June 27, 2025 • 38 mins
In this episode, Tom Caravela is joined by Sarah Snyder and Patrina Pellett to share expert advice on how to become a master presenter. They explore and discuss the many ways Medical Science Liaisons can improve their presentation skills through proven training methods and practices. The discussion highlights the evolution of MSL presentations as well as interview presentations emphasizing key components like virtual presence and properly engaging Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs). They also cover improving storytelling, energy, and interview skills, while discussing new AI assessment tools that is bringing MSLs to an entirely new level.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Hey, guys.
Welcome to the podcast.
Sorry.
Technical difficulties.
We're trying to get things going.
I'm excited because I have my two partners incrime here.
Sarah Snyder and Katrina Pellet are joining me.
You guys know that we are the founders of MSLMastery, and we're gonna bring you
I
think this is a really important topic becausewe're hearing so much from the MSL community
(00:28):
about presentation skills, the importance ofit, the gaps, training needs, and it's just
really surfaced.
And now with AI and all the tools that are outthere, it's really become a great time to level
up and get yourself to a whole new place as apresenter.
(00:51):
So, guys, are you excited as you as as excitedas I am?
I think we're probably more excited, Tom.
Yeah.
We have to take down the excitement.
Yeah.
We're, like yeah.
Awesome.
Alright.
Well alright.
Where do you guys wanna start?
You want you want me to start?
Or
Me.
I wanna start.
(01:11):
Alright.
Sorry.
Where you go?
Question for you, Tom.
Oh, you have a question for me.
I got a question for you.
Okay.
And I think people wanna hear this too.
Back up five years ago when you started thepodcast Yeah.
It's been over that now.
Right?
So I remember listening to it before I was evera guest or anything like that and thinking,
this is really good.
(01:31):
So you have a natural speaking ability, but Iknow you've also done a lot of things to get to
where you are so comfortable and engaging onthe podcast and then just on virtual calls and
then general in person.
So what did you do to get to that point?
So it's fun it's funny that you should say thatbecause I had a very difficult time listening
(01:57):
to myself in those early years.
I I didn't wanna listen to my own podcastbecause you know you don't like the sound of
your own voice, and you're very hypercriticalof yourself.
But that's what helped me get better.
I actually forced myself.
I literally forced myself to listen to theearly episodes, go back, and I was I would
(02:24):
critique myself and take notes on the thenumber of filler words I would use, what the
words were.
I would listen to the inflection in my voice.
If if you go back, you'll hear a differentperson.
We gotta do that, Sarah.
Now we gotta do it.
I think you will.
I I do.
I feel like my confidence wasn't the same.
(02:45):
Not I'm I'm not gonna use the impostorsyndrome, but I was trying to figure my shit
out.
And the early days were just me kinda stumblingalong.
But, Sarah, you know and, like, to your point,I I was in I've been in five different coaching
programs.
I've taken courses.
I got certified as a speaker, trainer, andcoach through the Maxwell Leadership Program,
(03:09):
which I thought was awesome.
Getting to see what good looks like is super,super helpful, but the most important thing is
practice.
Those programs and anybody that is good at thiswill tell you that you have to practice.
And there's an awareness piece.
(03:30):
You have to know what your issues are, whatyour gaps are.
So for me, I had to go back and listen and takenotes and say, oh my god.
I'm I have to I'm listening to myself, and Icould hear myself.
That's not how I wanna be.
And that's what really got me better was thattrial and error and practice and and seeing
what good looks like.
So I got I have an idea.
(03:51):
Really.
I got two.
I got two ideas.
I think we have to take the original podcastthat he did and then one that he's done in the
last month, plug that in our tool and let it doa before and after.
It keep going.
Well, my my idea is much more stupid.
I was gonna think that we should tell everybodyTom is the AI behind our tool.
(04:15):
That he's the that we don't have AI measuringeverything.
It's Tom.
It's Tom.
He he did.
Or he watches it and looks for inflectionpoints and filler words.
Wouldn't that be so funny?
Imagine, like, a little Tom behind the scenelike
I'm in there, like, the wizard of Oz back therejust figuring it all out, counting all the
filler words.
Fillers.
(04:36):
Right?
Doing the whole thing.
Oh my god.
That's 17 umps.
You said so seven times.
I like how Sarah's idea was a good one and minewas a bad one.
They're both very good ideas, although I'm notgonna sit behind the box.
Yeah.
Just so you know.
But one takeaway that I had from what you justsaid, Tom, is that you practiced.
(04:58):
I think a con misconception that we see a lotwith all these different aspiring and new MSLs
and mid career professionals and pharma teamsthat we work with is that they think it's
something that people are born with.
Right?
That they come out of the womb ready to presentlike Bill Gates.
Right?
And this is just not the case.
(05:18):
Yeah.
I think that there is this some people are moregifted, and they're more natural.
He's like, I don't know.
Yeah.
Just saying.
Well, tough people.
You
know what's funny, though?
What's funny is what like, sometimes I'll meetpeople at conferences, and they'll be like, I
love your podcast because I love your accent.
(05:38):
I feel like I'm listening to a New York Citycab driver.
I'm like, really?
What?
But, no, I think I think it does come naturallyfor some people, but it can be taught.
That's the whole point.
Guys, the reason for this podcast is that wewant to help people become better presenters
because this could be taught.
But I wanna talk to you guys, and I wanna seewhat you're seeing.
(06:03):
So you're obviously, with coaching the aspiringMSLs through the Aspire program and and and
experienced MSLs and some of the team trainingprograms, like, what are some of the things you
guys are seeing?
Sarah, you wanna go or you want me to go?
You go first.
Well, I think a big turning point for mepersonally was when I started helping Tom and
(06:25):
Sarah with the Aspire MSL program.
If you guys don't know this, it's a point andshoot program for people that wanna transition
into an MSL role.
And if you haven't checked it out, you should.
It's freaking beautiful and awesome.
And one really important point about thisprogram is that Sarah and I give feedback on
(06:46):
practice presentations.
As you guys know, when you are transitioninginto an MSL role or in the interviewing
process, the final stage tends to be ascientific presentation.
And this is what makes or breaks you a lot ofthe time.
And, Sarah, do you wanna add anything on beforeI keep going?
Nope.
Keep going.
(07:06):
Okay.
Well, okay.
No break.
I have to keep going.
So Sarah and I will sit down with these folks.
We get the prompt that they get from thecompany.
We go through their slides one by one withthem.
So first, they give the presentation as theywould like, they're presenting to the hiring
manager or the panel.
And then Sarah and I sit there, and we are wego we're like, slide one.
(07:28):
Okay.
You said this or that.
We would rephrase it that way, or maybe youshould introduce a pause.
And this has been so valuable for the people inour program because it gives them very specific
actionable feedback that they are then applyingin the real interview and then landing the job.
And we know that this is making the differencea lot of the times for these folks.
(07:50):
What I noticed and what the turning point isso, guys, I'm coming around full circle here,
the full story here.
Yep.
You're like, Tom's like, is she gonna get toit?
This thirty minute podcast.
It's coming.
We were saying the same things over and over tothese folks.
So we saw the same problems over and over.
It's rushing through the slides, maybe datadumping.
(08:12):
Sometimes people are talking so fast, maybe I'mtalking about myself here, that they run out of
breath.
Right?
It's just things like that.
Sarah, what else would you add?
What what do we tend to coach on the most?
Biggest thing, reading notes.
That is it's it's not gonna get you hired in2025, 2026, and beyond if you're reading your
(08:33):
notes.
In fact, numerous times, Petrina and I havesaid you guys have to ditch the notes.
You have to know what's the most importantthing you're gonna talk about and go with that
and not have detailed scripts.
I think that's the number one thing I've seen.
Oh, yeah.
Definitely.
I mean, we've all been in those kinds ofpresentations, right, where people are just
(08:56):
reading, either reading their notes or readingtheir slides, and it's super boring.
Tom, what would you add?
What do you think we see most often in Aspire?
Well, I could tell you that there's thisconfidence piece.
Yeah.
And you hear it in the person's voice, and yousee it in their body language.
(09:17):
And and it changes the whole dynamic of thepresentation.
