In Episode 128 of “The Trusted Advisor,” RSPA CEO Jim Roddy talks about the overlooked leadership skill of public speaking with John Vautier, a 15-year communications coach and the Vice President of Business Development for Vautier Communications. Among the topics discussed are how strong speaking skills greatly enhance a leader’s perceived competence, the foundational elements of an effective presentation, best practices for calming your nerves before presenting, and tactics to make your presentations more conversational. 

“The Trusted Advisor,” powered by the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA), is an award-winning content series designed specifically for retail IT VARs and software providers. Our goal is to educate you on the topics of leadership, management, hiring, sales, and other small business best practices. For more insights, visit the RSPA blog at www.GoRSPA.org.  

Watch Episode 128 now:

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Full episode transcript via Apple Podcasts:

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Roddy: Welcome to another episode of the Trusted Advisor Podcast and Video Series, powered by the Retail Solutions Providers Association.

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Roddy: Our goal on the pod is to accelerate the success of today’s and tomorrow’s leaders in the retail IT industry.

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Roddy: I’m Jim Roddy back with you again.

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Roddy: Thank you so much for joining us.

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Roddy: So as always, the focus of our podcast is leadership, and today we’re going to focus on what I think is the overlooked leadership skill of public speaking and public communication.

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Roddy: So to help us, we have brought in an expert.

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Roddy: So our guest today is John Vautier.

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Roddy: He’s a coach and the VP of Business Development for Vautier Communications, a training and coaching firm that helps professionals improve their speaking skills.

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Roddy: John’s been a communications coach for 15 years, and he’s a co-author of two books, Think As Well As You Speak and Executives Guide to Excellence in Public Speaking, and more recently, Mastering Executive Presence.

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Roddy: I can personally vouch for John’s skills as a coach.

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Roddy: I participated in one of his deep dive speak as well as you think courses about seven years ago, and I learned a ton.

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Roddy: John, it is so great to see you again.

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Roddy: Welcome to The Trusted Advisor.

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Vautier: Jim, I appreciate you having me on.

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Vautier: It’s great to reconnect.

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Roddy: Yeah, this is excellent.

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Roddy: So you and I, this is like the first time we’ve connected virtually.

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Roddy: So I’m glad to be able to do this.

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Roddy: And the new technologies here, as we talk about post-COVID can bring us all together.

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Roddy: So I want to spend most of our time today discussing your best practice tactics for speakers.

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Roddy: But first, I want to hear your thoughts on the concept of what I call Enhanced Perceived Competence.

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Roddy: So I say that because speaking well doesn’t actually make you smarter about the subject you’re presenting on, but it enhances the audience perception of your competence related to that subject.

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Roddy: So to me, like that makes speaking a very important leadership skill, how people perceive you.

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Roddy: So I want to get your take on speaking skills, greatly enhancing a leader’s perceived competence.

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Vautier: Yeah, I love the idea, Jim.

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Vautier: We like to say communication skills or being an effective communicator is the single skill in the workplace that will always have a positive impact on those you use the skill with.

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Vautier: So if you remember, I’m going to rack your brain a little seven years ago.

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Vautier: But as I opened that course and I opened every course that we run, the Executive Communication Skills courses, asking the question, how do you want your audience to describe you?

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Vautier: What are some of those adjectives or adverbs that if people said that about you when you were done talking, you’d say to yourself, okay, that went about as well as it could have gone.

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Vautier: Typically, we get responses like confident, engaging, knowledgeable, trustworthy, interactive, fun, comfortable, all the positive words that people would love to be described as.

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Vautier: Then I reframe the question and I say, audience, if we were to watch a speaker or listen to a speaker, speak about anything, doesn’t matter what the content is, but he or she finished, we thanked them and they left the room.

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Vautier: If we went to that same list and we said, did this person come across confident, yes or no?

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Vautier: Engaging, yes or no?

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Vautier: Approachable, memorable, interactive, whatever those words may have been.

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Vautier: People come up with a pretty good consistent view of yes, they did or no, they didn’t.

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Vautier: I like to dig one layer deeper and I’ll ask, if we said they came across confident or engaging or knowledgeable, what would they have done to make us as an audience feel that way?

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Vautier: And that’s when you get the really enlightening response of John, you’d see eye contact from the speaker.

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Vautier: You’d see an open body language from the speaker that makes them look confident or makes them look approachable physically.

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Vautier: Maybe it’s their cadence with their vocal energy, not speaking a mile a minute, making sure you’ve got inflection so there’s emphasis and highs and lows in the voice.

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Vautier: Minimizing are always fun and friendly non words, the ums, the uhs, the likes, the you knows.

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Vautier: Most of what we see and perceive from speakers happens physically and happens vocally.

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Vautier: Now, this isn’t discounting the message.

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Vautier: As you and I both know, content is important based on your audience, based on what your purpose in speaking is.

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Vautier: You have to have a well-organized message.

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Vautier: But I like to tell people the vehicle for that message getting across ends up being your physical skills and your vocal skills.

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Vautier: Those are two things that every speaker has a lot more control over than they might give themselves credit for.

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Roddy: Got it.

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Roddy: So you don’t have to be like the smartest person and that’s what you study up on.

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Roddy: It’s those other things that go into it.

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Roddy: It’s funny as you’re bringing this up.

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Roddy: I just had a conversation yesterday with a group that’s talking about who should lead this next thing.

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Roddy: I won’t get into all the details.

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Roddy: And when they were talking about the different options, they talked about he or she is well-spoken, right, in terms of the way that they communicate.

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Roddy: Like that was the first thing.

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Roddy: And I guess, can you talk about, like, that’s the memorable thing that people are left with.

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Roddy: It’s some of the content, but it’s a lot of the competence or the, again, the perceived competence or the confidence of the speaker.

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Vautier: Yep, and we like to say it intangibles and tangibles.

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Vautier: So intangibles would be being described with well-spoken, polished, confidence, approachable, engaging, knowledgeable, all those would be intangible words.

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Vautier: If I told you, Jim, Jim, I’d love for you to turn up your confidence.

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Vautier: You would say to me, John, I would love to do just that.

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Vautier: I don’t exactly know what to do to make that happen.

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Vautier: The tangible skills are what we coach and introduce, and that’s going to be your eye contact, your presence in front of an audience, how you make people feel around you in the room.

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Vautier: Are you listening well?

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Vautier: Are you approachable in terms of body language and positioning?

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Vautier: Do you move stage well if you’re in more of a stage present setting?

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Vautier: And it’s all of those things that, again, speakers have control over, but little tiny adjustments or iterations in those skills end up having such a profound impact on how an audience perceives or receives you.

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Vautier: And you could have all the accolades in the world.

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Vautier: You could have gone to the greatest schooling with the best education, all the letters behind your name on your signature.

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Vautier: If you lack some of those genuine people skills, that’s when we see speakers find themselves in this state of, my functional competency is up here, my ability to communicate or speak well is down here.

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Vautier: And I need to make sure that I balance out that right hand competency that we’ve all got access to.

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Vautier: Does an organization have confidence in your ability to get in front of others and get a message across effectively?

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Roddy: I love it.

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Roddy: I love it.

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Roddy: That’s a perfect segue into to our audience, what we’re going to be doing for the next 30 or 40 minutes.

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Roddy: We’re going to ask John to take us through some of the building blocks, the foundational elements of effective speakers.

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Roddy: And I want to start first with preparation.

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Roddy: So, giving an effective presentation, it doesn’t start the moment you step in front of the crowd.

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Roddy: There’s a lot that goes into it before that actual moment happens.

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Roddy: So, can you talk about some of the key preparation steps that a speaker needs to take before giving really any almost kind of talk?

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Roddy: What are some of the fundamentals that they have to do from a preparation standpoint?

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Vautier: Yeah.

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Vautier: We always say step one, understand your audience.

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Vautier: Depending on the dynamic or the interaction that you are having, call it a presentation if it feels formal, call it a conversation like what you and I are doing now would consider fairly informal, but you want to understand your audience.

00:07:17.609 –> 00:07:20.209
Vautier: I say this through a couple of lenses.

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Vautier: What is your purpose in speaking with them?

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Vautier: If you want to make it more simple, ask yourself at the end of this talk, what is the single thing I want my audience or my listeners to know, do, or believe based on what I’ve said?

00:07:32.929 –> 00:07:35.469
Vautier: But this gives us this finish line.

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Vautier: Stephen Covey, if any of our listeners are familiar with Stephen Covey, one of his seven habits for success is starting with the end in mind.

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Vautier: But I use the analogy, if you go out for a run in the morning or at night, if you don’t know where you’re going to finish, that run can feel stressful because you don’t exactly know, do I increase my pace, do I decrease my pace?

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Vautier: Where is this finish line?

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Vautier: For the same reason we just had Thanksgiving not long ago, many people partake in Turkey challenges or 5K trots.

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Vautier: Imagine starting at the beginning of Thanksgiving morning on Raceline and the race that you’re at has not told you the distance.

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Vautier: They said, you’re going to go for a run today and you’ll find out how long it is at some point.

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Vautier: That’s going to leave a lot of people stressed out thinking, okay, I know my mile pace, I know my 5K pace, I’ve done a half marathon perhaps.

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Vautier: Anything longer than that, it’s good luck for me.

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Vautier: So knowing your audience is figuring out what is my purpose in speaking and then asking yourself what framework makes sense.

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Vautier: At Vautier, we’re huge fans of frameworks.

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Vautier: And I say framework loosely, I want our listeners to look at it through the lens of a recipe.

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Vautier: If you’ve got a framework that you can drop content into, where we see a lot of speakers struggle is they’ve got so much information up here that they might be well-versed in, it’s getting from here out of the mouth that becomes the challenge.

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Vautier: And I hear people say, John, I tend to ramble a lot or my message goes in 100 different directions.

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Vautier: Typically, that’s a product of not having a format or framework of structure.

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Vautier: If you’ve got the purpose of speaking to update, inform or educate, you might use one framework.

