Michel Neray
Michel Neray combines a science degree from the University of Waterloo, an MBA from McGill University, and a career as a creative marketing copywriter, advertising agency director and marketing executive. A visionary and entrepreneurial game-changer, in 1995 he founded Portfolios Online, the world’s first Internet search engine for advertising and creative professionals.
A naturally dynamic, fun and engaging speaker, Michel has held a variety of leadership positions in the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers, and has spoken professionally in more than seven countries. He is passionate about helping his audiences and coaching clients discover and communicate what he calls their ‘Essential Message’. That’s the most basic building block that enables individuals and companies to be the best at what they do; to have stronger relationships and better rapport with customers, colleagues, family and friends; to stand out from the crowd and make a difference; to network more effectively and more naturally; and above all else, to lead a more fulfilled, more effective professional and personal life.
Speaking topics
- Using Story to Get Past ‘Crossed-Arm' Syndrome
We’ve all been there. You’ve got a high stakes presentation or conversation, and the people in front of you are nodding politely, but all the while, the little voice in the back of their minds is telling them all the reasons why they just. won’t. agree.
Congratulations, you’ve experienced ‘Crossed-Arm Syndrome’! Your listeners have a brick wall of belief about something and that belief is the biggest driver for their decisions and behavior. It could be based on actual fact, or fiction, a hunch, a fear, a stereotype, or a skepticism, but whatever it is, no amount of data is going to convince them otherwise.
Neuroscience to the rescue. You see, neuroscience teaches us that we build up beliefs and views of the world through a process called Bayesian learning. The end result is like a brick wall of strongly held beliefs. There’s no use fighting it, but neuroscience also teaches us that our brains are wired to place greater emphasis on emotion… and there’s no better way to combine facts and emotion than in a story.
A strategically crafted story to overcome Crossed-Arm Syndrome may be the most valuable new skill you can get this year.
Key Take-Aways and Tools:
+ The physiological and psychological effects of storytelling
+ The 5 neural hooks that help your listeners identify themselves in the story.
+ Why case studies don’t cut it anymore
+ How to tap into the listener’s own subconscious desire
+ How to use this powerful technique
- Differentiation as a Platform for Brand Leadership
This keynote is fun, engaging, motivating and useful! It begins by showing audience members why an ability to stand out is the single most important challenge in this – or any economy. Then it teaches audience members a simple model for finding the strongest and most differentiating market message for their business, product or service. With this presentation, audiences walk away with the tools to establish market leadership and the personal motivation to drive it home.
Key Take-Aways and Tools:
- Simple model for developing a unique message and brand position.
- Why an ability to stand out and communicate uniqueness is the single most important challenge in any economy.
- The first steps to discover both personal and corporate differentiation.
- The Power of Purposeful Storytelling
How Leaders Lead, Coaches Coach, Salespeople Sell, Teachers Teach and Influencers Influence. It is well-established that stories are more memorable and powerful than facts and statistics. Stories are the basis of leadership, coaching, influence, teaching, sales and team culture. From the beginning of time, stories are how we have passed on our values, made sense of the world and effected change. Today, it’s how we influence our customers, our teams and audiences.
Combining exercises in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), classic story-telling, stand-up comedy, improv, acting and professional speaking, Purposeful Storytelling™ is an ongoing programme that helps participants strategically develop signature and turning-point stories to motivate/inspire/influence team members, customers and audiences in the most engaging and powerful way. Purposeful Storytelling was born from our experience with “momondays” — a monthly show of personal storytelling created by Michel Neray, that has expanded to over 14 cities in North America.
The full curriculum of the Purposeful Storytelling™ program covers:
- Story development – identification, story structure and audience journey.
- Performance – voice and stagecraft plus rehearsal techniques.
- Humour – comic relief, timing and pacing, the vocabulary of comedy and more.
- Hooks & Headlines – punctuating points, memorable phrasing and more.
- Blurbs & Bios – leveraging descriptions as integrated elements of the talk itself, and of your marketing.
This curriculum can be customized to match organizational objectives and duration of the program. It can also include a momondays-style special event to add an entertaining and fun element for everyone in the organization.
Key Take-Aways and Tools:
- Identification of impactful and differentiating messaging.
- Communications with more powerful calls-to-action.
- Stronger rapport with colleagues, team members, customers and audiences.
- Public speaking, presentation and leadership skills.