And
then a lot of times, those people and to yourpoint, Petrina, they might be just rushing
through it because they're nervous, or they'rereading the slides because they're nervous.
So part of this is getting confident.
(09:39):
And the only way you get confident is when youpractice.
Yeah.
And I think that when we see people that reallyput the time in and, guys, like, when I say
practice, like, I'm I did all this by myself.
I had to figure out what was it that I wasmessing up, where do I need where did I need to
improve, And then I had to practice.
(10:01):
It's the same thing.
But you need the awareness.
You need somebody to tell you, or you have tofigure it out yourself or do it in a mirror in
the mirror or record yourself and then look atit and be like, would I hire me kinda thing?
I used to do that too.
And in previous trainings, they would recordus.
Or I know some people will do it at home ontheir phone, but almost everybody I've ever
(10:25):
talked to hates to do it.
So Tom did it, but I think 99% of the peopleout there are saying, no way.
I'm not doing it.
And I might practice for my friend who's gonnasay great job, or I might practice in front of
the mirror.
But most of us aren't like you, Tom, and wecan't get ourselves even to record and watch it
because we don't like the sound of it.
(10:45):
It's interesting to think about.
Yeah.
When I look at my old videos, like very oldones on my YouTube channel, I wanna crawl under
my desk and die.
I'm, like, so freaking embarrassed by them.
It's it's amazing.
And I did a lot of what Tom mentioned as welljust watching myself.
You if you don't see what you're doing, toTom's point, with the visibility, you have no
(11:07):
idea what to fix.
And to Sarah's point, if you're just gettingfeedback like, good job.
This is this is actually not very helpfuleither.
Oh, you got like, literally, you want the hardtruth, man.
You wanna know because if you don't, you'rejust gonna keep making the same mistakes over
and over.
Yep.
And a lot of it's it's fixable.
(11:28):
A lot of this stuff is fixable.
I think probably all of it is.
But alright.
So let's let's kinda move forward with how didyou handle this?
So so seeing this, tell me about the evolutionof what you did to help folks.
Sarah, you go.
So we had the presentation part in Aspire.
(11:50):
Mhmm.
And then I think it was probably a random cellphone conversation between Patrina and I, and
we dreamt up this presentation mastery thatwould be part of MSL mastery.
So I would say your husbands would tell youthat all summer long, we worked on this project
every week.
Gone.
Yeah.
Those summer vacations, it was one of thosedeep dives where we wanted to learn from the
(12:15):
top TED Talks, from the top presentationcourses.
Every book that we could get our hands on, wetook, and then we molded it into an MSL and
medical affairs specific course.
I had really good training on presentationsearly in my career.
I still remember a lot of the philosophies Iwas taught, but it was not specific to MSLs.
(12:41):
So no matter how much our leadership explainedto that training director, this is what an MSL
does.
This is what m an MSL does.
They still didn't grasp the fact that a lot ofour stuff was thinking on our feet.
And they could have us go do this 10 slidething and record us and have us watch back.
(13:02):
But in reality, we were usually struggling themost with the questions after the presentation
or those really fast phone calls where orvirtual calls, not back then, but where you're
presenting to your team on a teleconference andnow on a Zoom call.
So those are the things where I felt like wehave to uplevel from anything existing out
(13:25):
there.
So it was this dream, and it came to fruition.
Yeah.
So we have this amazing online course.
It's it's a beast.
It has three huge modules, the art ofpresenting, scientific storytelling, and
crushing virtual presentations.
If you're a online course, kinda self pacedperson, you should definitely check it out.
(13:46):
And I wanna tell one story from when we weremaking this, Sarah.
So it was summer of twenty twenty four.
We were driving our husbands crazy because wehad to be on I was like, I have to work this
weekend.
I have to work.
And, Sarah, do you remember?
I think it was when we were doing thestorytelling one.
We spent the whole day recording.
Guys, if you haven't made an online course for,like, a one minute video, you record for, like,
(14:10):
thirty minutes.
I swear.
Know what you're gonna say.
Takes forever.
You you guys know this, Tom and Sarah fromAspire too.
You know, like, a one hour recording is, inreality, at least ten hours of recording
somehow.
It's always way longer.
Yeah.
But Sarah and I had spent the whole dayrecording, and we felt really good.
And then Sarah was the one uploading it intoour platform, and she texted me, and she said I
(14:33):
messed up.
Yep.
And I was like, oh, no.
What happened?
She didn't have our videos on.
Oh, no.
Yes.
I was like Yes.
Sat on it, and then we both luckily, we're youknow, Sarah and I are vibing.
We're, like, on the same wavelength.
Yeah.
I was like, Sarah, I think we have to do itover.
He was like, yes.
We do.
(14:54):
I was like, we can't be the presentation lady.
No.
No.
Not have any you know, in this course of stuffon body language and hand gestures and making
eye contact, and I was like, we have to redoit.
So when I told my husband, he just, like, shookhis head.
Right?
He was I know.
Was like, we have to.
(15:15):
But that listen.
You know what?
Therein there's a therein lies the nature of ifyou want something to be good, you gotta put
the time into it.
And if if you have to redo it, you have to redoit.
I know that I've I've created full videos,gotten to the very, very end, and then I'm and
I screw up, or I don't like it.
(15:35):
And then I have to do a whole thing all overagain.
But, guys, when you're practicing and you'rebecoming a good presenter, or if you're
practicing for an interview, that's what ittakes.
Don't think that you're wasting your own time,or don't think that you're a loser.
That's what it takes.
You have to put the time in.
So talk to me about some of the stuff that youare you know, that you found that you had to
(16:00):
put into the program.
So I know, Katrina, you're dying.
I'll just let
take a date.
No.
I wanna say some like, actually, it's not toanswer your question at all, if that's okay.
He's like
Go ahead.
Jump in.
Boy, I just wanted to tell another story aboutour presentation mastery online course, and
then we can tell you guys some stuff that's inthere.
(16:20):
Mhmm.
The first person that bought it was an aspiringMSL.
Do you remember, Sarah?
Yes.
We were a little worried.
We were like, did he get in the wrong program?
But he felt, to Tom's point, not confident inhis presentations.
And he knew the presentation was so important
So important.
For him to land this job.
And he took our course and got the job.
(16:42):
Sarah, do you remember?
We I think we were, like, dancing around.
We were so
We were so excited.
And I think that is when the bells rang off toothat we were still thinking about it more like
formal presentations and not like somethingwhere you might be doing a presentation to
three people on your team or to a couple salesreps, and it's only two minutes, but you have
(17:04):
to look at it like it's a presentation.
So he he looked at his entire interview processas a presentation, not just the scientific part
of it.
And I think that won him the job as much as thescientific presentation.
His scientific presentation was still one ofthe top 10 I've ever seen in my life.
It was so good.
Oh, for sure.
(17:24):
Remember after he gave that, Sarah, we said theonly reason you won't get this job is if
there's someone more experienced.
Totally.
Like, you have this in the bag.
This is yours.
But, Sarah, back to Tom's question.
What do you think throughout this process aresome of the key things that we pulled through
into the presentation mastery course.
Mhmm.
Well, one part that I have to tell you guysthat's in there that might not be the key part,
(17:50):
but one day, I said, Katrina, we're gonnarecord just a short 15 thing.
And she
said tricked me.
You tricked me.
Yeah.
You tricked me, you guys.
Yeah.
You did.
So she shows up, and I had her go through allthese vocal warm up exercises.
She had to stand up.
She had to do jump jack jumping jacks.
She had to sing a little bit.
(18:11):
She had to a little bit, all these things.
So that's in the course, but it's not myfavorite part.
But it is something where if you are doing areally big presentation and you need to warm up
your voice, I'm still getting over a cold, so Istill sound froggy.
So I would probably do it to try to get alittle of that out of my voice.
But I think the part that's really relevant toMSLs is the pause aspect, and we don't just say
(18:37):
pause more often.
We actually teach you how to strategicallypause.
And, also, the story aspect, that's a frameworkthat I think everybody has some storytelling
tips and the five steps to better storytelling,but this is a framework for putting primary
(19:01):
endpoints and secondary endpoints and safetyendpoints into stories, not case studies, not
patient examples, but storytelling with data.
