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Will the Real Rob Biesenbach Please Stand Up?

by Neil Raphel

Here's a strange coincidence:

In the past year I've met two people with the name "Rob Biesenbach." Amazing, isn't it?

One Rob Biesenbach is a communications consultant who has been vice president at Ogilvy PR Worldwide, press secretary to the Ohio Attorney General, and communications director for the National Association of Attorneys General.

The other Rob Biesenbach is a performer who has studied acting, improvisation, and writing at the Second City Training Center in Chicago and has acted in more than 150 theatrical and commercial productions.

Well, maybe it isn't such a strange coincidence. It turns out that the communications specialist and the performer are the same person.

Rob Biesenbach has found a way to fuse his two professional careers in his new book, "Act Like You Mean Business: Essential Communication Lessons From Stage and Screen," which our publishing arm, Brigantine Media, just released.

Rob says, "As I was studying acting and performing onstage and in front of the camera it gradually occurred to me that some of the lessons I was learning there were directly applicable to my business life. Every communication should be treated as a performance. You have to tell a good story. You have to connect with the audience. You need to use humor. You have to entertain as well as inform. You have to appeal to the emotions. You have to express yourself visually. I saw the connection and I thought this would make a pretty good book."

For example, Rob recommends painting a picture to engage your audience:

"Don't just show pictures - create them in the minds of your audience. This is especially important when it comes to abstract or hard-to-grasp concepts. They can be meaningless without a vivid reference point.

"Take really large numbers. Did you know Brazil is losing fifty thousand square miles of rain forest a year? Sounds like a lot, right? But how much is that, really? It's actually an area the size of Louisiana. Isn't that better? Here's an example I came across on TV's "The Amazing Race." One leg of the competition took place in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which we're told is an incredibly dense city with one hundred thousand people per square mile. Once again, that sounds like a lot of people. But then our host, Phil, informs us that that's like cramming the entire population of the U.S. and Mexico into a space the size of Los Angeles. Very helpful, Phil!

"And how far away is halfway to the moon, anyway? I can barely grasp what all the way to the moon means. But tell me it's like five trips around the earth, or twenty round trips from New York to San Francisco, and I start to get it."

Rob believes the best acting isn't about creating false impressions. He says, "The best actors draw on their own real world experience and they show you an authentic part of themselves. They're not just faking it. They are showing you something they are feeling in real life. So when I say 'acting' I mean it in the best possible sense. The actors are revealing something authentic about themselves."

In the book, Rob gives practical advice for solving common business problems. For example, many business people have a very hard time describing their work to outsiders. Rob advises:

"Always keep in mind that people outside your business or industry are not steeped in the subject matter you deal with every day. If you want them to understand, you have to put things in their terms.

"Pretend you're talking to a neighbor or someone at a cocktail party. How would you explain things to them? Forget about precision and wordsmithing. Don't 'lawyer' it to death - you’re not on trial. Focus instead on the broader meaning of what you're trying to say.

"Use analogies. Paint a mental picture. And avoid insider buzzwords, acronyms, and jargon."

Rob uses humor and metaphor to explain important business concepts. For example, here is Rob's take on managing a meeting:

"My personal idea of hell is a rambling, interminable meeting with no agenda and a scatter-brained moderator who indulges random tangents and distracting side issues. It’s just a frustrating waste of time.

"One useful technique is to appoint an 'enforcer' - someone to help keep track of the time allotted for each agenda item and alert the group when things veer off course. That frees the meeting leader to focus on the substance of the discussion while someone else plays bad cop.

"Keeping a meeting tight and focused - it's even better than bagels and donuts."

So, listen to both Rob Biesenbachs. Start thinking both like a businessperson and as a performer. You'll be amazed at how using some ideas from acting can invigorate the way you e-mail, speak, and even think in your business life.

"Act Like You Mean Business: Essential Communication Lessons From Stage and Screen," is available at Brigantine Media" for $17.95. A trade paperback, the book is 184 entertaining and information-packed pages.