you need to think about how am I going to inspire
people. How do I inspire my team? How do I inspire investors to back my
products? How do I inspire people to really rally
around my ideas and my initiatives? How do you do that? I believe that there are three components
to inspiration. An inspiring message has to be
understandable, memorable, and emotional. You have to have all three. Once all three elements take place, th,
that's where inspiration occurs. You need to reach someone's head and their
heart. Now how do you do that? How do you do that through a business
pitch? How do you do that in a simple PowerPoint presentation or a conversation with a
professor or an investor? How do you truly inspire people? What I'd like to do today is spend the
next 30 minutes or so revealing some very specific techniques
that you can use today, right after this workshop, to inspire your classmates,
your professors, your stakeholders, your team members, anybody in which you need to
persuade them to take some sort of action. So today is all about inspiration. Presentation skills, communication, that's
how we get there, but it's all about inspiration, how do you inspire the
people in your life. Because that's the definition of
leadership. True leaders inspire people to a bigger
vision. How do you do that? That's what we'll talk about today. Before I reveal the techniques that I
think all of you can apply, I do need to talk about the
foundation of all great communications. The one technique, per se, that I, I, I
can't teach. You can listen to the rest of this
session. You can listen to all of the methods that I'm going to teach you and really apply
them. But if you don't have passion for your
topic, its not gonna make any difference. Passion is everything. You cannot inspire unless you're inspired
yourself. Bryce mentioned I wrote the presentation
Secrets of Steve Jobs. One of the most astonishing things about
Steve Jobs as a great corporate communicator was that he wasn't necessarily passionate about
computers. He was passionate about creating tools to
help you unleash your personal creativity. He was passionate about building tools
that would change the world, and he wore that passion on his
sleeve. Passion is contagious. I learned a lot about passion from this
man, Howard Schultz. I learned a lot about passion and
communications. I interviewed Howard Schultz for a book I
wrote several years ago. And I recall having about an hour
conversation with him and rarely did he mention the word coffee [LAUGH]
because he wasn't selling coffee. He was selling a workplace that treats
people with dignity and respect. He was selling customer service. He was selling employee engagement. That's what he was passionate about. It wasn't about the coffee. Watch this clip from CNBC. Listen to how a great communicator and a
successful leader like Howard Schultz communicates
the vision behind his brand. And also, watch for the reaction of the TV
host because he had the exact same reaction I did when I
interviewed Howard Schultz. Starbucks in a sense has become the
quintessential experience brand, and the experience comes to life by
our people. We've been able to, I think, create a
system of attracting, retaining great people, building a
training system that replicates what we do. And I think the only competitive
advantage, and this is, you know, an anathema compared to a tech company, is
we have no patent. We have no secret sauce whatsoever. The only competitive advantage we have is
the relationship we've built with our people, and the relationship they
have built with the customer. So when we go to. >> You mentioned competitive advantage. You haven't mentioned the word coffee. Not yet. >> Your competitive advantage is not your
coffee. >> Well, well I'll get to the. >> You just said, your competitive
advantage, I agree with you, is the. >> Yeah. >> Relationship with your people and the people with their people with their
customers,. >> And, and in fact, if you ask me what business we're in, we're in the
people business. We're not in the coffee business. >> Mm-hm. >> Of course, we are as a product, but
we're in the people business. 135,000 people, hiring 300 people a day,
serving 40 million customers a week, it's all
human connection. It's a sense of humanity and the sense of
community that we built in our stores. So, at the end of the day what we've been
able to do is crack the code on being able to create an
environment where people are treated well, they're
respected, they're valued. Customers come in and they recognize this
is a different kind of environment, almost an
oasis. >> Almost an oasis. What is he talking about? What is he really selling? You need to ask yourself what is it that
I'm passionate about, and you need to dig deep
to find that. I love at the, at the end of one of Steve
Jobs' great presentations, one of his last presentations, he said it's the
intersection of technology and liberal arts that makes our
hearts sing. And so now I ask clients that question. I don't even ask them what you're, what
are you passionate about? Now it's what makes your heart sing? The answer to that question is a lot different than the answer to, what do you
make? What do you do? How is it different? That's a much more inspiring answer. So you need to dig deep and identify what
am I passionate about and what really makes
my heart sing. And don't be afraid to express your