So that's the part I think I like the best.
What about you?
I would say one thing and for the listeners totake away as well, and we're just seeing this
across the board with the people that we workwithin our communities and in the teams that we
(19:23):
train is working on your virtual presence.
Oh, yeah.
And when you're doing Tom's tip of watchingyourself, look at your facial expressions.
Look at your if you have resting murder face.
I know I have this really bad where I have theproblem where people have asked me what's
wrong, and that's actually just my thinkingface.
And so take a look, especially on Zoom, howyou're coming off.
(19:46):
We Sarah, what was that poll you did recently?
How many hours of week of virtual meetingspeople have?
Yeah.
Most people have four plus virtual meetings aweek.
And that poll got so many questions where Ikept getting DMs.
Well, is this a meeting where, you know, thatI'm doing a formal presentation?
(20:10):
I said, well, if you're talking, you'representing.
So answer like that.
Because even if you're on a call like the threeof us right now, we're still presenting.
So that's, I think, really important for peopleto grasp.
But even if you're talking for two minutes,it's still something that you should think
about your virtual presence on.
Yeah.
The other day, we were doing a training call,and Sarah made a comment.
(20:34):
All the MSLs look dead.
They did?
She was like We need the beginning, luckily.
We got
them Yeah.
Perked up.
But think about this and think from the ifyou're meeting KOLs virtually, do you wanna
look like you're dead or bored to death, or doyou wanna look engaging?
So take a look at your video like Tomrecommended and look at your facial
expressions.
(20:54):
I think if you can change that and uplevel thatalone, if that's only the one thing you take
from this podcast, then you're gonna be milesabove a lot of other people.
I feel like people are getting so used to beingon, you know, virtual meetings and on camera
that they actually forget they're on camera,and they don't put any effort into it.
(21:17):
They're not cognizant.
They're not aware.
I really think that there's gotta be an effortand an awareness to your virtual presence so
that you can animate yourself a little bit.
And I I have the opposite problem.
I use my hands too much.
I get overly animated.
I like He's
like a cat that's like swiping stuff off thetable all the time.
(21:39):
I'm telling you, like, I'm like, when I go outto dinner, watch out.
I'll knock shit off the table.
I'm spilling crap.
Like, I get really super animated.
That was one of the things I picked up when Istarted watching myself.
I was like, dude, you're getting me dizzy.
Just sit in your seat.
You can use your hands.
I think it's important.
I think hand gestures I know, Sarah, you I knowyou actually helped me with this.
(22:03):
I think you took a course or something.
There was something about hand gestures and TedTalks, and it's important to be mindful of your
hand gestures, but you also have to be mindfulnot to be too fidgety and move too much.
So we're running the gamut.
We're talking about, you know, resting murderface.
We're talking about looking dead.
We're also talking about being too animated.
(22:25):
But how do you know this?
You have to practice.
You have to watch yourself.
And if you if you can get if you could humbleyourself and get in the mode of just saying,
okay.
How can I get better?
It makes a huge difference.
Yes.
100%.
Yeah.
So I wanna transition to asking you guys, couldyou talk to a lot of managers and MSL leaders?
(22:51):
What are they saying?
What are the problems they're bringing to you?
What are what's the what are the issuespresentation wise with their teams?
Sarah, you want me to go, or you wanna go?
I'll go first on this one.
I think the two that jump out, and you probablyhave the same ones, Katrina, number one is
still data No matter what, that's still gonnabe one of them.
(23:14):
And I think it's still a problem even thoughwe've all gotten better because there's less
time.
So even if you think you're not data dumpingand you've really drilled down, people still
are so busy and have less time that you have tostreamline it even more.
And then the second thing is the thinking onyour feet and the impromptu presentations.
(23:38):
There is another LinkedIn poll that I did onthis, and it ended up three fourths of people
think they need more training on that aspect.
Most MSLs are quite good at if you gave them adeck with 10 slides and said, you're gonna
start to finish, go through those, nointerruptions, no q and a.
Mhmm.
I got this.
(23:59):
But that's I I mean, who gives thatpresentation like that?
No one.
What do you think?
I definitely was thinking storytelling.
And, right, if you if you're a data dumper
Yep.
Storytelling can help with that a lot.
And we get a lot of training requests fromthat.
So Sarah and I have really started to get a lotof requests from teams in pharma and biotech to
(24:22):
help with storytelling.
I would say another ask that we get a lot isrelated to what we were talking about with
looking dead, like, boring, being boringpresenters.
So not bringing energy to their presentations.
And the the managers aren't saying, you know,act like a sales rep or be promotional, but
(24:46):
give this a little bit of energy and bringpeople in.
And it's not the same as being, like, a cheesypresenter at all, but sometimes they're just so
clinical and dry that they want to see a littlebit more spark in the presentations.
Yeah.
And I can I'll add one thing because I alwayslike to look at things and and throw in the
(25:08):
interview aspect of this.
Yes.
And one of the biggest things that that we'rehearing, the failure of a lot of presentations
and interviews, is that there are too manyslides.
It's too long.
So now because it's it's a finite amount oftime that you have to do the presentation,
(25:30):
people are rushing through their slides.
They start off at a good pace.
Everything's going good.
Then they're like, oh my god.
I'm gonna be over on time, and I'm gonna getdinged for that.
Now they rush, and they're reading, and they'renervous.
Keep it shorter.
Yeah.
Less is more.
Right?
Sarah, would you agree with that as far asslide creation?
(25:50):
Yeah.
Believe it or not, I just read this onLinkedIn, and this was from pharma that 75% of
slides that are created and this isn't forinterviews, but this is for by MedCom,
SciComms.
75% of slides that are created are never evenused.
So that tells you people are only using thatquarter.
Sometimes those others a percentage of thoseslides have to be created for compliance
(26:14):
reasons, and you might have to show themquickly.
We're not talking about those kind of slides.
Yeah.
We're talking about the main stuff.
You gotta know what you're gonna go over.
And like you said, Tom, less is more.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you guys like, for listeners, these guysare like, they're so far ahead when it comes to
all of all of this stuff.
(26:35):
What's the latest in in in training, and andwhat are the issues out there?
I from my seat watching you guys, I've seenthis, like, breakthrough.
Yeah.
I've seen this breakthrough happen.
Can you talk about just what you've been ableto learn and develop just through AI and how
(26:57):
you're using that?
Because it's fascinating to me.
Yeah.
Sarah, I'll start, and then you go.
Alright.
So, guys, we we put together our online coursepresentation mastery.
That's been really great.
Then we started doing presentation skillstrainings for MSL teams.
And one thing that Sarah and I really careabout a lot in our trainings is that they are
(27:21):
not boring and that an MSL does not wanna buy aticket home to leave that training early.
And you guys have probably done these type oftrainings, but you might have to sit through a
day long thing where everybody presents one byone to get feedback.
Or even worse, you're in a peer to peer peer topeer situation, so you present to each other.
(27:42):
Right?
When you're doing presentation skills, youwanna get advice from the expert, not from your
peer.
So when Sarah and I were thinking about theasks that we were getting from pharma leaders
and how we were gonna deliver a presentationmastery course or in person or team training,
we immediately went to AI.
(28:03):
And Sarah has previously taken an AI basedpresentation course, and I'm gonna pass it over
to you, Sarah.
I don't wanna steal your thunder.
I'll tell you that AI presentation coursechanged my thought process about practice.
It completely shifted for me.
I gave it to myself as a Mother's Day giftcouple years ago.
(28:24):
And I know that sounds crazy, but like Katrinasaid, I had done a lot of role plays as an MSL.
I think we're all doing an eye roll when wehear that word.
And then it's one of those things where,Katrina, how did I do?
And you say, good job, Sarah.
Maybe you could slow down a little bit when youwent over such and such.
And then we we're done with that, and we startto chat about where we're going to dinner that
(28:47):
night, and that is over.
Right?
So I got nothing out of it.
The AI tool gives you immediate feedback, and Ilearned more in two days of that course than I
had ever known about my presentation skills.
I gained a lot as an MSL doing promotionalprograms where I had to do them all the time,
(29:09):
think on my feet to different audiences,etcetera.
