The Solution (Photo credit: Juan Manuel Cruz del Cueto)

solutions we find when working on their particular communication skills. Go to our coaching page to find more descriptions.

We approach each business client’s concerns on an individual basis and work with him/her to find a unique solution, which fits and contributes to solving a particular set of problems. Our success is based not on our performance and analyses, but on the achieved results and satisfaction of our clients.

Case Study 1

A French executive frequently had to give presentations to senior executives in his company.

Problem:
His English grammar and vocabulary were excellent, but because of his heavy French accent, he was often misunderstood. He used gestures that made him look over-excited and distracted listeners from what he was saying.

Furthermore, his presentations had a lot of bullet points – confusing and unclear – instead of a clear graphic or image that people could easily understand. In fact, he relied on his Power Point to do the presentation for him instead of speaking freely and persuasively and engaging his audience.

Solution:
We videotaped his presentations frequently when we began our coaching sessions. http://youtu.be/vnJkx1bh3Fc   When he saw and heard himself on screen, he realized he had to contain his movements while he was presenting, and, he also realized that his accent was harder to understand than he thought.

By analyzing and working on the vocabulary, which he used in presentations and in informal speeches, he was able to practice the correct intonation and pronunciation of his most frequently used phrases. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5BDF54FB4F12D349&feature=plcp

He also worked on leaving his hands at his sides and keeping movements to a minimum. And, he remembered to smile [which is important for a US audience].

We identified the main messages he wanted to focus on and re-wrote his PPT presentations putting in many graphs and images, letting him show his expertise by being able to talk freely about his subject matter.

Results:
He was very satisfied with what he learned and how much he was able to change his speech in quite a short time. It gave him more self-confidence and he was able to concentrate more on what he said than worry about how he sounded.

He learned to outline his speeches and presentations before writing them in Power Point and now he not only sounded clearer and more interesting, but it also took him a lot less time to prepare.

He learned to use PPT as a tool and not as a substitute. Now he is able to speak with slides that show tables and images letting him give relevant examples and stories; the result is a good, professional presentation which he enjoys giving and which is well received.

Case Study 2
A German junior executive in a computer graphics company was unaware that he was making his team angry by seeming to be better than they were. They saw him as self-aggrandizing and aggressive.

Problem:
He was up for a promotion, but no one wanted to work with him. We had to identify what words and what attitudes were annoying people and why. http://www.professional-business-communications.com/cross-cultural-training-case-study

Solution:
He studied books (Carnegie, Covey, Weiss, Sutton), which talked about the ways people express themselves here in the US and what kind of vocabulary to use. For instance, instead of saying “You are wrong” he found it more effective to say,  “What I think I heard you say is…. I’m not sure if I agree with this point, can you please explain more?”

We did a lot of role playing, going through hypothetical situations, and practicing using the newly acquired vocabulary he had learned in order to not antagonize his team yet still showcasing his ideas, and getting the results he wanted.

Results:
He was promoted after a couple of months, and the coaching actually carried over to his personal and social life, where he was able to apply his new way of speaking very successfully. He felt much better about himself and he was happier with the way he fit into the US business world as well as into his circle of friends.

Case Study 3

A Korean engineer had problems in English being understood and expressing himself about his job in IT.

Problem:
It took his team too much of an effort to work with him when they had, for example, a bug in the software. His fellow employees [also international professionals from France] therefore tried to skip meeting with him because they felt they lost too much time. Therefore, he was out of the picture very often and missed key pieces of information.

Solution:
We held intense English grammar and vocabulary sessions several times a week, with a strong emphasis on foreign accent reduction and clear communication skills.

Results:
After many months of hard work, he developed more confidence speaking as well as getting better speaking skills and his teammates could understand him better as well. However, when he had to stop the training due to international travel, he was by no means where he could have been with more training and practice. http://www.professional-business-communications.com/accent-pitfalls

In fact, when I saw him half a year later, he had slid back to almost where he had been at the beginning.

What he failed to understand – and it is hard to do by yourself – was that he had to continue to practice and keep being aware of how he sounded. This should be an ongoing process over many months and requires professional help.
We were able to pick up where we had been and with dedicated work, he was able to improve his English once more. I think that this experience made it clear to him that he would not be able to slack off if he wanted to rise professionally in the US. He promised me to keep up the work even after our work was finished.

Case Study 4

A Russian entrepreneur was unable to say what his company did – in just one sentence. He needed to include lots of extra information and by the time he got down to details, people had stopped listening. http://youtu.be/h94t_UO1o1o

Problem:
He couldn’t get to the point in the description of his value proposition; therefore he couldn’t keep investors’ attention.

Solution:
Basically, this process is like peeling an onion. We started by asking him, “Please tell us what your company does” and when his answers swerved off the main ideas, [and he filled in detail after detail] he had to start all over again.