emotion about it. Passion is contagious. I'm not gonna go into the studies, but
there are now numerous studies which show people who are passionate and enthusiastic
and excited, guess what, it does rub off on people. Be passionate, that's number one. But now let me reveal several techniques
that you can use today to make your everyday messages, your messages
your Powerpoints, your pitches, a little more
inspiring. So let's talk about the role that you're
going to play as a communicator and as a leader. I'm gonna break this up into three acts. Act one, how do we make it understandable? How do we make our message clear, easy to
get, understandable? There are a number of techniques. We could talk about it all day, but there is one in particular that I do want to
mention. I did talk about this two years ago when I talked to the graduate students here at
Stanford. It's as relevant today as it was two years
ago, creating Twitter friendly headlines. I love Twitter as an exercise. Twitter, how many of you are on Twitter
right now? Okay. Okay many, more of you. Every time I ask that question of
students, like, every year, more and more and more. My Twitter handle is just my name, if you'd like to follow me it's
@carminegallo. So go ahead and follow me. I'd love to have a conversation with you
on, on Twitter. Okay. So how many characters does Twit, does
Twitter allow? You know, 140. Not very much. One sentence. If you can't describe what you do in one
sentence of 140 characters, do me a favor. Go back to the drawing board. Let's try again. You need to give people the big picture. The brain craves meaning before detail. This is one of those big revelations I
learned in communications theory. And I learned if from John Medina at the University of Washington, who said,
Carmine, when primitive man ran into a tiger, he did not
ask how many teeth does the tiger have? [LAUGH] He asked, will it eat me? Should I run? Big picture before details. [LAUGH] Big picture. What do you do in 140 characters or less? When Wendy Kopp started Teach for America
in 1989, she told me that she had a one sentence vision to
reduce educational inequities. And that was the vision statement that she
presented to investors and stakeholders. It served her very well. More than 20 years later, that's still the
vision, to reduce educational inequities. Today more than 30,000 students have gone
through her program teaching underprivileged kids
around the country. Now some of you would know better than I,
but I believe, unless I'm wrong, I believe that Teach for America is the number one college
recruiter. Is it not? One of the top college recruiters Yeah, I
mean very successful. But again, how do you describe something
to investors? She had to go out and get investors. This was a Princeton project. Okay it was a, it was a dissertation. She had to go out and get investors
excited about her idea, but they needed to see the big
picture first. What was she trying to accomplish? Here in the Bay area when Sergey Brin and, Larry Page, walked into Sequoia Capital,
they had one sentence. One sentence and the investor said they
got it immediately. Google provides access to the world's
information in one click. An investor from Sequoia Capital told me
that in one sentence, we got it. [NOISE] Big picture before details, and
that was about ten words. Before Twitter, an investor told me that
he wants a ten word summary of what you do. He said, if you can't describe what you do in ten words, I'm not interested in
investing. That was before Twitter. Now, I think it's more relevant to keep it
to about 140 characters. You should probably get to know this guy. He's, he's changed all of your lives. His name is Ellie Herrari. That's me and Eli when we were on a
conference room working on some messaging. Eli Harari is the pioneer of flash. He created flash memory, so the memory
that enables all of your iPads to work, your Mp3's to work now and
your, and your laptops. You guys use digital cameras? All of you have him to thank for those
digital cameras because he invented the flash memory cards that go
inside those digital cameras. I bring this up because people at the
highest levels of corporate business today, people who
are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars,
are constantly thinking about how do I communicate the vision behind my
company more effectively. Getting back to Twitter friendly
headlines, this was a workshop. We were working on it. He had to give a huge conference in front
of all, the analysts. It's called Analyst Days. So every year public companies give one
day where they talk to all the analysts. And we were going around the room, and I asked everyone for a Twitter friendly
headline. And, of course, some of the engineers were
pushing back. You know, they said now we've got way too
much, way too much information. We can't just distill it into, into 140
characters. And Eli said no, wait a minute. Wait a minute. The analysts in the room that day don't realize that flash will be bigger than
they think. This was 2009 before the iPad came out. Now Flash is in the iPad. He was absolutely right. The stock has gone straight up sin, over
the last few years. He, Eli was right, but the analysts in the room didn't quite appreciate that at
the time. So that was his Twitter friendly headline. In the coming decade Flash will be bigger
than you think. Guess what happened? Within three hours, as the rest of the
