TexasDesign.com

What you are, what you want, what you love doesn’t matter. It’s all about how you sell it.

In 1960, advertising agencies were an all-powerful influence on the masses. Personal and professional manipulation and sexual exploits defined the workplace and closed the deals. The high profile fictitious Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency created advertising campaigns – from cigarettes to political candidates — better than anyone. It was a time of great ferment. Women had barely begun to come into their own. Librium and birth control were on the move. Ethics in the workplace, smoke-free environments, sexual harassment and ethnic diversity were workshops of the future.

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Imagine a company coming to you that is thrilled to finally be revamping their tired old website design with your fresh new concept.  They love the vibrancy of the colors, they are ecstatic about the design, they can’t get over your creativity with the layout… then when the site finally goes live, their search engine rankings plummet because the URL’s weren’t redirected properly.  Suddenly, that once happy client is now leaving a message that begins with “we have to talk…” on your voicemail.

It happens all the time.  I saw this very situation happen up close and personal with a large children’s clothing e-tailer.  When I met them, they were desperately trying to boost their search engine position by spending a large sum on aggressive SEO after loosing ranking in the wake of a website redesign.

When redirecting URL’s it’s best to learn about the topic in full depth or to factor in the cost of hiring a web development firm that specializes in search engine optimization to help you to accomplish this properly.

Here are some key things to note if you’ll be handling the redirect yourself:

• Never use JavaScript to redirect:  Search engine spiders don’t execute JavaScript and therefore will only read the content from the old pages.
• Use a permanent 301 redirect if the URL’s will change, or if there are pages that once existed, but won’t any longer.  If you’re going from HTML to PHP file extension, or if you move from a flat file to a directory structure then consequently, all of your URL’s will change.  Also, if you change shopping cart software, the long query string associated with products will be completely different once the new software is implemented.
• Prevent future redirect problems by create search engine friendly URL’s using rewrite rules in the .htaccess file.

Example:

RewriteRule ^dog_beds/(.+)/(.+)/(.+)-(.+)-(.+)-(.+)\.htm$ product_info.php?group_title=$1&product_title=$2&sub_title=$3&pet_title=$4&breed_title=$5&figurine=$6

• If you only want to redirect visitors temporarily (for example, to show an “under construction” page) use a 302 temporary redirect.
• Use the “site:www.yourdomain.com” command to ensure that all of the pages that search engines have indexed have a new home.  This will allow you to view all of the pages that Google has indexed so that you can test for a proper redirect.

David Williams is an Ethical Search Engine Optimization expert located in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is vice president of the web development and SEO firm Unlimited Web Solutions.  David is a public speaker and has worked with people all over the United States marketing their websites.

Today we’re talking to Bob Hower who was the past president of the DFW Interactive Marketing Association as well as Manager - Strategic Planning at JCPenney. Today he puts on workshops for people on doing presentation skills. Bob, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your workshops?

Bob Hower: I appreciate the interview. I put together a 10-hour workshop for small business owners that we do over 5 consecutive sessions. So it’s 2 hours a morning. We focus on the small business person, so specifically in this workshop, among other things, we work on 30-second commercial because that’s a presentation of small business owners at giving every place in networking meetings.

And then we’re also focusing on 5-minute spotlight presentation because 5-minute or 10-minutes gives small business owners a real chance to get up in front of people and tell them what the benefits are in the business and what types of clients they’re looking for.

Listen to the interview

TDc: When you have your presentation seminar, what are some of the topics that you discuss? Just an overview of those topics beyond the 30-second and the 5-minute.

Bob Hower: Certainly. At the beginning, we let everybody introduce themselves and tell us what their specific objectives are because I always want to get an idea of what that specific person is looking for. We have everybody in that first week bring in an exhibit or an achievement because that’s where an easy presentation to start with will get a chance to hold up something that you feel pretty proud of and give us 90-second or 2-minute story about that.

Where you got it, how you achieved it, how hard you worked for that. And then, besides the 30-sec and the 5-minute, another major presentation which really helps people out, is we have a “talk to get action.”

Because all of us are constantly trying to get clients, associates, employees acting on one action. So we have a real formal structure on how to deliver the talk to get action and everybody comes in with a solid example on how they tried to get somebody at that meeting in particular to act on what we do. So those are really the major ones that we do spend time on within the 5-weeks class.

TDc: How would this benefit like a graphic designer? I know whenever I go in and pitch new business, showing my portfolio. And then you mentioned getting action. How would this tie into something like that?