And you could get the feedback from theaudience.
You could feel if they were engaged.
You knew it.
You did a pretty good job.
But AI breaks it down.
If you're on YouTube Tom, can they see where itsays MSL Mastery AI Coach?
Or no?
Well, if you're on YouTube, you can see it.
Yeah.
You can
see it if you're on YouTube.
(29:29):
So if you're not on YouTube, there's these twolittle blocks, the black boxes for Zoom, and it
says MSL Mastery AI Coach.
Katrina and I both have those on here.
At the end of this call, we will know what ourstyle was, our demeanor, how many filler words
we use, what our pace was like if we had a lotof inflection in our voice.
(29:54):
We'll get more metrics on this than most peoplegot their entire career.
So that combined with our presentation course,I think Katrina's like, Sarah, stop talking
about it.
But I I love this thing, and it gives youimmediate feedback, which is something that if
you know, hey.
I gotta present on this conference calltomorrow.
I'm a little bit nervous.
(30:15):
I gotta share this abstract from ASCO.
It was a late breaker, so everybody's gonna beon the call.
You can hop on there, and you can practice itand get immediate feedback.
You don't have to record yourself because weknow everybody hates to do that.
Yeah.
So the breakthrough for us and the feedback hasbeen phenomenal from the teams that we've been
working with is introducing this AI tool.
(30:37):
So we'll drill on a skill and then haveeverybody practice with the AI tool
individually, and then they get real timepersonalized feedback.
And I was worried when we when Sarah and I didthis the first time, I was like, oh, they're
not they're not gonna like this.
And we were blown away by how much they likedit.
And, you know, looking back, you know,hindsight is always twenty twenty.
(30:59):
MSLs love data.
And so getting to see their data, they lovedthe metrics.
They were all talking, I got this manypercentage on conciseness, and they really
liked that.
And so that that was really, I think, ourbiggest breakthrough.
And talk about the five p's because I thinkthat that's such a big part of it.
(31:19):
Just to kind of explain the relevance how thatall came together and ties in.
Oh, yeah.
Yep.
Sarah, you want me to do it?
Or You can take that one because it's five p'splus Katrina.
We have we have a joke because we have anothercongress planning workshop that we do that it's
the three p's.
So our joke is that we only do frameworks thatstart with p's.
It only has p's because
(31:40):
of the change.
So what we did and the reason that we chose theAI tool that we chose is that we have a
proprietary five p framework.
These are five different things that werecommend people optimize in their
presentations to be powerful presenters.
We had built that out in our presentationmastery online course, but our AI tool allowed
(32:01):
us to put that into it and have metrics for it.
So now we can measure MSLs, how they're doingon pauses, pitch, pace, pronunciation, and
projection in real time.
Mhmm.
Sarah?
I think she hid it.
You hit it.
Sorry.
I got a couple of Yeah.
She knew.
(32:22):
Yeah.
So I'll I'll I know Tom is looking at thewatch, you guys.
He's like, oh my god.
These videos I I let up shut up.
But Listen.
Okay.
But we could go on forever.
Yeah.
You
know?
I have to share one thing because I don't knowwhere you're gonna go with the next question.
So just so that we get it in.
Because we talked a lot about scientific datapresentations, and that's what we always think
(32:42):
about in the medical affairs realm.
But the other thing that is so cool about thisparticular tool and what I liked about it when
I initially took the course is that I couldapply it to my life.
So if you've ever had a scenario where I gottago talk to my boss or oh my gosh, they asked
me, can you cover this conference in a week?
Somebody else backed out.
(33:03):
And you've already covered three, and you thinksomebody else should do it.
But you so you call your friend.
Right?
And you say, can I practice on you?
Or you write down what you're gonna say to yourboss or whatever.
That's what you can do with AI AI tool too.
And you can say, you know, here's what I'mgonna say.
You actually say it, and then it gives youfeedback and suggest different ways to say it.
(33:23):
So I think that's a cool thing too that wedon't think about enough is how we can improve
presenting a new idea or presenting somethingthat we're not happy about so that we're not
weak and that we also don't seem super angry.
That that's level two.
Yep.
Awesome.
So this let's transition because I know thatthe AI tool is not a part of the presentation
(33:50):
mastery course.
It's a part of the Elite Presentation Lab.
Correct?
Yep.
So what happened after Sarah and I deliveredthis team training and got these really great
results and we saw how much MSLs liked it, wedecided we need to bring this to individual
MSLs.
And that's why we started the elitepresentation program.
(34:12):
We if you guys haven't seen it yet, you shoulddefinitely check it out.
It is a six month program where you learn a p,one of the five p's, and then you practice it
in the tool.
And we have role plays and well, not let's callthem scenarios, whatever you wanna call them,
of real life things that MSLs will come againstin the field.
We just had a meeting yesterday with our theour founding members, and we had another
(34:36):
breakthrough there.
Yeah.
Sarah, do you wanna talk about that?
You can keep going because
I She's like, what breakthrough?
I don't know what she's talking I I agree withyou that it was definitely a breakthrough.
I think some of it was about how to say no.
Yeah.
Little bit about how to get promoted.
What else did you what were your maintakeaways?
So the what we did with our founding members ishad a quick meeting to say, okay.
(35:01):
We're thinking about doing these scenarios,things like how to pause appropriately at the
primary endpoint.
Very important, obviously, and things that MSLsare doing all the time.
But we asked our founding members, what do youwanna do?
What are your scenarios?
The breakthrough was they didn't ask for asingle scientific related thing.
(35:21):
They wanted things like Sarah was mentioning.
They wanted to know how to say no to theirboss, how to deal with a difficult colleague.
And I can't stop thinking about it since thenbecause Sarah and I started building this, and
we're so thankful for her founding memberscoming in with a corporate perspective.
Right?
We had ideas on what when a farmer farmerleader came to us, what they would wanna see.
(35:44):
But having this program for individual MSLs,now it it was so interesting.
They don't wanna see that.
They want stuff on boundary setting and sayingno.
And Mhmm.
It's amazing.
The A better life.
Yeah.
To to really be able to drill down to theindividual level of what's important to them.
(36:06):
What do they want to get better at when itcomes to presenting?
Because I think it really is individualized.
Because my the issue that I might be dealingwith may be very different from the issue that
someone else might be dealing with.
Yep.
And that's what's so great about our tool andthe program.
We can customize the heck out of it.
I know Tom wants us to wrap up.
Oh, yeah.
We're way over time.
So one last thing.
(36:27):
We are in the founders period of the elitepresentation lab.
If you wanna join, we have special pricinggoing on through July 4.
The program kicks off July 15.
It's a six month program.
We would love to have you guys reach out to me,Tom, or Sarah to get more information.
But, man, if you wanna uplevel yourpresentations, this is it.
(36:51):
You guys need to get in this.
It is a complete game changer.
Check it out.
Reach out, guys.
We'd love to to share the information with you.
Now what happens like, okay.
So it's right now, we're summer.
We're, like, pre fourth of July.
We're getting into this.
What happens if six months from now someonelistens to it and it's after the fact?
Do they just reach out and then get into that?
(37:13):
Too bad.
No.
I don't know.
Reach out.
You know what?
Just reach out.
Rude.
You're just rude.
Yeah.
Don't miss it.
Get in the first one.
Yeah.
No.
Well, it's kinda I I we're doing a lot.
Like, Katrina said, we're doing a lot on thecompany side.
So we might be able to do it for your entireteam.
If you're looking for an individual at thatpoint, we'll have a wait list, and then we'll
(37:37):
see when the next cohort will open.
Yep.
Listen, guys.
Practice.
Practice.
Practice.
Hopefully, this was helpful for you.
Hopefully, you look at this whole presentation,not dilemma, but the the the heavy lift that
comes with being a good presenter and realizethat with practice and with commitment to
(37:59):
yourself, you can kick ass.
I actually tell you, I I cringe when I wentback and listened to my earlier podcast.
Bob, I I say that to people, and a couple ofpeople are like, what are you talking about?
It sounds the same to me.
Not to me.
I'm telling you guys, practice will get youthere.
Sara and Pachina, thank you guys so much.