analysts conference was going on, there were
actually analysts tweeting. They were tweeting this. Flash will be bigger than you think. What was the headline on a lot of the
blogs? [LAUGH] Flash will be bigger than you
think! What did we do? We controlled the message. We reframed the message, but you have, you can't control the message if it's
confusing and convoluted. So how do you make it clear? How do you make it understandable? Big picture before details. Apple and Steve Jobs, they do this all the
time. And I sti, I still like to talk about
Apple because I believe that as far as the corporations
are concerned, they get communications. They understand creating compelling
messages. What was the iPod in 2001? It was an ultra-portable mp3 music player
that put a thousand songs in your pocket. In one sentence [SOUND] I got it
immediately. 2007, Apple reinvented the phone. In 2008 Apple introduced MacBook Air. In a sentence, the world's thinnest
Notebook. The worlds thinnest notebook, what a great
headline. It was consistent on all of their press
releases, on the in store signage. Steve Jobs said this during a
presentation. That's all you need to know. It's the world's thinnest notebook. If you want to learn more, go to the website, but in one sentence, [SOUND] you
get it immediately. Every time you, you introduce an
initiative, an idea, a product, what's the one sentence
description for it? What's the big picture before the details? Last year for Forbes, I had this really fun opportunity to interview
Richard Branson. And we talked about communications, and he
said, Carmine when I get pitched. And, you know, I, I guess I didn't fully
appreciate that Virgin Group is made up of, like, 300
companies. He gets pitched all the time. He said when someone pitches me, it better
be clear and concise and easy to grasp. And then he gave me the sentence that
became the headline for my article. He said, Carmine, if it can't fit on the
back of an envelope, it's rubbish. If your message can't fit on the back of
an envelope, it's rubbish. So don't be rubbish. Create that headline. Ask yourself, how do I explain my idea in
140 characters or less. Takes a lot of discipline to do that. A lot of discipline. But think about how would my audience
actually tweet it. So that's one method to make your message
understandable. After that though you need to flush it
out, don't you? You need to sell the benefit. You need to actually be specific and tell
me, why should I care? Now this is another question that I
learned to answer in journalism school. The one question that your audience is
going to have, why should I care? How is it going to improve my life? Steve Jobs was brilliant at this, and
that's what initially gave me the idea to start writing about
Steve Jobs. Nobody did it better than Steve Jobs, and
the beauty is that a lot of his presentations are still on
YouTube so we can learn from him. To this day. 2007, introduces the iPhone. In two minutes, in two minutes, he reveals
the problem that most people had, a problem
that people didn't even realize they had. That was the genius of Steve Jobs. That was his vision. He actually could convince you that you
had a problem you didn't even know you had. Not a lot of people can do that, that's
why [INAUDIBLE] he's hard to replace. But, watch this clip, in 2 minutes, he introduces a problem, then offers a
solution. And, and it makes some very specific
benefits behind that solution. So, here's why you should care. About a new phone from Apple. >> Now, why do we need a revolutionary
user interface? I mean, here is four smartphones, right. Motorola Q, the Blackberry, Palm Treo,
Nokia E62. The usual suspects. And, what's wrong with their user
interfaces? Well, the problem with them is really sort
of in the bottom 40 there. It's this stuff right here. They all have these keyboards that are
there whether you need them or not to be there. And they all have these control buttons
that are fixed in plastic and are the same for
every application. Well, every application wants a slightly
different user interface. A slightly optimized set of buttons just
for it. And what happens if you think of a great
idea six months from now? You can't run around and add a button to
these things. They are already shipped. So what do you do? It doesn't work because the buttons and
controls can't change. They can't change for each application. And they can't change down the road if you
think of another great idea you wanted to add to
this project. Well, how do you solve this? Hm. It turns out we have solved it. We solved it in computers 20 years ago. We solved it with a bitmap screen that
could display anything we want, put any user
interface up. And a pointing device. We solved it with the mouse. Alright. We solve this problem. So, how are we gonna take this to a mobile
device? What we're gonna do is get rid of all
these buttons, and just make a giant screen [NOISE]
[SOUND] ,a giant screen. Now, how are we gonna communicate this? We don't wanna carry around a mouse,right? So what are we gonna do? Oh, a stylus, right? We're gonna use a stylus. No. [LAUGH] No. Who wants a stylus? You have to get them and put them away and
you lose them. Yuck! Nobody wants a stylus. So let's not use a stylus. We're gonna use the best pointing device
in the world. We're gonna use a pointing device that
