I have a number of clients in the consulting business, and many members of this email list are consultants. This one goes out to them… Some outside the industry say consulting is all about the collection and presentation of data. However, the real business of...

The White Rabbit podcast
Matt Krause and Alper Rozanes
Whether you are a professional corporate employee or a startup entrepreneur, good communication and presentation skills are widely accepted as critical success factors towards reaching your business goals.
In this podcast, Matt Krause and Alper Rozanes, who are communications trainers, authors and startup investors share their views on assorted presentation-related techniques.
As they say at the beginning of the movie The Matrix, “Follow the white rabbit.”
Listen now on:
There is no spoon
This subject line is, of course, a reference to the scene in the movie The Matrix where Neo visits the Oracle's house and the weird bald kid tells him how to bend the spoon. (As you can tell, I am a huge fan of The Matrix, and in fact have, for over three years, been...
More on AI and writing
ChatGPT (and similar LLMs) will get you 90% of the way there. Which means if you are using ChatGPT to write your sales materials, you will convert about 10% of the time, which in B2B leads to bankruptcy. If you are a going concern, you will usually convert 20% to 25%...
How do you spell your name?
When I was walking across Turkey, my life depended on strangers in ways it hadn't before. One of the things I did to size up the people around me was to spell each person’s name out loud and make lots of mistakes in the process. There were a couple reasons this was a...
Don’t stare at people
When I was a kid, about 5 years old, my mom used to take my brother and me to the McDonald's. At that point, we lived in Oakland, California, just a few miles across the bay from downtown San Francisco. The three of us would get on the subway, ride it across the bay...
That’s crazy talk
As many of you know, I am a huge fan of Rory Sutherland. Not only is he very thought-provoking, he is quite funny -- in fact, given the opportunity to watch a professional comedian or Rory Sutherland, I'll choose Rory Sutherland every time. If you are a reader, he has...
124. Sevil Kubilay On The Transition
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.
123. Pranav Kale On “What’s The Big Idea?”
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.
Phone sex
(NOTE: there are some of you who forward these emails to your kids; you might want to think twice about doing that this time; I try to keep it family-friendly, but every family has different standards about what is and what is not acceptable) Many years ago, I had a...
Throw it across the room
I got so angry at that book that I threw it across the room. Multiple times. And at over 700 pages, it was a big book, so it’s a good thing I wasn’t throwing it at a window or at anything else breakable. The book was Naomi Klein’s 2007 book “The Shock Doctrine.” Why...
122. Nick Richtsmeier On Mindset Baked In The Internet
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...
Do something useful
You're wasting time. Look at the sky instead.
Cost of sale
I talk often about the need to put some of yourself into your stories. Today I’m going to beat on that drum again, but perhaps from a slightly different angle… Not putting yourself into your stories commodifies your business and raises your cost of sale. Remember,...
Put some Tuba in it
I've written many times encouraging you to put personal details into your speeches and presentations. Why is that? The people you are doing business with want to see how you interact with the world. That's just what humans do. Even in the most rational of B2B...
Building trust
In a new episode of the podcast, Alper and I riff on building trust, one of the common themes we heard recent guests touching on. We mentioned things like borrowing trust from the audience’s parents, putting yourself into your stories, etc. Also, Alper discusses an...
121. Tips For Building Trust
Matt and Alper go into ways to build trust with your audience during your presentation, including, perhaps counterintuitively, saying no.
America
I usually try to stay away from politics in this newsletter. After all, most of you are here for presentation tips, and some dude spouting off about politics probably isn't what you signed up for. And like they say, "opinions are like a**holes -- everyone has one and...
Wall of context
By far the single most common problem I see with case studies is what I call the "Wall Of Context." The Wall Of Context obstructs your connection with your potential client and reduces your case study's effectiveness as a sales tool. You know the Wall Of Context: It's...
Bridge to the future
The other day, recent podcast guest and list member Wes Wheless (hi Wes!) challenged those of us on his own email list to represent an idea visually. I accepted the challenge, and figured I would try to visually represent that moment my friend Jeff buttressed my faith...
Don’t waste your time
Observation #1: Rory Sutherland has a great line, to the effect that half of the people around you simply don't know what you do. (By the way, as many of you know, I'm a huge Rory Sutherland fan. I've read his book "Alchemy," I binge-watch interviews with him on...
Spaghetti
I talk a lot about how we are often wrong, no matter how thorough we are trying to be, and how that means we just have to throw a bunch of spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks. In other words, have a Plan A, a Plan B, a Plan C, etc, and try them out...
It’s a myth
For years, I've seen quite a few salespeople, people who should know better, making a mistake, and that is thinking that in a B2B sale, there's one decision-maker, and the higher the better. What I mean by that is that they know there are others involved, but they...
BMG in sales
In that recent LinkedIn Live I did with Rick and Jennifer from Sales Force Europe, I went into one of my favorite story structures, and how would it be used in sales. You probably all know the structure, since I talk about it all the time: BMG (Boy Meets Girl)....
BMG in sales – video
Not one person
Being wrong
In business life, we adults like to think we can predict the world better than we actually can. This means we often spend years pursuing "A," when "A" is going to be a total failure, while "B," which takes a mere fraction of the time, is what will end up being...
Spaghetti against the wall
Nervous
One of the most common questions I get about presenting is: "I'm nervous, how do I get over it?" And my answer is: "Sorry man, you're never going to get over it." I know, it's not the answer anyone wants to hear. But I'm not very good at blowing smoke up someone's...
LinkedIn Live 20250603
What is an intellectual headshot
The spaghetti thrower
The four elements of a good intellectual headshot
The beforetimes
Simple but not easy
How to know what to visualize
Another example of headshotting
An example of headshotting
My favorite spot in Seattle
The other day, Alper and I recorded a podcast episode with Wes Wheless. (Wes is on this email list, so if you are seeing this email Wes, hello!) Wes and I do very similar things in our work, so it was a pleasure to talk to someone of a like mind and see how they do...
120. Wes Wheless And Intellectual Headshots
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...
Spies among us
As many of you know, I walked across Turkey (click here if you want to see a map and photos). At one point I was passing through a small town, and the group I had befriended suggested I have a drink with "Başkan." "Başkan" is "Mayor" in Turkish, so I was quite...
Anneciğim
Some years ago, before we got married, I heard my wife call her cat "Anneciğim" ("mommy"). This was before I learned that it's quite common for Turkish mothers to call their infant sons and daughters "Anneciğim," so I said, in that tentative and careful way you speak...
Blitzkrieg Bop
I've written before about the importance of constraints in bringing out your creativity. A lot of people mistakenly seem to think that creativity comes from the removal of constraints. But if you want creativity, put the project under such tight constraints that...
Tom Tran
Back in May 2023, Alper and I had our first guest on the podcast, Tom Tran. That was two years ago. I don't think Tom realizes how big a deal he was, but having guests was a key part of our podcast still going strong two years later. You see, when Tom came on, Alper...
People don’t buy things
Years ago, a girlfriend of mine in Seattle joined a climbing gym. One day, she was talking to some of the teens in the gym. (By the way, I was never much for talking to teens, even when I was one, so she was doing me an immense service in picking up the slack in that...
Reaching sentiency
A couple days ago, I wrote about AI and my world. Today I'm going to branch out a bit beyond little ol' me… A lot of people these days are afraid of AI. Is it going to make us humans obsolete? When I say there's not much to be afraid of, I tend to get pushback in two...
AI and me
My business, as most of you know, is using storytelling to bump conversion rates. A lot of people lump that in with content creation. And when you think of the phrase "content creation" these days, the topic "effect of AI" is a mere half-step away. ("Content...
Boring
My podcast co-host Alper and I are both huge fans of Blair Enns. Have been for over 10 years. For those of you not familiar with the name, Blair Enns is all about the selling of creative services. Recently, Blair Enns released a new book and is doing a series of...
Car repairs
Today’s email has absolutely nothing to do with presentation tips. If you’re here for presentation tips, sorry, come back next time. As the kids say these days, I’m just putting this out there in case anyone needs to see it (plus there’s kinda-sorta a life lesson in...
The Matrix
A few days ago I interviewed an old friend of mine, Baldwin Berges, for The White Rabbit podcast. Baldwin and I did a short-lived podcast on investment fund management about 10 years ago, and then Alper and I called on him for some key "behind the scenes" advice we...
The stories we tell ourselves, Volume 2
For years I've been saying, "There are the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and there are the realities of our lives, and the two are almost never the same." However, all this time, I conveniently managed to not apply this tidbit of wisdom to myself. Then...
Peaches
In my early 20s, I got really lucky. After graduation from university, I went to live and work in China for a year. Shortly after I came back, I got a job where, right from the very first morning, I learned a ton of very useful stuff they never teach you in college....