Bob Hower: That’s a great question. Working on this for 5 weeks, we also have some little exercises that we do to build confidence of everybody in front of the room. And really when you’re dealing with clients or you’re dealing at a networking group, it’s really important that you have a message that is pretty focused and we’ll do that in both the 30-second commercial or elevator pitch. And even in a larger scale, the 5-minute presentation.

And then the second important thing is you have to deliver it with excitement and passion and enthusiasm because it’s your business. And really, people are obviously going to buy something from you if they believe that you can deliver that. So what we’re working on in this class is to really help you to organize that message.

But as importantly, to deliver it with conviction and enthusiasm and confidence throughout the 5 weeks. And that’s why we do it over a 5-week period so you get a chance to deliver your message in the workshop. And then go out there in the week and practice, practice it in your networking meetings and your client meetings. And as you’re learning it and doing it in the class, and then practicing it during the week, we really start changing your habits in building presentation skills. And that’s what this workshop is all about. It’s developing presentation skills so that you can deliver an effective message.

TDc: And then refining those skills..

Bob Hower: And then refining those skills by practicing it, coming in next week, changing of some of the ways that you do it. We’re constantly coaching you in the class.

You’re watching the other people strengthen their skills. So the whole thing works together as a real important mix to build your confidence and get you stronger in front of people.

TDc: When somebody’s thinking of doing a 30-second commercial which also could be like an elevator pitch. How is that different than a 5-minute? Do you have the same goals or do you take the same approach? Or is there two different approaches for two different timelines?

Bob Hower: There are two different approaches. Something I guess I knew intuitively. But really it’s strengthened in my mind as I’ve done this workshop. The hardest presentation to make is the 30-second commercial. People will sometimes come in and immediately they’re afraid of the 5-minute. And they think “Gee ’cause that only takes 5 minutes. I’m up there in front of the group for a long period of time.

That’s a lot more intimidating, a lot hard. So certainly, you’re up there longer for the 5 minutes. But what I’ve found is that the most important presentation that small business owners make is the 30-second commercial. ‘Cause that really makes you come to grips with couple of things. Number 1 is , “What differentiates you as a business?” And that really sets the foundation for your whole marketing strategy business strategy as a business is to differentiate it. By crystallizing down to 30 seconds, it really forces our members and focuses our members on thinking about what makes them different from other people and what benefits, what one real benefit can they bring to clients?

And we do give guidelines in the class. You put that into an outline and then get up in front of the group and deliver it with passion and clarity on what differentiates your business and what makes people want to buy you.

TDc: Do you find that sometimes that people put in too much on a 30-second commercial? Or should they focus just on one thing?

Bob Hower: I find 2 things. And then again, it’s an interesting question. I find it in a lot of meetings I go to. People can’t get it into 30 seconds. So they tend to either come up way short and then come up with a 15-second commercial that doesn’t make any sense at all. Or they’ll talk to 40 or 50 seconds because they really can’t crystallize the thoughts.

With this guideline and formula, we work out un-delimitation of thirty seconds. It really does focus and make people structure on what are the most important things they want to say to again promote their business, market their business differentiate them as a business.

TDc: And then moving to the 5-minute, when you’re doing a presentation like that. Is that a different format? You’re squeezing everything into 30 seconds instead of 5 minutes. How is it different to approach that type of presentation?

Bob Hower: Yes. I think the hardest one is the 30-seconds. I think once we give developing thing, that really is the one that is most thought-provoking to the small business people.

I think once you get your 30-second commercial down, then a 5-minute, a 10-minute, a 30-minute. And we do give you a formal outline for the 5-minute. You tell a little bit about yourself and your business and how you get into this. But the real thing that a 5-minute does is to give you a chance to give some specific examples. And even testimonials of success stories that you’ve had with your business.

And really that bridges back to this “Talk to get action”. Because what we learned in the “talk to get action” is that the example that you use is the most important things. People are sold through examples, examples of testimony, So really, once we get 30-second down, we think of we differentiated that we have.

What are the one most important product that we sell?

The 5-minute gives you a chance to spend a little bit more time on describing products that you do sell, which you can’t do with a 30-second. You have to be crystal clear on that. But then more importantly, it gives you sometime to give one or two clear examples of where you helped the clients, do whatever it is that you’re doing in your business supply them with products or the service.

And really the example, if you can bring in somebody, and we ask people in the workshop to do this. If you can bring a testimonial in and then you hold that up as an exhibit, that really is the best-selling of all.

Because you’re really describing them. People being successful with your products and willing to write something down and tell all the people that you served them. And then, we don’t do it in the workshop. But once you have 10 minutes, you have the chance two or three examples in.

That pretty much follows the same outline.

TDc: So you just extrapolate that?