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Vautier: If your purpose in speaking on a given day is to recommend something, propose something, maybe influence decision-making in some way, or persuade an audience to do something, you might want to use a different framework.

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Vautier: The way you structure that message is going to be a little different.

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Vautier: But what you’re doing is you’re trying to find out your audience and then meet your audience where they are.

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Vautier: This allows you to use common language so that you’re not speaking a language to your audience that they say, John, I don’t know these acronyms.

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Vautier: I don’t live in that technical world, so the technical language you’re using right now makes zero sense to me.

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Vautier: That’s where we’ll see a lot of disconnect in the speaker’s ability to resonate or connect with his or her audience.

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Roddy: Got it.

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Roddy: I love it.

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Roddy: Two things that I’ll add to that.

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Roddy: One is, I won’t name names, but as far as from a target audience standpoint, RSPA hired a keynote speaker, a very well-known person.

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Roddy: We emphasized our audience are technology solution providers to restaurants, retailers, and grocers.

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Roddy: It’s not the merchant itself as these technology solution providers.

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Roddy: He gets out there and starts talking about everyone’s a restaurateur out there.

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Roddy: I remember hearing him being like, no, no, no, no, no.

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Roddy: I thought maybe he just slipped, but he kept it the whole way through.

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Roddy: A lot of people are like, how was that person?

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Roddy: He was great.

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Roddy: He didn’t know who he were, but he was great otherwise and he kind of missed it.

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Roddy: The thing I’ll confess to is I remember the coaching that I got from you.

00:10:36.509 –> 00:10:41.129
Roddy: I had so much information on the document that you said, hey, you have way too much there.

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Roddy: The audience doesn’t need to know everything that’s in your head.

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Roddy: Just give them the highlights.

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Roddy: The audience doesn’t need every details.

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Roddy: That seems to be, maybe that was just a me thing, but that sounds like it’s a little more universal.

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Vautier: It’s accurate.

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Vautier: I tell people when you’re building a message, try to build it through the lens of what would be considered need to know for the audience.

00:11:00.189 –> 00:11:03.269
Vautier: What would be considered nice to know for the audience.

00:11:03.269 –> 00:11:06.529
Vautier: Right away, anything nice to know move off to the side.

00:11:06.529 –> 00:11:09.129
Vautier: This way you can add it if you feel like it’s adding value.

00:11:09.129 –> 00:11:14.909
Vautier: But Jim, you’re aware we live in a world today that is so focused on more being better.

00:11:16.129 –> 00:11:19.909
Vautier: I tell people a longer movie isn’t a better movie, it’s a longer movie.

00:11:19.909 –> 00:11:22.469
Vautier: A longer book may not be a better book, it’s a longer book.

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Vautier: A longer talk isn’t always a better talk.

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Vautier: There’s this idea of, I use the phrasing, as much as necessary, as little as possible.

00:11:32.329 –> 00:11:36.109
Vautier: I’ll say it once more for our listeners, as much as necessary, as little as possible.

00:11:36.109 –> 00:11:49.749
Vautier: But it’s balancing this fine line of, have I given the audience what they need and stopped there, versus deciding, let me add more, because I feel like more is going to be better every time, and in some cases it’s going to work against the speaker.

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Roddy: Yeah, I’m trying to think who said, I’m sorry my, it was about writing, but I’m sorry my letter is so long, I didn’t have time to write a shorter one.

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Vautier: If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.

00:12:00.129 –> 00:12:00.889
Roddy: Yes, yes.

00:12:00.889 –> 00:12:03.209
Roddy: I can’t remember who that was, Mark Twain or somebody like that.

00:12:03.209 –> 00:12:09.129
Roddy: But, and so I guess, Twain is in my head, because my next question to you is about calming nerves.

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Roddy: So that’s another big obstacle that folks have to overcome.

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Roddy: And when I moderate panels, I tell folks, especially when they’re first time, when they’re presenting, how you doing, how you feeling?

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Roddy: And a lot of people say, man, I’m really nervous, and I always say, there’s a Mark Twain quote, there are two types of speakers, nervous and damn liars.

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Roddy: So if you’re nervous, right, you’re fine, you’re with everybody else.

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Roddy: So what actions do you recommend that speakers take?

00:12:31.489 –> 00:12:35.549
Roddy: Because I remember you specifically talking about this when you had the coaching sessions.

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Roddy: What actions can folks take that will calm their nerves before they begin presentation and get up in front of that group?

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Vautier: Practice, practice and rehearsal.

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Vautier: We call our managing nervousness, practice to overcome nervousness.

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Vautier: And we use that phrasing on purpose, because we get people, Jim, often who say, John, can you help me get rid of my nerves?

00:12:55.109 –> 00:12:55.969
Vautier: No, I can’t.

00:12:55.969 –> 00:12:58.589
Vautier: And I don’t know as if I would advise it anyways.

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Vautier: I think having nervousness is a good thing.

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Vautier: I get in front of big groups or groups I’ve not worked with before or bigger audiences at conference settings, and I still have nervousness in 15 years doing this.

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Vautier: I like that because it makes me feel like I’ve got one, some skin in the game, and two, it elevates the rest of my skills.

00:13:16.349 –> 00:13:26.609
Vautier: If you’ve got a little nervous adrenaline, that means you got some energy, and there’s a good opportunity there to move or channel some of that nervous energy into what I call productive energy.

00:13:26.609 –> 00:13:30.249
Vautier: Let the voice jump out so that you’ve got great vocal presence.

00:13:30.249 –> 00:13:35.229
Vautier: Many people aren’t aware, vocal skills drive physical skills.

00:13:35.229 –> 00:13:43.949
Vautier: Those listeners or those viewers on the pod today who are listening and watching, if you’re not sure what to do with your hands, there’s that great scene from Taladega Nights and Ricky Bobby’s character.

00:13:43.949 –> 00:13:46.529
Vautier: He’s given that interview and his hands keep coming in front of his face.

00:13:47.349 –> 00:13:53.889
Vautier: I still say the number one question I get from people we work with is, John, what do I do with these things hanging off my arms?

00:13:53.889 –> 00:13:58.949
Vautier: In a perfect world, your vocal skills are having your hands have a mind of their own.

00:13:58.949 –> 00:14:08.269
Vautier: They’ll do what they want when they want to, but it’s not performative, it’s not acting class that shouldn’t feel like theater, your hands should do what they want when they want to.

00:14:08.269 –> 00:14:12.249
Vautier: Nine times out of 10, they’re doing something when the mouth is moving.

00:14:12.249 –> 00:14:16.069
Vautier: When vocal energy is getting used, physical skills get used alongside of it.

00:14:16.889 –> 00:14:27.609
Vautier: But I really think, Jim, practice and rehearsal is key, because if you really think about it, nervousness tends to exist around thinking about the future.

00:14:27.609 –> 00:14:29.209
Vautier: We can’t control the future.

00:14:29.209 –> 00:14:33.109
Vautier: We can manage things that happen in the future based on being present and in the moments.

00:14:33.109 –> 00:14:36.069
Vautier: But there’s this quote that I love, be where your feet are.

00:14:36.069 –> 00:14:44.129
Vautier: As much as we get in front of audiences and we’d love to get to the end of that talk and say, okay, sigh of relief, I’m done.

00:14:44.129 –> 00:14:45.249
Vautier: We have to get through the talk.

00:14:45.729 –> 00:14:48.569
Vautier: There’s no jumping steps, there’s no fast forwarding in real life.

00:14:48.569 –> 00:14:51.309
Vautier: You gotta go through the motions and through the movements.

00:14:51.309 –> 00:14:56.849
Vautier: You will feel far more at ease if you’ve practiced the way you’re going to play.

00:14:56.849 –> 00:15:10.529
Vautier: This means if you know you’re going to give a talk in front of a larger audience on your feet standing, try to get up on your feet in front of a group of family members, and give the talk and make believe like the audience that you’re getting ready to talk to, is that audience sitting in front of you.

00:15:10.529 –> 00:15:28.429
Vautier: But for the same way that professional golfers and professional basketball players don’t practice shooting golf shots with no club and no ball, or shooting free throws with no ball and no hoop, speakers I hear frequently people say, John, I rehearsed that content in my head a hundred times and the talk didn’t go well.

00:15:28.429 –> 00:15:30.069
Vautier: How did you deliver it?

00:15:30.069 –> 00:15:33.349
Vautier: If it was delivered out loud to an audience, then it wasn’t delivered in your head.

00:15:33.349 –> 00:15:37.889
Vautier: And so you saying it in your own mind, you’re going to be right 100% of the time.

00:15:37.889 –> 00:15:44.009
Vautier: But say it in the shower, say it on the drive to work in the car, say it to nobody, say it to your kid, say it to your dog.

00:15:44.009 –> 00:15:56.889
Vautier: Get that content set out loud, you’ll start to make it that much more fluid and natural and that helps a lot of that nervous adrenaline that we know dissipates within 30 to 45, 30 to 90 seconds.

00:15:56.889 –> 00:16:01.629
Vautier: Using another running analogy, the hardest part of a run for most people is just getting started.

00:16:01.629 –> 00:16:08.609
Vautier: That first minute or two of running where you feel like, okay, I’m breathing through my eyeballs, I have no rhythm yet, my cadence is all crazy.

00:16:08.609 –> 00:16:10.109
Vautier: Speaking isn’t a great deal different.

00:16:10.669 –> 00:16:16.749
Vautier: Once you get past that choppy water, if you will, you get into what people would identify as smooth sailing.

00:16:16.749 –> 00:16:19.929
Vautier: Typically, that’s the first 30 or 45 seconds of your talk.

00:16:19.929 –> 00:16:21.509
Vautier: Adrenaline has played out.

00:16:21.509 –> 00:16:24.109
Vautier: You as the speaker realize, all right, I haven’t passed out.

00:16:24.109 –> 00:16:26.089
Vautier: I haven’t gotten sick on the front row of my audience.