Know your counterparty
Online meetings a double-edged sword
Navigating online meetings
Executive vs collective cultures
Navigating global business cultures
Caution in online meetings
119. Baldwin Berges On Doing Business In Emerging Markets
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...
Time shift phrase at work
A great example of a time shift phrase at work is this pitch from Mad Men (I've linked to this pitch scene many times, so you've probably seen it): The pitch starts with: "My first job…" Remember, starting your pitch with a time shift phrase is a subtle but potent way...
Other things
Other things that juice the oxytocin: Location shift phrases: "A customer in Manchester…" "A friend in Frankfurt…" Remember how stories often start out: "Once upon a time, in a land far, far away…" We've been trained since childhood to respond to phrases like that....
Breaking patterns, Volume 693
I talk a lot on here about breaking patterns. The other day I broke one of my own patterns, and I didn't even mean to. I was talking to a friend. He said, "People only value what they pay for." "True," I replied. Up until a few days ago, I considered that one of those...
Why does this work?
Think of when you were a kid. Who do you trust when you are a kid? Probably your mom and dad. What are your mom and dad often doing? Telling you a story. What do a lot of stories begin with? A time shift phrase. So you see, humans have been trained since birth that...
Get it flowing
Remember, oxytocin is the trust hormone. Oxytocin is what gets your customer to step out onto that bridge between "where I am now" and "where I want to be." What gets oxytocin flowing? Stories. I can already hear the collective groan from here. "Stories, ugh. Who has...
Drugs, Volume 2
For the past few days I've focused on operating within the world of constraints ("The relief of pain," "All I want"), so today I'll move on to something else and discuss one of the crucial drugs that needs to flow through your customer's brain during your pitch (sorry...
All I want
The other day, for reasons I can't quite remember, I ended up listening to "All I Want" a million times over. "All I Want" is from The Cure's 1987 album "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me." By the time it put out that album, The Cure had been around a while. "Kiss Me, Kiss...
The relief of pain
The other day I was talking to a friend of mine. He had been enduring an extended period of deep pain, and it just kept coming in waves, worse and worse and worse. It was "Job-like," he said. (Job, or "Eyüp" for our Turkish speakers here, is of course the guy God...
Lies we tell ourselves
When money lands in your bank, like the monthly salary that your employer pays you, you like to think that that money is now yours, right? The payment is final. The money belongs to you, not to the person who gave it to you. Along those lines: In recent years, for...
P&L
A few years ago, I served on the board of the US's Presentation Guild. I had 10 years in the industry by then, but serving on the PG board gave me a broader view of the industry than I had had before. And you know what? I had noticed this issue before, but being on...
Life’s phases
One of our recent podcast guests, Alex Smith, says the first thing you do, before you make your company and customer stories, is decide, "What is the thing I am trying to change?" If you don't do that first, he says, you are lost and your stories will go over like...
118. Brad Farris On How Presence Saves Time
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).
Bats and bees
As many of you know, I am on a quest to assign a dollar value to stories. I will not rest until there is a calculation a company can use that says "stories add X to our P&L each year." Why would something like this matter? It helps us make better decisions....
The first most-common
The other day I mentioned I was working on the second most-common mistake my customers make in their sales proposals. One of you emailed me back and said, "Nice, Matt, but what's the first most-common?" The first most-common mistake, by far, hands down, no contest, is...
ChatGPT
People ask me a lot, "What does ChatGPT mean for my presentations?" The short answer: Nothing. If you’re a CTO, ChatGPT and AI are helping your coders a lot. They probably save them boatloads of time. They might even be helping clean up their code or even write blocks...
Pudong
Today's email has absolutely nothing to do with presentations. If you're here for presentation stuff, sorry about that. The next one will have something for you, I promise. If you're still here… In 1992 and 1993 I was teaching English at a university in China. On my...
Details, Volume 2
Yesterday I was sitting in my office, rewriting a sales proposal for a client. Nothing unusual about that. That's what I do for work, so I do it pretty much every day. By the way, when most people hear the word "writing," they think fingers on keyboard, eyes glued to...
Break it
In recent weeks I've written about the importance of breaking patterns in your presentation (yuvarlanıp gidiyoruz, clear the cache, etc). I know, I'm a strange person to be giving that advice. Routine and patterns make up a huge part of my day-to-day life. I wake up...
The truth about presentations
The power of a recipe
Start with paper, not PowerPoint
The sequel
The Predictably Irrational book
Journey from corporate to freelance
The interest actually started with architecture
Cookbook concept ordered the book in 5 minutes
Book release timeline
Rate your days
The power of presence
The hidden cost of multitasking
Save time by investing in presence
Empathy in communication
Slow down to speed up
117. Luka Krejci And Presentation Cookbook
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.
Get off the pot
When I was a kid, I heard my mom say to my dad, many times, "Jim, sh*t or get off the pot." I've always loved that phrase, and its bias towards taking action, even if imperfect. I've mentioned before, and I'll say it again: People care way more about whether you have...
The beauty of boredom
As many of you know, I used to be an import buyer, which means that I was flying from Seattle to Hong Kong quite often. I used to love that flight. I hated the return flight, because I knew that when you fly east across the Pacific Ocean, you tend to have huge jet-lag...
The penalty for deviating is death
For years, I was puzzled by the word strategy. "What is strategy, what does that word even mean?" I figured it was a word people used mainly when they wanted to sound smart. Then, a month or two ago, Alper and I interviewed corporate strategy consultant Alex Smith on...
116. Applying Principles Of Strategy To Presentations
Alper dives into an episode we did recently with Alex Smith, applying Alex's principles of strategy to the world of presentations.
You will never not be nervous
I've been doing presentation training and public speaking for over 15 years. If I had a dollar for each time I've heard someone say those things make them nervous and they want to learn how to not be nervous, I'd be a very rich man. Of course you're nervous. Humans...
Slack (cut yourself some)
Below is a cut from our blooper reel where I forget the name of my own podcast. My point for your presentations is that you will never be perfect. In this example, even if you've been doing your podcast for three years, you're still going to forget the podcast's name...
Blooper
Craziness
I'm currently reading a book, "Alchemy," by Rory Sutherland. Sutherland is Vice Chairman of Ogilvy UK, one of the biggest advertising agencies in the world. When Coke and Apple choose an advertising agency, Ogilvy is probably on their short lists. Rory Sutherland is...
115. We’re not that rational
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.
Peppercorns
When I was 28, the company I worked for bought a pepper grinder company. We would buy the raw peppercorns from India and have them shipped to the grinder companies in Thailand and China, where the grinders were made and then filled with the peppercorns. It was the...
Stamping metal
I got to visit my first metal stamping and polishing factory at age 26. This one was in China, and there were many more to come, in many other countries, but I'll never forget my first. You see, metal stamping and polishing is an inherently filthy process. I was...
Subjective is not good enough
As many of you know, I'm on a quest to quantify the value of a story. I want a financial calculation I can plug into a spreadsheet. I want to take something people consider subjective and turn it into a hard metric. And the question often comes up, from people whom I...
Good times
We've talked a bit about the BMG story structure. We've also talked about the drug flow of the BMG cycle, and we've even talked about how tweaking the sentence arrangement of a case study from Finland would improve the drug flow in that particular case study. But it's...
BMG, physically represented
Some of you have asked for me to sketch out what BMG (the story structure boy meets girl) looks like. Here you go: The first leg (boy meets girl) gets the dopamine flowing (you want your customer to get at least somewhat positive vibes from you), the second leg (boy...
Example of overcoming curse of knowledge
Selim gives an example of overcoming the curse of knowledge. The curse of knowledge, of course, is your forgetting what it is like to not have the knowledge you worked so hard to get. This is a notable example in part because Selim comes from the enterprise software...
Your questions might be limiting your discovery
Matt, summarizing Selim's point, mentions that our attempt to ask questions, as well intended as it is, can sometimes actually hurt our ability to discover the other person's reality in a conversation.
The brain is a resource hog, and that’s why it defaults to “Me First”
Selim speculates that the human brain might be defaulting to the "Me First" strategy because of the way the brain is built.
Neuroscience holds the key to why “Me First” is our default
Selim suspects that the key to understanding why "Me First" is our default communication strategy lies in neuroscience.
Your advice might be stopping the conversation
Selim reminds us that our desire to be helpful might actually be getting in the way of a conversation.
Do not succumb to the false dream of influence
In summarizing Selim's points, Matt riffs on one of his favorite topics, presentation training's "false dream of influence."
Recognize that you cannot control the customer’s purchasing decision
Selim touches on the nearly universal desire to control the other's output, but the near impossibility of actually doing so.
What does Selim mean by “Me First” in sales?
Selim goes further into what he means by the "Me First" side of the "Me First vs Connection First" equation.
114. Selim Selveroğlu on “Me First” vs “Connection First”
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.
God
One of the deepest needs in man is to make sense of the world, to see order where it may or may not exist. Evidence of this deep-seated need is all around us. You can see it in how we vote. You can see it in how we think about chaos theory. You can even see it in how...
