Written by Katarina Komoroski
To Speak, or Not to Speak—That is the Problem
Picture this: you’re a young entrepreneur with an idea that is sure to resonate with your target audience. You’ve been planning this pitch for months and have been accumulating marketing and branding ideas left and right. The closer your dream is to becoming a reality, the more excited you become. You think you have it all figured out…until someone asks what your project is about.
Perhaps your mind goes blank—how can you clearly explain it in only a few short minutes? Or maybe you begin to ramble—your passion shines through and you tell them nearly everything.
This is a problem that many people face, not just entrepreneurs. When we create something, or are heavily involved in the creative process, it can be difficult to choose the most important parts to tell our audience. We know an abundance of details that are all important to us, but which details are going to matter to our audience?
Sjol’s Soundbite Solution
Thankfully, there is a solution! Kelly Sjol, the founder of Storify Marketing, was the first speaker in the Venture U business seminar series this spring semester. She understands the struggle with effectively pitching our product without losing the audience’s interest.
Sjol gave a short presentation on The PEACE Framework, a method for generating the listener’s curiosity while maintaining an accurate description. However, rather than an hour-long lecture about this strategy, she opted for a hands-on, practical workshop instead. Students split off into pairs to choose an idea to “pitch” and discussed how to incorporate PEACE to better articulate their thoughts.
The acronym is as follows:
P – Problem (gets their attentions)
E – Empathy (you understand them)
A – Answer (solution to the problem)
C – Change (you can help)
E – End Result (happily ever after)
By crafting one sentence per category, this keeps any explanation short and sweet. It gives the audience enough information to determine whether or not they are interested in learning more.
PEACE in Practice
During this exercise, I considered the improvements that could be made in public speaking itself. Everyone has their own linguistic style, but when it comes to articulating one’s thoughts, not everyone can get their point across as efficiently as others.
This can be seen in class presentations. While some students can memorize a script and perform it well, others tend to read bullet points from a notecard. Filler words and looking at the floor frequently pepper the speeches, and nothing deflates confidence more than walking back to one’s seat with the notion of “I could have done better.”
Public speaking classes are available, but what about teaching students how to engage with their audience? My partner and I brainstormed how we could explain the solution to this problem by using the PEACE Framework.
Problem: Students struggle with class presentations.
Empathy: Thinking is easy, talking is not.
Answer: Create a class that combines the practicality of a public speaking class with the theatrics of an acting class.
Change: Students will gain confidence with public speaking and learn how to capture the audience’s attention effectively.
End Result: Students will nail their presentations and walk back to their seat like a champ.
Practice Makes Perfect
Condensing an idea into a few sentences is not easy. As a storyteller, I find myself intending to give the highlights but usually end up reciting all the details instead. This exercise was extremely helpful because Sjol provided a universal formula that works. Continuous use of the PEACE Framework will allow students to become more comfortable with articulating their ideas.
The Center for E+I has many more opportunities for students to learn practical methods for improving their communication skills, storytelling, and nailing down a concept.
The next speaker on the VentureU schedule is Max Mirho with the topic of rapid software prototyping, so mark your calendars for March 12! Register for his online session at https://gccentrepreneurship.com/venture-u/.