The White Rabbit podcast

In this episode, Matthew Rawle discusses owned media and the ways it can better help you connect with your audience.

Sevil Kubilay, a recent arrival in Startup Land, goes into The Transition (going from corporate life to startup life), the hesitance to put herself into her company's story, and a common misconception of Japan's ikigai.

In this episode, guest Pranav Kale riffs on how to find your big idea, the importance of knowing what your big idea is, how to sync it with the words the market might be using to describe it, and, surprise surprise, what all this has to do with Subway sandwiches.

In this episode, guest Nick Richtsmeier talks about how the internet is affecting the mindset of your audience members. This is a great episode for beginning to understand the mindset your audience members are in long before they even show up in the room for your...

Matt and Alper go into ways to build trust with your audience during your presentation, including, perhaps counterintuitively, saying no.

Wes Wheless, in going into something he calls intellectual headshots, talks about the importance of distilling your larger body of work into a set of clear visual representations of an idea, and how those visuals allow your idea to travel. Link to the Headshots, and...

Baldwin Berges, an advisor for the European Commission and the Islamic Development Bank, talks about doing business in emerging markets. In particular for us presentation-related folks, he talks about some of his tips and tricks for researching your audience, and a...

Guest Brad Farris dives into how presence saves time. Often, we humans tend to think being present costs time. But listen up as Brad goes into how it can help you solve problems faster and have more time on your hands at the same time (no pun intended).

Our guest Luka Krejci, a presentation trainer from Croatia, talks about presentation training in general and his new book Presentation Cookbook in particular. Also, Matt and Alper focus on different aspects of the view outside Luka's office window.

Alper dives into an episode we did recently with Alex Smith, applying Alex's principles of strategy to the world of presentations.

Matt and Alper riff on a couple comments from recent guests, to the extent of us humans being less rational than we like to think we are, and what can we do about that, if anything.

Selim Selveroğlu, a product manager for Dell, goes into the "Me First" vs "Connection First" communications strategies framework, and some of the ways he trains people on how that framework can help them improve their communication.

Şebnem Dağ Güven goes into the importance of storytelling in sales and how she goes about training her people in that skill.

Alex Smith of basicarts.org talks about the two stories every company needs, and how important having a well-defined strategy is before making them.

In today's episode, Rick Pizzoli returns with valuable suggestions for startup companies who are moving from founder-led sales to a more professional sales team. Even if you're not in this startup demographic, there are some great learnings coming out of this episode...

This episode's guest is Rick Pizzoli, the CEO of Sales Force Europe. Rick goes into things like what prompts a company to want to sell abroad, how to get your employees and investors on board, and some of the nuts and bolts of selling into the EU specifically.

Alper goes into the three mistakes he sees people making all the time. Learn what these are, don't make them, and you'll be ahead of half the game.

Yalın Yüregil goes into various aspects of selling into another country, specifically the importance of addressing operational issues you think you already figured out, adjusting your expectations, staying away from the all-to-common mindset of "it works here, so it...

Matt goes into what he took away, from a recent interview, about building trust. He touches on commitment (hat tip to Robert Cialdini, someone Matt and Alper both have mixed feelings about), how to build trust into a pitchdeck, the importance of describing the problem...

Vlad Cazan, co-founder of Romania's KFactory, goes into his company's efforts to sell in other countries, particularly into the UK. In particular, he goes into the importance of patience and preparation, and what to do when you don't have any connections in the target...

Bertay Fişekçi, employee engagement expert extraordinaire, goes into his public speaking journey, starting with what initially prompted him to work on that skill, how he got past initial fears once he started down that road, and how it helps him in his daily life now.

Matt and Alper blow out the carbon (a phrase an old family friend of Matt's used to use to mean taking an old car out on the highway for some exercise). In this case, that means they cover a couple miscellaneous pieces of business. Matt is considering updating a...

