The AP reports that the Obama Administration is trying to re-tool its communication strategy. They want to regain their campaign-like discipline from 2008. They have also taken upon themselves to use the White House blog and even twitter. Will it work? See the my video below for more opinions.

Title: Guru yoU: how to live your passion, become a world renowned expert and fulfill your dreams
Introduction *partial
Chapter 1 Positioning
Define what you are about in one to three words. Define everything you do in one ten-word sentence.
Focus on defining yourself as #1 in your niche.
Do you have the personality characteristic to make it on your own, i.e. being a self-starter, being willing to fail, and being able to work in a non-structured environment? PHDs with straight As often can’t hack this.
You can do this the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is to find a niche that appeals to corporate training budgets. *
How to know if your niche is real versus B.S.
Find your niche by exploring your passion and seeing if enough other people in the world care about it too.*
The magic secret sauce to making a living as an expert is cultivating your abilities to speak about what you do, whether it is as a chef like Emmerill, a homemaker like Martha or a relationship guru like Dr. Phil.
What are the barriers to entry for your field? Credentials need for your field?
Don’t focus on being a speaker anymore than you should focus on being a faxer. Speaking is just one way of conveying your expertise. Focus on finding the mode that helps people the most and that they will pay for.
Why it’s important to narrow your focus and say “no” to opportunity
How to get outsider testimonials positioning you as the best in the world.

Chapter 2 Making Money
Don’t give up your day job until it’s economically irrational to continue.
The fallacy of big easy money, plus my own guarantee to make you a multi-millionaire.
The fallacy of bring a “big bucks” speaker or consultant, the significance of what you make and keep in a year, not what you charge per hour.
Magic moment: Find the ONE thing you do that people will pay you the most money for, even if making money isn’t your primary goal. *
Find the one way of showing your expertise that people are willing to pay the most money for, i.e. a daylong workshop or a speech.
Can you ask for money? If not, you fail.
Synergy doesn’t work unless there is a strong moneymaker in the mix.
What are the 6 essential things you need in an ideal prospect?
Why you don’t need money to become the #1 in the world at your niche.
If you love what you do and you make ends meet, you won’t be focused on getting rich quick and you won’t be bothered that you aren’t rich yet.
Make enough money so that you can fund constant failures—but never bet the ranch or go broke.
Use your ONE big thing to fun all of your promotional needs, product development, R and D, and a life.
Find the one way of showing your expertise that people are willing to pay the most money for, i.e. a daylong workshop or a speech.
Goal: getting customers to seek you out by calling you and emailing you and wanting to pay you money for something. With that, you can build a life a do anything. Without that, you will flounder and fail.
You won’t get rich quick; you will make a living in 10 years and get rich in the long run.
Why you won’t ever want to retire.
Chapter 3 Your Content Creation Factory
Why products can make you but can also break you.
You don’t need tech skills, just patience and willingness to type.
Read 1 book a week on your subject and one hour a day of news on your subject
Write one hour per day on your subject, even if it’s only a three sentence paragraph.
Write and talk about your subject matter 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year and put out text. Audio and video.
Exploring all media forms to make money
When to create and market products.
You won’t make money as an author. Don’t think of yourself first and foremost as an author. Books are expensive business cards.
Create products and services that relate to your one area of expertise, and then when they aren’t financially successful, they can at least be promotional.
Your website. Why you need to learn how to do your own web site.
Give away your content in order to build fans.
Give away web content.
Give away newsletters.
Give away simple, talking head videos.
Turn content into books.
Chapter 4 Creating Services
Exploring all forms of services that can make you money.
Speaking for free
Speaking for Fee
Speaking for big fees.
Consulting/Training/Coaching/whatever you want to call it
Chapter 5 News Media
What is your PR strategy?
When to start pitching the media
Don’t get seduced by the media (they won’t pay you for a long, long time)
Chapter 6 Social Media
How to leverage social media but not let it suck you into a black hole of time wasting.
The Social Media time trap-how do you keep from doing social media 23 hours a day, spinning your wheels and accomplishing nothing?
Chapter 7 Major Benchmarks
How to build your platform consistently.
Goal: getting prospects to call you, getting media to call you, getting all opportunities to call you.
Why it is essential to raise prices on something every year.
Why you should strive to become a celebrity in your field.
Other ways of leveraging celebrity status in your field.
Why traveling the world is good for your brand, good for business and good for you.
Find a role model and stalk them. Ex Jeffrey Gitomer.
Determining the ultimate size, shape, and look of your company/practice.
Define your success on your terms.

