Want to know the secret to commanding a room—without saying a word? Liz Brunner reveals the “It Factor” and how aligning your physical, mental and relational self can supercharge your presence.

Show Notes Info:

If you’re interested in hearing more from Liz, you can visit her website at https://www.lizbrunner.com/ or email her directly at info@lizbrunner.com.

Hi, I’m John.

And I’m Julie.

We’re the hosts of the Hartford Fund’s human-centric investing podcast.

Every other week, we’re talking with inspiring thought leaders to hear their best ideas for how you can transform your relationships with your clients.

Let’s go!

Liz, welcome to the Human Centric Investing podcast. It’s so nice to be here with you today.

Oh, thank you so much, Julie and John for having me on the show. I’m delighted to be here.

That’s terrific, Liz. You know, I just love the topic of communication because it’s something that I’ve shared with folks that I have worked with. It’s things people have shared with me. And it’s actually a topic I’ve talked to my kids about because whether you’re communicating to two or three people at a coffee shop or five or six at a boardroom or five, or 600 in a ballroom. There are keys to communication. Everybody needs to know how to communicate, even for those that don’t think of ourselves as communicators. But Liz, this is your business. And so we wanted really to talk on today’s podcast episode about keys to communicate and what you share with your clients are some of the. The most important foundational concepts of communication. So, how’s that for a very narrow thing to talk to you about? You know, the broad keys of communication, what would you say that throughout your career and what you share with your clients are the really important elements of key engaging communication?

I do love the topic of communication because it is imperative no matter what industry you are in. I’m often asked, well, what industries do you work in? Every industry, because it’s all communication. It’s all communicate. Liz’s four Cs, number one, confidence. Number two, content. You have to know your content. And number three, you have to have clarity of your content, and what that means is Can everybody understand what you’re saying? Or are you using too much industry jargon? And number four, you have to deliver it in a conversational way that connects, that engages with people. And to be able to do that, you have have all of those elements together. And I also believe that no matter whether you’re speaking to your point, John, whether it’s one or two people, a small group, on a stage, a boardroom, a huge audience, It’s all storytelling. It is all storytelling and what a lot of people do when they have to present, for example, they get very formal and they’re gonna tell me what they’re going to tell me and then they tell me what they are gonna tell and then they retell me what the just told me. I don’t think that works today. I believe that is so old school. You have to capture people’s attention from the moment that you begin. And so when I’m working with clients on their content and having clarity of their content. Putting the arc of that story together, everything is a story, an answer to a question is a story, being on a panel is a story, any kind of remarks, it’s all storytelling. But most people don’t know how to put the story together that works today, that works today. It’s very different from five years ago, 10 years ago 20 years ago. It’s all story telling, it is all communication. And we can go further and deeper into that if you want to, but that’s the bottom line.

Well, and I think preparing yourself for these situations is so crucial, right? There’s so much that we can’t prepare around us, right, no matter what the situation is, whether we’re getting up on stage or we’re going to a one-on-one meeting, but there’s so that we prepare ourselves, right. Do we know our content? How do we prepare physically? And will you talk us through those aspects a little bit because I think. There’s a degree where sometimes individuals don’t understand the amount of preparation that, you know, those people that look the least prepared and it looks so easy, if you will, are the most prepared. They have rehearsed, they have practiced, what they’re wearing is perfectly selected and polished. And so much has gone into that to the degree that it looks easy, but it certainly wasn’t. So will you share your thoughts on that as part of the package.