In this episode Matt interviews Alper on other ways into angel investing. Matt has a dream that we can provide a service and magically become part owners of, say, Microsoft, but Alper squashes that dream, saying that yes, some actual money is probably going to be...

Brad Farris returns to the podcast to describe a pivotal moment in the emotional regulation of how you show up for any communication event, be it a presentation or an employee's performance review. Matt plays the guinea pig (in other words, test subject), providing...

In this episode, Melda Sofuoğlu, a former client of Matt's, goes into what she has picked up over the years in the presentation world. Also, Melda, having worked in multiple countries, weighs in on the age-old question: Is presenting less data on a slide a...

In this, the 100th episode of The White Rabbit, Matt and Alper talk about what has changed in the world of presentations over the past two years. In particular, what they keep coming back to is that the magic only appears when you show up regularly, and the...

Following a recent episode, where Matt posed a question to Alper in binary terms, Alper digs deeper into the potential problems associated with any binary approach. Alper points out a recent Netflix documentary that provides an excellent view into what can go wrong if...

Matt asks Alper for his opinion on two perspectives, which Matt soon realizes sound opposite but are actually not, and Alper offers up a third perspective. If you've ever wondered who the most valuable person in the room is, this episode is for you.              

Alper compares PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, and Canva. Each has its pros and cons, and Alper does his best to stay diplomatic and acknowledge that.  Listen in on this one if you want to hear a pro weigh in on the "should I export or not" question.    

Matt and Alper dig further into an article Alper wrote recently about how the beliefs and mindsets we carry around make it hard to present well. Interestingly, many of these scripts that run in the backs of our heads are useful elsewhere in other contexts, but can get...

In this episode, economist Zombor Berezvai goes into the importance of telling stories, even when presenting to academic audiences. You'd think that academic audiences would be fine with the unprocessed presentation of data, but as Zombor reminds us, even those groups...

In this episode, Berk Temuroğlu goes further into organizational changes as a startup's sales base expands to other markets. In particular, how the company's investor base will evolve, how the new investors can help the company, the inevitability of a culture clash...

Berk Temuroğlu, in the first part of his repeat guest visit, goes into what challenges a startup, having conquered the world of domestic sales, typically faces when launching into the challenging world of international sales. In this episode, Berk talks about who to...

In this episode, Matt goes into three of the constraints he often puts his clients into. Sometimes the best way to cut is to subject yourself and your presentation to artificial constraints. In real life, you won't have to meet these artificial constraints, but if...

This goes out to all the people out there in their mid-30s who say "My technical skills got me where I am now, so they'll be enough to keep me going." If that's you, you're absolutely correct about the first part, your technical wizardry, and your development of it,...

A couple weeks ago, Alper went into the spiritual side of the business for him. Today we turn the tables on Matt and make him explain the spiritual side from his perspective, and it has to do with bringing peace to others, but not in the way that phrase is usually used.

Berk Temuroğlu goes into corporate managers adopting a founder mindset (and vice versa), the importance of integrating the problem/solution cycle into your communications, and including risk in the ROI calculation. Berk, being that he has one foot in the startup world...

Alper expounds on a more spiritual way of looking at presenting. Who would have thought Rumi would come up in a conversation about presentations? And yet in this episode, he does. Warning: The phrases "existential" and "serving others" come up in this episode, so be...

In this episode, Max Traylor, consultant to consultants, goes into ways creative businesses can productize their services, other than designing templates and selling them on Canva. One of the core points he makes is the importance of looking at your process, and the...

In this episode, Memet Yazici, who runs a private investment advisory service, goes into a key part of the investment process, the management meeting, and in particular how the audience expectations are different in a meeting with venture capital people compared to a...

Matt and Alper debunk the 93% myth as it has been misapplied to communication, and give some alternatives about what key skills are needed instead. And who would have thought that drywall anchor bolts had something to do with presentations. In this episode, we learn...

Matt and Alper wish a Happy New Year to those celebrating, shoot down the idea of organizing this into seasons (after all, it's a podcast, not a TV series), and go into preparing for a non-linear presentation. For all of you who were hoping our recent discussions of...

