Episode transcript:

M.K.:
Welcome to today’s edition. And Alper, what do you have on your mind today?

A.R.:
Actually, I’ve been waiting for this day for more than a couple of days because I was going on going over our notes for the upcoming episodes. And I saw one under your column and I’ve been dying to ask. Hmm. Yeah. Something about. I see the words. Talk to the dog. Just to be clear. Okay. What? What are you talking about?

A.R.:
Is this the right spreadsheet that would Look.

M.K.:
You’re in the right place. You found. You found the right spreadsheet.

A.R.:
Okay, just. Just to make sure. Okay.

M.K.:
Yeah.

A.R.:
So tell me.

M.K.:
So. So talk to the dog. It started a few years back, and I had a client, and this client was. He was a I don’t know, he was an engineer for a solar power company or something like that. And he was doing a presentation for some potential investors. And he his presentation would have been great for engineers, you know, if he gave that same presentation to fellow solar power engineers, they would think it was the best presentation that they had ever seen.

M.K.:
They would they would pick the guy up on their shoulder and they would parade down the street cheering and yelling his name.

A.R.:
Oh, boy. I see. Flashing warning signs. Yes.

M.K.:
But the the the potential investors that he was talking to or that he was preparing to talk to, they would have been completely unimpressed. They wouldn’t have understood a single word he was saying. They would have walked out of there just like, oh, boy, angry at him for wasting their time in life. And so this is what gave rise to talk to the dog.

M.K.:
And so my my client, he was he was giving the presentation to me. He was practicing the presentation and at the end of the presentation, so he looks at me and he says, Well, Matt, what do you think? And I said, okay, well, talk to the dog in the language of the dog about the things the dog cares about.

M.K.:
And so that’s what gives rise to his topic. And when I say when I say when I say a talk to the dog, I don’t mean like I don’t mean that humans are dogs. I don’t mean anything bad about them. I don’t mean, you know, disrespect humans. I don’t mean kick them. I don’t mean feed them trash. I don’t mean any of that.

A.R.:
I love dogs.

M.K.:
Yeah, I love dogs, too. But, you know, some people are afraid of them, so I don’t mean anything bad about it. I’m not putting anybody down. It’s just that this is a good phrase to remember when you are speaking to people who are not your kind. And I can give you a tangible example of what that means. Should I do.

A.R.:
That? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But before that, I want to ask, like, what would be one of the benefits of it? I mean, I have some idea, but can you, can you clarify that?

M.K.:
Well, first of all, the why.

A.R.:
Bother with this idea?

M.K.:
Yeah. The biggest benefit is that you end up with a presentation that is relevant to your audience, and so they care about what you’re saying rather than the presentation that you think is great and that your buddies back at the office think is great, you end up with a presentation that is relevant to your audience. It’s the that’s the first, the first biggest benefit, the second benefit.

M.K.:
And this isn’t a benefit that I had thought about before, but then one of my clients mentioned it to me a couple of years ago and thought, Wow, that’s that’s a pretty good benefit to bring. And what he mentioned was that the big benefit that he got out of using this approach or use in running his presentation through this filter, the big present or the big benefit that he got out of running his presentation through this filter was that his presentations were much shorter.

M.K.:
And I guess it was because his presentations were more focused. He knew what he had to say and it was easier for him to put them together because he knew who he was talking to. He knew what he had to say and parentheses. He also knew what he didn’t have to say, which ended up being most of it.

M.K.:
A lot of the things that people say in their presentations are not relevant to the audience at all. And if they cut them out, they save a lot of time.

A.R.:
Why do you think they included in the first place?

M.K.:
Because it’s important to them. If I’m for example, I’m going to kind of get into the into a recent example. If I’m if I’m a software engineer, for example, I’ve got a lot of things that if I’m a software engineer and I am presenting to, let’s say, two warehouse employees about a new software system that I’m developing and they’re going to use, there are a lot of things that are relevant to me and that I consider extremely important that they just don’t care about and if I cut those things out, my presentation will be a lot shorter.

M.K.:
It’s kind of like, you know how they talk about that some years back. I haven’t. I still hear it. I just don’t hear it as much. But you know, that metaphor that people use for a radio signal, you know, signal versus noise, how much how much of this is signal? And how much is not? Yeah, how much is it is signal?

M.K.:
How much is it? How much of it is stuff that I need to pay attention to and how much of it is just noise? How much of it is just junk that I don’t need to know? This filter helps you cut the noise out and make your make more of your presentation signal. So I give you an example.

