PDF Summary:Get to the Point!, by Joel Schwartzberg

Have you ever tried to communicate a point you think is important, only to find that the other person isn’t getting it? Joel Schwartzberg says it’s a common experience that comes from not actually knowing the point you’re trying to make.

In Get to the Point!, Schwartzberg argues that anyone can make a point that leads to action or change—you just have to know what your point is and how to convey it effectively. Whether you’re trying to convince a friend to watch your favorite show or pitching your boss on a new idea, you must first have a point, then know how to market it to compel others to action.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through tools Schwartzberg says can help you identify, craft, and communicate your point so it resonates with your audience and we’ll explain how to apply your point in a range of settings and scenarios. Finally, we’ll include strategies from other public speaking experts to make sure your message is truly on point.

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• Before your presentation, recite what you’re going to say out loud until it’s ingrained in your mind. Know your material inside and out to boost your confidence.
• Take the pressure off by reminding yourself that your speech is not about you—it’s about the point you’re making.

Quiet Your Self-Doubt

Silencing the negative voices in your head has benefits beyond public presentations. Clinical psychologist Paul Gilbert says that regularly practicing “self-compassion” can help you relieve your suffering and amplify your empathy for others:

• Accept that your brain evolved to protect you from harm and will sometimes signal danger even when the situation you’re confronting isn’t life-threatening.

• Meditate.

• Talk to yourself with the same kindness you’d show to a friend.

• In your head, amplify the voices of people in your life who believe in you.

2. Choose the first word you’re going to say and lead with it.

• To avoid leading your presentation with weak, meaningless words like “so,” “um,” and “well,” which convey discomfort, try “hello,” or simply introduce yourself.
• Only tell stories to warm up the audience if they illustrate the point you came to make.

Grab Your Audience’s Attention Immediately

When you give a speech, you have 60 seconds to grab your audience’s attention, gain their trust, and get them to listen to what you have to say. In addition to Schwartzberg’s advice for getting started, these five tips can help:

• Ask a rhetorical question to arouse curiosity.

• State a shocking statistic to highlight the point of your speech.

• Offer a thought-provoking quote about the point you’re making.

• Show a powerful photograph to engage imagination.

• Play a video to elicit an emotional response.

3. State your point, and the consequences of not supporting it, using clear, direct language.

• Your goal is to create a sense of urgency to compel people to action. Don’t present your point as a meandering laundry list of why it’s a nice thing that you’d like your audience to consider at their leisure.
• Make just one point per sentence to avoid splitting your audience’s attention between two or more concepts at a time.
• Eliminate unnecessary adjectives that muddle and dilute your message.

How to Convey Urgency

Schwartzberg says it’s critical to convey urgency to compel an audience to take action. Here are three steps you can take, when preparing for your speech, to help raise the stakes:

• List the consequences of failure to take action related to the point you plan to make.

• For each item you generate, ask: “And then what would happen?”

• Write a “raise the stake” statement that addresses the challenges you’ve identified, and use it at the beginning of your speech.

4. Project confidence.

• Phrase your point as a statement, not a question. Sounding uncertain will make the audience question you and your point.
• Don’t apologize or display insecurity, which can undermine your audience’s trust in you.

Bolster Your Physical Presence

Schwartzberg points to the importance of showing your confidence verbally, but you can also display your confidence physically. Here are six tricks to project physical confidence:

• Make eye contact. It’s one of the most important indicators of confidence.

• Tilt your chin and head up.

• Stand up straight.

• Adopt a wide-legged stance.

• Keep your palms up when you gesture to project honesty.

• Don’t put your hands in your pockets or cross your arms, which can make you look nervous or defensive.

5. Eliminate physical distractions that disrupt your connection with the audience.

• Fiddling with PowerPoint clickers, pens, and water bottles turns your audience’s attention away from your point, and podiums and lecterns are physical barriers between you and your audience. Consider which tools are absolutely necessary for you to present your point, then interact with them mindfully.