You know the feeling. The palms are sweating, the temples are wet, the mouth is dry. Is it a heart attack, or is it just an old-fashioned case of the jitters? In this episode, Matt and Alper lay into the misconception that nervousness is always bad, that it should be...

Inspired by a recent guest's comment, Matt and Alper dig into Alper's patented 4-step process for presenting bad news, not just bad news to the board, but bad news to pretty much any audience. The four steps are: 1. State the obvious (be upfront about the problem); 2....

In this episode, agency coach Brad Farris goes into the big picture of what a speaker is going through. Interestingly, he sees nervousness as not entirely a bad thing. He also goes into making mirror neurons work for you, how audience agreement doesn't necessarily...

Today we talk about pitching to procurement. It's a department feared by many, and with a reputation for commoditizing all who appear before it, but Ebru reminds us that the procurement department is staffed by regular folks just like the rest of us, and the...

Matt and Alper go into one of Matt's favorite phrases, "Kill your darlings," including how to implement it, why it won't make your audience think you're stupid and simple, what it means for slide design, and more. A hot tip: It's an alternative, easier, "back door"...

Jonathan Stark guests on the podcast again, this time to tell us how to have a conversation that will uncover the real reason the client has called you in. Jonathan outlines the three specific questions to ask, plus why it's so important to just sit there for a bit...

In this episode, guest Jonathan Stark, the king of not billing hourly, goes into how he came to the realization that hourly billing is a huge mistake, how hourly rates are actually "corrosive" to your relationship with your client, and how moving past them ushers in a...

Alper riffs on a subject a guest brought up recently, that maybe the pushback you get during your presentation isn't about you, it is legitimate questions about your idea. We tend to take things personally (after all, we're human, at least most of us), but as Alper...

This week business owner and industry organization board member Ebru Demirel goes into how to present an idea to a company or organization. In particular, she talks about the need for transparency, the willingness to discuss the downside risks of an idea, the...

Almost every slide designer has heard the phrase, "But we can get this done in [insert country here] for a fraction of the price. Slide designers aren't alone in feeling this pressure. So in the interests of hearing how another industry deals with this, today we talk...

On the docket for today, measuring the efficacy of a presentation. Can it be done? Our answer: Yes. Actually, it's not so simple. Matt not-so-secretly suspects that the presentation itself has no value, and Alper suspects that it does. 

Matt and Alper revisit the low-hanging fruit, the clients' perennial favorite question: "I have a surprise presentation coming up in a few minutes, what are the quick things I should do first to get the biggest part of the improvement?" Hint: They are: 1. Answer the...

Amidst all the solopreneur emphasis on the need to niche one's business, Matt mentions that his favorite clients, by far, are the ones who, months later, have evolved to something that has absolutely nothing to do with his niche. He highly recommends that the other...

Alper goes into the traits he sees making for a successful client. They are 1. Recognizing the power of exceptional communications, 2. Understanding that this is not an overnight process, 3. Recognizing the fine line between persuasion and fit, and 4. Understanding...

Matt describes what he sees as the three traits of clients who get the most out of the training. The traits are: 1. A history of serial problem solving, 2. A frustration coming from one of life's slaps in the face, and 3. The fear of god (an external force that makes...

Matt asks Alper for advice on how to handle a crisis of confidence his clients often face shortly after starting work.  

Alper goes into how AI is affecting his slide design work, and in particular how he reduces its impact. In short: Even if the AI image quality were perfect, which it's definitely not, the legal situation is too fluid, so go with your tried-and-true techniques: Make...

After resisting the temptation to talk AI, Matt and Alper finally break down and do it. Along the way they discuss the meaning of the phrase "con man" and the existential reasons for why they do what they do. The upshot of the discussion is that AI's source material...

Alper goes deeper into the specifics of a sales presentation slide deck, and in particular how you know it's time to upgrade your old deck, the importance of interactivity, and the importance of talking directly with your sales force while deciding how to layout the...