There’s so much to talk about there. Okay, first of all, 80% of your success comes from preparation. I’m passionate about this, as you can see. And as am I, as am I because I literally block off time in my calendar, not only for my lesson preparation, for my clients, for my workshops, for keynotes. I block time off in my calendar. You can’t just think you’re going to get up and wing it. Now I know a lot of people who do. I don’t believe that’s the best course of action. The second thing is, in how you put that content together, I believe in an open and middle and a close. The open is the hook. You got to grab people right away. The middle is the meat, the nuts and the bolts. The close is the takeaway. What’s in it for them? But guess what? I start with the close. What’s it in for them. What do they want to hear? What do THEY need to hear, not what YOU think they need to here. What do they need to hear? What’s in it for them? How are you going to make them care? You have to make him care. So once you figure out the close, aha! Now you can create the open from that because you got to hook people right away so that they start hearing you speak and they say, I can’t wait to hear more. Tell me more, tell me more. So figuring out that hook is crucial. Practicing is crucial, out loud. Not just on paper, out loud. There’s a muscle memory that happens between your brain and your mouth when you speak and practice out loud, but I also have developed a methodology for practicing. I have people practice backwards. What I mean by that is, let’s say we’re gonna use the example of four. You take your remarks and divide them into four sections. I want you to take section four, do it out loud by itself, and that’s it. Then you can go to three. Do the same thing, then you can do three and four. Same thing with two, then can do two and three, and then you could do one, and then you could one, two, three, four. Now, several things happen when you do that. If people are practicing out loud at all, most of the time they go from the beginning to the middle, they’re in the middle. And then they come to the end, their energy dips. When you practice backwards, and you’re doing it for real now, in real time going one through four in your live presentation, when you get to section two, your energy stays high. When you get to section three, your energy starts high. When you got to section four, your entry stays high, why? Because your brain thinks you’re back at the beginning because you practiced each one of those sections as their own entity. So you have a much more successful rate of that keeping that energy high. Now the other really important piece, let’s say section two, you’re practicing it. You’re realizing, wait a minute, this is not conversational. I have too much industry jargon. This isn’t making sense. You rework that section by itself as opposed to what do some people do if they practice at all. Oh, I’ll worry about that later and they just go on. One, two, three, four, blah, blah. So there’s a lot more we could talk about that, but that’s sort of in a nutshell.

Liz, as you talk about storytelling, and regardless of the topic or the content, what do you tell clients? How important is it to tell personal stories versus just industry stories or experience stories, but really personal stories? And I guess also associated with that, are there tools to integrate into your presentation such as humor and How do you integrate humor? What if you don’t think of yourself as a humorous person? Or what if you don’t thing of yourself as someone that’s really comfortable sharing a lot of personal details? How do mentally prepare for that?

Sharing a personal story, allowing yourself to be vulnerable in that way, you share the stories with the people who’ve earned the right to hear that story. Let’s start with that. And yes, you can use personal stories, but how do they relate to the bigger picture of everything? Is there a point to telling that story? You don’t have to tell all the details of the story. You don’ have to go in chronological order of the So it is important to figure out whether or not it even relates to what you need to talk about and why. What’s the motivation behind that? What’s the intention behind sharing that particular personal story? When it comes to humor, well, if you’re not funny, then don’t try to be.

Yeah. Not for the first time anyway.

At least not for the first time. Some people think they’re funny and they’re not. And humor is one of those things that’s just so subjective. And you have to be really careful. You have to know is it the time and the place? Is it the right tone? What do I need to say? And some people rely on it as a crutch. And that’s not always the best thing either. If it’s something that comes naturally to you, people tell me I’m funny all the time And I’m like, really? I don’t think I am. I’m just being Liz. And if it seems funny to you and it works, okay, great. But there, I mean, there’s so much more that we could go into on that topic, but that’s a sort of surface level explanation to answer your question.

How do, what’s your guidance on not being repetitious? So I’m thinking of a financial professional meeting with clients and repeating sayings or responses to questions where it starts to feel trite, if you will, where it’s maybe the same saying over and over or just where it just sounds like they’ve almost rehearsed the same type of thing and it doesn’t sound genuine or it doesn’ sound curated for me so that over and over it’s like, well, that just feels canned. How do you help people shake it up and make things feel fresh so that things don’t start to feel like it’s just rinse and repeat.

Customization, who are you talking to? What’s in it for them? Why should they care? And if you have a speech, if you will, even if it’s a couple of sentences or a short little story you’re gonna share, don’t memorize it. I don’t believe necessarily in memorization. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but I would rather know my content so well, have clarity of my content, so well that I deliver it in a conversational way, in an authentic way. And so knowing who that audience is and how can you share that story or that quote or that sentence or that project or that philosophy or that service in a way that’s gonna resonate with them.

That’s what I was gonna ask you about, Liz, because oftentimes as Julie and I are going out to present and one of the last things financial advisors will say to us is, is there anything else you need to know from me? I said, well, the most important thing I need to know is who’s the audience, right? So it’s our form of doing homework, right. So are there key things, you mentioned a couple, what’s in it for them, but. If you were invited to speak to an audience, what are some of the things you would want to know and why about who you’re speaking to?