we're all born with. We're born with ten of them. These are fingers. [LAUGH] We're gonna touch this with our
fingers, and we have invented a new technology called
multi-touch, which is phenomenal. [COUGH] It works like magic. [LAUGH] You don't need a stylus, it's far
more accurate than any touch display that's
ever been shipped. It ignores unintended touches, it's super
smart, you can do multi-finger gestures on it. And boy have we patented it [LAUGH]. [UNKNOWN] You know, I'm glad everybody is
laughing. Because he makes it funny! When was the last time you actually had
fun delivered in a PowerPoint? Yeah, he uses Apple Keynote, but you get
the idea. When is the last time you actually had fun
delivered in a presentation? Not too often. You see what I mean by passion, enthusiasm
comes across? But this is hard to do, that simplicity of
communication is very difficult to do. Everything I'm talking to you about today. You can't just turn this in a few minutes. You really have to think through, what's
my story? How do I make it understandable? What's my Twitter-Friendly headline? Twitter-Friendly headlines, sometimes, can
take hours to develop. I've worked with a group of executives, over some very, very complex technology
and information. You could do it. No matter how complex your idea is, you can actually create a one-sentence
description for it. But that could take hours. Then you have to ask yourself, why should
my audience care? Why should they care? So, these two things will help you make
your presentation, and your conversation more understandable,
which is the first element of inspiration. How do, do I get it? You get your audience to start nodding in
agreement. Okay, I see the category in which he is
placing this new product, I understand the
benefits, I understand it. Tell me more. Help me remember it. Stamp it on my memory. How are we going to do that? There's a number of techniques I could
talk about, but because you're MBA students, you deal a lot with finance and
data and analysis and numbers. Bring numbers to life. This is one excellent method that you can
use today. Bring numbers to life. Put every statistic that you deliver. Into a context that is relevant to the
audience. So in 2001 when Apple introduced the iPod
for the first time. They said it contained five gigabytes of
storage. Five gigs means nothing to anybody, it's
just a big number. Well not today, but back then it was a big
number. 5 gigs. No 5 gigs is the equivalent of, 1000
songs. Oh, and now that's more interesting. Ok, 1000 songs. Now I get it. 1000 songs in your pocket, which was the
brilliance of Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs would always take it one step
further. Most people would just deliver 5 gigs. Smart communicators would say that's the
equivalent of 1000 songs, genius communicators go one
step above that. Apple continues to do this to this day
which is why Apple is so brilliant at communicating information and messages behind their
products. There's a whole team of people back there and they work really long and hard to
communicate. Interesting and engaging messages. So last year when Phil Schiller introduced
the new iPad Mini, I forgot how thin it was. I'm gonna show you a clip that will, it'll
remind me. It was thin. It was some kinda number. Really thin. I don't remember the number. I remember it was thin as a pencil. I do remember it was as light as a pad of
paper. What's more memorable to you? The data, or what the data actually show? And the metaphor and the analogy that the
data create? This takes work, but listen and watch how
it turns out. >> So, this iPad Mini. Is just seven point two millimeters thin. That's about a quarter thinner than the
fourth generation iPad. To put it in context, it's as thin as a
pencil. Yeah it's thin, it weighs just point six
eight pounds. That's over 50 percent lighter than the
previous iPad, fourth generation. So in context, what can compare that to? It's as light as a pad of paper. We we're gonna say a book, but book is are
much heavier. [LAUGH] So, we came up with a pad of
paper. >> You tell me. Isn't that far more interesting [INAUDIBLE], than just introducing a
number. That's memorable. That's the iconic photograph, from that
particular presentation as well. So ask yourself, what numbers can I bring
to life? Now we're gonna focus on one other
technique, that I think is one of the most powerful techniques in
communications, to make your message truly memorable and
easy. For your audience to grasp. That's the Rule of Three. The Rule of Three simply means that in
short term memory, working memory, I'm only going to be able to carry about,
three or four points of information. So why overwhelm me with 12. Don't give me 12 or 15 reasons why I
should back your idea. Give me three. Much easier to grasp. I wrote about this for Forbes, and one of my readers actually sent me an
infographic. His name is Felipe [UNKNOWN]. He created this infographic. It's on the Rule of Three. I know it's hard to read, but it just
shows you how the Rule of Three pervades all aspects
of our society. Even religion, father, son and the holy
spirit. Slogans. Nike, just do it. Obama, yes we can. The colors of the flags. I, I hadn't realized most flags have three
colors. Language, science, certainly literature. Three little pigs, three musketeers. I'm a, I'm a big fan of Thomas Jefferson's