You Are the Media:
How to communicate your messages with style and substance through old and new media

Chapters:
Introduction
What should be my goals in any media encounter?
How to you look your best if there is video involved?
How do you shape a media message?
How do you answer questions?
How do you speak in sound bites?
What is the best way to do YouTube videos?
How should I prepare for talk radio interviews?
What do I do if a print reporter pulls out a flip video camera and wants to record the video for his website?
How should I prepare for Internet talk radio shows?
How should I prepare for live video webinars?
Should I do video blogging?
What is the best way to do a podcast?
How do I do a satellite remote interview?
How do you set up a simple home/office video studio for one?
How do you set up a simple home/office video studio for two?
How do I handle bad news if I find myself in a media crisis?
How do I get on Oprah?
Should I worry about overexposure?
How long should an Internet video be?
What is the best way to do an in-house corporate video?
What is going to be the next new, new thing when it comes to new media?
What is the best way to be a guest on a teleseminar or conference call?
What is the difference between doing live video and audio interviews versus taped and edited interviews?
How should I prepare for media interviews?
How should I rehearse for media interviews?
What should I do immediately after every interview?
What are the most effective ways to make reporters like me and want to use me again?
What are the most effective ways to make reporters hate me and not want to interview me again?
What are the most effective ways to make bookers and producers like me and want to book me again?
What are the most effective ways to make bookers and producers hate me and not want to use me again?

President Obama took questions directly from House Republicans last Friday. It was fascinating theater for all who watched it because it wasn’t scripted, thereby making it unpredictable and because he was in front of a hostile audience, making int inherently more interesting. Obama won big poits for courage and Republicans got more airtime too. All involved won. It continues to be a surprise to me that politicans in the US don’t seek this out more, as they do in England and Europe.

The following is an excerpt from my upcoming book “How To Give a Pretty Good Presentation” (Wiley 2010)

What is the Best Way to Handle Nerves? How do I handle pre-speech jitters?

It makes sense for most people to be nervous before giving a presentation. Most people give boring presentations and why should you be better than most? OK, I know I’m being depressing, but I’m just being realistic. It actually is quite rational to be nervous before a presentation. But the main reason most people are nervous before a presentation is fear of the unknown. If you haven’t actually seen yourself give your presentation, then you don’t know what you are presenting to the outside world. After all, a presentation is not what is on a PowerPoint slide or a chart, a presentation is you standing or sitting in front of people and you are talking. If you haven’t seen yourself on video giving your talk that means that the rough draft of your presentation is the one you give to your final intended audience. Ugh! Rough drafts are usually rough by definition—so it makes sense to be nervous if you are going to wing it in front of people.

If I were coaching you to become a world class, spell-binding orator, I would tell you that you have to rehearse for days and days and watch dozens of video rehearsals. But I want to make your life easier and save you time. So all you have to do is rehearse on video until you’ve seen yourself give a pretty good presentation. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to generate a standing ovation, and you don’t have to reduce your ums and uhs to zero—you just have to be pretty good compared to all of the other people your bosses and colleagues compare you to. How do you know if you are pretty good? Just watch the video of yourself practicing. If you think you are pretty good, then you probably are. Great! Now you are good to go. But if you think you are incredibly boring, monotone, and tedious or confusing, you are also probably right. Practice your presentation again on video. This time, do less of the stuff you don’t like, and do more of the stuff you do like. Now, review the video again.