To Connect With Your Audience, Be Yourself

Presentation expert Nick Morgan argues that the key to connecting meaningfully with your audience is tapping into your authenticity, which you can do by practicing the following four behaviors before your presentation:

• Being open: Think about the feeling of openness you have when you interact with someone you trust, like your partner, a friend, or your child. Your goal is to apply this feeling to your presentation.

• Consciously deciding to connect: Recognize, focus on, and commit to connecting with your audience early and throughout your time together, so you can capture and maintain their attention.

• Being passionate: To bring your passion to the forefront, think about the highest stakes of your presentation and why your message is so important.

• Listening: Think of “listening” as paying attention to the non-verbal cues your audience will give you when you speak. Be mindful that you’ll be having a “conversation” with them as you present, even though they’re not verbally responding.

6. Speak up.

• Raising your voice projects confidence in your point and yourself, and it gives others confidence in you and what you’re saying. It also helps you slow down.

When Speaking Up Leads to Backlash

Schwartzberg notes that women sometimes express concern to him about the backlash they experience from speaking forcefully and the pressure they feel to soften their voices. He argues that the solution is recognizing that the problem lies with the person with the bias, and he stresses that women shouldn’t kowtow to the pressure they feel to be quiet.

But Schwartzberg may be minimizing the problem. Although he offers examples of women who have delivered powerful speeches to great acclaim, he neglects to note they were given before audiences inclined to support them. Other women have faced backlash as a result of raising their voices in the public sphere to make a controversial point. For example, Elizabeth Warren’s “Nevertheless, she persisted” moment became a rallying cry for women who experienced the same problem.

7. Pause.

• Stopping briefly when you’re speaking can give you a moment to collect your thoughts so that you can deliver them succinctly.
• You can also use pauses as a substitute for meaningless, distracting words like “um,” “ah,” “uh,” and “so.”
• Pauses allow you to build your audience’s anticipation about what’s coming next.

(Shortform note: Pausing isn’t just good for presentations; it’s also good for your health. The US Department of Veterans Affairs asserts that pausing can improve your health by reducing stress, boosting your focus and awareness, helping you maintain your interest and energy level, and decreasing injuries stemming from repetition.)

Principle 3: Stay Laser-Focused on Your Point

Once you’ve driven home your point, allow nothing to distract you from it. Schwartzberg argues that your point is your grounding and guiding principle—the thing you should always come back to if you get lost or distracted.

For example, if someone challenges your point or asks you to respond to something unrelated, and you get confused or rattled, Schwartzberg recommends turning the conversation back to your point with a directive statement, such as: “Here’s the point…” or “The most important thing to focus on is…” followed by your point.

(Shortform note: Though it might seem less obvious, your physical comfort also plays a role in your level of distraction. Before your presentation, try to find out whether the room you’ll be in will have heat or air conditioning, and select your outfit accordingly; make sure you have a glass of water available in case you get thirsty; and if you absolutely must use the restroom during your presentation, be prepared to show a short video that’s relevant to your point, ask a colleague to step in momentarily to talk about a related subject, or announce that it’s time for a “comfort break.”)

Principle 4: Conclude by Restating Your Point

By now you know and have honed, marketed, and resolved to remain focused on your point. Schwartzberg says your final step is to close your presentation with a reminder of your point.

1. Restate your point to give your audience a takeaway message and signal the end of your presentation.
2. Give your audience a moment to absorb and react. Don’t muddle or weaken your final message by immediately jumping to “what’s coming up next” or directions to the reception area.

(Shortform note: Earlier, we noted that Schwartzberg recommends making just a single point in a sentence to focus your audience’s attention on one core message. However, some communications strategists assert that the “rule of three” makes ideas and concepts more memorable and interesting, in part because three is the smallest number of factors that, when combined, create a pattern.)

Part 2: Tips for Making Your Point in Different Scenarios

In the first part of this guide, you learned how to identify, craft, and pitch your point powerfully. Now we’ll examine Schwartzberg’s tips for maximizing your impact in various scenarios in public presentations and the workplace.

Public Presentations

Whether you’re delivering a speech, sitting on a conference panel, or presenting a PowerPoint, here is how Schwartzberg recommends you make your point.

