Meet Tom Kennedy of Kennedy Group in Lincoln

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tom Kennedy.

Tom, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
After 20+ years on the air in TV/radio (including WBZ, WHDH, WRKO in Boston as well as San Francisco, Cincinnati, Jacksonville) the fate of all the large broadcast and other media companies seemed obvious. It’s a great business to be out of!

A friend and neighbor, Lyn Chamberlin, the head of communications at Radcliff/Harvard suggested that no one in Boston was doing public speaking and media coaching well, that she had to use people from New York. It made sense and within a few months of learning how to start a consulting practice and networking, I had my first major client, IBM, during the time that Lou Gerstner was re-inventing the company. In Armonk (IBM HQ) one of their communications VP’s didn’t ask me my rate/fee, he told me the IBM consulting rate which I would be paid. It was about four times what I would have charged. I simply said that would be fine.

I’ve coached wonderful men and women from large company CEO’s to attorneys, researchers, consultants at all size firms and always learn as much from them as I hope that they do from me. Virtually all say something like, “I should have done this years ago.”

People are realizing increasingly that they have a personal brand and that brand is both internal, within their organization, and external, everyone else. You either manage that brand, or you don’t and it’s defined by others.

It’s also become essential to be “camera ready”. Video has become a mainstream way of communication and all must be comfortable in front of a video camera.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Very smooth in the sense that every speaker I’ve worked with has immediately built comfort, confidence and success with every audience. When I started there was only one other person in Boston doing this type of coaching. Now, at least a dozen companies have sprung up doing what’s mostly called “presentation training”. At best, they might do some individual work with people in large groups, usually, they’re simply instructing people on how to build PowerPoint slides and read them. Even calling the slide deck, “the presentation”. It’s not, you are!

I often get calls from HR people asking, “How much will it cost to train __ (X number) of people?”

My response is, “You don’t want me.”

They are amazed by this and I explain that what they need is coaching, not training, it’s very different and very personal. No one ever forgets their time in front of a video camera and reviewing the recording, the essence of building strengths and minimizing weaknesses.

Most often junior HR people don’t understand that discussion, but HR and/or senior executives who understand leadership development are immediately engaged.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
The method I’ve developed is A R M: Audience, Result, Message

Every good presentation, meeting, speech, interview (whatever term) is about the audience, not the speaker. We start with audience research, everything we can learn about them, concerns, attitude, topic and technical understanding, gender, demographics, cross-cultural protocols, logistics like room & seating, etc.

I consider the usual approach to beginning presentations by saying “let me start by telling you about us”, strike one on the speaker.

The approach for a researcher delivering results is very different than a business leader getting them to want to follow, as is their comfort level due to their communication style.

What are you trying to persuade them to do? There’s no such thing as “informational” though people are told to give these presentations all the time. If you don’t understand what you want to audience to do as a result of your presentation, you’re wasting your time and theirs.

In a sentence or two, what do you want them to remember? What’s the essence of your message? If you don’t know that, how can they? This doesn’t come immediately or easily but as we build the presentation it becomes readily apparent. Know it, repeat it, open and close with it.

After building these essential skills based on each client’s strengths, weaknesses, communications style, and goals we get to the advanced aspects of applying them to whatever challenges may apply, like, media, video, keynotes, leadership, adversarial questioning, etc. The more advanced parts are the “tools” that all great communicators use; storytelling, quotations, and great (non-text) visual aids.

All business experts believe that communications are a, if not the key to success.

Every organization has its own communications culture. Unfortunately, all too often it’s a culture of building a slide deck with text and even calling the slides “the presentation”. As Lou Gerstner says, “Company culture is what people do when you’re not looking”.

What do you like best about our city? What do you like least about our city?
Having lived all over the country, I truly appreciate Boston, except for about two months of the year, as one of the greatest places to live. It has all the advantages of a major city, arts, sports, etc., and some of the disadvantages, like traffic.

One interesting aspect of Boston which most don’t realize is that the 8th or 10th (depending on what information you use) largest metro market in the country, about 4 ½ million people is essentially run by the relatively few, about 675K, people who live in the city. I love Boston but there is an insular nature here. As my colleague at WBZ, Peter Meade often says, “Boston is about politics, religion, and revenge!”

 

Getting in touch: BostonVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.