A.R.:
I want to ask you something. Okay? A Yes. And okay, let’s hear the example first. Okay. Maybe I will have my answer in in the in the in the example.

M.K.:
Okay, So here’s the example. Recently I was doing I was working with with the software engineer in, like I said, and he was developing some software for a warehouse application. So there were people with, you know, forklifts and tote tote boxes and conveyor belts who are going to be using his software and talked to the dog goes like this.

M.K.:
The phrase remember, talk to the dog is talk to the dog in the language of the dog about the things that dog cares about. So there are three points. And so so first of all, if you’re that if you’re that software engineer, the first part of that talk to the dog is remember that in this case, the dog is a warehouse employee.

M.K.:
So the dog is not software engineer. So you’re not talking to your buddies in the office, you’re talking to software, you’re talking to two warehouse employees. Maybe they’re a warehouse manager, maybe they work on the floor, maybe they’re a supervisor, maybe not. Who knows? But they’re not you and they’re not your buddies back at the office. So that’s the first point.

M.K.:
Talk to the dog. The second point is, let’s see. Talk to the dog in the language of the dog. And this is this.

A.R.:
The language.

M.K.:
In the language of the dog. It’s the second part. And that’s a really hard one for a lot of people because that’s probably the most difficult one for a lot of people because you every day, if you’re a software engineer, every day, you use software engineering vocabulary. You describe your project in software engineering vocabulary. Maybe you use words like, you know, database or latency or something like that.

M.K.:
Maybe you use words like client server, blah, blah, blah. These words mean absolutely nothing to your audience. If you are speaking to warehouse workers, what’s the language that they use? They don’t use words like latency. They use words like computer speed or just speed. If I’m a if I’m on the warehouse, let’s say I’m on the floor, on the warehouse, and I need to I need to to pick a product.

M.K.:
I need to to get a product and place it in a box. And the software is going to tell me where in the warehouse that product is. You might use the word latency and database. You know, you the software engineer. When you want that information, you think about things like database and latency. But that’s not what what the floor worker in the warehouse thinks.

M.K.:
The floor worker on the warehouse wants to know, okay, when I punch in the item number, you know, item number one, two, three, when I punch in, item number one, two, three. Is it going to take 10 minutes to tell me where I can find item one, two, three, or is it going to do it in 2 seconds?

M.K.:
So again, that so there’s a database there. It’s latency, but those are definitely not the words your audience is using to describe the situation. So so that’s the second thing is part two Dog. That’s the second part, yeah, in the language of the dog. So make sure that your presentation, your slides, the words you use when you’re speaking, make sure that you purge your professional vocabulary out of it and use the professional vocabulary of your target audience.

M.K.:
And the third thing is, well, you know, talk to the dog about in the language of the dog. So the third thing is about the things the dog cares about. And that’s a much easier thing for for people because it’s easier for them to relate to. If I am, let’s say that I am. But again, the vocabulary is a little different.

M.K.:
If I am a, you know, the line worker in the warehouse, maybe what I care about is filling a lot of orders. You also care about that as a software engineer. It’s just that you’re going to use different words to describe it. If I’m let’s say that I’m the warehouse manager, and one of the things that I care about most is impressing my boss.

M.K.:
You also care about impressing your boss and the way the warehouse manager does it. One of the ways that the warehouse manager does it might be to cut costs. For example, it might be being able to go to the manager’s boss and say, Hey, boss, I know it used to take us 5 minutes to pick a product, and now it takes us 4.5 minutes to pick a product.

M.K.:
Those are the things that your audience cares about. And so those are the things that you need to talk about in your presentation. That’s what I mean by buy Talk to the dog.

A.R.:
Okay. Well, we’re going to the end of the time, but I don’t want to let you go before asking, asking something which I have on my mind urgently. Sure. I understand that the principles of talking to the dog in the way in the language and about the things that the dog cares about. Okay. But let’s say I am the I am the prospective presenter and I want to apply this filter.

A.R.:
Okay. My question is, if I had if I already had that understanding of this concept, would they not have started creating my content already pushing things through this filter? That’s the first part of the question. And the second part of the question is, if I’m not using this, would I ever be competent to utilize this filter? It seems to me like you either have it or don’t have it or not.

A.R.:
It’s not like you either have it or don’t have it. But if your presentation content needs to be pushed through this filter, how you as a presenter could have seen it before and.