Matt goes into a phrase he uses often with his clients, "stalk the board," and what he means by that, why to do it and how to do it, and what to expect and not expect. Don't worry, it doesn't involve hiding out in the bushes at midnight, getting arrested, or looking...

Alper mentions a sales presentation webinar he was leading recently, and in particular, suggestions he gave for building one's self-confidence in the delivery, and what are the right things to practice and what are the wrong things to practice. Also, what is an...

Matt goes into the major steps (and missteps) in his specialization journey, including what prompted him to start down that road in the first place.

Alper goes into rational and emotional resistance factors clients face, and that your slide deck can only carry part of the role in overcoming that resistance.

Alper asks Matt what he means by the phrase "The Four Things." If you want to "Pareto" your presentation or speech (do the 20% of the things that will get you 80% of the improvement), these are the four things to tackle first.

Matt and Alper interview Natalia Talkowska about the importance of putting some of your own story into your presentations, even if you feel a bit unsure about it, and how your audience needs that from you in order to connect with your message. Also, Natalia challenges...

Tom Tran makes another guest appearance on the podcast, this time to talk about internship presentations. What are they for, and what should be in there, and in particular, the importance of getting buy-in during the presentation development process.

Matt and Alper talk to product manager Ömer Gençer, who describes how he customizes his presentations for the many different audiences he encounters in his day-to-day work life.

Matt and Alper go into some tips for dealing with "Zoom latency" -- the tendency of videoconferencing software to interrupt the way we humans interact.  

Today Alper goes into the three factors causing us to be so stressed when speaking during a presentation, even though we know the chances are pretty low that someone is going to shoot us in the head while we're doing it, along with some of his techniques for getting...

Alper goes into some ways to execute the non-linear approach to presentations in PowerPoint. If you want your message to land with the audience, you need to know these techniques.

Matt goes into his own form of resistance. Hint: It relates in particular to writing. In true Matt form, his technique for overcoming resistance is perhaps simplistic and reductive: He boils it down to one single step.

Alper goes into overcoming resistance, particularly as it applies to making videos, and more generally, as it applies to rehearsing for presentations. He outlines the six steps he goes through, and recommends to others, when overcoming resistance.

Tom Tran, an associate brand manager in the CPG business, comes on the podcast to describe how presentations are prepared in his world. Matt, Alper, and Tom suspect that maybe, just maybe, a future episode will need to deal with documents that go out before the meeting.

The White Rabbit podcast turns the big five-oh. Congratulations to TWRP! Inspired by a comment he heard from Chris Do of TheFutur.com, Alper wonders how presentations would change if we stopped using the vocabulary of obligation to describe them (“I have to give a...

Today Matt and Alper go into visual design, not just generally, but including its role in furthering communication. Alper discusses the need for prioritization, and the point at which one can confidently say, "That's enough, time for other things now."

Matt and Alper go into three skills fundamental to everyone's success in life. In fact, they are so fundamental that Matt, a professional communications trainer, recently felt the need to improve them in himself. Today he mentions what they are and how he is going...

Matt lays out a piece of advice he gives to clients about "seeding," or "planting," questions during the presentation, and Alper gives some feedback on whether Matt's is a good piece of advice or not.

Matt and Alper expound on choosing images for your presentations, including the idea that maybe, just maybe, a less-attractive photo might help you more than a more attractive photo.  They also go into the need to distribute questions throughout the presentation,...

The conversation starts out with the impossibly handsome or beautiful "people" shown on website testimonials these days, and then turns into a general conversation about stock photography. When to use it and when to stay away? Is stock photography about stock...

Matt and Alper, having given trainings on the 6 principles of persuasion, revisit a couple of those principles and ask themselves how their understandings of those principles have morphed over time.

Alper goes into three tools he uses a lot (remember, no PowerPoint, we have to take that one out), and his rabbit hole. His rabbit hole is a mean one. Even Matt heard about it and thought, "Oh, man, that's like Kryptonite!"