Scenario 1: Speeches

1. Prepare for your speech by practicing it in your full voice.
2. When possible, refer to bullet point notes rather than reading a full speech (the more scripted you are, the less focused you’ll be on your audience).
3. State your point at the top of your speech.
4. Make sure your stories illustrate your point (irrelevant stories distract your audience by creating mental work for them).

(Shortform note: In Talk Like Ted, Carmine Gallo offers additional strategies to grab your audience’s attention and make your point: Repackage well-worn ideas so they feel fresh, incorporate shocking moments, and build mystery and suspense into the stories you tell.)

Scenario 2: Conference Panels

1. Enter the panel prepared to present your key points and have evidence to support them.
2. Respond directly to the person who asks you a question (moderator, panelist, or audience member), using their name when possible.
3. If you can’t make your point early on, find your way into the discussion using transition sentences. For example: “I’d like to return to a point that Althea just made….”
4. Positively engage your audience by affirming that the questions they ask are smart and offer actionable takeaways that can help them.
5. If someone attacks you, calmly reiterate your point and explain its merit. Don’t be reactive or aggressive.
6. Throughout the event, be mindful of your body language and reactions, which others in the room are watching.

(Shortform note: If you want to stand out as a panelist and make sure your message gets heard, ask the event organizer if you can speak second in the lineup (not first) so latecomers hear your presentation, and engage your audience by asking questions, such as: “By a show of hands, how many people in this room [fill in the blank]?”)

Scenario 3: PowerPoint

1. Take command of your technology and the room by standing front and center. Don’t let your technology upstage you by sitting in the audience and reading your slides.
2. Only use slides that explicitly support your point and state their relevance.
3. Use no more than five bullet points on a slide and no more than five words per line.
4. Make sure your print and graphics are visible throughout the room.

(Shortform note: You can also strengthen your point by making sure that the message you’re trying to convey to your audience has a clear beginning, middle, and end.)

In the Workplace

The workplace offers many opportunities to make your point. Whether you’re conducting a staff meeting, giving a performance review, communicating with staff, or simply writing an email, here is Schwartzberg’s advice for effectively presenting your point.

Scenario 1: Conducting Staff Meetings

1. Enter knowing the point you want to make.
2. Raise your voice, insert pauses, and use the fewest words possible to convey your message.
3. Recommend next steps, directions, and outcomes you’d like to see.

(Shortform note: Another way to make sure your message resonates with staff is to ask employees ahead of time what they’d like to discuss, and why, to help shape your agenda.)

Scenario 2: Giving Performance Reviews

1. Begin with a clear point you’d like to make about a company goal.
2. Provide examples of how your employee’s work has helped or hindered your company’s ability to reach that goal.
3. Recommend strategies your employee can use to improve their performance.

(Shortform note: In The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz argues that in addition to being clear and precise with employees about what they’re doing that’s working or not, make sure to use a tone that doesn’t demean or demoralize them. A tone of respect increases the likelihood that they’ll receive your message.)

Scenario 3: Executive Communications With Staff

1. Immediately state your point using active and specific language.
2. Keep it brief so staff can focus on your message then get back to work.
3. Wrap it up with a hopeful vision for the future and an expression of gratitude to staff.

(Shortform note: It’s easy to implement these strategies under the best of circumstances, but how can you communicate effectively with staff in a time of crisis? A key tip is to provide information regularly, in a timely manner, and in locations where employees are most likely to see it, rather than waiting until you have all the answers.)

Scenario 4: Writing Emails

1. Put your point in the subject line.
2. Use bullet points where possible in the body of your email. Limit your paragraph length to three sentences or fewer.
3. If you raise problems, offer solutions.
4. Before you wrap up, pitch your point one last time and recommend ways to move forward.
5. Check your facts, spelling, and grammar before you hit send.

(Shortform note: To make sure your point doesn’t get lost over a series of emails, encourage staff and other recipients to stick to one email thread per topic, rather than starting a new email chain each time someone has a new idea they want to share on the subject. This keeps everyone on the same page.)