100%, you have to know your audience, whether it’s one person, two people, three people, 20 people, 2,000 people. When I’m working with a client, even if it’s a consultation call to see if we’re gonna work together, I look them up. I look at them up on LinkedIn, I looked up their bio, I look up any social media. What can I learn about this person that I don’t already know based on the email they reached out to me with? That’s number one. If it’s a workshop, I just did a workshop two days ago, one day ago, what’s today? I think I did it last week. Anyway, there were 12 people in this workshop and I got all the links to their LinkedIn bios. I researched them. So I knew who I was going to be working with that day. And I also, when I started the workshop, asked them, what is it that you wanna learn today? I already knew what the overall goal was, but I wanted to hear it from them. It made them feel like I cared. If it’s a large group, obviously I can’t read 2000 LinkedIn profiles, but is there a theme that goes on? How can I incorporate that theme into my remarks? Can I know what this group has done previously? What are their challenges? What are they concerns? Have I looked up their website? Have I talked with the event planner about what their goals are, what the takeaways they want for that audience? You have to do your homework. Again, this is preparation. This is preparation. That’s how you become successful.

What, if you are thinking about that preparation, how far out, like what is the ideal amount of time? I know it varies, but I mean, ideally, what’s the ideal about of time when you’re thinking about sort of the glide path into that preparation timeline?

Well, if you ask Mark Twain, it takes three weeks of preparation in order to be successful, but you don’t always have three weeks, okay? As soon as you know you’re going to be doing something, start planning time in your calendar. Even if it’s two days from now, what can you rearrange in your calender so that you give yourself the time that you need to do as much homework as you can in that short amount of time? There is no specific, oh, well, you need a week or you need three weeks or you needs six months. I don’t know. What do you have available to you? How much time do you need to figure out what the message is going to be? If I’m doing a keynote and I know what the theme is for that particular event, I will talk to the event coordinator. I will go and look up what they’ve done in years past. I will see, do I know anybody in my network on LinkedIn who’s a member of this particular organization? What can they tell me? So again, there’s no right or wrong timetable because you just never know when you’re gonna get asked to do something. So you kind of have to figure that out.

So just own it is the bottom line.

Yeah, yes, exactly, exactly.

Liz, kind of a separate topic that we’ve talked about in the past is this concept, I love the word you use, presence. Because so many times when I’m speaking to folks who are training to give a presentation, trying to learn a new presentation, trying to put their own content together, it’s like they get up on the podium and they’re running down an outline in their head trying to make sure that they remembered everything to say. And what I always say to them is, look, the audience will never remember what you forgot to say, but what is it that How do you define this topic of presence and why is it so important for anyone that’s trying to communicate?

Oh, there’s so many pieces to this equation. Okay, first of all, to your point that the audience is not gonna remember what you didn’t say. First of all they didn’t know what you were going to say. Right. Let’s start with that. They didn’t that you forgot something or you left something out or you had to accordion and speak in less time because somebody went too long before you. The audience doesn’t know what your intention initially was. When I was doing newscasts, the audience didn’t we dropped a story, added a story. Unless we had promised we were going to give them that story. And then we had to tell them, well, because of time, you know, there’s breaking news. We’re gonna give it to you in the later newscast. So the audience doesn’t know what your intention was. So you can take that off the table. When it comes to presence, first of all, what is it? What is it you know? When you see somebody walk into a room, they’ve got something. They’ve got this confidence, this charisma, this authenticity. Presence, this magnetic energy that makes you notice them in the right way. I call that the IT factor. And I believe everybody can have the IT factor and more of it, but it requires intentional transformation. IT, IT factor, intentional transformation, that means aligning your physical, your mental, and your relational self. Now, the physical is a number of different pieces and it’s more than just how you look and how you walk into a room and the body language you exude. It’s the energy that you put forth. Are you commanding or not? Are you confident or not, are you authentic or not. 65% of our communication comes from non-verbal communication. How do you take care of your body physically? We all know that being active is important for our overall health and wellbeing. But movement is the bridge between your physical and your mental. And the mental self, that relation to your mental brain, this little inner GPS that you have, okay, that impacts you. What are your beliefs? Do you believe that you can change? Do you think you can make a difference in your life? It’s more than belief. It’s taking action. It’s taken action. What stories are you telling yourself? Oh, I’m not smart enough. I’m good enough. I can’t do that. I’ve never done that before. Those self-negative thoughts that are running through your head, they impact your reality. They impact the actions you take. And presence is about the actions that you take or fail to take. Now you take the third pillar, which is the relational piece of it. Are you self-aware of what your strengths are, your weaknesses? Do you know what your core values are? Are you living them out? When you can have that inner stability and that interconnection, then you’re able to connect with other people. And I’m talking now about the communication tools that you need to have those kinds of relationships. They’re so vital and so important. Can you convey your thoughts in a way that gets inspiration and influence and impact, particularly as a leader, to help negotiate, to resolve conflicts? And so when you have that relationship with yourself, When you have that relationship with other people, then there’s that ripple effect to the outside world. And you can have an impact. You are now shining in your it factor, your presence, which is so important. There’s a survey done by the Center for Talent Initiative. I believe that’s the name of the group. 26% of what it takes to get promoted is executive presence. That’s a big piece of the pie.