Matt goes into his love for Grammarly and his unfortunate relationship with Wordpress plugins. BTW, his words about Netflix just might help you defend yourself the next time your spouse says you watch too much TV.

Matt and Alper go into actionable items that normal people can use to make their presentations better, without hiring a fancy presentation coach or a dedicated visual designer just for them.

Matt and Alper venture further into the existential question that came up last week: Does anyone benefit from training, or should we all just go home? Fortunately for the training industry, the answer comes back that training is good for some, but a complete waste of...

Matt and Alper, joined by guest Andreas, dig into whether they should or should not be offering service guarantees. No definitive conclusion is reached. In fact, the debate explodes into a larger subject that will need to be addressed in future episodes. But for...

Alper continues the "Business of a Presentation Business" theme by outlining the milestones of his own business, including the evolution from his first slide design job for a Toastmaster, to life in the high-stakes world of entrepreneurial pitches.

After more than 8 months of dispensing weekly presentation tips, Matt and Alper decide to give something back to the community: Talking about the business of running a presentation business. Having run their own presentation businesses for more than 10 years each,...

Matt and Alper tweak a story-telling structure they've mentioned before, and then can't decide whether to rag on an author or give him props.

Matt and Alper go into the importance of making a strong start in your presentations. Almost no one says, "You know what you need to do? You need to start weak," and it's probably not the first time someone told you to start strong, so Matt and Alper try to offer up...

In this episode, Alper discusses Blair Enns' book Win Without Pitching, and in particular a few of the main principles that got him started righting the ship in his own business. Note that as much as Matt and Alper are both big fans of Blair Enns, they are not paid...

Matt rereads a famous messaging book, Chip and Dan Heath's Made To Stick, and recounts the six ways they recommend overcoming the Curse of Knowledge. Suffering from the Curse of Knowledge is so deeply embedded in the human experience that you'll probably never get...

Alper goes into 4 things that really get in the way of your most important job in any presentation: Connecting with the audience. Do not let these 4 things interfere with the mission. They include corporate templates, stories, and more. These 4 things are not just any...

Lots of people hold up the Hero's Journey as the end all and be all of a great story structure, but who has time to study it? So in this episode, Matt and Alper provide an alternative that normal people can actually use in their daily lives.

Matt goes into six tips you can use when doing what he calls "putting your head in the lion's mouth" -- presenting to people who might be way above your pay grade. Alper and Matt also discuss whether these same techniques can be used in other cultural situations, too.

It's one of the most popular questions Matt and Alper get: "Help, an angry audience member is confronting me, what do I do?" Today Alper goes into what to say and do in situations like that, including what to do when the angry person just won't let it go.

Matt goes into how he, a self-admitted know-nothing when it comes to visual design, "cleans" a presentation, rails at what he calls the "Happy People Slide," and briefly touches on the need for trust when the "cleaning" process is so radical.

You know the agenda slide, the one that makes you say, "First I am going to talk about Topic #1, and then I am going to talk about Topic #2, and then I going to talk about Topic #3, and then..."? What if you could do a nonlinear presentation with the same slide deck?...

Last week, we went into things 1, 2, and 3 that you should do when making your deck "pop." Today we go into things 4, 5, and 6, including importing information from Excel, and the opportunity presented by Data Values. Plus, there's the bonus Magical 2-Minute Tip. What...

Alper goes into the first things he does when someone sends him a deck that needs some love and care from a professional. To get a boring deck that looks like everyone else's, don't do these things. Warning: If you do decide to do these things, you might actually end...

Matt, inspired by a podcast he listens to regularly, decides to map out a model he uses often in his professional life, including the four steps he would give to the hypothetical client Bruce, who wants to know how to use the model to overcome a presentation problem....