You, Tom.
Appreciate you coming.
(38:19):
And, guys, have an awesome fourth of July.
Yeah.
Happy fourth.
Yeah.
Happy fourth, and we'll see you next time.
Perfect.
Thanks, Tom.
Hey, guys.
Welcome to the podcast.
Sorry.
Technical difficulties.
We're trying to get things going.
I'm excited because I have my two partners incrime here.
Sarah Snyder and Katrina Pellet are joining me.
You guys know that we are the founders of MSLMastery, and we're gonna bring you
I
think this is a really important topic becausewe're hearing so much from the MSL community
(00:28):
about presentation skills, the importance ofit, the gaps, training needs, and it's just
really surfaced.
And now with AI and all the tools that are outthere, it's really become a great time to level
up and get yourself to a whole new place as apresenter.
(00:51):
So, guys, are you excited as you as as excitedas I am?
I think we're probably more excited, Tom.
Yeah.
We have to take down the excitement.
Yeah.
We're, like yeah.
Awesome.
Alright.
Well alright.
Where do you guys wanna start?
You want you want me to start?
Or
Me.
I wanna start.
(01:11):
Alright.
Sorry.
Where you go?
Question for you, Tom.
Oh, you have a question for me.
I got a question for you.
Okay.
And I think people wanna hear this too.
Back up five years ago when you started thepodcast Yeah.
It's been over that now.
Right?
So I remember listening to it before I was evera guest or anything like that and thinking,
this is really good.
(01:31):
So you have a natural speaking ability, but Iknow you've also done a lot of things to get to
where you are so comfortable and engaging onthe podcast and then just on virtual calls and
then general in person.
So what did you do to get to that point?
So it's fun it's funny that you should say thatbecause I had a very difficult time listening
(01:57):
to myself in those early years.
I I didn't wanna listen to my own podcastbecause you know you don't like the sound of
your own voice, and you're very hypercriticalof yourself.
But that's what helped me get better.
I actually forced myself.
I literally forced myself to listen to theearly episodes, go back, and I was I would
(02:24):
critique myself and take notes on the thenumber of filler words I would use, what the
words were.
I would listen to the inflection in my voice.
If if you go back, you'll hear a differentperson.
We gotta do that, Sarah.
Now we gotta do it.
I think you will.
I I do.
I feel like my confidence wasn't the same.
(02:45):
Not I'm I'm not gonna use the impostorsyndrome, but I was trying to figure my shit
out.
And the early days were just me kinda stumblingalong.
But, Sarah, you know and, like, to your point,I I was in I've been in five different coaching
programs.
I've taken courses.
I got certified as a speaker, trainer, andcoach through the Maxwell Leadership Program,
(03:09):
which I thought was awesome.
Getting to see what good looks like is super,super helpful, but the most important thing is
practice.
Those programs and anybody that is good at thiswill tell you that you have to practice.
And there's an awareness piece.
(03:30):
You have to know what your issues are, whatyour gaps are.
So for me, I had to go back and listen and takenotes and say, oh my god.
I'm I have to I'm listening to myself, and Icould hear myself.
That's not how I wanna be.
And that's what really got me better was thattrial and error and practice and and seeing
what good looks like.
So I got I have an idea.
(03:51):
Really.
I got two.
I got two ideas.
I think we have to take the original podcastthat he did and then one that he's done in the
last month, plug that in our tool and let it doa before and after.
It keep going.
Well, my my idea is much more stupid.
I was gonna think that we should tell everybodyTom is the AI behind our tool.
(04:15):
That he's the that we don't have AI measuringeverything.
It's Tom.
It's Tom.
He he did.
Or he watches it and looks for inflectionpoints and filler words.
Wouldn't that be so funny?
Imagine, like, a little Tom behind the scenelike
I'm in there, like, the wizard of Oz back therejust figuring it all out, counting all the
filler words.
Fillers.
(04:36):
Right?
Doing the whole thing.
Oh my god.
That's 17 umps.
You said so seven times.
I like how Sarah's idea was a good one and minewas a bad one.
They're both very good ideas, although I'm notgonna sit behind the box.
Yeah.
Just so you know.
But one takeaway that I had from what you justsaid, Tom, is that you practiced.
(04:58):
I think a con misconception that we see a lotwith all these different aspiring and new MSLs
and mid career professionals and pharma teamsthat we work with is that they think it's
something that people are born with.
Right?
That they come out of the womb ready to presentlike Bill Gates.
Right?
And this is just not the case.
(05:18):
Yeah.
I think that there is this some people are moregifted, and they're more natural.
He's like, I don't know.
Yeah.
Just saying.
Well, tough people.
You
know what's funny, though?
What's funny is what like, sometimes I'll meetpeople at conferences, and they'll be like, I
love your podcast because I love your accent.
(05:38):
I feel like I'm listening to a New York Citycab driver.
I'm like, really?
What?
But, no, I think I think it does come naturallyfor some people, but it can be taught.
That's the whole point.
Guys, the reason for this podcast is that wewant to help people become better presenters
because this could be taught.
But I wanna talk to you guys, and I wanna seewhat you're seeing.
(06:03):
So you're obviously, with coaching the aspiringMSLs through the Aspire program and and and
experienced MSLs and some of the team trainingprograms, like, what are some of the things you
guys are seeing?
Sarah, you wanna go or you want me to go?
You go first.
Well, I think a big turning point for mepersonally was when I started helping Tom and
(06:25):
Sarah with the Aspire MSL program.
If you guys don't know this, it's a point andshoot program for people that wanna transition
into an MSL role.
And if you haven't checked it out, you should.
It's freaking beautiful and awesome.
And one really important point about thisprogram is that Sarah and I give feedback on
(06:46):
practice presentations.
As you guys know, when you are transitioninginto an MSL role or in the interviewing
process, the final stage tends to be ascientific presentation.
And this is what makes or breaks you a lot ofthe time.
And, Sarah, do you wanna add anything on beforeI keep going?
Nope.
Keep going.
(07:06):
Okay.
Well, okay.
No break.
I have to keep going.
So Sarah and I will sit down with these folks.
We get the prompt that they get from thecompany.
We go through their slides one by one withthem.
So first, they give the presentation as theywould like, they're presenting to the hiring
manager or the panel.
And then Sarah and I sit there, and we are wego we're like, slide one.
(07:28):
Okay.
You said this or that.
We would rephrase it that way, or maybe youshould introduce a pause.
And this has been so valuable for the people inour program because it gives them very specific
actionable feedback that they are then applyingin the real interview and then landing the job.
And we know that this is making the differencea lot of the times for these folks.
(07:50):
What I noticed and what the turning point isso, guys, I'm coming around full circle here,
the full story here.
Yep.
You're like, Tom's like, is she gonna get toit?
This thirty minute podcast.
It's coming.
We were saying the same things over and over tothese folks.
So we saw the same problems over and over.
It's rushing through the slides, maybe datadumping.
(08:12):
Sometimes people are talking so fast, maybe I'mtalking about myself here, that they run out of
breath.
Right?
It's just things like that.
Sarah, what else would you add?
What what do we tend to coach on the most?
Biggest thing, reading notes.
That is it's it's not gonna get you hired in2025, 2026, and beyond if you're reading your
(08:33):
notes.
In fact, numerous times, Petrina and I havesaid you guys have to ditch the notes.
You have to know what's the most importantthing you're gonna talk about and go with that
and not have detailed scripts.
I think that's the number one thing I've seen.
Oh, yeah.
Definitely.
I mean, we've all been in those kinds ofpresentations, right, where people are just
(08:56):
reading, either reading their notes or readingtheir slides, and it's super boring.
Tom, what would you add?
What do you think we see most often in Aspire?
Well, I could tell you that there's thisconfidence piece.
Yeah.
And you hear it in the person's voice, and yousee it in their body language.
(09:17):
And and it changes the whole dynamic of thepresentation.
And
then a lot of times, those people and to yourpoint, Petrina, they might be just rushing
through it because they're nervous, or they'rereading the slides because they're nervous.
So part of this is getting confident.
(09:39):
And the only way you get confident is when youpractice.
Yeah.