00:16:26.089 –> 00:16:27.089
Vautier: I’m good to go.

00:16:27.089 –> 00:16:29.169
Vautier: Then they hit their stride.

00:16:29.169 –> 00:16:29.689
Roddy: Absolutely.

00:16:29.769 –> 00:16:30.989
Roddy: I had two points on that.

00:16:30.989 –> 00:16:35.469
Roddy: One is first year, the first person to make a Talladega Nights reference on The Trusted Advisor.

00:16:35.469 –> 00:16:35.969
Roddy: Thank you for that.

00:16:35.969 –> 00:16:37.369
Roddy: It’s about time.

00:16:37.369 –> 00:16:46.769
Roddy: The second is one thing that I’ve learned, and I want to get your take on this, is there’s practicing all that you do in advance, but then there’s also wherever you’re going to speak.

00:16:46.769 –> 00:16:53.749
Roddy: If you can get up on stage or just in the room or whatever, and just stand there and look at the room, because it has always freaked me out.

00:16:53.749 –> 00:16:59.109
Roddy: Once I get up there, I’m like, here are the lights, and here’s this, and it’s a different angle, and where’s whatever.

00:16:59.109 –> 00:17:05.149
Roddy: Then, I don’t know if I share with you, I actually got to do a paid speaking gig at some point, and so I was up there hanging out on the stage.

00:17:05.149 –> 00:17:09.089
Roddy: There was another guy who is getting paid more than me, I’m sure, to do his speaking gig.

00:17:09.089 –> 00:17:11.789
Roddy: He was also there just hanging out on stage doing the same thing.

00:17:11.789 –> 00:17:19.589
Roddy: I’m like, oh, this validates me, but I want to get your take on that to be able to, even if it’s just 30 seconds or a minute, just to stand up there.

00:17:19.589 –> 00:17:25.389
Roddy: By the time you take the stage or the front of the room, you’re not like, whoa, I’ve never been up here before.

00:17:25.649 –> 00:17:27.489
Roddy: It’s way more comfortable for you.

00:17:27.489 –> 00:17:29.449
Roddy: So I want to get your take on that.

00:17:29.569 –> 00:17:31.749
Vautier: Yeah, something we advise for sure.

00:17:31.749 –> 00:17:38.009
Vautier: So anytime people are getting ready to go and talk at a conference, in some cases, conferences change sites.

00:17:38.009 –> 00:17:42.889
Vautier: You got conferences in Miami, then in Vegas, then in Phoenix, all the big cities, of course.

00:17:42.889 –> 00:17:45.309
Vautier: But not every conference is laid out identical.

00:17:45.309 –> 00:17:51.609
Vautier: So when I’m coaching folks that are doing those types of scenarios or interactions, I say get your feet into that environment.

00:17:51.609 –> 00:17:57.509
Vautier: Even if it’s for five minutes and the room is totally empty, you get a sense of, okay, here’s the stage, here’s where the people will be.

00:17:57.989 –> 00:17:59.789
Vautier: I like what you said about the lights.

00:17:59.789 –> 00:18:08.709
Vautier: But going a step further, if you’ve got access and maybe you’re going to be a little bit of a pain to the audiovisual folks, but they’ll appreciate it in the long run.

00:18:08.709 –> 00:18:10.589
Vautier: See if you can do a mic check.

00:18:10.589 –> 00:18:18.029
Vautier: See if you can stand on stage and say, hey, if I’m talking like this with the lavalier, is this still well heard from speaker system in the back?

00:18:18.029 –> 00:18:18.329
Roddy: Yeah.

00:18:18.329 –> 00:18:20.609
Vautier: Because I have a very loud voice.

00:18:20.609 –> 00:18:25.409
Vautier: I’m not yelling or shouting, but I would say my vocal energy relative to others is on the higher side.

00:18:26.209 –> 00:18:31.749
Vautier: That being said, it’s common for me when I’m mic’d up, audiovisual turns me down pretty quick.

00:18:31.749 –> 00:18:35.289
Vautier: They don’t need me blaring out of the speaker system, blowing the whole audience out of the water.

00:18:35.289 –> 00:18:39.609
Vautier: But someone who’s maybe more soft spoken needs to get turned up.

00:18:39.609 –> 00:18:47.869
Vautier: These are little easy things that audiovisual will thank you after the fact, even if you’re making a little bit more work for them in the onset.

00:18:47.869 –> 00:18:49.829
Vautier: But I do think that goes a long way.

00:18:49.829 –> 00:18:56.809
Vautier: There’s a reason why professional football players and professional golfers get to the golf course ahead of the tournament.

00:18:56.809 –> 00:19:01.329
Vautier: Very few people on a four-day golf tournament show up on Thursday morning and say, I haven’t seen this place yet.

00:19:01.329 –> 00:19:02.169
Vautier: Where’s the bathrooms?

00:19:02.169 –> 00:19:03.989
Vautier: Where do I pick up my golf bag?

00:19:03.989 –> 00:19:12.689
Vautier: These are things that they’ve looked at from starting on Monday or Tuesday, getting some practice rounds, looking at the greens, where is the audience or the patrons going to be?

00:19:12.689 –> 00:19:18.049
Vautier: Same is true in speaking, understand your environment and things usually work better in your favor.

00:19:18.309 –> 00:19:19.529
Roddy: I like that, earn your confidence.

00:19:19.529 –> 00:19:20.789
Roddy: You can’t just psych yourself up.

00:19:20.789 –> 00:19:25.649
Roddy: If you go through these paces, you deserve to be confident given the presentation.

00:19:25.649 –> 00:19:27.209
Roddy: Now, I’m going to quote you back to you.

00:19:27.209 –> 00:19:29.129
Roddy: I’m going to do that a few times during this podcast.

00:19:29.629 –> 00:19:36.649
Roddy: In your book, Speak As Well As You Think, one of the things you write is you said, 95 percent of all speakers need to project more energy.

00:19:36.649 –> 00:19:44.349
Roddy: Can you talk about what are some tactics you suggest help speakers project more energy, whether it’s on stage or just in front of a group?

00:19:44.349 –> 00:19:44.729
Roddy: Yeah.

00:19:44.729 –> 00:19:46.949
Vautier: On stage or in front of a group, volume is key.

00:19:47.549 –> 00:19:52.069
Vautier: I made the comment just a few minutes ago, vocal energy drives physical skills.

00:19:52.069 –> 00:19:54.329
Vautier: How does volume worker impact?

00:19:54.329 –> 00:20:00.969
Vautier: I like to recommend when you first begin to speak, pick someone in the back of that room to target first.

00:20:00.969 –> 00:20:05.609
Vautier: Give your first thought or two to the people furthest away from you in proximity.

00:20:05.609 –> 00:20:11.989
Vautier: It’s no offense to the people sitting front row or sitting closest, but you know you’re most nervous at the beginning.

00:20:11.989 –> 00:20:24.929
Vautier: Because we know we are most nervous at the beginning of a talk, our vocal energy, if it goes low, one of the nervous tells with speakers, and we’ve all heard this before, a speaker’s voice quivers, it cracks, it shakes.

00:20:24.929 –> 00:20:28.469
Vautier: That happens when the volume is low, not when the volume is high.

00:20:28.469 –> 00:20:40.749
Vautier: So an easy little trick of the trade is when you first begin to speak, pitch that voice all the way to the back of the room, the back of the conference center, whatever your audience might be, your scenario, but get the voice up early.

00:20:40.749 –> 00:20:45.389
Vautier: Because it helps drive all the rest of those skills from an energy standpoint.

00:20:45.389 –> 00:20:49.029
Vautier: Second piece, Jim, an audience expects two things.

00:20:49.029 –> 00:20:58.369
Vautier: Doesn’t matter what the content is, they expect some level of conviction from you as it relates to the message, some level of enthusiasm from you.

00:20:58.369 –> 00:21:02.669
Vautier: So as we dig into that, does John believe in what he’s sharing, number one?

00:21:02.669 –> 00:21:04.249
Vautier: And does he like what he’s talking about?

00:21:04.949 –> 00:21:10.749
Vautier: Because if he doesn’t believe in what he’s sharing, and he doesn’t like what he’s talking about, that is obvious to an audience right out of the gates.

00:21:10.749 –> 00:21:27.649
Vautier: And I hate to call on Bill Stein, Bill, if you’re out there listening to this, but from the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, he’s the professor in that movie, and Bueller, and Hollywood pans out to the audience, and all the students are falling asleep, distracted.

00:21:27.649 –> 00:21:38.989
Vautier: If you as the speaker can’t captivate or capture your audience, you’re fighting an uphill race, and it’s going to be a long talk, regardless of what the content is, regardless of how many people you’ve got.

00:21:38.989 –> 00:21:47.869
Vautier: Energy is something in your control, and it’s not me encouraging you to go out and have a five-hour energy before you give your talk, or make sure you drink that Red Bull before you go on stage.

00:21:47.869 –> 00:21:50.329
Vautier: Have true, authentic, genuine, sincere energy.

00:21:50.329 –> 00:21:56.269
Vautier: Care a lot about what you’re sharing, and care about making sure your audience has an excellent experience.

00:21:56.269 –> 00:21:56.849
Roddy: Yeah, got it.

00:21:56.849 –> 00:22:01.029
Roddy: So enthusiasm, conviction, volume and pace, right?

00:22:01.029 –> 00:22:03.369
Roddy: You can’t just be putting people to sleep.

00:22:03.369 –> 00:22:06.929
Roddy: Now, the one pace that I see a lot of people do is with their feet, right?

00:22:06.929 –> 00:22:13.989
Roddy: You see a lot of people get up on stage and they are just pacing back and forth, almost like that tiger or leopard at the zoo.

00:22:13.989 –> 00:22:19.129
Roddy: But then sometimes you see people just stand in one spot and they never move, and they’re just kind of frozen there.