This is an incredibly frustrating path for many international entrepreneurs because it is a totally different way of thinking. Europeans and other cultures tend to add ideas to create, what is in their mind, “the whole picture”? But that’s not what Americans usually want — which is the “bare bones” message boiled down to its essentials. http://youtu.be/7GgB53CO8hg

Results:
At our pitch session and only after a half an hour, and with help from his partners, he was able to explain the purpose of his company in one [long], clear sentence. He was very relieved that he had overcome the block and frustration he was feeling and could get down to just the basics.

Case Study 5

A senior researcher from Pakistan, who worked in a pharmaceutical company, didn’t know how to talk to his supervisor to ask for a promotion.  He felt he was not being valued for his contributions and was ready to leave the company.

Problem:
He was very hesitant to speak up, didn’t know what words and phrases to use and he was not dressed for an executive role. http://www.professional-business-communications.com/how-to-position-yourself-for-a-promotion

Solution:
We wrote many scenarios in which we acted out him telling his supervisor how he contributed to the team and to difficult projects. We practiced all the words that were important for his job to make sure they had the right intonation and enunciation. In addition, we looked at the clothes that the C level executives were wearing in his company, and he slowly shifted his wardrobe to the way they were dressed and to reflect a more senior position.

Results:
He felt so much better about himself due to his improved communication skills and his new look that he was able to get his promotion a few months later and he stayed at his company.

Case Study 6

An Indian marketing executive from a start-up company recently came to us because she gave many webinars and her audience wasn’t responding well.

Problem:
She spoke too fast, never paused between words and was generally not understandable although she had deep knowledge in her field. http://www.professional-business-communications.com/i-have-a-very-strong-accent-in-english

Solution:
She became much more conscious of her speech patterns once we videotaped her and analyzed how she sounded. We made a list of the words she often used in her webinars and laid them out phonetically for her to practice during work hours – and especially on the phone.
She kept a sign next to the phone that said” slow down” and made sure to pause frequently and enunciate her words more carefully.

After several months, she was able to give webinars and heard that the audience understood her; this boosted her self- confidence and she was actually promoted to the next level, something she was not even looking for at that time.

Results:
We are still working together, therefore it is too early to talk about permanent results – however, she sounds better and more understandable when she makes a real effort to talk clearly and to say all the consonants at the beginning, middle and end of the words. We are scheduled to work together for another couple of months, and we’ll reassess her progress then.

Case Study 7

A Portuguese entrepreneur, who was coming to Silicon Valley to get funding for his startup, wanted me to run through his pitch with him. http://www.professional-business-communications.com/pitching-skills

Problem:
His pitch was too theoretical and only someone with a deep knowledge about his field was able to understand his value proposition.

Solution:
We built a story around his idea so that investors would be able relate to it. He already had a few actual use cases and by adding some factors, he was able to tell an interesting story, which highlighted the “secret sauce” he was bringing to his company. http://youtu.be/pc8vk4tKwTw

Results:
He got quite a few appointments with VCs and Angels while he was here and he is now back in Portugal working on improving his startup with their suggestions. He hopes to come back to Silicon Valley soon for a new round of investor talks and to get his company funded.

Case Study 8

A high level US executive from New York, who was being groomed to be the next CEO in a Japanese company, had a very strong New York accent. Usually, we only work with international executives, but because they needed results fast and I knew the hiring manager, we agreed to work with him.

Problem:
Due to his heavy accent he was perceived as less educated here in California, even though he was very smart and had an MS degree from Cornell University. To make matters worse, he worked for an Asian company whose executives came to hear his “state of the company” speech twice a year, and they always had to pay special attention when he spoke.

http://www.professional-business-communications.com/cross-cultural-training

Solution:
First, we videotaped him so he could see/hear how he sounded. This was the first time he became aware that he sounded drastically different from the people around him.

Next, we identified the major, problematic words and sounds that he had to change in order to sound better. We did his language training by his writing presentations for the company (which he had to give anyway) and then taped him on an iPod and also videotaped him giving them.

Results:
The results were mixed. When he put his mind to it, he sounded educated and well spoken; there was barely a trace of his New York accent audible. But, he wasn’t convinced that the change was necessary. Therefore, he didn’t practice enough for effective language changes to take place and for his presentation skills to improve significantly.

I stopped working with him and didn’t see if the company CEO was able to convince him that a language change could benefit him.  Since this training took place many years ago, I don’t know if a company would still insist that he re-learn English with a different US accent, I think times may have changed.

Indy Startup Weekend (Photo credit: kmakice)

A couple of weeks ago, I was working with a group of Spaniards who were coming to Silicon Valley to taste the air of entrepreneurship and start-ups in the hopes of getting inspired. They had prepared their 3 – 5 minute pitches based on the PPT I had sent them that Guy Kawasaki recently published.