Drugs
Sorry, no, I'm not talking about the illegal ones, like heroin or cocaine. I'm talking about the ones your body makes naturally, like oxytocin. Oxytocin is often called "the trust hormone." It enhances bonding between people. Your body makes it when you fall in love,...
Chasing the wrong solution
Fully 70% of the people who call me are chasing the wrong solution. And as a result, they are setting themselves up for misdirecting a huge chunk of time, 10 years, when all they need is 4 months. You see, the problem they are trying to solve is how to make a better...
The fastest way to say more
It's counter-intuitive, but the fastest way to say more is to slow down and say less. Here's what I mean: Recently I was working with a client on her storytelling and public speaking skills. She ran an insurance company, and she felt like her speeches to her employees...
Clear the cache
One of the most interesting things I ever learned was that a lot of what we think we're seeing, we're not actually seeing. Turns out the human brain caches an awful lot of information, including information it's getting from the eyes. For example, right now I am...
Step away from the PowerPoint
My friend Şebnem Dağ Güven, Chief Commercial Officer for payments processor iyzico, has her people use an approach similar to what I’ve been using in my trainings for years. Before she lets them build the presentation, she has them walk through what they are going to...
What is necessary in both of your stories
Alex mentions that the two stories (the company story and the customer story) will be significantly different, even though they are describing the same business, because they are for different audiences.
Strategy for founders
Alex goes into how important it is to stay in touch with what you want to change about the world. Your strategy will largely flow from that, and it will change as you learn more about the market.
Reframing the story for internal consumption
Alex goes into the internal story that you tell to your employees, partners, investors, etc. It will come from the same bigger picture that your customer story does, but it will be reframed for internal consumption.
Importance of strategy in making your stories
In the words of Alex, don't be "generic and flabby" when coming up with your story. Or in other words, have something to say.
How Alex got into the business
Alex goes into how he got started in the strategy business, and how he realized how thoroughly-done it was, yet he was able to bring something new to it.
Communication of the strategy is more important than the strategy itself
Your strategy is important, but sometimes even the best ones are crazy simple. So your success is not going to be based so much on how special your strategy is, but on how well you communicate it to your employees and your customer base.
An example of the customer story using IKEA
Alex gives an example of what the customer story might be like, using IKEA as an example. Note that this is not necessarily the story IKEA uses, we're just using IKEA as an example. However, IKEA, if you decide to use this, please contact me for bank information for...
An example of the company story using IKEA
And in this one, Alex gives us an example of what a company story might sound like, using IKEA as an example. And again, note that this is not necessarily IKEA's story, it's just us imagining what IKEA's story might be like. IKEA, if you decide to actually use this,...
What is a credible manner
Şebnem goes into what builds credibility with a potential customer.
What an employee without the storytelling skill will do
Şebnem goes into what an employee without the storytelling skill will do initially, and what she steers him or her towards instead.
The three levers of trust
As Şebnem sees it, there are three levers of trust we can pull, and here she throws in a fourth, bonus, one too!
Some employees already have the story mindset
Şebnem mentions that some employees already have the story mindset, so all you need to feed them is the raw data, and they'll take care of the rest. Other employees don't already have this mindset, and they need additional assistance. She goes into that in other...
Selling an idea
Şebnem comments on how selling an idea and understanding your customer are closely linked.
One company will have different audiences
Şebnem reminds us that different constituencies in the same company are going to respond to different angles of the message. In other words, don't get lazy and think that one message is good for everyone in the same company!
Is storytelling for business a natural skill
Şebnem mentions that storytelling for business is not a natural skill, and how it is regained. Our education system and early job training drill the skill out of us until what we "think" the business world needs is totally out of line with what it actually shows us it...
Importance of understanding the market
Şebnem comments on the role of understanding the market in building personal credibility with your potential customer.
How the market fits into their reality
Şebnem goes deeper into how she fits her product into the customer's reality.
Creating credibility through association
And don't forget the fourth lever of building trust, credibility through association. Some of your existing customers might be really good partners for this.
Building trust personally
Şebnem goes into how you establish personal trust with a new customer, and that a key part of that process is your ability to describe the market and how it, and your product, fit into the customer's life.
Building the story
Şebnem mentions how important a story format is to the sales process.
113. Şebnem Dağ Güven on the importance of storytelling in sales
Şebnem Dağ Güven goes into the importance of storytelling in sales and how she goes about training her people in that skill.
112. Alex Smith on the two stories every company needs
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.
You’re going to suck at the start
There's a podcast I love listening to, Acquired. We're not talking about a podcast I kind of enjoy, something I turn on for background noise while I cook eggs in the kitchen or fall asleep in bed at night. No, we're talking something like appointment TV. When there's...
It will never be a good time for anything
There's a guy, I've written about him before, the 85-year-old guy who goes to the park to exercise six days a week. He's been doing it for 30 years. Maybe not at this particular park, because who knows where else he's lived during that time, but exercising, somewhere,...
IMF
One of my favorite projects was for a Turkish client who was attending the IMF meetings in Washington, DC. (Most of you will be familiar with the term "IMF," but for those of you who are not, it stands for "International Monetary Fund.") The IMF meetings happen twice...
Yuvarlanıp gidiyoruz
I used to have an early morning class, and I was usually greeted at the door by my client's assistant, who would arrive at work a few minutes before his boss. He would ask me how I'm doing, and I would sometimes reply "yuvarlanıp gidiyoruz" (we're rolling along). It's...
Chinese 20250223
我 今天 晚上 送给 你 四千六百TL.
Personal details
It is well-documented that sprinkling personal details into your stories works. It works whether you are hanging out with friends over a beer, or whether you are selling a widget to a potential customer. Why is this? Why are personal details such a potent ingredient...
Teddy volume 2
The other day, I wrote about a scene in the show Mad Men. That scene illustrates some really useful presenting skills, so I wanted to call them out here. If you clicked through to the video the other day, you've probably already seen these, but in case not... He...
Teddy
A couple weeks ago I mentioned a back issue of Scientific American magazine, and how enamored they were of the use of anecdotes. I see this all the time in my own work. If you want to make a point, wrapping your point in an anecdote that makes your point, too, goes...
Kill your darlings
I've mentioned before that when I was a kid, I was really into bicycle racing. There's a point at the beginning of every race, immediately after the gun goes off, when everyone has a lot of energy. Everyone is sprinting ahead, the pack is going really fast. It's hard...
Something to say
One of the more embarrassing moments of my life was when I told a story to Maya. Or, more accurately, failed miserably to do so. You see, when I was in university, I was totally hot after Maya. She was beautiful in all the right ways, with just enough of an edge that...
Why don’t companies have these stories
The customer story and the company story are pretty easy to write if you have something to say, but virtually impossible to write if you have nothing to say. In this short, Alex Smith goes into why so many companies don't have these stories. And yes, you guessed it,...
Punched in the face
Mike Tyson has a great quote, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." Years ago, long before we started the podcast, Alper and I were talking to Noel Francisco, an old university roommate of mine who has gone on to fame and fortune as one of the top...
Doing business with Americans
Dolly Parton quote
Who would have thought Dolly Parton was a strategy expert? According to her: “Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” Alex Smith goes into what most people do instead.
What is probably going to happen if you haven’t done your homework
What will you end up with if you try to write your stories before you do your strategy homework?
If you don’t have something to talk about, what are you left with
If you don't have a strategy and the two stories, all you are left with is hustle. In other words, "a world of hurt." In this short, Alex Smith goes into how that is.
Internal consumption story will mention you a lot more
In this short from the podcast, guest Alex Smith digs into the company story and who it's for.
Moonraker
When I was 9 years old, my mom took my brother and me to see the new James Bond movie, Moonraker. That was when Roger Moore was James Bond, remember him? Moonraker was my first James Bond movie. The movie had everything a nine-year-old boy could want. Outer space,...
The customer is James Bond and you are Q
In this short from The White Rabbit podcast, Alex M H Smith uses "Q" in the James Bond movies as an example of how much of you should be in the stories you tell your customers.
That’s a lot of wires
Today we dig further into this "measurements don't need to be exact to be useful" idea. Here we go… At one point I needed a new heater core for my car. The heater core is the little radiator that sits inside your car, behind the dashboard where you can't see it. When...
Reducing uncertainty
In my bathroom there is a new sink. That sink is 0.9 meters wide. Or maybe it's 0.89 meters wide, or maybe it's 0.91 meters wide. I don't know and I don't care. If I had been working in a tight space, or if I had had to fit that sink into a cabinet, then the added...
Snowpack analysis
The other day I wrote about learning how to use an ice axe properly, and what it had to do with practicing for your presentations. Today, since we're in winter, the snow theme will continue, but the point changes to understanding your audience. Here we go… One thing I...