00:22:19.129 –> 00:22:20.529
Roddy: What guidelines do you give?

00:22:20.529 –> 00:22:22.489
Roddy: You talked about what people should do with their hands.

00:22:22.489 –> 00:22:24.889
Roddy: What do you recommend that people do with their legs and their feet?

00:22:24.889 –> 00:22:27.989
Roddy: What’s your recommendation in terms of movement when you’re standing up speaking to a group?

00:22:28.469 –> 00:22:28.749
Vautier: Yep.

00:22:28.749 –> 00:22:30.449
Vautier: It’s called purposeful movement.

00:22:30.449 –> 00:22:34.729
Vautier: So when we think about purposeful movement, moving with intent.

00:22:34.729 –> 00:22:41.069
Vautier: This means if you know the answers to these two questions, where am I going and why am I going there?

00:22:41.069 –> 00:22:46.349
Vautier: If you know where you’re moving and you know why you’re moving there, and we’ll just use a stage presence as an example.

00:22:46.349 –> 00:22:56.049
Vautier: You’re at a conference setting, you’ve got maybe a monitor or two behind you, big screen that your content or your visuals might be on, and you’ve got 50 to 1,000 people in your audience.

00:22:56.049 –> 00:22:57.289
Vautier: We’ll call it a number between there.

00:22:58.049 –> 00:23:02.209
Vautier: You might decide on that stage presence because you’ve got the room available.

00:23:02.209 –> 00:23:10.829
Vautier: At certain points, I might take a step or two towards the right side of the audience, and I say a step or two because to your point, it’s not constant movement.

00:23:10.829 –> 00:23:14.489
Vautier: I see constant movement or I see pacing as nervous.

00:23:14.489 –> 00:23:22.649
Vautier: I see it nervous and all of a sudden it starts to tell me, this person doesn’t know what to do physically or doesn’t know how to let that energy get released.

00:23:22.649 –> 00:23:25.409
Vautier: But ultimately over the course of a talk, that can look distracting.

00:23:26.109 –> 00:23:35.069
Vautier: If my eyes are constantly wandering and following a speaker who has not found a place to stop and position themselves, it gets exhausting for an audience.

00:23:35.069 –> 00:23:37.509
Vautier: So I’m the first person to say I like movement.

00:23:37.509 –> 00:23:39.549
Vautier: It’s got to be within reason.

00:23:39.549 –> 00:23:52.289
Vautier: And I’ll also say Jim, I coach plenty of people who I tell them if you are not a natural mover, meaning you don’t really like to walk in front of an audience, there are no rules that say you have to move your feet.

00:23:52.289 –> 00:24:00.469
Vautier: I work with plenty of speakers who are phenomenal and they keep their feet planted 95% of the talk and all of their movement is from the waist up.

00:24:00.469 –> 00:24:05.369
Vautier: It’s facial affect, it’s upper body movement, it’s hand gestures and physical positioning that way.

00:24:05.369 –> 00:24:12.649
Vautier: But generally speaking, their feet really don’t move outside of a couple steps left and right or a couple steps front and back.

00:24:12.649 –> 00:24:21.049
Vautier: So at the end of the day, it is personal preference, but it is optimal movement in terms of you knowing where you’re going and why you’re going there.

00:24:21.049 –> 00:24:24.589
Vautier: And it’s what we call purposeful movement or moving with a purpose.

00:24:24.589 –> 00:24:30.749
Roddy: It’s since a referencing movies, it makes me think of the movie Hitch, Will Smith, and Kevin James.

00:24:30.749 –> 00:24:34.309
Roddy: And Kevin James tries to do this dance, and Will Smith is like, no, just stay in here.

00:24:34.489 –> 00:24:38.089
Roddy: Like move a little bit back and forth.

00:24:38.089 –> 00:24:39.869
Roddy: So my daughter, she’s now 19 years old.

00:24:39.869 –> 00:24:41.709
Roddy: She’s been given presentations in school.

00:24:41.709 –> 00:24:44.989
Roddy: So when she does one, she brings me into a room and let me do this.

00:24:44.989 –> 00:24:47.729
Roddy: She would do the rocking back and forth.

00:24:47.729 –> 00:24:53.489
Roddy: And so we would always start off by saying, set your feet first, all right now, and let’s get going from there.

00:24:53.489 –> 00:24:56.169
Roddy: And it’s amazing how she would then start swaying.

00:24:56.169 –> 00:24:59.669
Roddy: But once she got mindful of it, it was huge, huge improvement.

00:24:59.669 –> 00:25:03.829
Roddy: It became, to your point, the feet can be super, super distracting.

00:25:03.829 –> 00:25:09.489
Roddy: Like it might feel good for you to be moving back and forth, but for the audience, they don’t want to watch a tennis match and go back and forth.

00:25:09.489 –> 00:25:11.389
Roddy: They want, as you said, purposeful movement.

00:25:11.389 –> 00:25:16.569
Vautier: Yeah, you don’t want people having to take a motion sickness pill prior to coming to your talk because of how much you’re moving.

00:25:16.569 –> 00:25:30.729
Vautier: And another thing on this, Jim, just to caught my attention here, if you’ve got some of that side to side movement or front to back or knee bouncing or toe tapping, any of the listeners out there that would resonate with any of those, pay attention to the hands.

00:25:30.729 –> 00:25:41.269
Vautier: More times than not, if the hands are clasped together in front of you or they’re jammed in your pockets or they’re down in front of you, but again, together, that’s blocking energy.

00:25:41.269 –> 00:25:49.849
Vautier: What I see when I coach and I’ve seen this now for going on 15 years, is speakers that don’t use their hands often will have a lot of movement below the waist.

00:25:49.849 –> 00:25:59.309
Vautier: As soon as you allow those hands to work from your sides, it’s what we call the neutral position, but it’s just hands draped down to your sides and then you let them do what they want.

00:25:59.309 –> 00:26:05.169
Vautier: Right hand does what it wants to the right, left hand does what it wants to the left, but they can move together or they can move independent.

00:26:05.169 –> 00:26:15.109
Vautier: Soon as that energy gets rerouted up and out, the lower half stops doing whatever it may have been doing, the swaying, the shifting, the bouncing, the toe tapping.

00:26:15.109 –> 00:26:17.229
Vautier: It’s just a reversal of energy.

00:26:17.229 –> 00:26:18.569
Vautier: Energy only goes to places.

00:26:18.569 –> 00:26:20.909
Vautier: It goes up and out or it goes down and out.

00:26:20.909 –> 00:26:26.149
Vautier: But I always smile when the people who I work with tell me, John, I’ll just let that nervous energy go away.

00:26:26.149 –> 00:26:29.869
Vautier: You will be waiting in eternity because it will not just disappear on its own.

00:26:29.869 –> 00:26:31.769
Vautier: It’s got to go somewhere.

00:26:31.769 –> 00:26:33.749
Vautier: You are in control of where it goes.

00:26:33.749 –> 00:26:37.449
Vautier: I always encourage people, let that energy go out from the waist up.

00:26:37.449 –> 00:26:42.209
Vautier: That’s going to be through our vocal skills and then through hand gestures, body language, waist up.

00:26:42.209 –> 00:26:43.629
Roddy: Yeah, that’s a really good call.

00:26:43.629 –> 00:26:45.549
Roddy: That’s one thing I remember about your course.

00:26:45.549 –> 00:26:47.449
Roddy: It wasn’t just, here’s the speaking thing.

00:26:47.449 –> 00:26:51.009
Roddy: It’s here these physical things will actually significantly impact.

00:26:51.009 –> 00:26:56.129
Roddy: I do also have to mention, I feel like I have to catch up and share some of my speaking stories with you.

00:26:56.129 –> 00:26:57.469
Roddy: You mentioned about motion sickness.

00:26:57.469 –> 00:27:04.769
Roddy: I actually was part of a panel one time on a cruise ship on stage and the person next to me said, they were fellow panelists.

00:27:04.769 –> 00:27:06.729
Roddy: They’re like, man, I get really seasick.

00:27:06.729 –> 00:27:09.109
Roddy: Like I am ready to just roll up at any time.

00:27:09.709 –> 00:27:12.329
Roddy: As we’re doing the panel, we hit some big waves.

00:27:12.329 –> 00:27:13.849
Roddy: You can feel it going up and down.

00:27:13.849 –> 00:27:17.409
Roddy: I’m thinking, is she going to turn and just hurl on me?

00:27:17.409 –> 00:27:18.249
Roddy: It was entertaining.

00:27:18.849 –> 00:27:20.269
Roddy: Don’t create your own motion sickness.

00:27:20.509 –> 00:27:21.709
Roddy: Let the boat do it for you.

00:27:21.709 –> 00:27:22.189
Vautier: That’s right.

00:27:22.189 –> 00:27:26.169
Vautier: If you’re on a ship, that’s the only setting where it might be allowed.

00:27:26.169 –> 00:27:31.909
Roddy: Another thing that you write, so this is back in your book, Speak As Well As You Think, and I also remember this from your class as well.

00:27:31.909 –> 00:27:34.629
Roddy: You said, speakers should make eye contact with their audience.

00:27:34.629 –> 00:27:41.129
Roddy: One person at a time, you say, don’t dart your eyes restlessly from one audience member to another.

00:27:41.129 –> 00:27:42.349
Roddy: Can you talk about that concept?

00:27:42.409 –> 00:27:44.789
Roddy: I believe you called it, but you can correct me if I’m wrong.

00:27:44.789 –> 00:27:46.669
Roddy: Was it one person, one thought?

00:27:46.669 –> 00:27:47.589
Roddy: Is that what you called it?

00:27:47.589 –> 00:27:48.629
Roddy: Talk about that.

00:27:48.629 –> 00:27:49.129
Vautier: Yeah.

00:27:49.129 –> 00:27:50.009
Vautier: One thought, one person.

00:27:50.009 –> 00:27:50.589
Vautier: So very close to that.

00:27:51.489 –> 00:27:51.749
Roddy: All right.

