How I managed my presentation-writing anxiety

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I freak out every time I have to write a new presentation. Well, not literally, but my anxiety does run wild. However, I managed to tame my most recent jitters with an exercise from life coach Cheryl Richardson.

Photo: Joe’s-photos

In “Break the Spell,” Richardson says,

“The minute you start worrying about something, stop and congratulate yourself for being so present and aware. Then, put pen to paper and list at least five positive outcomes you’d most like to have happen. Keep repeating these present-focused, positive statements throughout the day and notice how the energy starts to shift.”

Here are my five positive outcomes:

  1. The presentation is well-organized.
  2. Each member of the audience learns something that helps them write better.
  3. I come up with new ways of explaining things to people.
  4. My email list expands.
  5. My presentation helps me land new clients.

This exercise calmed my nerves enough that I could focus on writing my presentation. I hope it helps you, too.

If YOU have a good way to control presentation-related anxiety, I’d love to learn your tips.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at freedigitalphotos.net.

Guest post: “Creating Pitch Books Without Losing Your Mind: Design & Content Management Tips”

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Margaret Patterson, the co-host on my recent webinar, is a financial pitch book expert. She has created sales support tools and provided production management expertise to numerous institutional asset managers and consultants, mutual fund companies,  and wealth management advisors for 25 years. She shares her expertise in the guest post below, which originally appeared on one of my earlier blogs.

Margaret is great about answering questions, so I hope you’ll pose some.

Creating Pitch Books Without Losing Your Mind:

Design & Content Management Tips

by Margaret Patterson

Typically many employees provide input for a firm’s pitch book. To pull all that information together you need a good plan.

1. Delegate pitch book content management to one employee. That person will be the key contact for every employee and consultant who influences the pitch book.

2. A small approval committee, 3 to 5 people, should determine what content works best.

3. Give considerable attention to investment process but whittle it down to no more than five steps. Don’t over-explain. Let your graphics be a starting point for conversation.

4. Emphasizing investment professionals’ expertise gets new business. Don’t leave out the support they get from marketing, client service, operations and reporting. Finding inefficiencies in markets, sticking to disciplined investment processes and impressive client service are the marks of well-structured firms regardless of their size. An impressive organization chart carries a lot of weight with prospects.

5. Request senior management approval only after you have a complete draft that can be defended with valor. You need a concise mission statement supported by brief, punchy text and elegant graphics. 20 to 25 pages are enough. After all, people are pitching to people. Be a good listener and let your spoken story address a prospect’s unique concerns.

6. It’s a good idea to customize books if you clearly understand your prospect’s investment objectives. Customized pages can be inserted into your standard book.

7. Handouts are also valuable tools in a high courtship pitching process. Use fact sheets, company profile handouts and composite performance PDFs to provide more detailed information. Handouts also help you control who gets the information and when. Conversely, prospects will resort to taking phone calls and planning golf games if your pitch book is too long and intense.

I create a PowerPoint design system guide for each client to help them maintain consistent, effective messaging.

Input and questions are welcome. Your thoughts may show up in future articles, so let me know if I can quote you.

Mind mapping for brainstorming as a group

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Mind mapping is a powerful tool for brainstorming. Without it, I’d find it much more difficult to write articles about complex topics. But mind mapping isn’t only for individuals. Groups can also harness its power.

“I think mind mapping would be great for group brainstorming.” It’s funny, but members of the New York Society of Security Analysts and the Professional Association for Investment Communications Resources (PAICR) made similar comments when I spoke to them about mind mapping on April 28. For example, PAICR members thought it would be a good way to discuss investment commentary ideas with portfolio managers.

I imagine a group would appoint one person to draw a mind map on a flip chart, with input from other members of the group. However, I suggest some other options in the mind map embedded below. Click on it to see a larger image.

YOUR group mind mapping ideas?

How about you? How do YOU suggest mind mapping as a group?

May 2013 update: Since I published this post, I learned that you can use mind mapping software for online collaboration. For example, I’ve shared one of my maps created in MindMeister with a client to help him brainstorm how to organize his draft. Also, here’s a MindJet video that suggests how you can use it to manage a product launch. The mind map above was created using Mindomo.