Where these emails get written
This is the main place these emails get written: Sometimes they get written here too: Notice that there is not a keyboard in either of these photos. Writing is not the words you use, it is the idea you are talking about, and the best ideas come when your mind is free...
Ice axe
At one point, I was doing a lot of stuff in the mountains during wintertime. Snowshoeing, backcountry trekking, building snow caves, sleeping on the ice, etc. One of the pieces of equipment I needed with me, just in case, was an ice axe. Ice axes are used for many...
Chasing the dragon
Years ago, a girlfriend and I had a ritual: We would get take-out from the Boston Market restaurant, and then we would take it home and eat dinner while watching a movie we rented from Blockbuster (later, of course, the kids would coin the phrase "Netflix and chill"...
BMG in action
There's a great study from a university in Finland about using storytelling in B2B sales. The study looks at an IoT (internet of things) company that was selling sensors for factory machinery, and it was also selling an upgrade where they would monitor the machines...
Every day be born a dumbass anew
The other day a friend sent to me a link to a video on YouTube, "How Anthony Jeselnik misdirects the audience." Anthony Jeselnik is an American comedian. I hadn't heard of him before, so don't worry, if you don't know his name it doesn't mean your knowledge of...
Hold my beer
In my quest to put a financial number to the value of storytelling, to hold stories up to an ROI calculation, I often get the pushback that putting a number to the value of storytelling will somehow strip storytelling of its magic, that somehow it will kill the...
Elderly black woman
I have an elderly black woman who lives inside me. She wears a plain print dress with faded pink flowers and blue-green stems set on a white background. She lives in the state of Georgia or Alabama (I've never tried to figure out which one), speaks with a heavy...
Accepting the call
The other day I was re-watching one of my favorite movies, "Not Fade Away." I've probably seen it 9 million times. Some of you know it, too. One of my favorite scenes in the movie comes during one of the band's practices, when the main character, played by John Magaro...
The Quest
As many of you know, I am on a quest to quantify the value of storytelling. I want to put a number to it. I want a calculation I can put into a spreadsheet. It is not enough to say, "Storytelling is good, we should do more of it." It is not enough to say,...
111. Rick Pizzoli on moving forward from founder-led sales
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...
That’s not rain, it’s blood
You know how I bang on on a regular basis about how important mirror neurons are, and how important it is that when you are presenting, you display the emotions you want your audience to feel? Here's a little story related to that: When I was a teenager, I was really...
Back issues of Scientific American
The other day I was reading a March 1847 issue of Scientific American magazine. Don't worry, I don't normally read 178-year-old Scientific American back issues. I was looking into something else and just so happened to stumble across this one. There was this great...
Teresa
When I was 29, I was cruising through the streets of Hong Kong in the back of a taxicab with my friend Teresa. It was nighttime, so we were probably heading to dinner somewhere. Her dad had created a business that had become one of our vendors, and she was taking it...
One, not two
I was watching a TV show recently, Outer Range. It started out so well. Rancher in Wyoming, a "strong but silent" cowboy-type played by Josh Brolin. Loyal wife. Two photogenic kids. Cute grandkid. A couple "hot, but realistically-so" types (one a vaguely-disturbing...
Spill your blood
One of my favorite movies is “Cadillac Records.” It’s about the founding of one of the seminal record labels for American Blues. It and the movie “Not Fade Away” are must-sees for anyone interested in the birth of rock. In the the movie, Beyonce plays Etta James. She...
Mixed tape
The other day I wrote about chaos theory. Today I'm going to write about a mixed tape a friend recorded for me when I was a kid. And believe it or not, there's a connection. When I was 16, I lived in eastern Washington state and drove my dilapidated Volkswagen back to...
Fluke
These days, I am reading a book called "Fluke," by Brian Klaas. It's about chaos theory. You know chaos theory: Basically, "butterfly flaps its wings in Japan, and a hurricane hits the United States." A lot of people hear about chaos theory and think, "Boy, that...
Ses Etme and the genius zone
Recently I wrote about the genius zone. Remember the genius zone? It's the place where you are doing something almost no one else can. The activity comes to you naturally. You don't even need to think about it. It's like god put the words in your mouth, you are simply...
Today is my birthday
Today is my birthday. I have never made much of my birthday, even when I was a kid. My birthday comes sandwiched between two of the biggest holidays in the world, and I figured, well, people are exhausted from all the holiday-ing, so I'll just shut up and pretend it's...
A/B testing the value of stories
An excellent example of the value of storytelling comes from the non-profit world. Yes, the non-profit world. We like to tell ourselves that our world of business is the real hard-nosed one, and non-profits are for fuzzy do-gooders, but the reality is this: Cash...
Measuring the gap
I've mentioned before how the use of AI in your organization will be making the base of your organization's pyramid narrower, and how this could impact succession, and in turn competitiveness, and in turn the stability of your enterprise value. The question comes up,...
Yes, but don’t
The other day, a friend and I were talking about whether he could do work outside of his genius zone. You know the kind of work I'm talking about. The kind of work you can do, but others can do it too. My answer was "Yes, but don't." Why not, if you can? Because you...
Something for our HR buddies
Regular readers of this email have heard me mention the economics blog "Marginal Revolution," and have also heard me spout forth opinions related to AI and how it is changing, and will change, the world of white collar workers and the organizations they work for. So...
Your island is shrinking
In the summer of 1992, I had just graduated from university and I needed some quick cash for my upcoming trip to China, so I worked on a construction crew building a house in Utah. I was a college boy who had studied Chinese history, so I was the lowest man on the...
We’re fooling ourselves
We like to think that B2B is the rational one, and that B2C is the one dripping with emotion, and that somehow we are playing a more rational game when we walk into work. But reality is showing something different. I'll get to a couple examples in a moment. But first,...
Jesus and mold
One of the things that I enjoy about writing this newsletter is trying to find the connection between things that normally have little to do with each other. For example, what does the rock band Love and Rockets have to do with storytelling. In doing so I tend to, a...
HGOMM
This is a real quick gut check, a filter you can put your stories through. Only takes a couple seconds, you can do it outside your customer's office to calm your nerves before you go in there. H = Hero (usually your customer)G = Goal (usually your customer's goal)O =...
Man in hole
Last week I was talking a lot about the Boy Meets Girl story structure. Remember, BMG is one up, one down, one up. Insert yourself and your product/service towards the end of the second leg. Today I want to mention a second story structure, "man in hole." Basically,...
Difficult conversations
In 2014, I started working primarily with CEOs and board members of publicly-traded companies. You know these companies by name, their ads are everywhere and these people get asked to speak on just about every panel and TV news show that ever existed. At first, I was...
Keep a loop open
The other day I was writing about storytelling in business, and how it can be so much easier than you might think. Today I want to dive deeper into the topic of storytelling. But if that was Storytelling 101, this is Storytelling 102. So in other words, nothing too...
Humans are a fungus
I am reading a book called "Wanting: The Power Of Mimetic Desire In Everyday Life" by Luke Burgis. "Mimetic" is a fancy word for "imitative" (don’t worry, I had to look it up too), so the book is basically about how we learn to desire things because other people...
Love and Rockets meets BMG
Recently, in two separate emails, I mentioned the band Love and Rockets and a storytelling structure. Both are going to come back today. First, Love and Rockets. They have another great song, "No New Tale To Tell." In the song are these lines: People like to hear...
Storytelling for business
The other day I was talking about the value of storytelling in customer retention. Stories are one of the best ways you can get your clients to remember your product. But if I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say, “Oh, we don’t have time for stories in this...
Customer retention (Love and Rockets edition)
Want to know one of the best customer retention techniques ever devised? Learn how to tell a story, and then become the one who tells your customers' stories back to them. One of the best bands to come out of the 80s, a band that produced music that sounds as good...
Throw up your hands
Almost as soon as I got to high school, I wanted to drop out. You see, I realized that classes at college were worth more than classes at high school, so if I went to the college and scheduled my classes just right, I could be out of there by 10:30am, instead of the...
Where can I find drywall anchor bolts?
Question: Where can I find these drywall anchor bolt words? The short answer: In the headlines of the Financial Times. Okay, here's the longer, more thorough answer: Keep in mind that your client has a gazillion other options, and often, you are not competing on...
Drywall anchor bolts
Recently I wrote about Pink Floyd and how listening to rock songs is a good way to learn how to make a limited vocabulary go a long way. Today’s email digs deeper into that theme. Some of you saw an article like this from me in March, but many of you haven’t seen it,...
Jeffrey
I feed the stray cats outside my apartment each morning. I call it "Breakfast Club," a reference to the 80s movie of the same name. I've been doing this every morning for a couple years, so the cats learned long ago that when the hall light comes on at 5:05, "Salam...
AI and corporate succession redux
A few weeks ago, I wrote an email about AI and corporate succession. Remember that one? It's the one where I referred to AI as the crusher of white-collar labor costs, like the steam engine was the crusher of manual labor costs, and how that means the bottom of your...