00:27:51.749 –> 00:27:53.609
Vautier: But it’s the opposite of scanning.

00:27:53.609 –> 00:28:01.009
Vautier: For the listeners listening to this, scanning is when the eyes just move randomly around the room, person to person, place to place.

00:28:01.009 –> 00:28:04.469
Vautier: For those watching this live, look at what my eyes are doing right now on the camera.

00:28:05.189 –> 00:28:07.469
Vautier: It’s what I call firehosing the audience.

00:28:07.469 –> 00:28:07.969
Vautier: Okay.

00:28:07.969 –> 00:28:11.229
Vautier: I hear people’s intent is accurate.

00:28:11.229 –> 00:28:15.369
Vautier: They say, John, I want to make sure I talk to everyone in the audience, understood completely.

00:28:15.369 –> 00:28:20.269
Vautier: But understand this, if you try to talk to everyone, you end up talking to no one.

00:28:20.269 –> 00:28:23.749
Vautier: The concept that we coach is a concept called focus.

00:28:23.749 –> 00:28:30.649
Vautier: It’s giving a thought to a person, pausing, finding a new person in the room, giving that person a thought and pausing.

00:28:30.649 –> 00:28:33.609
Vautier: Finding somebody different, he or she gets a thought or two and I pause.

00:28:34.489 –> 00:28:41.009
Vautier: And I like to use the phrase thought or thought or two because I don’t want it to turn in to a staring contest.

00:28:41.009 –> 00:28:45.409
Vautier: You find Jim in the front row and you’re giving Jim one thought, two thoughts, three thoughts, four thoughts.

00:28:45.409 –> 00:28:49.609
Vautier: At some point, Jim’s going to wonder, do I have something on my face or why is John staring at me?

00:28:49.609 –> 00:28:52.489
Vautier: But it slows things down.

00:28:52.489 –> 00:28:56.689
Vautier: Scanning typically comes with an increase in pace.

00:28:56.689 –> 00:29:02.509
Vautier: As pace increases, the likelihood of ums, ahs, likes, and ya knows skyrockets.

00:29:03.349 –> 00:29:04.609
Vautier: Because the brain is scrambling.

00:29:04.609 –> 00:29:13.209
Vautier: Brain is trying to figure out, I got a lot of information up here, I got to get out and my eyes are moving a mile a minute, my pace is following, no place for me to take a pause.

00:29:15.269 –> 00:29:18.589
Vautier: Those of us listening, notice I’ve not used very many non-words.

00:29:18.589 –> 00:29:19.989
Vautier: That’s not by accident.

00:29:19.989 –> 00:29:23.069
Vautier: It’s me using the same technique that I coach in courses.

00:29:23.069 –> 00:29:24.509
Vautier: Use focus.

00:29:24.509 –> 00:29:28.309
Vautier: Give yourself permission to pause and when we do it virtually, it’s the same thing.

00:29:28.309 –> 00:29:31.069
Vautier: I’m giving a thought or two to the camera lens, I’m pausing.

00:29:32.149 –> 00:29:34.209
Vautier: New thought goes back to the camera lens.

00:29:34.209 –> 00:29:35.069
Vautier: Jim, it’s you and I here.

00:29:35.069 –> 00:29:37.289
Vautier: There’s not an audience that we’re speaking with.

00:29:37.289 –> 00:29:40.609
Vautier: I’m looking at you and you’re looking at me and that’s the way this goes.

00:29:40.609 –> 00:29:53.269
Vautier: But this concept does wonders for speakers on managing pace and then minimizing or all but eliminating the use of those ums, uhs, likes, those filler words or non-words that we hear often.

00:29:53.269 –> 00:29:53.629
Roddy: Excellent.

00:29:53.629 –> 00:29:54.009
Roddy: Good point.

00:29:54.009 –> 00:29:57.149
Roddy: I’ll just say I personally still struggle with this.

00:29:57.149 –> 00:29:59.749
Roddy: As many presentations as I give, I get up there, I’m nervous.

00:30:00.109 –> 00:30:04.789
Roddy: I start looking around and I’m just doing it too fast and that’s where again, in my brain, I’ve said one person, one thought.

00:30:04.789 –> 00:30:18.169
Roddy: But I’m like, wait a second, I at least have to pick some people out of here, some general areas to speak to for an extended period of time instead of acting like being evasive with answering a question or something like that, because that’s the vibe that it gives.

00:30:18.169 –> 00:30:19.009
Roddy: So all right.

00:30:19.009 –> 00:30:21.909
Roddy: So I also want to get your advice for PowerPoint slides.

00:30:21.909 –> 00:30:32.029
Roddy: And so I know from what you say in one of your books, you say, be simple, feature visuals that reinforce the messages of your arguments, and feature only a few words and statistics.

00:30:32.029 –> 00:30:34.729
Roddy: So I’m hoping for our audience who can expand upon that.

00:30:34.729 –> 00:30:37.589
Roddy: And I also want to get your take on animation.

00:30:37.589 –> 00:30:44.049
Roddy: So like instead of revealing all your text at once when you show a slide, right there, here’s a header and four bullets all at once.

00:30:44.049 –> 00:30:55.229
Roddy: So what do you think of presenting the text one line or a couple phrases at a time, so it’s more digestible and the audience isn’t reading ahead, they’re reading along with you.

00:30:55.929 –> 00:31:00.149
Roddy: I do this just because it drives me crazy when people throw something up on the screen.

00:31:00.149 –> 00:31:03.749
Roddy: I’m like, you’re saying this, what point do you want me to read upon?

00:31:03.749 –> 00:31:07.969
Roddy: I want to get your expert opinion on it versus my amateur loudmouth opinion.

00:31:07.969 –> 00:31:08.409
Vautier: Yeah.

00:31:08.409 –> 00:31:09.969
Vautier: No, you’re accurate on both accounts, Jim.

00:31:09.969 –> 00:31:13.549
Vautier: So our coaching is keep your slides lean.

00:31:13.549 –> 00:31:21.069
Vautier: A graphic or two, a bullet point, two, three bullet points with a couple of words instead of full sentences in a script.

00:31:21.069 –> 00:31:26.429
Vautier: The idea, you want your content, your visuals to come to life.

00:31:26.429 –> 00:31:29.649
Vautier: But you’re the person that brings them to life as the speaker.

00:31:29.649 –> 00:31:34.929
Vautier: So I tell people and coach people, I don’t want you building slides that look like written documents.

00:31:34.929 –> 00:31:37.089
Vautier: Written documents can be written documents on their own.

00:31:37.089 –> 00:31:41.829
Vautier: Those can get filed and saved and then those can get sent or distributed before or after.

00:31:41.829 –> 00:31:48.009
Vautier: But if you’re giving a talk and you’ve got slides that read like a novel, all of a sudden, you’re battling engagement.

00:31:48.009 –> 00:31:52.809
Vautier: Your audience is wondering, do I pay attention to John who’s giving this talk, or do I look at his content?

00:31:53.049 –> 00:31:56.249
Vautier: But I got a lot of content I’ve got to try and figure out.

00:31:56.249 –> 00:31:59.449
Vautier: That bridges us into the comment you just made about builds.

00:31:59.449 –> 00:32:00.869
Vautier: I’m a huge fan of builds.

00:32:00.869 –> 00:32:06.969
Vautier: I think it is speaker dependent, meaning you get to pick and choose which slides have builds.

00:32:06.969 –> 00:32:11.449
Vautier: I’m not of the mindset that every slide requires animations to build.

00:32:11.449 –> 00:32:16.569
Vautier: I use the builds on purpose when I want to manage my audience’s attention.

00:32:16.569 –> 00:32:28.229
Vautier: This means if I have four quadrants on a slide, four different graphics, if you will, if I’m only taking my audience through that top left quadrant, I’m not showing them two, three or four just yet.

00:32:28.229 –> 00:32:32.149
Vautier: I click on the clicker, I show them whatever I want them to focus on.

00:32:32.149 –> 00:32:38.729
Vautier: My talk track supports my visual, which means what they see will be somewhat consistent with what they’re hearing from me.

00:32:38.729 –> 00:32:39.929
Vautier: It’s not apples to apples.

00:32:39.929 –> 00:32:45.969
Vautier: I’m not exactly regurgitating what’s on the slide, but I’m giving what we call play-by-play in color.

00:32:45.969 –> 00:32:52.909
Vautier: Those of us familiar with sports, if you watch the NFL, Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, pick your sports analysts, but they do play-by-play in color.

00:32:52.909 –> 00:32:55.189
Vautier: You as the viewer are watching the football game.

00:32:55.189 –> 00:32:58.589
Vautier: Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are telling you about the play that’s happening.

00:32:58.589 –> 00:33:03.849
Vautier: Troy Aikman is the guy that played football, so he’s giving you all the Xs and Ys on the play itself.

00:33:03.849 –> 00:33:09.169
Vautier: Joe Buck is the color commentator that does a great job just speaking to what’s happening on the field.

00:33:09.169 –> 00:33:11.909
Vautier: Tell me what I’m watching right now so it makes sense.

00:33:11.909 –> 00:33:16.289
Vautier: Same concept is true with speakers when they give talks or presentations off of visuals.

00:33:17.149 –> 00:33:26.809
Vautier: But I like managing the audience’s attention, so my listeners aren’t looking down at Quadrant Number 4 when I’m up talking about something on Quadrant Number 1.

00:33:26.809 –> 00:33:30.129
Vautier: The animations I like, Jim, are just up here.

00:33:30.129 –> 00:33:35.829
Vautier: It’s the default option within PowerPoint, but it’s not spinning, it’s not dancing, it’s not twirling.

00:33:35.829 –> 00:33:37.029
Vautier: The bouncing.

00:33:37.029 –> 00:33:39.529
Vautier: Yeah, back to my seasick comment.

00:33:39.529 –> 00:33:44.609
Vautier: The last thing you want is your animations to your content becoming a distraction to you, the speaker.