Great ad copy from Wilmington Trust

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“Learn about a great estate planning technique.”

Would the preceding line attract your attention to an advertisement? Well, maybe if you’re a financial professional. But odds are most regular folks wouldn’t exclaim, “Yes! I must read this.”

I like the Wilmington Trust ad shown with this blog post because it effectively says, “Learn about a great estate planning technique.”

By opening with “You didn’t get where you are today by missing out on exception opportunities,” Wilmington Trust appeals to prospective clients’ images of themselves. In other words, it appeals to their egos.

Once the firm has hooked its readers, they’ll look at the small print. They may even call Kemp Stickney or type in http://wilmingtontrust.com/gift/ to check out additional resources.

For RIAs: Is this good marketing? Better practice for fiduciaries?

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Registered investment advisors, how much should you disclose when you use articles written by others? Is it okay to slap your name on articles largely written by others? What if those articles may also appear under the names of other advisors?

Below is a question posed by one of my readers.

Several DFA staff members write commentaries which are kept in a “library” for the approved advisors to use. Approved advisors can search for a commentary that they feel is timely (not usual to see commentaries which were written by DFA in 2008-2010 used in the present by an RIA).

A simple search of an DFA used commentary by an RIA will bring up multiple “DFA-approved RIAs.” However, in the individual RIA commentaries a few will use a disclaimer that states the subject matter was “Adapted From Joe Smith of Dimensional Fund Advisors” while many others will treat the commentary as their own work.

RIAs are quick to market their role as a fiduciary to their clients but I feel that acting with integrity is just as critical. I believe that citing sources correctly is fundamental to acting with integrity when communicating with clients and the public.

Do you think that clients would appreciate such disclosure and conversely disapprove of portraying another firms thoughts and research as originally from an RIA?

This isn’t–or shouldn’t be–an issue for registered representatives because FINRA advises them to disclose the role of other writers, as I discussed in “Registered reps, it’s time to ‘fess up.”

Unlock your presentation with the power of intention

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If you sometimes struggle with creating presentations, you can overcome obstacles with the power of intention exercise I learned from my friend Elizabeth Clearwater of Santa Fe, N.M.

Elizabeth Clearwater

One time, when I felt overwhelmed by starting to design a customized writing workshop for investment analysts, Elizabeth suggested I work through the process that I describe below.

1. Write down your intentions for your audience.

In other words, what do you want your audience to take away from your presentation?

For example, I wanted them to

  • Feel that I appreciate and respect their time constraints, the need to use jargon to communicate with fellow professionals, their market expertise, and lack of writing training.
  • Receive useful before-and-after examples to show what they could do better

2. Write down your intentions for yourself.

Here’s part of what I wanted:

  • To feel that my knowledge is helpful and respected
  • To draw out from the students the reasons why it’s important to write more clearly and concisely

After I wrote this out, it was easy for me to create an outline for my presentation. If you try this, I hope you also find it helpful.

If you’re in Santa Fe, N.M., you can see the power of intention in action because my friend Elizabeth uses this process to prepare for her Ceremonial Song Circles.

Edited October 2, 2011

Whiteboard video: If you want to add some visual interest

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A video that only shows you speaking about a financial topic can get boring. This is why I suggest you add some visual elements.

One way to boost your visual appeal to use a whiteboard, as Paddy Hirsch does. I discovered his video through a tweet by Cathy Curtis of Curtis Financial. Hirsch is senior editor for the Marketplace radio show.

Here’s the link: Fiscal and Monetary Policy.

If you try a whiteboard video, remember to

  1. Use a microphone that will record you even when you’re facing away from the camera
  2. Face the camera as often as possible
  3. Add diagrams or drawings to enliven your whiteboard notes–Love that drawing of Ben Bernanke!

If you’ve ever tried a whiteboard video, I’d like to learn about your experience.

May 1, 2014: I updated this post to change information that was no longer accurate.

Information density: Weakness or strength?

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Are you hitting the right level of information density in your writing?