Pigs on the wing 1
There are 4 things that I tend to work on with my clients, four things you can do in order to express yourself really well without learning any new English. Of those four things, the fourth is “use vivid vocabulary.” A lot of people seem to think that means they need...
Badass beats pretty
There's a guy who exercises in the park. He's 85 years old. He's one of the regulars (there are only three or four of us in that time slot, actually). He's there, rain or shine. In late January, when it's cold, and it's dark, and it's rainy, he is there, wearing his...
Up and down
Forget the presentation skills this time, I'm not even going to bother tying this one in, today we’re just going to geek about microchips and cocaine a little … As most of you know, I'm a huge fan-boy of the Acquired podcast. In fact, I'm such a fan-boy that not only...
Beach days and market research
My dad, may he rest in peace, used to have an orchard grafting business. He started out doing pit fruit (plums, peaches) in central California, and as he was expanding the business into the vineyards of western California's wine country, we would often combine our...
Put some Tuba in it (plum pie and diabetic husbands)
A while back, a friend of mine named Tuba was working on her public speaking skills at Toastmasters. I encouraged her to make sure that in all her speeches she "put some Tuba in it," by which I meant to put some of her own personality into everything she said. These...
Humans don’t scale
Lately, as you can tell, I've been binge-reading the blog and cartoons at Gaping Void, like this one… In the blog post this cartoon is in, they mention the phrase "humans don't scale" -- one of my favorite phrases, especially in this era of social media and...
How does this person think?
Recently I wrote about Netflix, AI, and the importance, nay, the duty, of rocking the boat. Getting good at tapping into this next tip will be one of the best things you ever did for your career: Keep in mind that one of the most basic desires most humans have is to...
LinkedIn and attending conferences
LinkedIn, and attending conferences, will be good for outreach, but it is important to remember that they need to be just a couple tools in a much larger marketing toolbox.
Understanding GDPR
Understanding GDPR, and not running afoul of it, will be critical in your outreach.
Outsourcing sales in other industries
Rick relates further experience with the outsourcing of sales activity, mentioning here a story from the telco world.
Tech industry used to outsourcing sales
Rick mentions that the tech industry is used to outsourcing sales activity, and therefore your company will probably be familiar with it, if you decide to go down that route.
Other things of interest to investors
Rick lists some of the other data investors will want to see when they vet your plan, in addition to the sales growth numbers.
Investors will want to see the research
Investors will want to see the qualification research you are basing your decisions on.
Don’t feel pressure
Rick mentions that your team might only do the qualification research once, or maybe a few times at most, in their lives, but there are some who do it regularly.
Investors want a quick return
Expanding abroad is a long-term project, but don't forget at the early stages that investors are going to want to see a quick return.
Motivating your employees
Don't forget that you will be asking a lot of your employees, and you will need to motivate them somehow.
Lots of verticals at home
Rick cautions that if we are used to selling to a lot of verticals at home, expanding abroad might actually be more difficult.
If your home market is small
Rick reminds us that if our home market is small, we may have no choice but to expand abroad.
Do not wait too long
Rick reminds us to not wait too long to expand, someone else might get there first.
Will my stars back home be my stars abroad
Rick addresses the question, "Will my sales stars back home be my sales stars abroad," and mentions that the answer to that question may depend on the financial commitment your customer is making.
When is it time
Rick addresses the question, "How do I know when it's time," and what financial and non-financial resources will be required.
Don’t let hotness blind you
Don't let the hotness of the market in a country blind you to the competitive presence there. Map out where your competition is, and don't be afraid to target a secondary market.
Make sure those verticals exist in the new market
Make sure those verticals exist in your target market, too. It might sound obvious, but maybe they don't, maybe an unexpected dynamic is at work, you'd be surprised.
How did you reach those verticals
It is important to understand how you reached those verticals in your home country. The approach may be different elsewhere, but you need to understand how you reached them in your home country anyway.
Identify your verticals
Rick Pizzoli reminds us to identify the verticals that work best for us BEFORE we try to expand abroad.
Sex and Cash
Usually in this newsletter I take whatever little story I start out with and find a way to tie it to presentation skills. If presentation skills are what bring you here, sorry man, couldn't do it this week. So if you're one of those people, come back next week, and in...
110. Rick Pizzoli On Selling Tech Into The EU
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.
Nobody knows anything, Volume 2
These days I'm reading a book about the early days of Netflix, written by one of its founders, Marc Randolph. I came to the Netflix game in 1999, a few years after they started. At that point, internet speeds weren't good enough for streaming, so they would drop your...
How AI affects your succession plans
Like the steam engine crushed the labor cost center, AI crushes the white collar cost center. Here's what that meant for the labor world: The need for labor didn't go to zero, it just went down a lot. We still have construction workers and farm laborers, just fewer of...
109. Don’t Do These Things
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.
Don’t flunk the “Taxi Test”
What is the Taxi Test? It's a test you apply to the headlines on your slide deck before you send it out. The question you are asking yourself: If someone only reads the headlines on your slides, will they still understand what you are proposing and why? Imagine that...
Ankles
As many of you know, I go to the park to exercise in the pre-dawn hours. I've been doing this for years, it's one of my favorite activities each day. Last week I suddenly, out of nowhere, started limping on the way to the park. The problem was my ankle. You see, the...
Trust
A couple weeks ago I wrote about selling evil eye (nazar boncuğu) bracelets. When you're selling a $20 bracelet, trust enters into the picture, but not that much. These days I'm in another world though, one in which my projects might be for 2,000 times that, and on...
Preply
The teachers, at least at Preply's pricing high end, tend to be 30-35 years old, which means they have, at best, spent 10 years witnessing and solving the problem your company faces. Many of them have a methodology they will mention in their videos. A methodology is...
Spies sell peanuts
Years ago when I was walking across Turkey, I was out in the middle of nowhere in the eastern part of the country. Some old beatup car, like a 1970s Datsun or something like that, stopped on the other side of the road and a man got out and walked towards me. This was...
Tear gas and Toastmasters
Some years ago, there were some protests near my house in Istanbul. So I grabbed my camera and figured I'd see how close to the action I could get. I didn't get very close before the tear gas turned me away… (click image for video) That day, I learned that a spray...
Article about Acquired
Tear gas in Taksim
Iranian weddings
Today it's all about Iranian weddings. I've written before about how when I came to Turkey I started a business selling evil eye bracelets. After a couple years in that business, I saw Amazon getting into the game, and I knew their reputation for being ruthless about...
Software should be global from Day One
Yalın talks about software, and how the costs of localization mean the software should be global from the very start of your company.
Selling nontangible products is completely different
Yalın emphasizes that selling a nontangible product (software, for example) is completely different from selling a tangible product.
Other ways to skin the cat
Yalın lists some other ways to go about selling into other countries.
Selling to subsidiaries as a strategy
Yalın comments on the strategy of selling to local subsidiaries as a way to gain trust with the headquarters.
Trust also comes from problems
Trust also comes from how you handle problems, so don't see problems as inherently 100% bad.
Inheriting trust (or distrust)
Yalın delves into how you might need to overcome trust problems that were created by someone else before you even showed up.
Step out of your love
Yalın mentions that founders are often in love with their products and easily fall into the trap of "it works at home, so it'll work here too."
Sometimes sellers don’t want to sell
Yalın describes a situation where sometimes even the sellers don't want to sell, because that means the company would need to produce (yes, you read that right, sometimes the sellers don't want to sell).
Buyers might not want to buy
Yalın points out that, especially in former Communist countries, buyers might see you as a potential problem, not a potential solution.
Customs clearance
Yalın discusses customs clearance and the importance of not letting it ruin your reputation when you try to expand your sales to other products.
Defense not offense
Yalın recommends that in the initial days after that first pallet is sold, play defense (don't make any mistakes), not offense (sell more).
What happens next
Yalın on what happens after you clear that initial hurdle and begin to enter the magical world of repeat sales.
Mindset
Yalın goes into the importance of mindset, seeing the big picture, and limiting your expectations in the early days.
Start with the end in mind
Yalın suggests sellers start with the end in mind. Before the first pallet gets to the new country, what are you going to do with it, all the way to the end.
Day One is actually Day Zero
Yalın reminds us that when we congratulate ourselves for completing Day One, we're actually at Day Zero.
Welcome to Level Two
Yalın begins to describe the reality check that happens after you sell that first pallet.
First sale is just the beginning
Yalın reminds us that the first sale is just the beginning. "Congratulations, now learn to do it over and over," basically.
Table stakes
Yalın goes into one of the basics of selling into a new country. It is a basic step, but a lot of companies don't do even this.
Origin story
Yalın goes into how he started the agency and what problems his initial customers were trying to solve.