writing. Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. I've, I had forgotten how many companies
have three letters in their logo. UPS, SAP, IBM, CNN, the Rule of Three. Okay, th, it's only because this is the
way our mind works naturally. It likes to see groups of three. So use it in your next presentation or
pitch. Apple does this all the time. All the time. When iPad 2 was released, I'll never
forget, I got an e-mail. The subject line was, iPad 2, Thinner,
Lighter, Faster. That's it. Thinner, lighter, faster. That's all you need to know about it. In fact, this pervades design at Apple as well, because, again, design is simple at
Apple. Not the process to get there but the end
result. There's only three models of iPads you can
choose from. There's different configurations. But they introduced three models, three
models of the iPhone. Everything is in three. Three is very powerful. So now I'm gonna show you how to
incorporate the Rule of Three, Twitter-Friendly headlines, and selling
the benefit, into, what I call a Message Map. A Message Map is something that you can
use today for your very next pitch, no matter how
complex your idea. This is gonna help you a lot. Like creating a Message Map, you create a
visual display of information, the visual display of your
story, on one page. This works remarkably well. Because I've used it for some, a lot of
products. Products that actually you use in your
everyday life. Started, we sold it with a Message Map. Message Map is not necessarily meant for
consumers. It's mean for you, to help you articulate
and visualize what the story is behind your particular
product initiative or idea. Would you like me to show you how to
create a Message Map? Okay, let's do that. I'm [LAUGH], I'm going to make it. I could make this complicated. I'm going to make it very simple though. I'm going to go to the other extreme. I'm going to show you, that you can make
this for anything, even soap. How many of you have been to a store
called Lush? It's a soap store. Okay,good, good number of you, there's a
few here in the Bay Area, there's, two in San
Francisco. It's a UK-based, soap store, and it has about 150 locations in the U.S. and,
Canada. It's very nice, nice soap store. But what's the story behind it? I have one of the Lush soaps here, this
particular. Bar is $11.34. It's $37 a pound. That's an expensive soap. 37 bucks a pound. So, how many of you would pay more than
$10 for this small bar of soap? Oh come on, not one? Oh, you, because you've in been the Lush. [LAUGH]
Well, you don't count. But that's okay, [LAUGH] because you
already know how good this is. So, you don't know, most of you don't know
the story behind it. It's it's packaged in a nice white paper. Does that convince you? [BLANK_AUDIO] No? Not at all? Smell here. Go ahead and smell this. Does it smell good? Smells nice. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, very nice. It's called Karma. [LAUGH] So it'll, it'll give you good
karma. $38 a pound. You interested? Still not interested. Okay, I'll give it to the lady here who
wanted it to begin with. Go ahead. okay. Just because we don't know the story
behind it. I do have another bar. Let's [LAUGH] let's create a Message Map. So. >> [INAUDIBLE]. >> Yes [LAUGH] and I have absolutely no
connection to this store whatsoever, but I do, I like
their soap now. Okay, let's create a Message Map. You need a sheet of paper, you need an iPad, you need a PowerPoint slide, just
anything, that's empty. This is all you need to create or a
whiteboard. I, I loved a whiteboard. So that's all you need to create a Message
Map. You start with a Twitter-Friendly
headline. What's the one thing you want people to
know about your product. The one thing, the most important
consistent thing, based on my. Understanding of the Lush brand. I did interview the CEO. Last year, I wrote a story about them. That's where my connection ends, but I
know their messaging really well. Here's what I think their Twitter-Friendly
headline is. Lush crafts, handmade. Soaps and cosmetics, handmade. That's their key phrase, their key word. It's on the, the paper bags that you take
home. The in store signage, the advertising, the
marketing, the website. Handmade soaps and cosmetics. So, in one sentence, it helps you
categorize it. Carolina, earlier said, it's fancy soap. So, okay, fancy soap. Maybe that could be a headline, too. But this whole handmade fancy soap allows
me to categorize it into another category. Now I know it's probably a little
different than the soap that I would get at the grocery
store. But I need more evidence. Give me three reasons why I should
consider Lush soap? Okay, why don't we start with fresh and
organic. Everything all of the ingredients here are
fresh. Natural. They're made one day, shipped the next. Everything is a non-toxic ingredient, so
it's very, very good for your skin. It's fresh and organic. It's environmentally friendly. That's why it's not wrapped in plastic. That's why it's recyclable paper. So that there's no plastic that fills the
goes into landfills. Nothing that's none of the ingredients or
chemicals are tested on animals. So everything's environmentally friendly
and, part of the proceeds go to support ethical
campaigns. Campaigns in the community, and also
campaigns on a global scale. There's your message map. So you can see how this works. I could hand this message map to a brand
new employee who has only been there for a