Image by Peter Morville

“Often white papers on technical subjects written for an executive audience have…too much technical detail,” says Robert Bly in The White Paper Marketing Handbook: How to Generate More Leads and Sales with White Papers, Special Reports, Booklets, and CDs (p.16.) Bly’s comment made me think about pieces written by portfolio managers and other financial experts. Their enthusiasm for their topic often gets them bogged down in details.

Benefits first, details later

If you’re a financial professional, remember to focus first on the benefit of your expertise to your readers. Then, you can delve into the details.

Not sure if you have too much detail? Ask an objective member of your target audience for feedback.

Too little data can also hurt

Meanwhile, remember that an absence of detail can also handicap your white paper by undercutting your credibility. As Bly says, often “…white papers written for engineers and scientists have too low an information density (they are too superficial).”

Imagine, for example, you’re trying to sell a new trading system to an investment management system. The president of your prospect company will seek information differently from the company’s head of information technology.

You need to know your audience before you start writing, so you can tailor communications to them.

“The pebble in the shoe”: The power of metaphor

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Metaphors are powerful tools for communication. I couldn’t get the phrase “the pebble in the shoe” out of my mind after an advisor mentioned it to me at an annual conference of the Financial Planning Association of Massachusetts back in 2011.

Photo by Kaptain Kobold

Apparently, speaker Todd Fithian of the Legacy Companies suggested that advisors tackle whatever represents “the pebble in the shoe” for their clients.

I felt anxious just thinking about that pebble. This metaphor also sparked my curiosity about the presentation in which the term popped up.

Pebble vs. pressing problem

Which phrase is more memorable? “The pebble in the shoe” or “The pressing problem your client wants to address”?

For me, it’s clearly the first phrase. I’ll probably remember this phrase and perhaps even Todd Fithian long after I’ve forgotten the rest of the day’s sessions. This is true even though I didn’t attend Fithian’s presentation.

Your metaphors

Some of you are already using metaphors to your advantage, as I learned in your comments on “Reader challenge: New, non-liquid metaphors for money.”

Communications lessons from “Torn in Two” at the Boston Public Library

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What can an exhibit about the Civil War teach you about communications? I took away six lessons from “Torn in Two: 150th Anniversary of the Civil War,” which runs until Dec. 31, 2011, at the Boston Public Library’s map center.

Torn in Two, an image featured in the Boston Public Library exhibit of the same name

Lesson 1: Summarize your message for people who don’t want to delve into details.

When I visited this map-heavy exhibit, I didn’t look closely at many of the maps. Instead, I happily read the large-type wall labels that conveyed each section’s theme.

Lesson 2: Combine words with images.

Even though I’m a big reader, I wouldn’t have entered an exhibit that consisted solely of words. In fact, it was the exhibit’s signature image of two men tugging on opposite sides of a map that attracted me.

Lesson 3: Tell stories.

My favorite part of the exhibit was “Hear Our Stories,” featuring 10 fictional characters describing their lives at each stage of the Civil War.

Lesson 4: Appeal to your audience’s demographics.

The variety and specifics of the characters was compelling. To give you some flavor, they included

  • Isaiah Wilkes, seminary student, abolitionist, Roxbury, Mass., age 16
  • Rebecca Parrish, slave, South Carolina, age perhaps 20
  • Elizabeth Farnsworth, educated girl of means, Civil War nurse, Concord, Mass., age 16
  • John Tilden, non-slave-owning crop farmer, Georgia, age 35

However, I was disappointed to learn later from a brochure that these were fictional characters. The lesson for financial bloggers? Make it clear if you’re using composite characters to illustrate a story.

Lesson 5: Help your audience relate your information to themselves.

I picked up a family activity brochure about slavery at the exhibit. It started by suggesting questions for adults to ask children, such as, “Are you allowed to read?” These questions put the children at the center of the conversation, in addition to providing context for an adult-child discussion of how slaves had few choices.

Lesson 6: Write about your passions.

I suspect that the creators of this exhibit felt excited about their topic. This passion, plus adept use of Lessons 1 through 5 sparked an interesting exhibit.