And I think that when we see people that reallyput the time in and, guys, like, when I say
practice, like, I'm I did all this by myself.
I had to figure out what was it that I wasmessing up, where do I need where did I need to
improve, And then I had to practice.
(10:01):
It's the same thing.
But you need the awareness.
You need somebody to tell you, or you have tofigure it out yourself or do it in a mirror in
the mirror or record yourself and then look atit and be like, would I hire me kinda thing?
I used to do that too.
And in previous trainings, they would recordus.
Or I know some people will do it at home ontheir phone, but almost everybody I've ever
(10:25):
talked to hates to do it.
So Tom did it, but I think 99% of the peopleout there are saying, no way.
I'm not doing it.
And I might practice for my friend who's gonnasay great job, or I might practice in front of
the mirror.
But most of us aren't like you, Tom, and wecan't get ourselves even to record and watch it
because we don't like the sound of it.
(10:45):
It's interesting to think about.
Yeah.
When I look at my old videos, like very oldones on my YouTube channel, I wanna crawl under
my desk and die.
I'm, like, so freaking embarrassed by them.
It's it's amazing.
And I did a lot of what Tom mentioned as welljust watching myself.
You if you don't see what you're doing, toTom's point, with the visibility, you have no
(11:07):
idea what to fix.
And to Sarah's point, if you're just gettingfeedback like, good job.
This is this is actually not very helpfuleither.
Oh, you got like, literally, you want the hardtruth, man.
You wanna know because if you don't, you'rejust gonna keep making the same mistakes over
and over.
Yep.
And a lot of it's it's fixable.
(11:28):
A lot of this stuff is fixable.
I think probably all of it is.
But alright.
So let's let's kinda move forward with how didyou handle this?
So so seeing this, tell me about the evolutionof what you did to help folks.
Sarah, you go.
So we had the presentation part in Aspire.
(11:50):
Mhmm.
And then I think it was probably a random cellphone conversation between Patrina and I, and
we dreamt up this presentation mastery thatwould be part of MSL mastery.
So I would say your husbands would tell youthat all summer long, we worked on this project
every week.
Gone.
Yeah.
Those summer vacations, it was one of thosedeep dives where we wanted to learn from the
(12:15):
top TED Talks, from the top presentationcourses.
Every book that we could get our hands on, wetook, and then we molded it into an MSL and
medical affairs specific course.
I had really good training on presentationsearly in my career.
I still remember a lot of the philosophies Iwas taught, but it was not specific to MSLs.
(12:41):
So no matter how much our leadership explainedto that training director, this is what an MSL
does.
This is what m an MSL does.
They still didn't grasp the fact that a lot ofour stuff was thinking on our feet.
And they could have us go do this 10 slidething and record us and have us watch back.
(13:02):
But in reality, we were usually struggling themost with the questions after the presentation
or those really fast phone calls where orvirtual calls, not back then, but where you're
presenting to your team on a teleconference andnow on a Zoom call.
So those are the things where I felt like wehave to uplevel from anything existing out
(13:25):
there.
So it was this dream, and it came to fruition.
Yeah.
So we have this amazing online course.
It's it's a beast.
It has three huge modules, the art ofpresenting, scientific storytelling, and
crushing virtual presentations.
If you're a online course, kinda self pacedperson, you should definitely check it out.
(13:46):
And I wanna tell one story from when we weremaking this, Sarah.
So it was summer of twenty twenty four.
We were driving our husbands crazy because wehad to be on I was like, I have to work this
weekend.
I have to work.
And, Sarah, do you remember?
I think it was when we were doing thestorytelling one.
We spent the whole day recording.
Guys, if you haven't made an online course for,like, a one minute video, you record for, like,
(14:10):
thirty minutes.
I swear.
Know what you're gonna say.
Takes forever.
You you guys know this, Tom and Sarah fromAspire too.
You know, like, a one hour recording is, inreality, at least ten hours of recording
somehow.
It's always way longer.
Yeah.
But Sarah and I had spent the whole dayrecording, and we felt really good.
And then Sarah was the one uploading it intoour platform, and she texted me, and she said I
(14:33):
messed up.
Yep.
And I was like, oh, no.
What happened?
She didn't have our videos on.
Oh, no.
Yes.
I was like Yes.
Sat on it, and then we both luckily, we're youknow, Sarah and I are vibing.
We're, like, on the same wavelength.
Yeah.
I was like, Sarah, I think we have to do itover.
He was like, yes.
We do.
(14:54):
I was like, we can't be the presentation lady.
No.
No.
Not have any you know, in this course of stuffon body language and hand gestures and making
eye contact, and I was like, we have to redoit.
So when I told my husband, he just, like, shookhis head.
Right?
He was I know.
Was like, we have to.
(15:15):
But that listen.
You know what?
Therein there's a therein lies the nature of ifyou want something to be good, you gotta put
the time into it.
And if if you have to redo it, you have to redoit.
I know that I've I've created full videos,gotten to the very, very end, and then I'm and
I screw up, or I don't like it.
(15:35):
And then I have to do a whole thing all overagain.
But, guys, when you're practicing and you'rebecoming a good presenter, or if you're
practicing for an interview, that's what ittakes.
Don't think that you're wasting your own time,or don't think that you're a loser.
That's what it takes.
You have to put the time in.
So talk to me about some of the stuff that youare you know, that you found that you had to
(16:00):
put into the program.
So I know, Katrina, you're dying.
I'll just let
take a date.
No.
I wanna say some like, actually, it's not toanswer your question at all, if that's okay.
He's like
Go ahead.
Jump in.
Boy, I just wanted to tell another story aboutour presentation mastery online course, and
then we can tell you guys some stuff that's inthere.
(16:20):
Mhmm.
The first person that bought it was an aspiringMSL.
Do you remember, Sarah?
Yes.
We were a little worried.
We were like, did he get in the wrong program?
But he felt, to Tom's point, not confident inhis presentations.
And he knew the presentation was so important
So important.
For him to land this job.
And he took our course and got the job.
(16:42):
Sarah, do you remember?
We I think we were, like, dancing around.
We were so
We were so excited.
And I think that is when the bells rang off toothat we were still thinking about it more like
formal presentations and not like somethingwhere you might be doing a presentation to
three people on your team or to a couple salesreps, and it's only two minutes, but you have
(17:04):
to look at it like it's a presentation.
So he he looked at his entire interview processas a presentation, not just the scientific part
of it.
And I think that won him the job as much as thescientific presentation.
His scientific presentation was still one ofthe top 10 I've ever seen in my life.
It was so good.
Oh, for sure.
(17:24):
Remember after he gave that, Sarah, we said theonly reason you won't get this job is if
there's someone more experienced.
Totally.
Like, you have this in the bag.
This is yours.
But, Sarah, back to Tom's question.
What do you think throughout this process aresome of the key things that we pulled through
into the presentation mastery course.
Mhmm.
Well, one part that I have to tell you guysthat's in there that might not be the key part,
(17:50):
but one day, I said, Katrina, we're gonnarecord just a short 15 thing.
And she
said tricked me.
You tricked me.
Yeah.
You tricked me, you guys.
Yeah.
You did.
So she shows up, and I had her go through allthese vocal warm up exercises.
She had to stand up.
She had to do jump jack jumping jacks.
She had to sing a little bit.
(18:11):
She had to a little bit, all these things.
So that's in the course, but it's not myfavorite part.
But it is something where if you are doing areally big presentation and you need to warm up
your voice, I'm still getting over a cold, so Istill sound froggy.
So I would probably do it to try to get alittle of that out of my voice.
But I think the part that's really relevant toMSLs is the pause aspect, and we don't just say
(18:37):
pause more often.
We actually teach you how to strategicallypause.
And, also, the story aspect, that's a frameworkthat I think everybody has some storytelling
tips and the five steps to better storytelling,but this is a framework for putting primary
(19:01):
endpoints and secondary endpoints and safetyendpoints into stories, not case studies, not
patient examples, but storytelling with data.
So that's the part I think I like the best.
What about you?
I would say one thing and for the listeners totake away as well, and we're just seeing this
across the board with the people that we workwithin our communities and in the teams that we
(19:23):
train is working on your virtual presence.