M.K.:
Use this filter before you start making your presentation. Use this filter in one of the early stages of your preparation. If you haven’t used this filter or filter like it, if you haven’t used a filter like this, you are not ready to start your presentation or you’re not ready. Just start preparing your presentation because what is this? What is this.

A.R.:
Filter in the case of the software engine? Go ahead. I go ahead. Go ahead.

M.K.:
What does this filter tell you? This filter tells you who you’re talking to. It tells you what language you need to use, and it tells you what’s important to the people standing or sitting in front of you. You need to know those things before you start preparing your presentation. And there is there is no level of sophistication that escapes using this filter.

M.K.:
You cannot say, Hey, I’ve been doing this for 20 years, I don’t need to use this filter anymore. You still need to use this filter. It. You know, maybe if you’ve been doing it, if you’ve been doing it for 20 years, maybe it only takes you 3 seconds to use this filter. That’s great. Congratulations. Good for you. I’m not saying that you need to spend, you know, three months using this filter, but so but if you’re if you’ve been doing this for 20 years, maybe using the filter takes 3 minutes.

M.K.:
If you’ve been if you just started using the filter, maybe you may be using the filter takes you an entire week, whether you are using it for the first time or whether you’ve been doing this for 20 years, you’re still basically using the filter.

A.R.:
So in the case of this software engineer presenting to the to the White House, how can this software engineer, if if the presenter needs to apply this filter, okay, how can he or she determine the the whole size? So to filter in this case, for example, how can they know what to omit, what to take out, what to keep in the presentation, talk.

M.K.:
To your audience and get to know them, which is in the natural cycle of life is probably going to happen to you anyway. So you don’t need to be sophisticated about it. You know, if you’re a software engineer making software for warehouse people, you probably have talked to a warehouse person, at least on the phone at least once in your life.

M.K.:
You’ve probably talked to software person. So you don’t you don’t need to be sophisticated. You don’t need to make these great, brilliant scientific surveys or anything like that. Just think of the people that you work with. And they are they are the holes in your filter. And if you only know one person, one if you’re a software engineer and you are producing some software for a warehouse person and you only know one of them, that’s fine.

M.K.:
I mean, you know, of course it would be better if you knew ten of them. Then you could average them out or something. But even if you just know one, that’s way better than knowing none, and you probably know at least one. So imagine that person sitting in front of you while you’re preparing your presentation. Imagine yourself sitting at a coffee shop or conference room table or something explaining your software to that person.

A.R.:
Okay, So I understand the filter is somewhat hypothetical because we’re not we’re putting ourselves in the shoes of other people who will be listening to us and trying to find out the points that they would be interested, trying to find out the words that they would be connected to correct and trying to estimate the ways or the goals that they want they would want to achieve so that we will tailor our message to match that.

A.R.:
Though I do, I understand you correctly.

M.K.:
Yeah. And before we wrap up, there’s one other thing that I just wanted to emphasize yet again about this. Talk to the dog filter, and that is that this filter talk to the dog. It sounds extremely simple. Three parts and yes, it is extremely simple. And using it is extremely simple, but you would be amazed at how many people do not use it.

M.K.:
And that’s I think it personally, in my opinion, that’s a big reason that we have problems like death by PowerPoint or boring presentations or whatever you want to call them, whenever you name you want to give them is we have those things because people are not going through these very obvious steps. So just because it’s obvious doesn’t mean or does not mean that you don’t have to do it.

A.R.:
And how did you become aware of this?

M.K.:
Just because I sat through a boring one myself. Remember? Remember, remember that? Remember that? That solar power engineer that I told you about. I became aware of it because. Because I heard him giving his presentation and thought, This is brilliant. However, this guy is going to fall flat on his face. It’s going to be a complete disaster and you need to save him from this disaster.

M.K.:
So that’s how I became aware of it, by sitting through one myself.

A.R.:
Well, you have experience. Yes. All right. Okay. Okay. So thank you for relieving my curiosity. When I looked at the spreadsheet about what to talk to the dog was, there is one more on the spreadsheet which I’m going to ask you in the next episode, but.

M.K.:
Oh, great.

A.R.:
We’ll leave we’ll leave some curious for that.

M.K.:
All right. Well, I’m looking forward to it.

A.R.:
All right. I’ll talk to you next time.

M.K.:
All right. Talk to you.

A.R.:
Later. Thanks for the wisdom. All right.

M.K.:
Take care. Bye bye.