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Born in the South Bronx in New York City, Troy Woodson arrived in Finland 5 years ago with over 20 years of sales and public speaking experience with large multinational corporations. Trained by Pfizer and Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceuticals, Troy has presented to hundreds of doctors throughout NYC. Bringing his expertise to Finland, he embarked on a career as a corporate trainer helping Finnish business people master the skills associated with using English to present a product or service to large audiences.
Learning cross-cultural communications the hard way
In the South Bronx there was lot of crime. In order to survive, Troy had to to know the language of the street, learn some humor, use some Spanish, and be a bit of a chameleon. In cross-cultural communications you must retain your core, but adapt to the particular culture you’re interacting with.
Later, professionally he learned the tools from companies that specialize and train about cross-cultural communications.
Painting the picture for your audience
Successful speakers relate an experience that paints a picture in their audience’s minds. As a pharmaceutical rep in the late 90s, Troy presented new products to doctors in NYC. He always started talking about a particular patient type with a name, humanizing the patient, let’s say Ann, how she lost quality of life. By this point every doctor had Ann in their minds, she was their patient. Then he would reveal the product, a pill, and their benefits.
Steve Jobs and Tony Robbins are great examples of what painting the picture means.
The key to painting the picture is identifying why that person is there, what they need.
Favorite quotation
“Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.” — Oscar Wilde
Recommended book
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosiński
Routine to Shine
Do something every day that makes you uncomfortable.
Links
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