couple of days. Somebody walks into Lush, looks around,
says, oh, this is interesting. Tell me more about this store. Well, at Lush, we craft handmade soaps and
cosmetics. Everything you see here in the store is
fresh, and it's natural, with real natural ingredients,
that are good for your skin. Everything is environmentally friendly. That's why you'll find everything wrapped
in recyclable paper, so we don't fill landfills with trash and
plastic. And, part of the benefits go to support
some really cool ethical campaigns that, help people here in our own
community I'd love to tell you about. But listen, why don't you go around and
look around? I think you'll like what you see. All of a sudden it becomes, oh that's interesting there's a real story
behind it. Some of their ethical campaigns I don't
necessarily agree with. I fall on the other side of some of their campaigns, just, you know, from a
philosophical perspective. But guess what? It's interesting. There's a story. There's a real story behind it. And there's engaged people as well. That's a message map. It's very, very simple to create. Since you now you, you can have that one
since you like the smell. Now you'll be giving off good karma,, too. So that's a message map, but it doesn't
work without the Rule of Three. You see how you gotta have all of the
other things we just talked about? If you don't understand the big picture,
you don't understand the Rule of Three and selling the benefit,
then nothing else matters. You can't create a message map without all those, all of those other components,
okay? This works really, really well. I have created a message map for big
companies, very complex information and a few weeks
later, the executives come back to me and they say we just wanna view you know, a multi-million
dollar account. I don't take full credit, but if they
wanna credit the message map, terrific! The reason they credit the message map is
because for the first time they have clarity in
their message. And if they're clear on it, it's clear to
the audiences as well. You can't confuse people. And finally, we have to make our messages
emotional. Emotion is very important. Ship Hee here at Stanford, John Hyde at
the University of Virginia, they've all been using this
metaphor, which is brilliant. Most of you have probably heard about it,
The Rider and The Elephant. If you think about the way the brain
processes information, the left brain wants the
data, the analysis, logic. That's the rider, the person steering the
elephant. The right brain, or the emotional part of
the brain, it's the elephant. The rider thinks he's in control, left
brain thinks it's in control, but where the rider wants to go that's
where inspiration ultimately occurs. John Medina of the University of
Washington made it even simpler for me. He said, Carmine, the brain does not pay
attention to boring things. He said the brain is not programmed to
grasp abstract concepts. Okay, so how do we get past that? How do we make a presentation emotional? Tell stories. Nobody in corporate America tells stories
anymore. Stories are undervalued, they're under appreciated, they're under utilized, tell
stories. Marissa Mayer the new CEO of Yahoo, former VP of Google, guess what she does in
presentations? She tells stories, and she's considered
very charismatic. Somebody I know, at a very large company, saw an internal presentation given by
Marissa Meyer. And he came up to me a few weeks later,
and he said, Carmine, it was amazing. She spoke, like, 45 minutes, and she only
used ten slides. And I asked him, how, how did she do that? Well, let's see, oh, she told stories! No kidding, stories. Tell stories. You can tell stories about your product,
how it came to be. You can tell personal stories, you can
tell stories about customers. A case study is a story. And when you, we're gonna get to this in a
minute, when you tell stories, like Marissa Mayer when she tells stories, she uses visual slides to complement her
stories. The slides are not the story. The slides simply complement the story. Stories are powerful. I spoke to this gentleman last year, his
name is Bryan Stevenson. Bryan Stevenson gave a TED lecture. At the end of that lecture, he inspired
the audience to donate $1 million to his non-profit,
The Equal Justice Initiative. He is passionate about social justice. He argues cases before the U.S. Supreme
Court, and he won a landmark case last year. It is now unconstitutional to impose a
mandatory life sentence on a juvenile, on someone
convicted as a juvenile. Thanks to Mr. Stevenson. We had a conversation about
communications. Guess what he said? Carmine, I don't know what to tell you. You're, you say I'm charismatic. That's great, I'm flattered. I don't know, I just get up there and tell
stories. No kidding, that's why! You're making an emotional connection with
people. You tell stories. In this lecture, I'm gonna show you a
clip. He started with a story about his
grandmother. He tied it into the theme, the power of
identity. He says a lot of poor, underprivileged
kids in a lot of communities across America don't
have identity. So how do you connect that with your
audience? Let me tell a story about it. So he tells the story of his grandmother,
who when he was 11 years old, I believe, pulled him aside and
said, Brian, I think you're special. And then she asked him to make a promise. The promise was never to drink alcohol. He said hey I'm, I'm, I was 11 years old,