Puking cats
Recently I wrote on dogs chasing cars and our human predilection to assign cause when there is in fact none. Today I want to talk about puking cats. Don't worry, I promise that it has to do with something, and also that future issues of this newsletter will deal with...
108. Yalın Yüregil On Breaking Into Another Country
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...
Be more like a dog
You know how when a dog chases a car, the car leaves? From the dog's perspective, the car left because he chased it. Sure, from our human perspective, we know the car was going to leave anyway. But from the dog's perspective, chasing cars is 100% effective. Chase a...
Focus on one country
There are many ways to crack the commitment nut, and one way you can do it is to focus your efforts on one country, as KFactory did.
107. Building Trust
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...
More problem
Time and again, one of the most common things I see in presentations is the speaker not spending enough time describing the problem. Plenty of time is almost always spent describing the solution, but not enough attention is given to the description of the problem that...
The Four Things
When I first moved to Istanbul, some Brits invited me to play in their weekly football game. Keep in mind that I have never had any football skills whatsoever. None. If my life depended on my ability to dribble a ball, I would be dead within a second. They invited me...
Tight constraints
Many years ago, in a former life, I was an inventory planner for a kitchenware import company in the US. We would design stuff, get it made (mostly in China, surprise surprise), and import it into the US. Since I was managing one of the largest assets on the balance...
None of us know what we are doing
In the podcast short below, Romanian entrepreneur Vlad Cazan talks about the learning process that has continued, and still continues, throughout his entrepreneurial journey. The guy, and his business partner, have between them decades of experience in IT, sales,...
Legal entity in new market
Vlad Cazan delineates a couple reasons for creating a new legal entity in the new market.
Will the old stars work
Vlad Cazan weighs in on the question, "Will the old star employees be stars in the new market too?"
Entrepreneurial transformation journey
Vlad Cazan responds to Alper's question about the entrepreneurial journey, and how much learning is involved, even if you are starting the journey in your 40s.
Don’t skip steps
Vlad Cazan stresses the importance of not skipping steps, no matter how impatient you might be.
Be patient
Vlad Cazan warns us to be patient, the results are not going to come as quickly as we, and our investors, want them to.
Some countries are more open than others
Vlad Cazan points out that some countries are more open than others, and that knowing which ones are more open to you is an important part of the research phase.
More on the importance of accelerators
Vlad Cazan goes deeper on the importance of accelerators, even if you already have a few references you can use.
Use an accelerator or incubator
Vlad Cazan's company had numerous references from subsidiaries of multinationals, but found the assistance of an accelerator/incubator and embassy crucial in expanding abroad.
Value of sandbox
Vlad Cazan mentions the value of a sandbox and what you should do there.
Expansion strategy
Vlad Cazan goes into his company's strategy for expanding into the UK.
Should the founder be involved
Berk Temuroglu responds to the question, "Should the founder be involved in the market expansion research?"
Who should that researcher be
Berk Temuroglu responds to the question, "If the researcher should be one person, who should that one person be?"
The power of one
Berk Temuroglu suggests that to reduce noise, only one person research the move into a new market.
Research through invalidation
Berk Temuroglu says that the fastest market research is to actually invalidate a concept.
Giving up prematurely
Berk Temuroglu warns that the desire to keep the sexy illusion of growth alive might cause a company to give up too early on a market.
106. Vlad Cazan On Selling Into Another Country
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...
Boring period is where the expansion actually happens
Berk Temuroglu points out that this boring period is where the expansion actually happens.
What is boring about this period
Berk Temuroglu talks about what is boring during this period.
A boring period
Berk Temuroglu describes what he calls "the wheel of engagement," and how it might include a boring period that many of the employees, who were attracted by the sexy idea of working for a startup, will find uninteresting.
Factors to consider
Berk Temuroglu lists some of the factors to consider when thinking about who will staff your international sales operation.
Stars at home may not be stars abroad
Berk Temuroglu mentions that the star employees back at home may not be stars in the new market.
Expansion is business-specific
Berk Temuroglu notes that sales expansion will be very business-specific.
Risk of a new management team
Berk Temuroglu addresses the question, "Isn't a new management team a new risk too?"
The five cardinal risks
Berk Temuroglu outlines what he calls The Five Cardinal Risks, the risks that are (hopefully) being eliminated at each subsequent round of funding.
Funding rounds are about elimination of risk too
Berk Temuroglu mentions that subsequent funding rounds are also about the progressive elimination of risk.
Can you frame alone
Berk Temuroglu goes into framing the problem and tweaking it for the audience, and can you do it in isolation by yourself?
How you frame the problem depends on who you are speaking to
Berk Temuroglu mentions that the framing of the problem will be slightly different depending on who you are speaking to.
Why does this happen
Berk Temuroglu theorizes on why corporate managers tend to not spend enough time describing the problem, and instead jump too quickly to the solution.
Corporate managers focus on idea too much
Berk Temuroglu goes into the problem/solution cycle, and how he believes corporate managers spend too much time discussing the idea (solution), and not enough time describing the problem.
Will it ruin the mojo?
Berk Temuroglu responds to the question, "Will learning the 'constant pitching mindset' ruin the manager's mojo in other aspects of managerial life?"
Proliferation of intrapreneurship programs
Berk Temuroglu suspects enhanced learning is one of the reasons intrapreneurship programs have become so popular in the corporate world.
Why are corporate managers hesitating
Berk Temuroglu tosses around some theories on why more corporate managers are not making use of the startup-mindset learning opportunities available to them.
Tables have turned
Berk Temuroglu says the tables have turned, and while the two groups (startups and corporate managers) can learn from each other on a two-way street, 10 years ago it was more that startups could learn from corporate managers, and now it's corporate managers who can...
Constant pitching mindset
Years ago, when I was walking across Turkey, I adopted a phrase: "Every day be born a dumbass anew." It doesn't mean forget all the stuff you've learned, it just means put that stuff aside for the moment, confident that it'll still be there if you need it, and let the...
Constant pitching mindset
Berk Temuroglu points out what he calls the "constant pitching mindset" as a skill he thinks more corporate managers should adopt.
Corporate vs startup presenting mindset
Berk Temuroglu compares the corporate presenting mindset to the startup presenting mindset, and says the corporate mindset needs to learn something from the startup mindset.
The three or four things
Memet Yazici goes into the three or four top things to keep in mind during the management team meeting.
How the ship gets righted
Memet Yazici goes into how the meeting will typically get corrected if the management team takes off in the wrong direction.
Getting confused
Memet Yazici on the confusion that ensues if you approach a PE management team meeting as if it were a VC meeting, and vice versa.
Can you be overprepared?
Memet Yazici dives into the age-old question, "Can you be overprepared" for the management team meeting.
The first few minutes
Memet Yazici goes into what is probably going through the head of the investor in the first few minutes of the management team meeting.
Limits to the research
Memet Yazici goes into what's good research for the management team meeting and what's too much.
The mutual telling of stories
Memet Yazici comments that in the management team meeting, the telling of stories is likely to be mutual.
Preparing for the management team meeting
Memet Yazici goes into some ways you can prepare for the management team meeting.
PE vs VC expectations from the management meeting
Memet Yazici talks about the differences between what a PE company and a VC company expect from the management team meeting.
Management meeting context
Memet Yazici sets the context for the management team meeting.
Investor base helping with the international expansion
Berk Temuroglu goes into tapping the investor base to assist with the international expansion.
Inevitability of culture clash
From the podcast archives, Berk Temuroglu on the inevitability of culture clash when the company sends expats to manage an office staffed locally.
Rockin’ the mike
A few years after arriving in Istanbul, I found myself saying, "You know, what this place needs is a Toastmasters club." (for those of you not familiar with Toastmasters, it's basically a place where people practice their public speaking skills) So I started one up....
105. Bertay Fişekçi’s Public Speaking Journey
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.
104. Blowing Out The Carbon
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...
Do what you love
I used to hear that phrase "Do what you love," and think, "That's a lot of woo-woo hippie-ish BS," about loving everything, always being happy, The Secret, etc. "Life's not like that," I'd counter, "sometimes it throws a lot of suck your way." Now, though, I agree...
Stories in data-heavy presentations
Back in 2003, one of my first entrepreneurial activities was to get a 20-foot container of galvanized steel springs made in China. They were called "Branch Benders," and their purpose was to open up the branches of a new tree so the sunlight could get in and the tree...
International sales expansion
Some of you have asked why we are doing a podcast miniseries on international sales expansion. What does that have to do with presentations? You've asked why I am interested in this subject. What is my tie to this subject? These are very good questions. The answer is...
Train wrecks
I'm a presentation coach. But even I have presentations that go, shall we say, "less than ideally" (read: disastrously). I tell myself that having disasters of my own makes me a better coach, because I know what to look out for. 😉 I remember one in particular, in...
“I need business English” is a dangerous phrase
Why? Because it leads to way too much unfocused effort and time wasting. You're going to waste your time learning how to set meetings and talk to receptionists. I don't mean to malign receptionists, they are great people and the world needs them. But you have an...