Oh, yeah.
And when you're doing Tom's tip of watchingyourself, look at your facial expressions.
Look at your if you have resting murder face.
I know I have this really bad where I have theproblem where people have asked me what's
wrong, and that's actually just my thinkingface.
And so take a look, especially on Zoom, howyou're coming off.
(19:46):
We Sarah, what was that poll you did recently?
How many hours of week of virtual meetingspeople have?
Yeah.
Most people have four plus virtual meetings aweek.
And that poll got so many questions where Ikept getting DMs.
Well, is this a meeting where, you know, thatI'm doing a formal presentation?
(20:10):
I said, well, if you're talking, you'representing.
So answer like that.
Because even if you're on a call like the threeof us right now, we're still presenting.
So that's, I think, really important for peopleto grasp.
But even if you're talking for two minutes,it's still something that you should think
about your virtual presence on.
Yeah.
The other day, we were doing a training call,and Sarah made a comment.
(20:34):
All the MSLs look dead.
They did?
She was like We need the beginning, luckily.
We got
them Yeah.
Perked up.
But think about this and think from the ifyou're meeting KOLs virtually, do you wanna
look like you're dead or bored to death, or doyou wanna look engaging?
So take a look at your video like Tomrecommended and look at your facial
expressions.
(20:54):
I think if you can change that and uplevel thatalone, if that's only the one thing you take
from this podcast, then you're gonna be milesabove a lot of other people.
I feel like people are getting so used to beingon, you know, virtual meetings and on camera
that they actually forget they're on camera,and they don't put any effort into it.
(21:17):
They're not cognizant.
They're not aware.
I really think that there's gotta be an effortand an awareness to your virtual presence so
that you can animate yourself a little bit.
And I I have the opposite problem.
I use my hands too much.
I get overly animated.
I like He's
like a cat that's like swiping stuff off thetable all the time.
(21:39):
I'm telling you, like, I'm like, when I go outto dinner, watch out.
I'll knock shit off the table.
I'm spilling crap.
Like, I get really super animated.
That was one of the things I picked up when Istarted watching myself.
I was like, dude, you're getting me dizzy.
Just sit in your seat.
You can use your hands.
I think it's important.
I think hand gestures I know, Sarah, you I knowyou actually helped me with this.
(22:03):
I think you took a course or something.
There was something about hand gestures and TedTalks, and it's important to be mindful of your
hand gestures, but you also have to be mindfulnot to be too fidgety and move too much.
So we're running the gamut.
We're talking about, you know, resting murderface.
We're talking about looking dead.
We're also talking about being too animated.
(22:25):
But how do you know this?
You have to practice.
You have to watch yourself.
And if you if you can get if you could humbleyourself and get in the mode of just saying,
okay.
How can I get better?
It makes a huge difference.
Yes.
100%.
Yeah.
So I wanna transition to asking you guys, couldyou talk to a lot of managers and MSL leaders?
(22:51):
What are they saying?
What are the problems they're bringing to you?
What are what's the what are the issuespresentation wise with their teams?
Sarah, you want me to go, or you wanna go?
I'll go first on this one.
I think the two that jump out, and you probablyhave the same ones, Katrina, number one is
still data No matter what, that's still gonnabe one of them.
(23:14):
And I think it's still a problem even thoughwe've all gotten better because there's less
time.
So even if you think you're not data dumpingand you've really drilled down, people still
are so busy and have less time that you have tostreamline it even more.
And then the second thing is the thinking onyour feet and the impromptu presentations.
(23:38):
There is another LinkedIn poll that I did onthis, and it ended up three fourths of people
think they need more training on that aspect.
Most MSLs are quite good at if you gave them adeck with 10 slides and said, you're gonna
start to finish, go through those, nointerruptions, no q and a.
Mhmm.
I got this.
(23:59):
But that's I I mean, who gives thatpresentation like that?
No one.
What do you think?
I definitely was thinking storytelling.
And, right, if you if you're a data dumper
Yep.
Storytelling can help with that a lot.
And we get a lot of training requests fromthat.
So Sarah and I have really started to get a lotof requests from teams in pharma and biotech to
(24:22):
help with storytelling.
I would say another ask that we get a lot isrelated to what we were talking about with
looking dead, like, boring, being boringpresenters.
So not bringing energy to their presentations.
And the the managers aren't saying, you know,act like a sales rep or be promotional, but
(24:46):
give this a little bit of energy and bringpeople in.
And it's not the same as being, like, a cheesypresenter at all, but sometimes they're just so
clinical and dry that they want to see a littlebit more spark in the presentations.
Yeah.
And I can I'll add one thing because I alwayslike to look at things and and throw in the
(25:08):
interview aspect of this.
Yes.
And one of the biggest things that that we'rehearing, the failure of a lot of presentations
and interviews, is that there are too manyslides.
It's too long.
So now because it's it's a finite amount oftime that you have to do the presentation,
(25:30):
people are rushing through their slides.
They start off at a good pace.
Everything's going good.
Then they're like, oh my god.
I'm gonna be over on time, and I'm gonna getdinged for that.
Now they rush, and they're reading, and they'renervous.
Keep it shorter.
Yeah.
Less is more.
Right?
Sarah, would you agree with that as far asslide creation?
(25:50):
Yeah.
Believe it or not, I just read this onLinkedIn, and this was from pharma that 75% of
slides that are created and this isn't forinterviews, but this is for by MedCom,
SciComms.
75% of slides that are created are never evenused.
So that tells you people are only using thatquarter.
Sometimes those others a percentage of thoseslides have to be created for compliance
(26:14):
reasons, and you might have to show themquickly.
We're not talking about those kind of slides.
Yeah.
We're talking about the main stuff.
You gotta know what you're gonna go over.
And like you said, Tom, less is more.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you guys like, for listeners, these guysare like, they're so far ahead when it comes to
all of all of this stuff.
(26:35):
What's the latest in in in training, and andwhat are the issues out there?
I from my seat watching you guys, I've seenthis, like, breakthrough.
Yeah.
I've seen this breakthrough happen.
Can you talk about just what you've been ableto learn and develop just through AI and how
(26:57):
you're using that?
Because it's fascinating to me.
Yeah.
Sarah, I'll start, and then you go.
Alright.
So, guys, we we put together our online coursepresentation mastery.
That's been really great.
Then we started doing presentation skillstrainings for MSL teams.
And one thing that Sarah and I really careabout a lot in our trainings is that they are
(27:21):
not boring and that an MSL does not wanna buy aticket home to leave that training early.
And you guys have probably done these type oftrainings, but you might have to sit through a
day long thing where everybody presents one byone to get feedback.
Or even worse, you're in a peer to peer peer topeer situation, so you present to each other.
(27:42):
Right?
When you're doing presentation skills, youwanna get advice from the expert, not from your
peer.
So when Sarah and I were thinking about theasks that we were getting from pharma leaders
and how we were gonna deliver a presentationmastery course or in person or team training,
we immediately went to AI.
(28:03):
And Sarah has previously taken an AI basedpresentation course, and I'm gonna pass it over
to you, Sarah.
I don't wanna steal your thunder.
I'll tell you that AI presentation coursechanged my thought process about practice.
It completely shifted for me.
I gave it to myself as a Mother's Day giftcouple years ago.
(28:24):
And I know that sounds crazy, but like Katrinasaid, I had done a lot of role plays as an MSL.
I think we're all doing an eye roll when wehear that word.
And then it's one of those things where,Katrina, how did I do?
And you say, good job, Sarah.
Maybe you could slow down a little bit when youwent over such and such.
And then we we're done with that, and we startto chat about where we're going to dinner that
(28:47):
night, and that is over.
Right?
So I got nothing out of it.
The AI tool gives you immediate feedback, and Ilearned more in two days of that course than I
had ever known about my presentation skills.
I gained a lot as an MSL doing promotionalprograms where I had to do them all the time,
(29:09):
think on my feet to different audiences,etcetera.
And you could get the feedback from theaudience.
You could feel if they were engaged.
You knew it.
You did a pretty good job.
But AI breaks it down.
If you're on YouTube Tom, can they see where itsays MSL Mastery AI Coach?