Alper wrote a book a few years back called Presentations That Make A Difference. Don't look for the book in English yet, it currently exists in Turkish and Spanish. Today Alper goes into the book a bit, discussing why he wrote it and who he wrote it for (spoiler...

There aren't a lot of kids who say, "Mommy, when I grow up I want to be a Presentation Designer," so most people in the presentation business come at it via seemingly random directions. Today Alper describes the winding road that got him into the business. Alper's...

Having broadcast for about 5 months, Matt and Alper decide it's time to tell the audience how they got into this business, so people don't think they're just random axe murderers who showed up to talk about presentations. Up today: Matt and how he got into this...

Alper wraps up this mini-series with a deep dive into must-have principle #6 of the entrepreneurial pitch deck: Exit, and how it is so sorely needed, and yet is lacking in almost all pitch decks. A shout-out goes to Mathieu Carenzo, Alper's mentor in Barcelona....

Alper goes further into must-have principle #5 of the entrepreneurial pitch deck: Scalability, and scalability of a particular type (hint: it's not scalability of revenue or headcount). A shout-out goes to Mathieu Carenzo, Alper's mentor in Barcelona. Mathieu is not a...

Alper goes further into must-have principle #4 of the entrepreneurial pitch deck: Team, and what needs to go on that slide and what is just table stakes, even though entrepreneurs seem to love putting it on there. A shout-out goes to Mathieu Carenzo, Alper's mentor in...

Alper goes further into must-have principle #3 of the entrepreneurial pitch deck: Timing, and suggests some more imaginative ways to represent that element on a slide. A shout-out goes to Mathieu Carenzo, Alper's mentor in Barcelona. Mathieu is not a slide designer,...

Alper goes into the first two of six must-have elements in an entrepreneur pitch deck: Market, and Value Proposition, and how to represent those in a slide deck. A shout-out goes to Mathieu Carenzo, Alper's mentor in Barcelona. Mathieu is not a slide designer, but...

Matt and Alper cover 6 of their presentation pet peeves, and try to do so quickly without droning on and on for 6 hours. Avoid these common mistakes and your audiences will appreciate it!

Alper asks Matt what he means by the phrase "vocabulary is a zip file," a phrase Matt uses a lot but that probably warrants some explanation, and Matt demonstrates how you can use vivid words in your presentations, even when you are speaking to an audience that might...

Alper witnessed a presentation this week where the speaker missed out on using three particular tools he probably should have taken advantage of. They are very common, but even so, all too many presenters overlook them. Don't overlook these three tools, and your...

Matt uses this phrase all the time: "Talk to the dog." What does that even mean? Finally, an answer to the question.

Matt and Alper, both fans of Blair Enns, take one of his structures (a sales cycle structure) and see if they can map that structure to presentations, too. Warning: They are taking somebody else's one thing, and seeing if it can be repurposed for a different thing....

Alper tells us about 3 favorite apps useful for presenters. The apps: Camo Studio: https://reincubate.com/camo/ Duet Display: https://www.duetdisplay.com PromptSmart: https://promptsmart.com

Matt makes an observation about how PowerPoint training and presentation training are often conflated, and offers a theory as to why.

Alper and Matt go deeper on the issue of audience resistance, and the unfortunate tendency of presentation training to try to overcome it, instead of elicit it and then leverage it. This was not an intended episode, but last week's discussion of resistance triggered it.

Alper talks about his evolution from trying to overcome audience resistance to actively eliciting it, and how others can seek it out, too.

Matt and Alper make good on a promise to give people a story structure they can actually use in business presentations.

Alper punches holes in Matt's "No Visual Design" theory, and Matt clarifies what he means.

Matt reveals a "controversial" opinion he fears is going to get him run out of town by an angry mob, and then he finds out it's not actually that big a deal.

Alper describes a horrific video crash, and how to avoid being embarrassed when that happens.

Matt goes into the first three questions you should ask before any presentation. They sound obvious, but they are surprisingly not.

Alper goes into what is a leave-behind, what is its purpose, and how do you decide what to put in it.