103. Alternative Ways Into Angel Investing
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...
102. Brad Farris On A Pivotal Moment
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...
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101. Melda Sofuoğlu On Presentations In The Telco World
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...
100. What Has Changed
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...
99. There Ain’t No Cookie Cutter
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...
98. Prizing In An Investment Pitch, Yes Or No?
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.
97. Tools
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.
96. Limiting Beliefs
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...
95. Zombor Berezvai On Data-Heavy Presentations
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...
94. Berk Temuroğlu On Startup Sales Expansion, Part 2
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...
93. Berk Temuroğlu On Startup Sales Expansion, Part 1
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...
92. The Use Of Constraints
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...
91. Yeah, But I Don’t Need That
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,...
90. Bringing Peace
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.
89. Berk Temuroğlu On Startup Vs Corporate Mindset, The Problem/Solution Cycle, And Risk In The ROI Calculation
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...
88. And Then The Spirits Rose Up
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...
87. Max Traylor On Productizing Creative Services
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...
86. Memet Yazici On The Management Meeting
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...
85. No, 93% Is NOT Non-Verbal
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...
Gilmore Girls exercise #2
In this exercise, you are doing two things: 1. Training your mouth to move quickly in English, and 2. Training your mind to think in English, because with the quick conversation, there isn't time to think in Turkish too. Below is a video and a transcript. Try to read...
84. 25 Times Revisited
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...
Gilmore Girls exercise #1
In this exercise, you are doing two things: 1. Training your mouth to move quickly in English, and 2. Training your mind to think in English, because with the quick conversation, there isn't time to think in Turkish too. Below is a video and a transcript. Read the...
83. Nervousness Ain’t Always Bad
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...
82. Presenting Bad News
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....
81. Brad Farris On The Big Picture
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...
80. Ebru Demirel On Pitching To Procurement
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...
79. Kill Your Darlings
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"...
78. Jonathan Stark On Uncovering The Real Reason
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...
77. Jonathan Stark On Hourly Billing
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...
76. It’s Not Personal
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...
75. Ebru Demirel On Pitching An Idea
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...
74. Geraldine Carter On Avoiding Downward Pricing Pressure
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...
The point
In this episode of The White Rabbit podcast... https://open.spotify.com/episode/1cn5bJITDjfxZBOjUeJoSE?si=708e2514c8354bef ...Alper makes an interesting point, that the value of a presentation is not in convincing people to support you, it's in reassuring your...
73. Can You Quantify The Value Of A Presentation?
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.
72. Pareto Your Presentation
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...
71. All Grip On Niching
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...
70. Success Factors, Alper Edition
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...
The right questions
99% of my clients are not native speakers of English. (Fun fact: Did you know that, by far, most speakers of English are not native speakers of English?) And, quite dependably, every single one of those clients asks at some point, "How is my English," or some other...
69. Three Traits Of Successful Clients
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...
68. Crisis Of Confidence
Matt asks Alper for advice on how to handle a crisis of confidence his clients often face shortly after starting work.
67. AI, Volume Two
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...
66. AI, Volume One
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...
Exporter of Humans
I recently began introducing myself at parties as an "exporter of humans." That never goes over too well. People imagine me loading excessive numbers of Syrians into an inflatable raft and then pushing it towards Greece. What I actually mean is much more boring. Of...
65. The Sales Presentation Deck
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...
64. Stalking The Board
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...
Stalk the board
This is a great article, it made me so excited and I jumped for joy many times upon reading it! One of my favorite points it makes: Know the board members. Not on average. Every. Single. One. They're all different. I call it "stalk the board"...
RFP presentation tip #2
The second step in our series is to reduce your ahh count. It's much easier to listen to somebody who is not saying "uh" all the time. Let me give you an example. Option 1: I, um, went, um, to the, um, store. Option 2: I went to the store. Read them out loud. Compare...
63. Self-Confidence In The Sales Presentation
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...
People are like dogs
If you stare at one long enough, it'll attack. Screen-based teleprompters are great. They allow you to read a script while looking at, or at least appearing to look at, the camera. But don't fall in love with your teleprompter so much that you forget to break eye...
62. Matt’s Specialization Journey
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.
61. Resistance During Sales Presentations
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.
Aspect ratios
"The aspect ratio is off."Said no one in your audience, ever. They probably aren't sitting there thinking, the aspect ratio is off, I don't like this guy.But they might be sitting there thinking, I don't know what it is, but something is off. Maybe it's the color...
RFP presentation tip #3
Make mirror neurons work for you. What are mirror neurons? Basically, it’s that humans tend to do what other humans are doing. You know how if you’re at a party talking to someone, and they are smiling, you’ll smile too, even though you’re not sure why you’re smiling?...
60. The Four Things
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.
RFP presentation tip #4
Use vivid language. Use words loaded with color. Emotion. Sound. Why? If you use dead or uncolorful words, then when your audience leaves the room, they're going to forget what you said. They're going to forget you. And when you're giving a pitch presentation, being...
59. Natalia Talkowska on Letting Your Geek Flag Fly
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...
58. Tom Tran On Internship Presentations
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.
57. Ömer Gençer On Adjusting Your Presentation For Different Audiences
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.
56. Overcoming Zoom Latency
Matt and Alper go into some tips for dealing with "Zoom latency" -- the tendency of videoconferencing software to interrupt the way we humans interact.
55. Stress Factors
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...
54. Doing The Non-linear
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.
53. Tackling Resistance (The Matt Chapter)
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.
52. Tackling Resistance (The Alper Chapter)
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.
51. Tom Tran On Presentations In The CPG World
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.
Six
There is a magic number for how many filler words are fine. It's six. There are some people on the logical extreme, and they'll say you need to hit zero. And sometimes that would be nice, to hit zero filler words, but in my opinion, don't worry about it too much. Less...
50. The Inner Game
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...
Slides are a crutch
It was the most important presentation of her life. Not just of HER life. Of the lives of every single one of the people who worked for her, too. After all, their jobs at her company were how they put food on the table to feed their children. But they weren't going to...
49. The Point At Which
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."
48. The Cobbler’s Children
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...
47. One Way To Distribute Questions
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.
Don’t feed the monster
Don't feed the monster. Kill it. You don't need prettier slides. You don't need fancy animations or most of the bells and whistles that are built into PowerPoint. You probably don't need to spend hours and hours preparing, if you're already an expert on the subject....
46. Grab Bag
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,...
You don’t need more noise
Slides are noise. There are 30 million new slides made every day. No one wakes up in the morning and says, "You know what I need more of in my life? PowerPoint slides." What the world needs more of is the ability to take a one-hour idea and crush it down into 3 or 4...
45. Stock Photography: Use It Or Not?
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...
44. Revisiting Cialdini
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.
Tech spend and second marriages
They say that 60% of tech projects fail or underperform. (That number varies, but it's usually north of 50.) Which means tech spend is, like a second marriage, the triumph of hope over experience. Your budget committee presentation is going to be mostly numbers, team...
43. Three Tools And A Rabbit Hole (Alper Edition)
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!"
Go retail
A lot of public speaking coaching is directed at speaking to large groups. You know the images: A speaker, holding a microphone, standing in front of hundreds of people, usually on a stage or something like that. But most big decisions are not made by hundreds of...
42. Three Tools And A Rabbit Hole (Matt edition)
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.
What does ChatGPT mean for my presentations?
The short answer: Nothing. If you're a CTO, ChatGPT and AI are helping your coders a lot. They probably save them boatloads of time. They might even be helping clean up their code or even write blocks of code that would be a waste of time for a human. But when you're...
41. Low-Hanging Fruit
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.
40. Training: What Is It Good For?
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...
Make your headlines tell your message
Make sure that if someone reads only the headlines of your slides, and nothing else, they will still get your message. For example: Slide 1 headline: Sales are up Slide 2 headline: But average pick lines per order are too Slide 3 headline: So to protect profitability,...
39. Service Guarantees
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...
38. Alper’s Milestones
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.
37. Matt’s Milestones
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,...
36. Make The Trend Your Friend
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.
36. Make The Trend Your Friend
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.
Was Don Draper cool or not?
Elsewhere, I've held up Angus Young, admiring him for his complete lack of detachment. Today, I hold up the opposite, a King of Cool, Mad Men's Don Draper. When you need to be cool and collected in a hot environment, channel your inner Don Draper. But now that I think...
35. Starting Out
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...
Let your freak flag fly
Look at that guy. He's sweating, he's drooling, he's desperately sucking oxygen through a tube. He's the uncoolest guy that ever existed. And yet… There are tens of thousands of fans calling his name, straining to touch him, like he is a god. You don't need to be...
34. Fanboys Reminiscing
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...
33. Getting Over The Curse Of Knowledge
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...
