“When you tell your audience a story, your brain lights up like a freaking pinball machine. The whole thing just goes nuts.“
-Leslie Ehm
One of the key ingredients to running a successful business is being able to communicate effectively with your customers, employees and stakeholders. After all, what good does it do to have a great product or a revolutionary idea if you can’t communicate those products or ideas to others?
Being able to communicate effectively with an audience in a way that’s fresh and engaging is critical to your business success. But too often business leaders fall into a communication rut that winds up doing more harm than good. Instead of attracting people, they repel them.
My guest today says that when it comes to presenting their ideas, most business leaders fall short simply because they haven’t learned to shake things up. They adhere to the notion that “this is the way things have always been done” within their organization and they don’t take risks. To be effective communicators, business leaders need to break from the status quo and think about what their audiences need.
Today, I talk to Leslie Ehm, President and Chief Fire Starter of Combustion, a training company for agency professionals and business leaders who want to improve their presentation and communication skills. The biggest obstacle leaders face in today’s noisy, fast-moving marketplace is a flood of information.
“We have all sat in those presentations where someone has barfed up a 95-page Powerpoint deck and is now going through it in minute detail, and we’re all slipping into a coma,” Leslie says. “Yet we turn around and present like that two days later and we forget it put us into a coma. It’s madness, it’s utter-madness.”
Today, we’re going to talk specifically about the problems we encounter when we communicate with others, why our message falls on deaf ears, the neuroscience behind effective communications and strategies to use that allow your message to land with impact. And the best part is, it has nothing to do with slide decks.
“If you believe that the information is in your head, which it is, then you should be able to get up and talk about it confidently,” Leslie says. “Unfortunately, the whole ‘audience-deck-presenter’ paradigm, is the thing that erodes our confidence.”
I know you’re going to love this discussion, and you’re going to learn a ton from Leslie Ehm on this edition of Grow My Revenue!
Listen to this episode and discover:
- What the “Legacy of Crap” means and why presenters should break free of it.
- The biggest mistakes people make when presenting their ideas.
- What happens to the brain when it’s presented with too much information.
- The most effective tool to use when sharing complex information.
- And so much more…
Episode Overview
Leslie Ehm is a “passionate and relentless pursuer of creativity in all forms.” A former singer, television host and agency creative director, Leslie has worked with world-class organizations like Google, Mattel, TD Bank, and Disney, to help them elevate their communication, leadership and collaboration skills. A self-described “evangelist of creativity and collaboration,” Leslie will do just about anything (and has) to unleash her participants’ potential.
“Our mantra is training brains, changing minds – because it’s the people in the organization that are gonna create the change,” Leslie says.
At the center of all human communication, Leslie says, is a powerful, meaning-making machine called the brain. This relatively small yet robust organ has the power to take-in, analyze and interpret massive amounts of information in highly-sophisticated, rapid-fire ways. Using the latest discoveries in neuroscience, Leslie distills the science behind effective communication and gives listeners strategies to make their messages pack a punch.
In this episode, Leslie talks about:
- The power of storytelling and why stories are more effective than data dumps.
- The science behind ECE, or Emotionally Charged Events – what it means and why it matters.
- Why creating suspense is key to grabbing people’s attention.
- How to break the habit of “Straight Telling” so audience members stay engaged.
- How to find and develop your presentation’s ‘single-minded take-away’.
Most important, Leslie talks about the need of understanding your audience. “If you go to the room and you don´t know the audience when you are presenting, you have made the biggest mistake of all,” Leslie says.
Tune in for all of these nuggets of wisdom, and more, on today’s Grow My Revenue with Leslie Ehm.
Resources
Leslie Ehm’s web site
Email Leslie Ehm
Also Sponsored By:
Check out John Ruhlin’s new book Giftology. John is a brilliant guy, and his book is sure to be an instant bestseller.
THANKS, Leslie
If you enjoyed this session with Leslie Ehm let him know by clicking on the link below to send him a quick message on LinkedIn or Twitter:
Click here to thank Leslie Ehm on Twitter
Click here to thank Leslie Ehm on LinkedIn
What’s On Your Mind
As always, this episode provides inspiration, entertainment, and especially an actionable message that can drive remarkable results – and if you have any questions for a future episode, contact me.