The White Rabbit

Matt goes into what he took away, from a recent interview, about building trust. He touches on commitment (hat tip to Robert Cialdini, someone Matt and Alper both have mixed feelings about), how to build trust into a pitchdeck, the importance of describing the problem and its role in building trust, and a couple studies he found that looked into what parts of the body are involved in the building...

Vlad Cazan, co-founder of Romania's KFactory, goes into his company's efforts to sell in other countries, particularly into the UK. In particular, he goes into the importance of patience and preparation, and what to do when you don't have any connections in the target country yet. Vlad also mentions the importance of, when considering what countries to target first, to ask yourself whi...

Bertay Fişekçi, employee engagement expert extraordinaire, goes into his public speaking journey, starting with what initially prompted him to work on that skill, how he got past initial fears once he started down that road, and how it helps him in his daily life now.

Matt and Alper blow out the carbon (a phrase an old family friend of Matt's used to use to mean taking an old car out on the highway for some exercise). In this case, that means they cover a couple miscellaneous pieces of business. Matt is considering updating a staple of his trainings, The Four Things, and Alper discusses a video he recorded recently where he takes a side on the "visuali...

In this episode Matt interviews Alper on other ways into angel investing. Matt has a dream that we can provide a service and magically become part owners of, say, Microsoft, but Alper squashes that dream, saying that yes, some actual money is probably going to be needed. But don't worry, if all you want is to brag to your friends over a beer, you can probably get in for not much, but you'r...

Brad Farris returns to the podcast to describe a pivotal moment in the emotional regulation of how you show up for any communication event, be it a presentation or an employee's performance review. Matt plays the guinea pig (in other words, test subject), providing the disastrous subject matter Brad uses to troubleshoot and advise. This episode is perfect for anyone who wants to make sure the righ...

In this episode, Melda Sofuoğlu, a former client of Matt's, goes into what she has picked up over the years in the presentation world. Also, Melda, having worked in multiple countries, weighs in on the age-old question: Is presenting less data on a slide a culture-specific thing, or is it universal?        

In this, the 100th episode of The White Rabbit, Matt and Alper talk about what has changed in the world of presentations over the past two years. In particular, what they keep coming back to is that the magic only appears when you show up regularly, and the possibility that others won't get what you were talking about, and don't take that too personally, sometimes you just need to let go.    

Following a recent episode, where Matt posed a question to Alper in binary terms, Alper digs deeper into the potential problems associated with any binary approach. Alper points out a recent Netflix documentary that provides an excellent view into what can go wrong if the presenter gets pig-headed, and instead of changing tack, ignores the signs and plows ahead with the plan anyway. Anyone uncomfo...

Matt asks Alper for his opinion on two perspectives, which Matt soon realizes sound opposite but are actually not, and Alper offers up a third perspective. If you've ever wondered who the most valuable person in the room is, this episode is for you.              

Alper compares PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, and Canva. Each has its pros and cons, and Alper does his best to stay diplomatic and acknowledge that.  Listen in on this one if you want to hear a pro weigh in on the "should I export or not" question.    

Matt and Alper dig further into an article Alper wrote recently about how the beliefs and mindsets we carry around make it hard to present well. Interestingly, many of these scripts that run in the backs of our heads are useful elsewhere in other contexts, but can get in the way too!    

In this episode, economist Zombor Berezvai goes into the importance of telling stories, even when presenting to academic audiences. You'd think that academic audiences would be fine with the unprocessed presentation of data, but as Zombor reminds us, even those groups prefer the data be presented with a story that makes sense of it.   Zombor's LinkedIn profile:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/zomborb...

In this episode, Berk Temuroğlu goes further into organizational changes as a startup's sales base expands to other markets. In particular, how the company's investor base will evolve, how the new investors can help the company, the inevitability of a culture clash during the expansion, and more.

Berk Temuroğlu, in the first part of his repeat guest visit, goes into what challenges a startup, having conquered the world of domestic sales, typically faces when launching into the challenging world of international sales. In this episode, Berk talks about who to choose to lead the expansion, what he calls "the wheel of engagement," weathering the period of boredom, the inevitable evolution of...

In this episode, Matt goes into three of the constraints he often puts his clients into. Sometimes the best way to cut is to subject yourself and your presentation to artificial constraints. In real life, you won't have to meet these artificial constraints, but if you're at 39 minutes and you have to cut it to 20 minutes, maybe top-down (39, 38, 37, etc, on down to 20) won't work. Maybe what you n...

This goes out to all the people out there in their mid-30s who say "My technical skills got me where I am now, so they'll be enough to keep me going." If that's you, you're absolutely correct about the first part, your technical wizardry, and your development of it, worked great for the first 10 years of your career.  But over the next few years of your career, you'll see your technical skills bec...

A couple weeks ago, Alper went into the spiritual side of the business for him. Today we turn the tables on Matt and make him explain the spiritual side from his perspective, and it has to do with bringing peace to others, but not in the way that phrase is usually used.

Berk Temuroğlu goes into corporate managers adopting a founder mindset (and vice versa), the importance of integrating the problem/solution cycle into your communications, and including risk in the ROI calculation. Berk, being that he has one foot in the startup world and another foot in the corporate world, points out that startup founders have, in recent years, become pretty good at describing t...

Alper expounds on a more spiritual way of looking at presenting. Who would have thought Rumi would come up in a conversation about presentations? And yet in this episode, he does. Warning: The phrases "existential" and "serving others" come up in this episode, so be careful with this episode if presenting is nothing more to you than firing up PowerPoint and cranking out some slides.        

In this episode, Max Traylor, consultant to consultants, goes into ways creative businesses can productize their services, other than designing templates and selling them on Canva. One of the core points he makes is the importance of looking at your process, and the value in productizing your process, not just your output. Also, another interesting point he brings up is that consulting is like the...

In this episode, Memet Yazici, who runs a private investment advisory service, goes into a key part of the investment process, the management meeting, and in particular how the audience expectations are different in a meeting with venture capital people compared to a meeting with private equity people. For our listeners who are not in the investment world: This episode is about more than a step in...

Matt and Alper debunk the 93% myth as it has been misapplied to communication, and give some alternatives about what key skills are needed instead. And who would have thought that drywall anchor bolts had something to do with presentations. In this episode, we learn that there is, in fact, a connection.        

Matt and Alper wish a Happy New Year to those celebrating, shoot down the idea of organizing this into seasons (after all, it's a podcast, not a TV series), and go into preparing for a non-linear presentation. For all of you who were hoping our recent discussions of non-linear presentations were excusing you from the need to prepare, sorry, they're not. 

You know the feeling. The palms are sweating, the temples are wet, the mouth is dry. Is it a heart attack, or is it just an old-fashioned case of the jitters? In this episode, Matt and Alper lay into the misconception that nervousness is always bad, that it should be stamped out completely wherever it appears. So grab a glass of water for that cotton mouth, kick back in a nice comfy chair, and lea...