Bob Hower: We really do. The 30-second is completely different. But then, once you get to 2 minutes, 5 mins. And that’s why I say , People think that those are the harder ones, more in front of the group. But once you’ve developed the confidence to speak in front of people, a 5-minute, 10-minute and 30-minute pleasures.

Because they really do give you the time to drive the point home and use the examples which really sells. Where as the 30-second, you really don’t have the luxury of putting wrong words in it. Because you don’t have the time for that.

TDc: Right, Cause you’re crystallizing everything.

Bob Hower: Exactly.

TDc: On a 5-minute, is there a pattern like you build up to a point? And then we talked about taking action. Is there a way that you build up to that and then take action or present that?

Bob Hower: In the class, we really don’t do that. We concentrate most of the presentations, I think, 3 of the weeks, we’re really up there giving 90-second or 2-minute presentations. And then in the 4th week, we do the 30-second commercial. So that obviously only gives you 30 seconds to do it. But we do, give people a chance to do that a couple of times. So you’re up there but you only have a 30-second time frame.

Then we get to the 5 minute. And that’s really the first time you’re doing that. But once you have the outline of the 30-second commercial, and you learn the format of the example of the “talk to get action”, then really a 5-minute talk is a just putting 2 or 3, 90-second talks together.

So although we haven’t given you a chance to do 4-minutes before you do 5-minutes, just by doing the 90 second and 2-minute when you get to the 5th week with the outline, you’re ready to do that. And as I said, we don’t do it, but we could do it. We could get to that, f5th week and give you a 30 minute assignment you’re ready to do that with the right outline because it is just a series of examples and flow. And once you get the confidence, you can be up there 10- 30 minutes without a problem.

TDc: Typically what is the size of your seminars?

Bob Hower: We really do like to keep the number between 10 and 15. 15 because if I go bigger than that, it’s really going to be difficult to do it in the 2 hours. And they are 2 hours.

We know small business owners target will target busy people, so we do this first thing in the morning at 7:45-9:45. And we do it in 5-7 at night. So we do want to keep it to 2 hours so 15 is really what I like to think is my max. And then I do like to have 10 in a class. Because 10 gets you to be a large group. And once you’re doing something in front of 10 people, it gets you doing it to a larger group. It helps you start to build your confidence. It gives you chance to start reading different people in the audience. So it really is a good minimum number. So again, we try to keep it between 10 and 15.

TDc: You mentioned presenting something you’re doing eye contact and you’re getting feedback and you’re feeling the emotion of the room. That’s something else that you practice on too.

Bob Hower: Yes. We certainly make comments to that. But I did mention this at the beginning, probably a little bit. We also have some formal warm up exercises where we get everybody to get up and play through this warmup exercises with gestures and different speech patterns so you get a chance to use higher modulation and low modulation. You’re really in these exercises and get them a chance to do that.

And then of course we ask you in the assignment that we give you, to try to figure out ways to not only prepare the words for the presentation but to try to build in different ways that you can use some of the things that we use in the warmup exercises to make the presentation come alive, to make it more interesting, to make you more confident.

TDc: Okay. You’ve mentioned confidence several times. How would you rank that in the presentation skill hierarchy?

Bob Hower: I think confidence, we didn’t mention this but I also have the privilege and it was a privilege to teach in the Dale Carnegie School for 20 years as a certified instructor. And we learned pretty strictly in that class. I certainly believe that confidence is one of the most important things to deliver an effective presentation.

No matter where you go to listen to people speak, whether it be in your church or at a formal presentation or at a workshop that you’re paying money for, you know that there’s just some speakers that get up in front of the room and you look at them and say “That person has it. They are good! ” We give them an A+ right away because they just come across.

And really when you take a step back and take a look at it, it really is the passion and enthusiasm they have their topic, it’s the topic itself. But really, the foundation of all that is the confidence that they exude as they’re talking. Because that really is to me, probably the most important of all in delivering an effective presentation is looking like you believe in what you’re talking about.

TDc: And when you’re doing portfolio presentation, if you don’t believe in the work that you’ve created, you’re not going to win over anybody.

Bob Hower: Absolutely not. That’s really why I’m delighted about this workshop. Because I really did develop this myself for the small business person because I’d go to so many meetings at the Chamber or networking meeting the way the other person speaking about them that you know they feel very strongly about would look like they don’t want to be up the room because of whatever it is, fear or lack of skill in public speaking.

And yet, here they’re talking about something that obviously is critically important which is their business. I said “Let me see if I can develop a class that really is focused to them. ” And that is what this presentation skills workshop is all about.

TDc: Well Bob I really appreciate you talking with us today. Thank you very much.

Bob Hower: Dan it’s a pleasure, and I appreciate the offer.