Or no?
Well, if you're on YouTube, you can see it.
Yeah.
You can
see it if you're on YouTube.
(29:29):
So if you're not on YouTube, there's these twolittle blocks, the black boxes for Zoom, and it
says MSL Mastery AI Coach.
Katrina and I both have those on here.
At the end of this call, we will know what ourstyle was, our demeanor, how many filler words
we use, what our pace was like if we had a lotof inflection in our voice.
(29:54):
We'll get more metrics on this than most peoplegot their entire career.
So that combined with our presentation course,I think Katrina's like, Sarah, stop talking
about it.
But I I love this thing, and it gives youimmediate feedback, which is something that if
you know, hey.
I gotta present on this conference calltomorrow.
I'm a little bit nervous.
(30:15):
I gotta share this abstract from ASCO.
It was a late breaker, so everybody's gonna beon the call.
You can hop on there, and you can practice itand get immediate feedback.
You don't have to record yourself because weknow everybody hates to do that.
Yeah.
So the breakthrough for us and the feedback hasbeen phenomenal from the teams that we've been
working with is introducing this AI tool.
(30:37):
So we'll drill on a skill and then haveeverybody practice with the AI tool
individually, and then they get real timepersonalized feedback.
And I was worried when we when Sarah and I didthis the first time, I was like, oh, they're
not they're not gonna like this.
And we were blown away by how much they likedit.
And, you know, looking back, you know,hindsight is always twenty twenty.
(30:59):
MSLs love data.
And so getting to see their data, they lovedthe metrics.
They were all talking, I got this manypercentage on conciseness, and they really
liked that.
And so that that was really, I think, ourbiggest breakthrough.
And talk about the five p's because I thinkthat that's such a big part of it.
(31:19):
Just to kind of explain the relevance how thatall came together and ties in.
Oh, yeah.
Yep.
Sarah, you want me to do it?
Or You can take that one because it's five p'splus Katrina.
We have we have a joke because we have anothercongress planning workshop that we do that it's
the three p's.
So our joke is that we only do frameworks thatstart with p's.
It only has p's because
(31:40):
of the change.
So what we did and the reason that we chose theAI tool that we chose is that we have a
proprietary five p framework.
These are five different things that werecommend people optimize in their
presentations to be powerful presenters.
We had built that out in our presentationmastery online course, but our AI tool allowed
(32:01):
us to put that into it and have metrics for it.
So now we can measure MSLs, how they're doingon pauses, pitch, pace, pronunciation, and
projection in real time.
Mhmm.
Sarah?
I think she hid it.
You hit it.
Sorry.
I got a couple of Yeah.
She knew.
(32:22):
Yeah.
So I'll I'll I know Tom is looking at thewatch, you guys.
He's like, oh my god.
These videos I I let up shut up.
But Listen.
Okay.
But we could go on forever.
Yeah.
You
know?
I have to share one thing because I don't knowwhere you're gonna go with the next question.
So just so that we get it in.
Because we talked a lot about scientific datapresentations, and that's what we always think
(32:42):
about in the medical affairs realm.
But the other thing that is so cool about thisparticular tool and what I liked about it when
I initially took the course is that I couldapply it to my life.
So if you've ever had a scenario where I gottago talk to my boss or oh my gosh, they asked
me, can you cover this conference in a week?
Somebody else backed out.
(33:03):
And you've already covered three, and you thinksomebody else should do it.
But you so you call your friend.
Right?
And you say, can I practice on you?
Or you write down what you're gonna say to yourboss or whatever.
That's what you can do with AI AI tool too.
And you can say, you know, here's what I'mgonna say.
You actually say it, and then it gives youfeedback and suggest different ways to say it.
(33:23):
So I think that's a cool thing too that wedon't think about enough is how we can improve
presenting a new idea or presenting somethingthat we're not happy about so that we're not
weak and that we also don't seem super angry.
That that's level two.
Yep.
Awesome.
So this let's transition because I know thatthe AI tool is not a part of the presentation
(33:50):
mastery course.
It's a part of the Elite Presentation Lab.
Correct?
Yep.
So what happened after Sarah and I deliveredthis team training and got these really great
results and we saw how much MSLs liked it, wedecided we need to bring this to individual
MSLs.
And that's why we started the elitepresentation program.
(34:12):
We if you guys haven't seen it yet, you shoulddefinitely check it out.
It is a six month program where you learn a p,one of the five p's, and then you practice it
in the tool.
And we have role plays and well, not let's callthem scenarios, whatever you wanna call them,
of real life things that MSLs will come againstin the field.
We just had a meeting yesterday with our theour founding members, and we had another
(34:36):
breakthrough there.
Yeah.
Sarah, do you wanna talk about that?
You can keep going because
I She's like, what breakthrough?
I don't know what she's talking I I agree withyou that it was definitely a breakthrough.
I think some of it was about how to say no.
Yeah.
Little bit about how to get promoted.
What else did you what were your maintakeaways?
So the what we did with our founding members ishad a quick meeting to say, okay.
(35:01):
We're thinking about doing these scenarios,things like how to pause appropriately at the
primary endpoint.
Very important, obviously, and things that MSLsare doing all the time.
But we asked our founding members, what do youwanna do?
What are your scenarios?
The breakthrough was they didn't ask for asingle scientific related thing.
(35:21):
They wanted things like Sarah was mentioning.
They wanted to know how to say no to theirboss, how to deal with a difficult colleague.
And I can't stop thinking about it since thenbecause Sarah and I started building this, and
we're so thankful for her founding memberscoming in with a corporate perspective.
Right?
We had ideas on what when a farmer farmerleader came to us, what they would wanna see.
(35:44):
But having this program for individual MSLs,now it it was so interesting.
They don't wanna see that.
They want stuff on boundary setting and sayingno.
And Mhmm.
It's amazing.
The A better life.
Yeah.
To to really be able to drill down to theindividual level of what's important to them.
(36:06):
What do they want to get better at when itcomes to presenting?
Because I think it really is individualized.
Because my the issue that I might be dealingwith may be very different from the issue that
someone else might be dealing with.
Yep.
And that's what's so great about our tool andthe program.
We can customize the heck out of it.
I know Tom wants us to wrap up.
Oh, yeah.
We're way over time.
So one last thing.
(36:27):
We are in the founders period of the elitepresentation lab.
If you wanna join, we have special pricinggoing on through July 4.
The program kicks off July 15.
It's a six month program.
We would love to have you guys reach out to me,Tom, or Sarah to get more information.
But, man, if you wanna uplevel yourpresentations, this is it.
(36:51):
You guys need to get in this.
It is a complete game changer.
Check it out.
Reach out, guys.
We'd love to to share the information with you.
Now what happens like, okay.
So it's right now, we're summer.
We're, like, pre fourth of July.
We're getting into this.
What happens if six months from now someonelistens to it and it's after the fact?
Do they just reach out and then get into that?
(37:13):
Too bad.
No.
I don't know.
Reach out.
You know what?
Just reach out.
Rude.
You're just rude.
Yeah.
Don't miss it.
Get in the first one.
Yeah.
No.
Well, it's kinda I I we're doing a lot.
Like, Katrina said, we're doing a lot on thecompany side.
So we might be able to do it for your entireteam.
If you're looking for an individual at thatpoint, we'll have a wait list, and then we'll
(37:37):
see when the next cohort will open.
Yep.
Listen, guys.
Practice.
Practice.
Practice.
Hopefully, this was helpful for you.
Hopefully, you look at this whole presentation,not dilemma, but the the the heavy lift that
comes with being a good presenter and realizethat with practice and with commitment to
(37:59):
yourself, you can kick ass.
I actually tell you, I I cringe when I wentback and listened to my earlier podcast.
Bob, I I say that to people, and a couple ofpeople are like, what are you talking about?
It sounds the same to me.
Not to me.
I'm telling you guys, practice will get youthere.
Sara and Pachina, thank you guys so much.
You, Tom.
Appreciate you coming.
(38:19):
And, guys, have an awesome fourth of July.
Yeah.
Happy fourth.
Yeah.
Happy fourth, and we'll see you next time.
Perfect.
Thanks, Tom.
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