Well, it’s interesting too, obviously, when you’ve arrived at that level and you’re displaying that and I think what do you see when people then are modeling that to their team members in terms of sort of the mentorship and passing that behavior along? I mean, I think that’s so fascinating to try to help them bring others up and show them. Sort of, you know, how they can develop, is that something that you find? Teams as well?

100% because when you can be that authentic, that in tune, that aligned, that’s what now develops trust. That’s what develops connections. That what helps resolve conflicts. That is what helps bring people together. When you get that buy-in, you now have influence, and inspiration, and impact. And you allow them. To own their own it factor as well. You’re inviting them to own their own IT factor as Well. And people who have that IT factor, who have the confidence and authenticity, what is so wonderful is there’s so many opportunities that become available to you, whether they’re career advancement, whether the possibilities are endless when you have that and when you own that. And don’t be afraid of it. You got to give yourself permission to own all of that.

Liz, those are just wonderful words of wisdom. I mean, I think I could listen to this podcast over and over again and just keep refreshing myself after 30-some years of doing what I do. Just great nuggets in there to help the financial professionals that are listening today. But before we let you go, there is something that Julie and I like to interact with all of our guests. We call the lightning round. So if you’re game. Throw a couple of tie level questions at you. We’re looking for kind of top level answers that just help our audience learn a little bit more about Liz, who she is and kind of what makes her tick. So if it’s okay with you, we’d like to try out our lightning round questions on you.

Let’s go for it. Bring it on.

Julie, why don’t you start?

Would you rather shop online or go to the good old fashion store?

I don’t like shopping in stores. I’m not very patient, I have to admit it, but I have to go to the store for clothes. I have go to store for shoes, but a lot of everything else, thank God, there’s Amazon Prime.

There you go.

I hear ya.

So you mentioned it in our discussion, but I’m curious, when you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be an actress, of course, but my parents kind of poo-pooed that and my mother would say, you know, you’re so overly dramatic. And I’m like, no, I’m not. But I mean, my whole family was performing. And the irony in that is that we were all involved in musical theater, my parents were performing, they were in musical theater, we were singing and yet they didn’t want me to be an actress. Don’t you think that’s like kind of hypocritical? I think it is.

What was your favorite board game as a kid?

Oh, oh, I don’t remember what it’s called, but it’s like with the circles on the plastic map and you put your hands on it and you, I, I dunno what it is called. I don’ remember what is called, that’s what happens at this age.

Twister,.

Yes, yes. Twister.

Twister

That’s a good one. What’s your favorite vacation destination?

Turks and Caicos.

Oh yeah, that’s a good one.

This was one, but that’s one. That comes to mind.

That works.

And my last question is, what’s the first concert you ever went to?

Oh my gosh, it was at Revinia when I was probably in Chicago, outside of Chicago, I was probably maybe 12 or 13 years old. It was Neil Sadaka. Now that’s really aging me, that was Neil Sadaka. And I thought it was so cool because we were at Revinian, we had our picnic on the lawn and I was with my aunt and my uncle and I thought I was so grown up going to this concert.

Sounds amazing.

Liz, we can’t thank you enough for joining us on the Human Centric Investing Podcast. Thank you again for sharing all of your insights with us today.

Oh, thank you, Julie and John, for having me on. I really appreciate it. And I’m very passionate about this topic, as you can probably tell. And the best thing is that no matter where anybody is on that learning curve, you can always get better. And to your point, John, you’ve been doing it for 30 years, guess what? I’ve been this for 40 some years and we continue to learn and grow and that’s what keeps us young. That’s what keep us alive. That’s how we grow. We’ve got to stay curious and keep growing every single step of the way.

Thanks, Liz, appreciate it.

Thank you again.

Thanks for listening to the Hartford Fund’s human-centric investing podcast. If you’d like to tune in for more episodes, don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube.

And if you’d like to be a guest and share your best ideas for transforming client relationships, email us at guestbooking at HartfordFunds.com. We’d love to hear from you.

Talk to you soon!

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the guest who is not affiliated with Hartford funds.