When I listen to pitches from people who aren’t from around here, I have to remind myself that we breathe, eat and think entrepreneurship and hearing pitches every day and many evenings at networking events, and not everyone “gets” the same things as seamlessly if he/she doesn’t live here.

So what happens often is that the international/foreign-born startup entrepreneurs give a pitch that leaves the audience and me in the dark about what  kind of company they are going to build.

It all sounds interesting but  – reminiscent of the dot com days – the audience and I have no clear idea what the company does or what problem it plans on solving.

These international startup entrepreneurs present the big picture, talk in abstracts, concepts, generalities and there is no point, no “so what” at the end [or in the middle either].

I try to get them on track by asking a couple of simple questions. But, “what is the problem you are trying to solve?” generally gets a 5 minute + answer without any examples or anecdotes. In other words, really uninteresting and too complicated.

This approach works in Europe [I assume, since every European seems to present this way], but doesn’t work here. We and the startup entrepreneurs have to peel back all the layers, like an onion, to get at the simple basics.

The best advice to begin with is to follow Guy’s pitch deck or others’ [there are lots of good examples of pitch decks] depending on the time you have available; if you can’t present all the slides, you should have them ready in case someone asks you about them.

So what should you do if you’re new here, come from overseas and want to develop a good pitch?

1      Practice being able to talk about your company and the problem it solves [or the issue it addresses] in one sentence – and one sentence only!

2      Then, tell a story about a customer who used your product or service explaining your secret sauce in the story without having to go into technical details

3      Show your passion and let people see why you really care! and, why you’re going to see this through to the end

4      Use simple English sentences; speak in verbs not nouns. It’s much easier to understand and it’s more casual

Sir Stuart Rose, formerly CEO and Chairman of Marks and Spencer, says: “You have to take time to distil what you want to say down to its essence. Keep it short and simple…”

5     Make sure your slides have no spelling or English mistakes

6      Show people you know what you are talking about

7      Be prepared to talk without any PPT, many investors want to hear you and get a sense of who you are first.

Graham Mackay, CEO of SABMiller talking about PowerPoint: “ [It's]… the invention of the devil and it encourages disjointed thought. Great communication is about real clarity and clarity has many enemies. One is business jargon, one is PowerPoint and another is length.”

8     Think of your end goal, [you want to be invited for a longer conversation with the investor], so prepare, prepare and have fun. It’s nice to listen to someone who is obviously enjoying himself/herself. And, enthusiasm is infectious, so if you have a good idea and product, it might just get you the next 30 minutes you are looking for.

For some more practical examples from the experts in Silicon Valley, listen to what Bill Reichert, Heidi Roizen, Pitch Johnson, Eric Benhamou and Steve Westly have to say about what makes them engage with startup entrepreneurs and their stories.

If you have any other ideas or comments that would help international entrepreneurs get the hang of things faster, please share your ideas here.

Related articles

• #MyStartupStory: Guy Kawasaki, Former Apple Chief Evangelist and Alltop Founder (hiscoxusa.com)
• The Art of Pitching – Guy Kawasaki Reveals How to Give Better Presentations (TrendHunter.com) (trendhunter.com)

It is almost 2012 and I think by now, we all know that an important part of personal branding takes place in social media.  But, do you have a plan for that?

Before you choose and decide which social networks you want to use for your personal branding, you should have a strategy in mind. Understand what image you want to portray, and, more importantly, realize that it’s not You who will determine what people think, but rather, your brand will be determined how people see you and how true you are to yourself.

A road map that helps me focus when I want to start new directions in my business and expand my personal brand comes from IDEO, the leading design and innovation firm here in Palo Alto, and its five principles for brainstorming:

• stay focused on the topic,
• encourage wild ideas,
• defer judgment,
• and build on the ideas of others.

So look at your brand, and begin brainstorming [with friends and colleagues] your strategy by asking:

• What do you want to accomplish,
• How will you show your uniqueness,
• Whom do you want to reach,
• What does your audience want to know about you,
• How often will you have time to update your social networking accounts,
• Do you really have the discipline to contribute regularly with fresh news or information?
• And how will your actions make you feel about yourself and your personal brand development day to day?

When you’ve answered these questions and are sure you know where you’re going, it’s time to design your strategy and how you’re going to implement your answers.

But before going there, I think you should consider one other aspect that looks at what the outcome will be. Is what you’re doing making you happy?

A couple of months ago, I listened to Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor, Jennifer Aaker, talk about her new book, The Dragonfly Effect, in which she writes: “Ensure that your goal is personally meaningful such that the thought of achieving the goal would bring happiness to you and your audience – in some way.”

This is one of the areas we rarely consider before launching our personal branding campaign. I, myself, think that the only way you will have a personal brand that lasts, that resonates and says something meaningful about you is one that you approach with passion and conviction and, it makes you happy. This passion and happiness have to be felt in your online life as well.