In-Between Time

In-Between Time

by Craig Valentine

In-between time is what I refer to as the time between your major points. Of course you need to use this time to transition into the next story or example, but how you use this time can make the difference between a dry speech and an exciting one. One effective way you can use in-between time is to add more humor. Hopefully your stories have humor as well, and if you add humor between these stories, then your audience will really enjoy your speech.

For example, immediately after one story and just before the next one I may relate the following to add humor:

There’s a lady that used to work for me and she liked to tell me all of her problems. One day she said, “Craig, I’m sick of guys.” I said, “Oh no, here she goes again. What’s wrong?” She said, “All the guys I date are always the same.” I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “The last five guys I dated all had drinking problems.” I said, “Really? Where do you meet them?” She said, “At the bars!” I said, “Well, if you stop going to Drinkers R Us, then you might find a good man.”

[Now completely facing the audience] You know what the key to her situation is? If she wants to keep getting what she’s getting, she should keep doing what she’s doing. Ladies and gentlemen [I step forward to make my point] if you ever want to change what you are getting, all you have to do is change what you are doing, and most people are not using their gifts!

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The Most Important Part of the Speech!

“Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself.“
—Aristotle

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Want Your Audiences to Remember What You Say? The Importance of Clear Structure

Your message, no matter how important, will not be remembered if you don’t recognize the importance of structure. Here are some practical ideas that can immediately make you more effective.

Your Structure 

Can you write the premise or objective of your talk in one sentence? If not, the chances are that your thinking isn’t clear enough for the audience to understand your purpose. And if you don’t organize your material so the audience can remember it easily, they’ll have a hard time grasping your message. They may be dazzled by your pizzazz and laugh at your stories, but little will stay with them afterwards.

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Communicate for Profit with Your Convention Exhibit

Having an exhibit at a convention or trade show is a major opportunity to position your company or Association as a real player in your industry. Sure, it costs money, but it can become a major moneymaker for your organization. (It’s also a big convenience for your members and suppliers.)

Here’s how to make the most of your investment.

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What Talks Louder Than Money? Try Coaching!

(Your chance to eavesdrop on a conversation between Patricia Fripp and her friend, mergers and acquisitions specialist Mike Sipe.)

My friend Michael Sipe is a brilliant mergers and acquisitions specialist. Here’s a great business tip he gave me that you might adapt to your own business.

“We were involved in an acquisition search for a client I’ll call ‘Jane.’ I became aware that an internationally famous giftware store was for sale through a general business broker. My client was very interested, but the broker had already received three full-price offers.

“I could have just stopped there, but I had a good relationship with this brok er and persuaded him that my buyer might be a perfect match. I knew a little about the seller and suspected he had not hit it off with any of the other potential buyers who just wanted to pay their money and take over. I had a hunch the seller might be interested in more than money. He had personally built up the business over the years, regarded it like a child and his business was an integral part of his identity. My guess was that, while he wanted to sell it and retire, he secretly hoped to continue to be an influence in the business and to be connected after the sale. The other bidders apparently had no interest in his ‘interference,’ once they owned it.

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Tips for Marketing Success

From Fripp’s Confessions of an Unashamed Relentless, Self-Promoter audio album and book: Make It! So You Don’t Have to Fake It. 

Does your marketing match your image?

If you deliver a quality product or service, your marketing materials should reflect this.

Your image, reflected by your advertising, should do two things:

  • Convince people you’re worth doing business with.
  • Position you in the market.

Whether you’re at the top, middle, or bottom of the price scale, your image needs to communicate that. If your image isn’t consistent and compatible with your pricing and your level of service, you’re going to confuse and alienate your customers.

Bill McCurry, co-author of Guerrilla Marketing for the Imaging Industry, told Garfinkel about the experiences of a client. This retailer visited a trade show and was attracted to a distinctive and obviously costly booth for a design firm. He asked them to send him some information. When the letter came, it was on shoddy looking stationery, sloppily typed.

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Fat and Skinny Words a Great Technique to be Understood

This is a great technique to be understood.

If your goal is to sound clear, concise, and credible this advice is invaluable.

Nothing can turn your audience or prospect off faster…

Good communicators
Good communicators understand fat and skinny words

… than using fat words when they’re hungry for skinny ones. Or vice versa.

I learned this exciting concept…

… from Dr. David Palmer, a Silicon Valley negotiations expert. In his negotiations training, he described “levels of abstraction.” Unless you can match your message to the expectations of your audience or talk at the same level at which they are listening, you won’t connect as well as you would like. This is true whether your audience is one person or one thousand.

Suppose you write the word “automobile” on a pad.

A simple concept. Going up to the next level of abstraction, you could write above it that the car is a “wheeled passenger vehicle,” then “surface transportation,” then “major force in the world’s economy.” This is making the word “automobile” fatter and fatter, larger and larger. These big ideas and abstractions are “fat words.” They are great for conveying the big picture, for inspiring ideas, for motivating.

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Power Pitching: Get the Personal Edge

Whenever and whatever you’re pitching, dozens of factors will figure in the final decision of your prospects. All else being equal, you have the edge if you can establish a personal connection. Connect emotionally and intellectually, so they like and trust you more than your competitors. How can you get your prospects to like you? Try these tips.

  • Focus and be sincere. If you appear nervous or unsure, you may seem devious or incompetent. If your sales presentation does not respond to their concerns and you just grind on with a prepared pitch, they will decide you don’t care about them and their problems. Look people right in the eyes and convince them that you stand 100% behind the ideas, products, or services that you want to sell them. Pick up on their concerns, and address them.
  • “Divide and conquer.” If you’re doing a sales presentation, shake hands with everyone as they enter the room. Connect with them so you see them as individuals, and you become more memorable to them too. (People are usually more shy of groups of strangers than in one-on-one contacts.)
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Selling Your Way to Success: How to Present Your Proposal at an Executive Meeting

What’s the worst reaction you’ve ever gotten when you made an important presentation? Probably, it would come in second to the one I just heard about. A woman — ironically she was interviewing me for an article about “Knockout Presentations” — told me the story of her disaster. It was early in her career as a policy analyst. She was just out of school, proud of her MBA and working in her first real job. When her supervisor praised a report she’d done, she was thrilled. She was less thrilled when her “reward” turned out to be presenting the same report to their executive team.

She spent a tense week getting ready, making sure she knew exactly what to say. She spent hours writing out her presentation and prepared every conceivable statistic to back up her points. It never occurred to her however, that how she presented was as important as what she presented.

When her turn came to deliver her report, things quickly went downhill. Naturally, she was nervous. A lot depended on the next few minutes. She stumbled through 200 slides, forgot her lines, and got more and more flustered. Bored executives weren’t sure what her point was and started glancing at their watches, which made it even worse. Desperate, she wanted to flee — and her audience probably did too! When she concluded, they didn’t ask a single question. That would have extended the already painful event.

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Your Important Talk

Dear Visitor,

It never ceases to amaze me how often people call saying, “Help! Can you FedEx your video on how to give a talk. My speech is next week.”

In July 2001, a gentleman inquired about my speech coaching services. He mentioned he was becoming the President of his Trade Association and would be delivering a minimum of a dozen talks a year all over the country. Just yesterday he called to say he wants help to write and deliver an important talk … three weeks out.

My advice…if you know you are going to be called on to speak, get the help in advance! Here is some advice from David Palmer, PhD, a Fripp Coaching Associate.

Warm regards,
Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE

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