00:33:45.609 –> 00:33:46.529
Roddy: Yes, exactly right.

00:33:46.529 –> 00:33:52.249
Roddy: Yeah, there’s a peer and there’s fade, like maybe fade is just showing up like that, but yeah, there’s spinning and all that stuff.

00:33:52.849 –> 00:33:57.269
Vautier: A lot of bells and whistles PowerPoint offers, which may be a time and a place in certain cases.

00:33:57.269 –> 00:34:08.709
Vautier: In most, your audience will appreciate something that’s very crisp and professional and doesn’t have them feeling like your eighth grader got a hold of your PowerPoint and said, oh man, you’re going to love all these different things I did to it.

00:34:09.249 –> 00:34:18.849
Roddy: Back to your point, tying a few things together, when you present this to an audience, and they can give you feedback right there, it’s great for them to say, hey, wait a second, where am I supposed to be following?

00:34:18.849 –> 00:34:22.749
Roddy: Like you’re talking about this, I see this on the screen, what do you want me to do?

00:34:22.749 –> 00:34:27.149
Roddy: That could be a good cue to the speaker that maybe I’m presenting too much at this point.

00:34:27.149 –> 00:34:27.469
Vautier: Yeah.

00:34:27.469 –> 00:34:29.529
Vautier: It offers you to do what we call pulse checks.

00:34:29.529 –> 00:34:40.529
Vautier: The pulse checks are those little check-ins with your audience, maybe at the end of slides, maybe at the end of certain sections within your content where you stop and you say, audience, I just went through quite a bit.

00:34:40.929 –> 00:34:43.669
Vautier: What questions do you have for me before I move on?

00:34:43.669 –> 00:34:52.529
Vautier: You frame it open-ended, but that allows for a little bit more dialogue and engagement to exist, if and when audience members may have questions based on things you just took them through.

00:34:52.529 –> 00:34:52.809
Roddy: Great.

00:34:52.809 –> 00:34:53.649
Roddy: Excellent.

00:34:53.649 –> 00:34:59.709
Roddy: We’re going to pause quickly to let listeners and viewers know about the Retail Solutions Providers Association.

00:34:59.709 –> 00:35:05.969
Roddy: The RSPA is North America’s largest community of retail technology bars, software providers, vendors, and distributors.

00:35:05.969 –> 00:35:12.069
Roddy: To accelerate your success through an RSPA membership, email membership at gorspa.org.

00:35:12.069 –> 00:35:17.829
Roddy: Also, we want to say thanks to our sponsors who support the RSPA community and make this podcast and video series possible.

00:35:17.829 –> 00:35:24.669
Roddy: Our Platinum sponsors, Bluestar, our Gold sponsors are Cocard, Epson, Heartland, and ScanSource.

00:35:24.769 –> 00:35:26.269
Roddy: John, I want to give a chance.

00:35:26.269 –> 00:35:26.889
Roddy: We’re not done yet.

00:35:26.889 –> 00:35:28.489
Roddy: I still have a few more questions for you.

00:35:28.489 –> 00:35:33.269
Roddy: But share with our audience, what’s the best way for them to contact you if they want to utilize your services?

00:35:33.269 –> 00:35:33.669
Vautier: Yeah.

00:35:33.669 –> 00:35:35.609
Vautier: Most active on LinkedIn or email.

00:35:35.889 –> 00:35:38.749
Vautier: So LinkedIn, just find me, John Vautier.

00:35:38.749 –> 00:35:40.329
Vautier: My dad is also John Vautier.

00:35:40.329 –> 00:35:43.489
Vautier: He’s the much older version of what you’ll see in two pictures.

00:35:43.489 –> 00:35:45.749
Vautier: And then email is John J.

00:35:45.749 –> 00:35:54.589
Vautier: So, JohnJ at vautiercommunications.com, V-A-U-T-I-E-R, communicationswithans.com.

00:35:56.889 –> 00:35:58.049
Roddy: Excellent.

00:35:58.049 –> 00:36:07.469
Roddy: Super, and I have to say, as I’ve alluded to a couple of times, I really benefited from the class that John took a couple of years, that I took over from him seven years ago.

00:36:07.469 –> 00:36:15.029
Roddy: Though John, I do have to say, so I was in publishing for 20 years, and I always say you feel extra pressure when you’re writing an e-mail to a proof reader of yours.

00:36:15.189 –> 00:36:20.909
Roddy: So I felt extra pressure preparing for this podcast with the speaking coach in terms of like, what are my hands doing?

00:36:20.909 –> 00:36:21.729
Roddy: Am I sitting up straight?

00:36:21.729 –> 00:36:28.109
Roddy: Because remember, you gave instructions in that class of you shouldn’t have your hands like off the table when you’re sitting down and presenting like that.

00:36:28.109 –> 00:36:29.929
Roddy: So a lot of those things are coming back.

00:36:32.189 –> 00:36:36.889
Roddy: So maybe I’ll watch this afterwards and see how I did on tape that you recommend.

00:36:36.889 –> 00:36:37.629
Roddy: So all right.

00:36:37.629 –> 00:36:48.109
Roddy: So one of your books again, Mastering Executive Presence, one of the things you say is people don’t fall asleep during conversations but they often do during presentation.

00:36:48.109 –> 00:36:52.849
Roddy: So what’s your advice for making a presentation conversational and interactive?

00:36:52.889 –> 00:36:58.029
Vautier: Yeah, I love where this question comes, Jim, because it ties to the question we just had before we took that break.

00:36:58.029 –> 00:37:10.149
Vautier: Most of the time I hear monotonous presentations existing, it’s when the content is scripted out, meaning the slides have bullet points, which I have no problem with bullet points.

00:37:10.149 –> 00:37:15.049
Vautier: My issue lies when bullet points are written full sentences paragraph form.

00:37:15.049 –> 00:37:20.829
Vautier: Because what that ends up encouraging the speaker to do is say the bullet point exactly the way it’s written.

00:37:21.429 –> 00:37:23.429
Vautier: And there’s not a lot of energy within that.

00:37:23.429 –> 00:37:35.209
Vautier: And so making content conversational, I like to encourage, use key words, use key phrases, have simple little bullet points, simple graphics, simple visuals that basically trigger you.

00:37:35.209 –> 00:37:39.229
Vautier: You look at it and you say, okay, this is what I want to say about blank.

00:37:39.229 –> 00:37:41.269
Vautier: But that’s how you keep it very conversational.

00:37:41.269 –> 00:37:42.929
Vautier: It’s just a dialogue.

00:37:42.929 –> 00:37:44.349
Vautier: There’s no need for the script.

00:37:44.349 –> 00:37:55.629
Vautier: I’m not wild about memorization, because if we think about from listeners out there who have heard speakers who have been memorized, as an audience, we can tell pretty quickly when someone’s memorized something.

00:37:55.629 –> 00:37:58.469
Vautier: There’s just a cadence that makes it sound memorized.

00:37:58.469 –> 00:38:07.249
Vautier: Typically, when I hear someone who’s memorized his or her content, it doesn’t sound authentic, it doesn’t sound genuine, it lacks sincerity.

00:38:07.249 –> 00:38:12.609
Vautier: I would rather you be able to reference your content and just have a genuine conversation with me.

00:38:12.609 –> 00:38:18.909
Vautier: This idea of being perfect, I think is unrealistic and make sure we make this clear in all of our coaching courses.

00:38:18.909 –> 00:38:21.069
Vautier: You shouldn’t be chasing perfection.

00:38:21.069 –> 00:38:23.629
Vautier: Instead, chase effectiveness.

00:38:23.629 –> 00:38:25.929
Vautier: Don’t try to be perfect because it’s not going to happen.

00:38:25.929 –> 00:38:29.629
Vautier: How can you be your most effective self for your audience and your listeners?

00:38:29.629 –> 00:38:33.869
Vautier: One of the easiest ways to do that, keep your content conversational.

00:38:33.869 –> 00:38:53.929
Vautier: The end of the day, people want to hear another human being speak with them conversationally using simple language, easily understand understood words and phrases, but you’re not getting kudos or a pat on the back for using those $25 scrabble words, then an audience is going to have to pull out their phone and say, wait a second, I got to Google this because I have no idea what that word means.

00:38:53.929 –> 00:38:54.149
Roddy: Yeah.

00:38:54.969 –> 00:39:01.089
Roddy: I guess there’s a fine line between practicing, but then you can be too polished where it comes off as insincere.

00:39:01.089 –> 00:39:08.009
Roddy: Again, this is another thing I remember you taught me where I’m a writer by trade, so I would write everything out and it’d be hard for me to reference it.

00:39:08.009 –> 00:39:09.749
Roddy: I tried to cram it all in.

00:39:09.749 –> 00:39:16.049
Roddy: Now what I do is I essentially write it out, and then I just pick out the bullet words and phrases and then I go and refer to that.

00:39:16.049 –> 00:39:21.869
Roddy: I can’t even read anything to anybody because it’s not there in front of me as a crush.

00:39:21.869 –> 00:39:23.549
Roddy: That’s what it sounds like you’re talking about.

00:39:23.549 –> 00:39:28.749
Roddy: Somebody shouldn’t come out there with a 15-page presentation that they’re flipping through and reading through.

00:39:28.749 –> 00:39:30.809
Roddy: That’s a whole different skill to do.

00:39:30.809 –> 00:39:35.349
Roddy: Just have those notes and bullets and then it’ll remind you and speak as best as you can with that.

00:39:35.349 –> 00:39:36.629
Roddy: Am I understanding that correctly?

00:39:36.629 –> 00:39:37.409
Vautier: Correct.

00:39:37.409 –> 00:39:37.969
Vautier: Spot on, Jim.

00:39:38.049 –> 00:39:42.329
Vautier: And even in speech writing, I’ve done this not often, but occasionally.

00:39:42.329 –> 00:39:43.469
Vautier: I’ll write speeches.