For a very high percentage of people—and I hope you are one of them—2 video rehearsals will often be enough. The first time you see yourself practice the speech you will hate it. Spend a few minutes tweaking your outline, and then do the speech again on video. Watch it. Now, you are likely to see something you can live with—congratulations, you are now virtually guaranteed to give a pretty good presentation.

The following is an excerpt from my upcoming book “How To Give a Pretty Good Presentation” (Wiley 2010)

Tailoring the speech for the type of audience. Personal stories vs. just the facts.

If you simply want to give a pretty good presentation, don’t waste time trying to figure out how to tailor your speech to your audience in terms of stories versus facts. Because audiences around the world are all the same: they want stories that involve relevant ideas and facts that affect them. If all you do is present the facts, ma’m, there is an excellent chance your speech will come up short—just below pretty good. Instead, if all you do is deliver facts, there is a great chance that your speech will be incredibly boring and be instantly forgotten.

It is true that different audiences will tell you they like different styles as far as facts, versus concepts versus stories. Ignore them. Instead, you do want to tailor your messages to your audience, so, by all means, do some research and find out what messages your audience is interested in, what questions do they need answers, what problems do they have that you can solve. Then give them a presentation that is focused on a handful of messages that are important to them and to you, give them a story for each, and give them the most essential facts for each message.
I know you’ve heard that one size doesn’t fit all, but in this case, it really does. Messages may differ from audience to audience, but the best way to tailor your speech to an audience really does not change.
Don’t be fooled when people tell you their audience is different because everyone has advanced degrees or are all industry insiders. Yes, their audience is different because every audience is different, but audiences are never different tin the way people think they are. Audiences are different in that certain messages will bore them or interest them in different ways. But audiences are more alike than they are different. And they #1 way most audiences are alike is that they easily bored to death by a presenter who tries to “just stick to the facts” and leaves out all of the examples, stories, and vignettes.

The following is an excerpt from my upcoming book “How To Give a Pretty Good Presentation” (Wiley 2010)

What’s another good way to keep my presenting skills from becoming awful?

Use them as frequently as possible. I know that you don’t love to give speeches and you aren’t a preacher who is going to put speaking skills to use every Sunday morning. But try not to let your speaking skills rot away from disuse. If you only play golf once every five years, how good is your golf game. However, if you play golf once every three weeks, at least you know, more or less, how you will do next time you are on the links. I’m not suggesting you spend every free night giving speeches at the local toastmasters club, but once every 3 or 4 weeks, you could look for some opportunity to speak out. It could be giving a toast in front of 6 friends at a birthday party. It might be asking a question at a school board meeting. Or just volunteering to say the pledge of allegiance at school convocation.

Every time you speak in front of more than a person or two, it helps your body and mouth condition itself to surviving the nerves and tensions associated with giving presentations.

If you sit in a chair for a whole year without getting up once, imagine how difficult it would be to stand up and walk across the room after a year. Your legs would be wobbly and weak. It’s the same with giving presentations; if you wait a year in between presentations, you will also be wobbly and weak. You might not be an Olympic class runner now, but you can most likely walk across the room easily now because you practice walking every day. I’m not saying you have to give a presentation every single day, but the less time in between presentations—any presentations—the better.

Why would George Clooney be a good fundraiser on an MTV telethon?
1. He’s well-known and famous so people aren’t worried that he would steal their money.
2. He is credible; whether you love or hate Clooney’s domestic politics, he has long and deep credentials as a humanitarian on the international scene.
3. He’s clearly not raising money for financial gain; in fact he’s donating large sums of money.
4. As an actor, he’s capable of presenting his pitch with emotion and this makes it more powerful.
5. He will have a TV network at his disposal and that means he will have the dramatic raw footage of the devastation in Haiti to move people to action.
6. Clooney is an experienced fundraiser who knows how to follow the basic rules of all good fundraising. To learn what they are, watch the video above here at tjwalker.com/blog.