Presenting – Discussion between Michael Beale and Dexter Moscow

Dexter Moscow does what he loves best – training others to get their message across with power and impact whether in front of a camera or in front of an audience of 1 or many.

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Michael : Good afternoon Dexter.

Dexter : Hello Michael, how are you doing?

Michael : Very well, very well.

Michael : Firstly let me say that I’m very grateful that you’ve agreed to take part in this podcast, I’ve heard some really good things about you and I’m very much looking forward to what you have to say. For the audiences benefit, can you introduce yourself a little bit and say just a little bit about what you do.

Dexter : Yes. As you said, my name is Dexter Moscow, and I always say, that is my real name, not my stage name – because people don’t believe it. My company is AudienceDynamics and typically what I do is work with individuals who may be very technically good at what they do, but they find it difficult or challenging, getting their message across to other, and to really amuse and entertain people with power and impact, whether it be corporate or individuals. I suppose I help them present in the best possible way.

Michael : Ok, leading on from that. What do you feel makes a good presentation?

Dexter : A really good presentation is really like any good story. It should have a beginning a middle and an end. It should be impactful and I suppose open with a really strong message.

Michael : Right.

Dexter : And a strong indication of who that person is, and to end with a call to action if that’s what’s required.

Michael : Ok.. If you were going to teach me or somebody else how to present well, what are some of the key things that you’d get them to do?

Dexter : The first thing that I would do – because we’re led to believe that public speaking is one of the most fearful things that we will do in our lives. So I would lend from your experience, and I would ask people to visualise the positive outcome of this presentation and see people in their mind applauding and congratulating them on a fantastic presentation, and saying ‘what a wonderful message! We need to go and do something!” So not just about presenting, but really making it impactful, making people take action – so that’s the first thing I would do, if fear is an issue.

Then I would suggest that they really plan, and rehearse – begin to think about what they need to say and the message that they need to convey.

Michael : And what after that, they’re in a good state and they know they have to plan – what else do you think is important?

Dexter : Well, it’s a bit of self advertising here, but because of my years of experience working in television and also pitching people business as well I’ve developed what I call the ‘seven keys to perfect communication’ and the perfect element is an acronym that when you have those seven keys you will be successful, and I can explain that a little bit more if you wish to.

Michael : Yes, please do.

Dexter : Perfect, as I say is an acronym that stands for the key elements that I believe a presentation should contain. I’ll just run through them very briefly for you.

P stands for Personal Impact, so that means what will we look like and how we sound when we first stand up.

The second element, the first E, if you like, is Emotional Connection, when we make an emotional connection with people, we show who we are, we tell stories about ourselves – then that really creates a connection with you and your audience, whoever that audience might be.

Then the R is the Right to Talk, really what we’ve done in our lives – will give us a right to talk in our subjects, or to motivate, or to explain to somebody that what we do is what we believe is right.

The F stands for Facts. Because after initially we’ve made that connection with somebody, we have to give them the facts, we have to tell them what we’ve succeeded at, the bottom line figures if you like. If we’re in a business environment, what we’ve achieved in terms of percentage, various elements like that.

The next E is an Encapsulation of what we do. We live in a sound-byte society, so people don’t want lots of information thrust at them. They want it packaged. So if you can encapsulate what you do in key phrases, we see it all the time, Nike has ‘Just do It’, ‘Finger Licking Good’ we see it all the time – Or Coke ‘The Real Thing’ when we encapsulate a message, and if we can make an emotional connection with that message as well, then that can be really effective.

The next element of perfect is C, standing for Credibility. That could be testimonials, that could again be relating facts, but in a much more personal way. So our own personal credibility.

And the last element of perfect T, which is The Company, our company, what we’ve achieved, and the companies that we’ve worked with, and the people that we’ve worked with.

So once a presentation has got those elements incorporated into it – and on tv we have to convey all of that in just under thirty seconds – if you can encapsulate and incorporate all of those elements, that it a perfect presentation.