00:39:44.029 –> 00:39:56.169
Vautier: It’s not something I love to do because, again, I’d rather the speech be delivered genuinely from the person giving it versus John Vautier wrote this for me and I’m going to stand up on a podium and say it.

00:39:56.169 –> 00:39:59.809
Vautier: But when I do the speech writing, I bracket it out.

00:39:59.809 –> 00:40:04.149
Vautier: So it’s not just one continuous flow of content like you would read in a James Patterson novel.

00:40:04.149 –> 00:40:10.389
Vautier: Instead, it’s bracketed, it’s short, but this way the speaker knows this thought is a thought.

00:40:10.389 –> 00:40:11.969
Vautier: This goes to a person.

00:40:11.969 –> 00:40:13.569
Vautier: Pause, new thought, new person.

00:40:13.569 –> 00:40:18.669
Vautier: But it’s got those natural breaks that exist within normal conversations.

00:40:18.669 –> 00:40:24.529
Vautier: We know most conversations have ebbs and flows and have pauses that just naturally occur within.

00:40:24.529 –> 00:40:25.389
Vautier: That’s what makes it easy.

00:40:25.389 –> 00:40:28.749
Vautier: That’s why people say, oh, conversations are comfortable.

00:40:28.749 –> 00:40:30.829
Vautier: Presentations aren’t that much different.

00:40:30.829 –> 00:40:38.409
Vautier: It’s just a conversation in front of maybe a lot more people or in a scenario that you feel like this is more high stakes than what I’d have.

00:40:38.409 –> 00:40:41.629
Vautier: Jim and I sit together at a bar, sit together for coffee.

00:40:41.629 –> 00:40:46.689
Roddy: Yeah, that’s my snotty response when people say like, I’m nervous about speaking like, how long have you been talking for?

00:40:46.689 –> 00:40:47.529
Roddy: Well, my entire life.

00:40:47.529 –> 00:40:48.009
Roddy: Oh, yeah.

00:40:48.009 –> 00:40:48.569
Roddy: Okay.

00:40:48.569 –> 00:40:51.609
Roddy: Let’s just translate that into, just do that thing.

00:40:51.609 –> 00:40:54.549
Roddy: But people feel like they have to be a totally different person.

00:40:54.549 –> 00:41:03.369
Roddy: And as you’ve been talking about, there are different skills and presentations and tactics, but it still comes down to somebody who is relatable as opposed to polished.

00:41:03.429 –> 00:41:07.609
Roddy: And they end up looking like a phony politician or like you said, they’re just reading a script.

00:41:07.609 –> 00:41:10.569
Roddy: So I have a couple other questions I want to get to.

00:41:10.569 –> 00:41:14.769
Roddy: So we’ve talked throughout this about preparing for a speech.

00:41:14.769 –> 00:41:30.709
Roddy: And so I understand that your philosophy is the best preparation includes giving at least portions of the speech, videotaping it, like you said, having an audience also as well, but videotaping it, watching it, making adjustments and then going back and doing some portions of that again.

00:41:30.709 –> 00:41:35.129
Roddy: And so I’m sure there are a lot of listeners and viewers because we know they’re human beings, right?

00:41:35.129 –> 00:41:37.989
Roddy: They’re wincing at the prospect of watching themselves speak.

00:41:37.989 –> 00:41:43.769
Roddy: But why do you, that’s one thing I remember in your class that really made people go, oh my gosh, I have to watch myself.

00:41:43.769 –> 00:41:45.309
Roddy: Why do you videotape everyone you coach?

00:41:45.309 –> 00:41:47.129
Roddy: Why do you recommend that people do that?

00:41:47.129 –> 00:41:48.769
Vautier: Yeah, video doesn’t lie, Jim.

00:41:48.769 –> 00:41:56.069
Vautier: So anything that we think about an audience is going to get from us, we can go through the process of video recording, bits and pieces of content.

00:41:56.069 –> 00:41:58.709
Vautier: It doesn’t have to be the entirety of the talk.

00:41:58.709 –> 00:41:59.649
Vautier: But pick and choose.

00:41:59.729 –> 00:42:02.249
Vautier: You figure, okay, I’m most nervous when I first begin.

00:42:02.249 –> 00:42:05.589
Vautier: Let me make sure I’m well rehearsed at the beginning of my talk.

00:42:05.589 –> 00:42:09.769
Vautier: I know what I want to say, I know how I want to say it, let me get it on video, and then let me watch it back.

00:42:09.769 –> 00:42:12.509
Vautier: That’s the part that most people cringe with.

00:42:12.509 –> 00:42:15.589
Vautier: They think, John, I don’t like the way I look and sound on video.

00:42:15.589 –> 00:42:17.009
Vautier: Fair, most people don’t.

00:42:17.009 –> 00:42:20.889
Vautier: But everything the audience gets, they get at face value.

00:42:20.889 –> 00:42:27.169
Vautier: Which means everything that you’re doing physically and vocally on camera is likely what your audience is going to get day of.

00:42:27.169 –> 00:42:32.809
Vautier: Of course, changes here and there, yes, maybe you’re not wearing the same shirt, maybe whatever the changes are.

00:42:32.809 –> 00:42:34.649
Vautier: But get yourself on video.

00:42:34.649 –> 00:42:38.609
Vautier: And I almost like recommending, Jim, three levels of review.

00:42:38.609 –> 00:42:45.409
Vautier: OK, if you get yourself on video, level one of review, just watch, turn the audio off.

00:42:45.409 –> 00:42:47.629
Vautier: Just watch what you’re doing physically.

00:42:47.629 –> 00:42:49.149
Vautier: You won’t hear anything and that’s OK.

00:42:49.149 –> 00:42:50.869
Vautier: But watch what you’re doing physically.

00:42:50.869 –> 00:42:54.009
Vautier: Watch what you’re going to look like in front of the audience.

00:42:54.009 –> 00:42:58.949
Vautier: Level two, listen, this means play the video, but don’t watch the video.

00:42:59.129 –> 00:43:03.849
Vautier: Play the audio, turn your head, close your eyes, flip the phone over, whatever you got to do.

00:43:03.849 –> 00:43:05.889
Vautier: Just listen to the words.

00:43:05.889 –> 00:43:07.269
Vautier: How are you saying what you’re saying?

00:43:07.269 –> 00:43:08.629
Vautier: What’s your volume level sound like?

00:43:08.629 –> 00:43:09.829
Vautier: What’s your pace sound like?

00:43:09.829 –> 00:43:11.409
Vautier: Where are non-words existing?

00:43:11.409 –> 00:43:17.089
Vautier: Are you emphasizing the appropriate keywords and key phrases based on what your audience needs to take away?

00:43:17.089 –> 00:43:31.109
Vautier: Level three, if you have a transcription device, something that can transcribe what you said on video, and I’m going to give a shout out to one of our partners that we started working with at the beginning of this year, Udly, Y-O-O-D-L-I.

00:43:32.389 –> 00:43:35.229
Vautier: It’s an AI speech coach that we think is fantastic.

00:43:35.229 –> 00:43:40.069
Vautier: Any of you familiar with Grammarly for writing, Udly is Grammarly for speaking.

00:43:40.069 –> 00:43:40.589
Roddy: Interesting.

00:43:40.589 –> 00:43:42.849
Vautier: But Udly will transcribe the content.

00:43:42.849 –> 00:43:49.849
Vautier: Then you look at the content and you say, based on what I’m seeing, this transcription, does my message make sense?

00:43:49.849 –> 00:43:52.089
Vautier: You know your message better than anyone else will.

00:43:52.089 –> 00:43:57.849
Vautier: So really take a look at it and say, am I saying the things that I feel are most value add for my audience?

00:43:57.849 –> 00:43:59.469
Vautier: Am I saying them simply?

00:43:59.469 –> 00:44:03.809
Vautier: And are there areas where I’m looking at some of the transcription and I’m saying, this is fluff.

00:44:03.809 –> 00:44:04.949
Vautier: This doesn’t need to be there.

00:44:04.949 –> 00:44:08.629
Vautier: It’s more for the sake of being more and it’s not more because it’s better.

00:44:08.629 –> 00:44:11.989
Vautier: Then I remove it and then I go back and rehearse again.

00:44:11.989 –> 00:44:18.529
Vautier: But as often as you can, any of us that are thinking, okay, John, I don’t have the time to put myself in front of teams or on Zoom.

00:44:18.529 –> 00:44:20.669
Vautier: We all have a smartphone these days.

00:44:20.669 –> 00:44:21.549
Vautier: I’m certain of it.

00:44:21.669 –> 00:44:25.609
Vautier: We all have a camera on that smartphone with a video recording opportunity.

00:44:25.609 –> 00:44:34.749
Vautier: It’s really low-hanging fruit that has a massive impact on performance based on what we end up reviewing, and then how we make those changes.

00:44:34.749 –> 00:44:36.789
Vautier: But end of the day, it’s data.

00:44:36.789 –> 00:44:44.069
Vautier: It’s data that we’re able to take in and decide, what do I want to do with this based on what my outcomes or expectations might be?

00:44:44.069 –> 00:44:44.529
Roddy: Excellent.

00:44:44.529 –> 00:44:46.009
Roddy: You’re not going to get worse by it.

00:44:46.529 –> 00:44:51.589
Roddy: You won’t be your own speech coach like an expert like John is, but you’ll be able to pick up on some things.

00:44:51.589 –> 00:45:01.509
Roddy: Like you said, some idiosyncrasies or like you said, the fluff that you can say, okay, I don’t need to do that, but it’s way different because when you’re in the moment presenting, you’re thinking about a bunch of other things.

00:45:01.509 –> 00:45:04.989
Roddy: But when, like you said, you put yourself in the audience, there’s no substitute for that.

00:45:05.349 –> 00:45:12.189
Vautier: It’s the same reason pro athletes and any highest level Olympians, highest level musicians, they go to game film.

00:45:12.189 –> 00:45:13.529
Vautier: They watch what they did.