- Sales Telepathy Workshop
This skill-based keynote or workshop is for everyone in an organization who ‘sells’, including salespeople, proposal writers, managers and leaders. Using principles of change management, neuro-linguistic programming and tried-and-true direct response copywriting techniques, participants learn how to engage listeners/readers in a conversational approach that often feels (to the reader/listener) that you are reading their minds. A template is provided that allows participants to write extremely rapid first drafts of introduction and sales emails/letters.
Key Take-Aways and Tools:
- How to start a conversation to improve your chances of finishing with a nod of agreement.
- How to elicit the needs and wants of the customer or people you are speaking to so they ‘sell’ themselves!
- How to create a ‘burning platform’ to motivate your listener to take action now.
- How to create a powerful introduction letter or email in less than three minutes!
- What Makes You (Really, Really) Different? Workshop
In any market, differentiation is a key element of your brand and sales success. In a crowded market – such as the one most of us are in – differentiation is perhaps the most important, yet overlooked, factor. When looking for your own differentiation, either as a company or as an individual, the challenge is that you can’t simply ask, ‘what makes you different?’ The way our brains our wired, the usual and expected marketing questions will only elicit the usual and expected marketing responses – and you’ll be no further ahead than before. That’s why this workshop has been have been purposefully designed to be counter-intuitive — and unlike any other workshop or consultative process that you might have tried. It’s fun, refreshing and very, very powerful.
- Understanding the stereotype as a shortcut to differentiation.
- Category benefits vs differentiating benefits
- The five levels of differentiation
- Crafting your own personal ‘rallying cry’ –
- Surfacing the story behind your ‘why’
- Aligning your personal mission with the company mission.
- Conversational Networking, Marketing & Selling Workshop
This workshop helps participants develop customer-centric listening skills, and then teaches them how to develop intelligent questions that speak directly to customer interests and needs. This enables participants to ‘ask’ their way through a proposal or sale rather than ‘push’ their way to a decision. The interactive exercises also help participants learn about each other, also making this ideal for networking events.
- Why elevator pitches don’t (and will never) work!
- What truly interests people about your business, service or proposal.
- How to engage the other person’s mind in conversation using Impact Statements, Persuasion Drivers and Provocative Questions.
- Identification of impactful and differentiating messaging.
- Communications with more powerful calls-to-action.
- Purposeful Storytelling Workshop
It is well-established that stories are more memorable and powerful than facts and statistics. Stories are the basis of leadership, coaching, influence, teaching, sales and team culture. From the beginning of time, stories are how we have passed on our values, made sense of the world and effected change. Today, it’s how we influence our customers, our teams and audiences.
Combining exercises in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), classic story-telling, stand-up comedy, improv, acting and professional speaking, Purposeful Storytelling™ helps participants strategically develop signature and turning-point stories to motivate, inspire and influence team members, customers and audiences.
- Improv for speakers and presenters.
- Storytelling performance & delivery
- Storytelling structure and audience journey.
- Topic descriptions that sell.
- The craft of comedy for speakers and presenters
Video clips
Speaker testimonials
“Michel Neray’s ‘Purposeful Storytelling’ training has not only helped internal staff be more effective in their respective roles, it helped us access new sources of revenue. In addition, our front line staff reported they were more effective in the field. We would definitely hire Michel again, and in fact, we did!”
Michel, we really appreciated the time you spent with the leadership team and others in the company to understand our needs and get different perspectives. On a personal note, your presentation made me think of how we view ourselves as a company, and what we can do to take greater advantage of our strengths. Your keynote has already positively shifted our thinking and strategy going forward. Thank you.”
Michel, what really stood out for us compared to other speakers we have worked with is that you were easy to work with and, in doing the interviews leading up to the event, you really went above and beyond the actual speaking engagement. As for your keynote, it helped us all realize why it was important for us as an organization to define and communicate our core purpose. This language has continued to become part of our organizational discussion, and as a result, your keynote helped accelerate our strategic direction. Thank you.”
Michel, your Purposeful Storytelling coaching helped me land a great client, which gave me a 30x, or 3,000% return on my investment!! Now I am conscious about storytelling as I never was before. Thank you!
Even though you never once described what you do as teambuilding, I have to say that it was one of the best teambuilding activities we could have done. Even more significantly, in one afternoon you managed to do something we’ve wanted to do for months. I believe you gave everyone a new sense of enthusiasm and purpose. We all now have a better understanding of how our unique strengths play into our lives and work, and I hope to see a real difference in how we bring those strengths to work more consciously and deliberately.”