3 P’s That Make Jamie Oliver a Pro Presenter

Jamie leaves most presenters floundering at the starting line as he effortlessly moves into the lead and beats the best, gliding through the finishing tape still breathing like a dog asleep in front of the fire!

What are his secrets?

Can you use them to engage and motivate your audiences?

1. Product Knowledge – Sounds boring but unless you know your subject inside out and upside down you don’t stand a chance in convincing others to take action. Jamie knows his onions if you’ll pardon the pun. He lives food, he has totally absorbed the diets of different cultures on his travels and delights in including that food “know-how” as he entrances us with his Mr Motivator style of presentation that has us copying in the kitchen before you can say Masterchef.

2. Passion – Jamie’s love of his chosen life’s work is out there for us all to see! It’s in his voice as his excitement transfers to us. The variety of pitch, pace and power take us on a roller coaster journey of utter enjoyment. And his body language adds authenticity to his message with natural, genuine gestures that silently describe both implied actions and separates the essentials from the froth. No falseness about this guy, no over blown movements that beginners embarras ther audience with. Simply passion in movement.

3. Parley – Ok so I needed another “P”. But the way in which Mr Oliver “chats” with us, is a masterclass in matching your words to your audience. Jamie doesn’t add 3 dessert spoons of olive oil he “hits” his salad with it! Nor does he “chop” the ingredients to one of his colourful salads, no, he “janks” it. Now like me, no doubt you’ve not heard the word “jank” before but link it to the masterful movement of his experienced hands as he slices up the salad in seconds and we are over the moon with “janking” and want to immediately start “janking” ourselves.

Watch the video below, observe his total understanding of cooking, experience the overflowing enthusiasm with which he presents and listen to the chat as he communicates with words that inspire.

NOW – Have you got that product knowledge coupled with . . .

passion and delivered with a . . .

 parley that persuades your audience?

Can You Keep ‘Em Warm When The Temp Hits Zero!

Frank - Our Open-Top Tour Guide

It was FREEZING December morning in New York, why were we on an open top bus touring this tireless city?

 

Looking back it was a crazy decision BUT . . .

 

We would have missed the treat of a lifetime as the tour guide entertained, entranced and totally engrossed us with his “Oh so professional” presentation!

 

He was born a New Yorker, not some imported, cardboard cut-out who had learned his lines! This guy was the genuine thing.

Why did this matter?

 

Because it made his presentation totally authentic, peppered with anecdotes about characters (some well-known, some not) as they related to the particular areas we covered on that cold, cold morning. He knew the price of apartments and who lived there, he even knew what they cost some 30 years back. He told us the stories of the Great Recession as they had been told to him, he knew every sad fact about the Twin Towers disaster – he had lived through it. He knew some who had escaped and some who had perished.

 

Yeah, he pointed out the all traditional bits we all wanted to see (and the Japanese paparazzi wanted to record) and that was needed, it was essential. But  . . .

what brought the whole thing to life were the stories that only a local would know and the way he told them.

Okay – He used questions to catch our attention and involve our imagination.He paused for emphasis at just the right times, constantly changed the pitch and pace of his talk to match the mood of the location (from trendy Greenwich Village to the Sombre Ground Zero to the apartment block that was the outside view of Friends) and gestured as best he could with the mike in his gloved hand. However . . .

 

 . . what topped the lot was this guys extensive “lived-in” knowledge of the city, his obvious love for his birth place and the boundless enthusiasm with which he conveyed this to his audience.

 

We saw it through his every day experienced eyes.

 

We were  moved as his love of the Big Apple became ours.

 

In that short time together he managed to draw back the curtain and reveal something to us that made us want to stay and become part of this 24/7 non stop city (until he revealed the price of the tiniest apartment, that is!)

And het kept us warm! (even warm enough to take my gloves off and do a quick sketch of him).

What’s your knowledge of your subject like? – Is it deep? Is it like a an iceberg showing only a little to the world but having an invisible base that could sink the Titanic?

 

How about love for your subject? If you don’t love it your audience will soon feel the cold!

 

And have you learned to present with genuine enthusiasm that they will catch and pass on.

 

Sure thing – Frank was a genuine pro!

 

The big question is, are you? 

Can you keep ’em warm when the temp hits zero?

What a Stinker!

Friday was a bad day – for one woman.

The assignment was a 20 min speech before an audience of 120 people to reassure them of the credibility of a service being offered by her company.

The intro was reasonable, not dynamic or attention grabbing but enough to hold on to the audience BUT  . . . it soon became apparent that the woman had more or less learned her “script” by heart and was speaking from memory supported by a prompt sheet that was in fact the word for word speech.

All sincerity was lost!

How can you convince an audience of something with a memorised speech – It was rather like the recent pathetic attempt by a famous golfer to convince his family, supporters and financial backers that he was sorry for serial womanizing by reading a prepared statement.

A motivational speech has to come from the heart, to do that it has to be part of you. Well prepared yes, written out maybe but then shrunk down to very brief prompts and presented in an extemporaneous style.

The speech finished on time but the audience had “gone home” soon after it had started!

More on this in Core Training soon.