I didn't have anything to lose. Sure, why not? I'll never drink alcohol, Grandma. Here's how he picks up the story. >> I grew up in the country, in the rural
south, and a I have a brother a year older than me, and a
sister a year younger. When I was about 14 or 15, one day my brother came home and he had this six pack
of beer. I don't know where he got it. And he grabbed me and my sister and we
went out in the woods. We were kind of just out there doing the
stuff we crazily did. And he had a sip of this beer and he gave
some to my sister. And she had some, And they offered it to
me. I said no, no, no, no that's okay. Ya'll go ahead, I'm not gonna have any
beer. My brother said, come on we're doing this
today! You always do what we do. I had some, your sister had some. Have some beer. I said, no I don't feel right that, ya'll
go ahead, ya'll go ahead. And then my brother started staring at me. He said, what, what's wrong with you? Have some beer. Then he looked at me real hard, he said,
oh I hope you're not still hung up on that
conversation mama had with you. >> [LAUGH]. >> I, I said, well, what are you talking
about? He says, well mama tells all the grandkids
that they're special. >> [LAUGH]. >> I was devastated. And I'm going to admit something to you. I'm gonna tell you something that I
probably shouldn't. I know this is going to broadcast broadly,
but I'm 52 years old, and I'm gonna admit to you that I have never
had a drop of alcohol. I, I, don't, I don't say that because I
think that's virtuous. I say that because there is power in
identity. >> Not gonna talk about body language
today, but look at that body language. That's strength. There's power in identity. So he's reinforcing his Twitter headline,
his key theme with body language as well, and he's tying
stories into it. See with communication, folks, I don't
just make this stuff up. I'm trying to learn from the best. And if someone can successfully argue a
case in front of the Supreme Court, and when I asked him,
what's your secret? And he goes, I don't know I tell stories. What else am I supposed to expect? Stories. Story telling. Great communicators tell stories. Just like Marissa Mayer. You can use stories in a presentation, or
you can tell personal stories. Stories are what are called emotionally
charged events. When the brain detects an emotionally
charged event it releases dopamine into the system which acts as a mental Post-it
note saying, remember this. Stories connect with people. What stories can I tell? And the only other technique that I wanna
leave with you today, this is very important for all of
you giving presentations. How many of you give like PowerPoint
presentations, day to day or frequently? Okay, so most of you, right? When you tell those stories, make sure that you're thinking visually, because
that's, the one thing that's gonna ruin the impact of
those stories, is putting up a slide like this. Okay, that, that'll be it. That's the end of your story. That's a real PowerPoint slide, by the
way. So you, they mention I wrote this book
Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs. This came out several years ago. I taught a lot about the visual display of
information. Steve Jobs didn't create it, but he
happened to use it very, very well. And a lot of, I've been really gratified,
because ever since then a lot of business people, some
very well-known that have touched your life every day that
you know very well, have called me or they sent me
emails. Or they send me their slides ahead of
time. And they're showing me how they're
incorporating visual design. So whether you read my stuff, or Nancy Dwarte who spoke here, Gar Reynolds,
there's so many different resources out there, but
the point is start learning how to think
visually. This is called Picture Superiority. Picture Superiority simply means that,
when I deliver information verbally you remember about
10% of it. If I can add a picture though, retention
goes up to 65%. The average PowerPoint slide is 40 words. That doesn't surprise me. When I first heard i thought that's too
much. Actually no it's not [LAUGH], it's very
close to reality. Great communicators, it's hard to find 40 words in like ten slides of their
presentations. When Tim Cook at Apple has a number, when
he wants to just introduce a big statistic or a number, that's all you got to have on
the slide is the number, 5 million. If he wants to talk about a product, it's
the product. You don't need to clutter slides with
bullets and text and bullets and text. Especially when you tell stories. Let me give you one example that I actually delivered here a couple of years
ago. Remember I told you about the MacBook Air,
the world's thinnest notebook? Well if I'm gonna tell you it's the world's thinnest notebook, boy, that's
clear. Why would I clutter a slide and make it
look as ugly as this? This is what I think most people would've
done when they introduced a new product like
the MacBook Air. Let me put all the specs on one slide. And, by the way, I heard Carmine mentioned
something about visual design, so why don't I add some clip art, clip art of
a battery up there? And there you have it. That's a pretty ugly slide. Steve Jobs and Apple they thought about
it. They thought creatively. Well if it's, if it's that thin, it kind
of fits inside one of those envelopes that you see