00:45:13.529 –> 00:45:15.889
Vautier: Even if it’s uncomfortable, it’s awkward, it feels weird.

00:45:16.489 –> 00:45:19.549
Vautier: There’s so much value in doing that process.

00:45:19.549 –> 00:45:20.249
Roddy: It works.

00:45:20.249 –> 00:45:20.709
Roddy: It works.

00:45:20.709 –> 00:45:22.049
Roddy: It’s uncomfortable, right?

00:45:22.049 –> 00:45:25.769
Roddy: But that’s pushing yourself outside your comfort zone or your courage zone.

00:45:25.769 –> 00:45:28.569
Roddy: John, we’ve covered a ton during our conversation today.

00:45:28.569 –> 00:45:30.629
Roddy: What haven’t we discussed that you want to mention?

00:45:30.629 –> 00:45:42.089
Roddy: Again, I know there’s more and more that we can talk about, but can you talk about what’s some top advice that you would give to our audience to help them become better speakers, better communicators, and ultimately better leaders?

00:45:42.089 –> 00:45:42.409
Vautier: Yeah.

00:45:42.409 –> 00:45:43.389
Vautier: Two come to mind, Jim.

00:45:43.489 –> 00:45:48.689
Vautier: Number one, start to look at communication as an ever used skill.

00:45:48.689 –> 00:45:54.389
Vautier: This means don’t look at presentations like, okay, I’m only going to practice when I have to give a presentation.

00:45:54.389 –> 00:45:57.229
Vautier: Communication skills are what I call human skills.

00:45:57.229 –> 00:46:10.469
Vautier: This means there is no reason why we shouldn’t be mindful of a lot of the tactics that I’ve talked about today on the pod in everyday life, in social settings with your spouse, in personal life with your kids, outside of the workplace.

00:46:10.549 –> 00:46:19.989
Vautier: But if you can chase repetitions and be mindful of the skills, it’s a constant opportunity for you to actively and passively practice.

00:46:19.989 –> 00:46:20.969
Vautier: So that would be one thing.

00:46:20.969 –> 00:46:23.189
Vautier: The second, get out of your own way.

00:46:23.189 –> 00:46:26.529
Vautier: I know for a lot of us, we are always going to be our own worst critics.

00:46:26.529 –> 00:46:29.429
Vautier: We’ve got that little voice in our head that says, we’re not good enough.

00:46:29.429 –> 00:46:35.149
Vautier: This concept of imposter syndrome that exists for all of us.

00:46:35.149 –> 00:46:37.369
Vautier: Everybody is a beginner at something.

00:46:37.369 –> 00:46:39.489
Vautier: So give yourself grace, give yourself space.

00:46:39.569 –> 00:46:47.129
Vautier: If you’re just beginning on a speaking journey, do it frequently and don’t think that waiting and waiting and waiting is going to make it better.

00:46:47.129 –> 00:46:52.589
Vautier: Waiting is only going to make it longer for you to have to pass this over and make sure you get out of your comfort zone.

00:46:52.589 –> 00:47:01.289
Vautier: But if you can start to use the skills in any scenario that might be easy for you, you’ll be able to start using them effectively.

00:47:01.289 –> 00:47:07.449
Vautier: And the more active practice you get, the more you move these skills into what we call a state of unconscious competence.

00:47:08.309 –> 00:47:11.669
Vautier: That’s where you hear people say so-and-so is on autopilot.

00:47:11.669 –> 00:47:13.909
Vautier: It would be like tying our shoes or riding a bike.

00:47:13.909 –> 00:47:16.729
Vautier: For most of us today, if we had to tie our shoes, we don’t think about it.

00:47:16.729 –> 00:47:17.189
Vautier: We just do it.

00:47:17.189 –> 00:47:18.889
Vautier: We’ve done it a thousand times.

00:47:18.889 –> 00:47:20.169
Vautier: Riding a bike, very similar.

00:47:20.169 –> 00:47:27.109
Vautier: Once you’ve learned how to ride a bike as a kid, you could take ten years off riding a bike and someone could put a bike in front of you and say, can you ride to the mailbox and back?

00:47:27.109 –> 00:47:28.549
Vautier: And you’d say, sure.

00:47:28.549 –> 00:47:30.589
Vautier: Speaking is a skill just like that.

00:47:30.589 –> 00:47:33.809
Vautier: You can move it into that unconscious competence state.

00:47:33.809 –> 00:47:34.689
Vautier: It just takes time.

00:47:34.689 –> 00:47:35.349
Vautier: It takes reps.

00:47:35.449 –> 00:47:42.069
Vautier: And ideally, it takes hopefully an effective coach that you feel trustworthy with and can help you develop the skills.

00:47:42.069 –> 00:47:46.829
Roddy: It’s funny you bring that up because I remember the earliest speaking that I ever did, I used to publish a sports magazine.

00:47:46.829 –> 00:47:49.929
Roddy: This is from when I was age 23 to 28.

00:47:49.929 –> 00:47:52.309
Roddy: A friend of mine had a sports talk radio show.

00:47:52.309 –> 00:47:54.009
Roddy: And so I delivered the papers to him.

00:47:54.009 –> 00:47:57.309
Roddy: He’s like, hey, why don’t you come on and talk about the issue?

00:47:57.309 –> 00:47:58.189
Roddy: And I’m like, oh, my gosh.

00:47:58.189 –> 00:48:00.149
Roddy: And he puts that microphone down.

00:48:00.149 –> 00:48:09.989
Roddy: And then I just remember every time I’d appear as a guest for the first several, like as the commercial, and we’re about to come back, my heart is just pounding through my chest, and my mouth would get all dry.

00:48:09.989 –> 00:48:12.429
Roddy: And I’d be like, oh, my gosh, this is the worst thing in the world.

00:48:12.429 –> 00:48:16.769
Roddy: But over time, you became less conscious of the microphone and everything else.

00:48:16.769 –> 00:48:19.709
Roddy: And then I was just talking to him and being able to do that.

00:48:19.709 –> 00:48:23.049
Roddy: But you’re saying that takes time, it takes practice, it takes repetition.

00:48:23.049 –> 00:48:24.109
Vautier: Yep, it does.

00:48:24.109 –> 00:48:29.549
Vautier: And those, I think, would be the two easiest, most applicable, highest value add, at least right now.

00:48:29.549 –> 00:48:34.789
Vautier: For any listeners who are interested in more information, I could talk at length about all of this.

00:48:34.789 –> 00:48:41.189
Vautier: I know Jim and I have a short period here, but you want to talk shop, I’m all ears, all things communication skills.

00:48:41.189 –> 00:48:41.589
Roddy: Excellent.

00:48:41.589 –> 00:48:47.329
Roddy: And John, before we wrap things up, I do want to say just like personally, a huge thank you for your guidance, right?

00:48:47.329 –> 00:48:49.769
Roddy: There’s the class that I went through.

00:48:49.769 –> 00:48:51.349
Roddy: I kept all the materials from that.

00:48:51.349 –> 00:48:57.189
Roddy: I’ve integrated into a lot of my pre, my preparation for whenever I present the books as well.

00:48:57.189 –> 00:49:01.349
Roddy: And then I subscribe to the podcast, I get your newsletter, so it’s still that regular reminder.

00:49:01.689 –> 00:49:03.069
Roddy: And I’ll just share one story with you.

00:49:03.069 –> 00:49:09.749
Roddy: A colleague and I had to present at one of our vendor partner conferences, and they were having all sorts of vendors presenting.

00:49:09.749 –> 00:49:26.929
Roddy: So she and I went through all the paces in terms of what we should do, it was two of us presenting, we had PowerPoints and everything like that, we followed your principles, and we thought we did fine right afterwards, and all these other vendors presented, we get back to our table, and a guy comes over and says, you guys have your blank together.

00:49:26.929 –> 00:49:29.449
Roddy: He said, can you teach these other people how to do this?

00:49:29.449 –> 00:49:31.209
Roddy: And we were like, we didn’t feel like we did anything.

00:49:31.789 –> 00:49:40.629
Roddy: But we followed what you had talked about, about making it conversational, digestible, not overwhelming people with stuff.

00:49:40.629 –> 00:49:42.089
Roddy: So that’s why we brought you on today.

00:49:42.089 –> 00:49:44.669
Roddy: Again, thanks for your time here.

00:49:44.669 –> 00:49:49.069
Roddy: Thanks for being able to teach our members, and hopefully some of them will connect with you and talk one on one.

00:49:49.069 –> 00:49:49.649
Vautier: Fantastic.

00:49:49.649 –> 00:49:52.269
Vautier: Jim, I appreciate you giving me the chance to be a guest on this.

00:49:52.269 –> 00:49:53.189
Vautier: Thank you.

00:49:53.189 –> 00:49:53.629
Roddy: My pleasure.

00:49:53.629 –> 00:49:55.809
Roddy: Well, that does it for this episode of The Trusted Advisor.

00:49:55.809 –> 00:50:02.949
Roddy: If you enjoyed our discussion, be sure to subscribe to the RSPA YouTube channel and The Trusted Advisor podcast so you never miss an episode.

00:50:02.949 –> 00:50:07.229
Roddy: Before we go, big thanks again to John Vautier for sharing his wisdom with us today.

00:50:07.229 –> 00:50:10.829
Roddy: Thanks also to RSPA Marketing Director Chris Arnold for his production work.

00:50:10.829 –> 00:50:12.369
Roddy: Joseph McDade for our music.

00:50:12.369 –> 00:50:15.209
Roddy: And last but not least, thanks so much to you for listening.

00:50:15.209 –> 00:50:22.249
Roddy: Our goal at the RSPA is to accelerate the success of our members in the retail technology ecosystem by providing knowledge and connections.

00:50:22.249 –> 00:50:25.749
Roddy: For more information, please visit our website at gorspa.org.

00:50:26.049 –> 00:50:29.349
Roddy: Thanks for listening and goodbye everybody.