32. Getting Under Alper’s Skin
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...
31. The Hero’s Journey For Normal People
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.
30. Putting Your Head In The Lion’s Mouth
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.
29. Angry Audience Member
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.
28. How Matt “Cleans” A Presentation
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.
27. Rockin’ The Agenda Slide
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?...
27. Rockin’ The Agenda Slide
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?...
26. Cleaning, Part 2
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...
26. Cleaning, Part 2
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...
25. How A Pro Cleans A Deck
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...
24. Matt’s Model
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....
23. Presentations That Make A Difference
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...
22. Under the Kimono: Alper
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...
21. Under the Kimono: Matt
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...
20. Exit: Must-have Elements for Entrepreneur Pitch Decks
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....
19. Scalability: Must-have Elements for Entrepreneur Pitch Decks
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...
18. Team: Must-have Elements for Entrepreneur Pitch Decks
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...
17. Timing: Must-have Elements for Entrepreneur Pitch Decks
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,...
16. Market and Value Proposition: Must-have Elements for Entrepreneur Pitch Decks
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...
15. The Lightning Round
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!
14. Vocabulary is a ZIP File
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...
13. Underutilized Presentation Tools
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...
12. Talk to the Dog?!
Matt uses this phrase all the time: "Talk to the dog." What does that even mean? Finally, an answer to the question.
11. Fanboys Mapping
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....
10. Alper’s 3 Favorite Apps for Presenters
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
9. Confusing PowerPoint and Presentation Trainings
Matt makes an observation about how PowerPoint training and presentation training are often conflated, and offers a theory as to why.
8. Going Deeper on Audience Resistance
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.
7. Resistance From the Audience
Alper talks about his evolution from trying to overcome audience resistance to actively eliciting it, and how others can seek it out, too.
6. Making Good on a Promise
Matt and Alper make good on a promise to give people a story structure they can actually use in business presentations.
5. Alper Punches Holes
Alper punches holes in Matt's "No Visual Design" theory, and Matt clarifies what he means.
4. Matt Visits the Psychologist
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.
3. Handling Video Crashes the Smooth and Calm Way
Alper describes a horrific video crash, and how to avoid being embarrassed when that happens.
2. The First 3 Questions
Matt goes into the first three questions you should ask before any presentation. They sound obvious, but they are surprisingly not.
1. Presentations vs. Leave-Behind Documents
Alper goes into what is a leave-behind, what is its purpose, and how do you decide what to put in it.
To speak up
To put something back
To wash up
To rip something up
To tear something out
To get out
Meaning: to become known, to become public knowledge Examples: I don't want it to get out that I am leaving. Please don't tell anyone. If this bad news gets out, people will panic and try to run away.
To set up
Meaning: to construct or build something Examples: The people set up camp by the lake. The child was building something with her blocks, so I asked her what she was setting up.
To run on
Meaning: to continue without interruption Examples: The discussion ran on for hours. Don't start that book, it runs on for hundreds of pages and never says anything.
To run around
Meaning: to be very busy doing something Examples: My new boss asks me to do a million different things. She makes me run around all the time. I am tired, I have been running around all day, fixing the house, doing the shopping, etc.
To put something across
Meaning: to explain something Examples: This is a complicated subject, I don't know how to put it across to you. If someone does not understand that other subject, it is hard to put this across to them.
To run away from something
Meaning: to escape from something Examples: The prisoners ran away from the prison during the fire. I don't like my job. I don't like this city. I want to run away from everything.
To let someone in on something
Meaning: to allow someone to know something Examples: I let him in on the big changes happening in our office. I never know what he is doing, he never lets me in on his life.
To cut something up
Meaning: to cut into pieces Examples: My mother cut the onions up before cooking the meat. This big project will be easier if you cut it up into smaller pieces.
To cut across something
Meaning: to cross something in order to make a shorter route Examples: If I cut across the field, it’ll save time. If I cut across the school, I can get to work earlier.
To cut into something
Meaning: to make something shorter or smaller Examples: The knife is very sharp, it will easily cut into the cake. I like my family time very much, I don't want my new job to cut into it.
To look back
Meaning: to think about the past Examples: It is important to look ahead at the future, and to not spend too much time looking back. When I look back at my childhood, I realize it was a very good childhood.
To cut back on something
Meaning: to reduce something Examples: My doctor told me to cut back on salt. Money is tight these days, we need to cut back on expenses.
To take down
Meaning: to remove something from a high position Examples: He took the vase down from the high shelf. I don't like that man, I think he got his position by stealing it. I am going to take him down.
To take something over
Meaning: to take control of something Examples: He loves to control everything. If we invite him to the party, he will try to take everything over. A new boss took the company over last week.
To look in on someone
Meaning: to give a short visit, often just to make sure someone is okay Examples: My father is very old. Can you look in on him a few times each week, just to make sure he is okay? When I was in the hospital, my best friend came to look in on me every day.
To look around somewhere
Meaning: to visit a place and look at the things in it Examples: When I visit a new city, I like to just look around the place. When I go to a store, sometimes I just want to look around at things.
To look back
Meaning: to think about the past Examples: It is important to look ahead at the future, and to not spend too much time looking back. When I look back at my childhood, I realize it was a very good childhood.
To look ahead
Meaning: to think about the future Examples: I know this won't happen for another year or two, but I just want to look ahead. The past is finished. We must look ahead.
To read up on something
Meaning: to read a lot about something in order to learn about it Examples: I wanted to learn more about the war, so I read up on it. Before we met, I read up on you.
To read something back
Meaning: to read something again, out loud, to someone else Examples: That last sentence was really important, can you read that back to everyone in the room? Could you read that back to me? I want to hear your pronunciation.
To make something into something else
Meaning: to change something into something else Examples: I don't like my new boyfriend. He keeps trying to make me into someone I am not. If you add blue paint, you can make red paint into purple paint.
To keep something away from someone
Meaning: to not tell someone something, to not let someone near something Examples: He doesn't like bad news, so I try to keep bad news away from him. It is important to keep medicine away from children.
To keep off
Meaning: to not touch something, or to not discuss something Examples: He talks a lot, but he keeps off the subject of his divorce. I ask the children to keep off the grass.
To keep someone in
Meaning: to not allow someone to go outside Examples: Because they were noisy during class, the teacher kept the children in after class. The dog is barking a lot today, I am keeping him in because it is raining.
To hang around
Meaning: to move slowly, to do something slowly Examples: Don't hang around, you have a train to catch! I am doing nothing today, just relaxing and hanging around the house.
To get away from something
Meaning: To take a vacation from something (or to something), to escape from something Examples: I have been working too hard, I really need to get away to a tropical island. Sometimes I just want to get away from this big city.
To set off
Meaning: to start a journey Examples: They set off for London at 5pm. I want to set off for a distant location.
To carry on with something
Meaning: to continue with something Examples: When I am gone, I want you to carry on with this project. Even though he asked me to stop singing, I decided to carry on like I was before.
To check off
Meaning: to mark with a tick mark, to mark something as done Examples: I like my "to do" list to be clear. Please wait while I check off these last two things. Here is a list, let's check off the names of the people we don't want at the party.
To clear up
Meaning: to solve, to explain, or to remove a problem Examples: This project is confusing, I hope he can clear it up. It rained a lot today, maybe it will clear up tomorrow.
To clear out of somewhere
Meaning: to leave from somewhere Examples: We need to clear out of here before that bad man comes back. I haven't paid the rent in many months. The landlord asked me to clear out of the house.
To clear away
Meaning: to open a space, to put things away Examples: You should clear away all your toys before bedtime. I need to clear away the trees before I can farm this land.
To catch on
Meaning: to become popular Examples: This game will catch on among young people. In the past, that song was not popular, but now it is catching on.
To catch somebody up on something
Meaning: to give somebody the latest news or information about something Examples: Can someone catch us up on the latest news? He doesn't know about the new products. I will catch him up on them.
To make up for something
Meaning: to recover, to make something better, to fix a problem you created Examples: Nothing can make up for a lost child. I came to work late yesterday, so I have to work this weekend to make up for it.
To take in
Meaning: to allow somebody to stay in your home Examples: My house has an extra bed, so I can take in one more person. Our friend was homeless after the fire, so we took his family in.
To make up
Meaning: to make peace after a fight Examples: I had a big fight with my dad, but we made up and have a good relationship now. Let's not fight, please come home and let's make up.
To hang on
Meaning: to wait for a short time Examples: She told me to hang on, she would arrive in 10 minutes. I am in the middle of an important task, you need to hang on for a few minutes, and then we can talk.
To stop over
Meaning: to stay at one place for a short time on the way to another place Examples: They stopped over in Singapore on their way to Australia. We stopped over at the grocery store on our way to my parents' house.
To touch down
Meaning: to land (an airplane) Examples: The plane touched down at 6:38pm. This flight is really long, when do we touch down in Hong Kong?