around the office. Well why don't we just show that? Oh, isn't that so much more powerful than
this? That's memorable. That's emotional. It makes a connection with you. Now that takes work. Thinking visually takes work. And it also takes collaboration as well,
so but that's okay. Collaborate with people who might be
better at something than you are. There are many people who are better
designers than I am, so I collaborate with them. I'm very good at telling them the story. They collaborate, we came up with some pretty interesting slides, or images for
certain events. But think visually. And finally, I hate to be the bearer of
bad news, but most people don't care about your idea
or your product. They care about themselves. I don't think most of you would disagree
with that. They care about themselves. Their hopes, their dreams, their goals,
their ambitions. If you can sell dreams, and not products,
that's how you'll win them over. If you can convince people, persuade them,
that by joining you on your journey and your vision that they're going to be taken to another place, that's how you're gonna win
people over. And today especially there's a real lack
of inspirational leadership. People crave inspiration. They're hungry for it. They are looking for someone to believe
in. Make them believe in you. Make sure you articulate and communicate
your message and your idea, in a way that truly inspires
me. That lifts my spirits. That takes me to another place. That makes me feel better about my place
in the world. Once you do that, you'll win me over, and
you'll have achieved a significant step toward,
reaching your dreams as well. Okay, thank you very much for inviting me
for your, for your lunch break. Appreciate it. Thanks everyone. >> [SOUND]. >> I understand we do have a few minutes for questions if anyone has
anything specific. Yes sir? >> [UNKNOWN] you talk about seem to target
business to consumer interactions, and I'm curious
to know how effective is what you're saying in
business to business interactions when you're dealing with potentially more self-controlled
[UNKNOWN]? >> Sure. The question was a lot of what I'm talking about was applied to business to
consumer interactions. All of these techniques apply to the most
complex idea. In fact the more complex your idea, the
harder it for people to grasp, the more you need to understand, really
this is just the theory of communication. Last year, and I'll, I'll be very careful
with what I say. But last year, I actually worked with
nuclear scientists at a very large nuclear lab in a, in a desert
somewhere. And true story, nothing, nothing that you
do in your career will be as complicated as
developing nuclear weapons. It is really complicated stuff. But guess what? They loved all this. They loved it. There was a lot of push back. It was one of the roughest half day
workshops that I ever had to give. All of these scientists were just pushing
back, and pushing back on everything I was
saying. They wouldn't even let me get one word out, before they started disagreeing
with everything. It was, it was tough, it was a really
tough workshop. I mean, I was just, you know, drenched, by
the end. I was exhausted by the end of it. Two weeks later, scientists are calling me
back and sending me emails saying, wow, that
worked! We used it for a pitch in front of
Congress, we've used it internally. It works. It works because, when you're talking to
people who don't understand your story as well as you do, and most people don't, you
need to go through the process. How do I connect with them? How do I make this story, which could be incredibly complex, how do I make it
understandable, memorable, so if that they have to take it
up to a stake holder they can do that? And how do I connect with them emotionally
so by the end of that presentation they like
me? They want to work with me. They don't even know why. They're not even sure why they're
connecting with you emotionally. They just know that they like you. And these are some of the things that we do. Yes sir? >> [UNKNOWN] an example of how do you go
into a deep dive to pull out the three things to make
the message manifest? >> [COUGH] A deep dive from the message
map. >> It seems like [INAUDIBLE] things, but how do you extract those three main
things? >> You can do that. What I showed you was the outline of the
message map. So you've got your Twitter friendly
headline, and you've got your Rule of Three. I can send you this, too. What we've done is we actually create a
message map where it's still on one page, but underneath each one of these boxes,
you have rhetorical devices that make your
message even stronger. A story, an example, a statistic. So, we're still breaking things up into
three. This is, this can be the foundation of a
30 minute pitch, a 30 minute presentation. It can be the foundation for 30 second
elevator pitch. That's the beauty of it. So the deep dive you actually have
underneath each category. So under fresh and organic, I could have a
whole list of examples or statistics that I can offer if the person
wants to know more about this. But if that's all they wanna know, then I
can stay up here, at that level. So yeah, there is, you absolutely do need
to flesh this out. And I guess I should have been specific. When we do a four hour workshop on message
maps, it's not just this. It's filling out the rest of the story as
well. [MUSIC]
