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Articles about Business PresentationsThis is a long page full of articles I have written about how to design and deliver effective business presentations. The titles of the articles are listed on the right. Click on a title and it will take you to the article.
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How to Choose a Presentation Training Course |
Article Index |
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There are hundreds of different presentation training courses
available, all of which promise to banish your nervousness and make
you an accomplished public speaker. How do you choose the right
course for you? Googling "Presentation Training" will at first sight generate a very long list of different vendors who offer the same "Presentation Training". But as you look closer you will find some trainers approach the topic from a theatrical perspective, some from a business background, and a few from an educational viewpoint. While most courses cover the core elements of public speaking, they are all biased towards their own area of speciality. Some trainers put more emphasis on the dramatic aspects, some on the techniques of presenting and some on the desired outcomes. In general:
Firstly, consider the type of presentation you are likely to be giving. Is it for a best man's speech, is it for business or is it about the technology of presentations. If it is for business or sales presentations you need to choose a business presentation training course. There are many aspects of giving a business presentation that may not be covered by a one-size-fits-all public speaking course. I recommend googling "Business Presentation Training" rather than "presentation training". While I'm on the subject of searching for providers using Google, I also suggest you include the nearest town or city in the search. This narrows down the proliferation of training companies to ones that run courses in your area, and may save a long commute to the course. Does the course give you the opportunity to give at least two presentations? You need to practise and get feedback on your presentations, if it is all talk from the lecturer you won't learn nearly as much. However, beware of courses that are almost all practical. You need to have some tutorial time to ensure that you are practising the right skills. How many people are allowed on the course, I recommend a maximum of 6. Any more and you will spend too long listening to other people giving presentations. The larger the class the less opportunity there is for the lecturer to take on board individual concerns you might have or to focus on the particular type of presentation you are most likely to be giving. How long is the course? Most courses are either one or two days. If time and cost are not an issue then a 2 day course usually provides more time for practising but can you afford to take 2 days away from your desk? A competent trainer should be able to cover all the main points about how to structure and give a presentation, plus allow enough time for practicals on a one day course. Do they use video feedback? It is really useful to see and hear yourself giving a presentation. It is only with video feedback that you can appreciate what you really look and sound like. Don't shy away from courses that use video, they are usually well worth it. How are the practical presentations reviewed? Is it just the lecturer's comments or are the other participants encouraged to comment on your presentation. Everyone is different and different people will pick up on different things so a wider review panel is usually better. Actively reviewing other people's presentations is also a good learning exercise. In a business presentation, you are invariably trying to influence your audience in some way. Either trying to get them to buy a product or a service or to think about something in a particular way. This adds an extra dimension to the public speaking skills you need to learn. A good business presentation skills course will address the subject of how to influence people and how to get them to think the way you want them to do. The price of presentation skills training courses vary tremendously but in my experience price is not always representative of value. Just because a course is comparatively cheap it does not mean it may be of lower quality then a far more expensive course. But do consider the average number of participants and the length of the course. Often cheaper courses have higher delegate numbers and are therefore less personal and less able to meet your specific needs. Then there is the level of training. Some companies offer beginners courses, typically 1 day, intermediates courses, typically 2 days and advanced courses typically 1 day. This structure of training according to different levels of experience seems valid on first sight, but I believe it is more about increasing the potential revenues for the training companies. Over the years, I have run presentation courses for hundreds of people, some of whom have been completed novices, some who were particularly nervous, and some who have been very experienced. I have used the same course structure for everyone and 99% of the people have rated the course as good or excellent. I believe the focus should be on the results, i.e. what people should be doing in their presentations after the course, rather than focusing on how much they knew beforehand. There are certain things everyone should do when they are giving a presentation and it doesn't matter whether it is their first presentation or their five hundredth presentation, they should still be doing the same things. That is what a good course will teach them. The only exception to this is for the experienced presenter who needs to tune his or her technique and correct any bad habits they may have fallen into. The problem here is that by going on a course with other experienced presenters who have different problems to address it becomes difficult to a lecturer to address everyone's individual needs without boring the rest of the class. In these cases I recommend a one on one coaching session rather than a standard course. This enables the coach to focus on the improvements that the individual wants/needs to make. Training companies themselves vary in size and structure. Some are huge organisations, with lots of employees that train in a wide variety of different subjects. The lecturers in these companies tend to be career trainers. Then there are the other apparently large training concerns which actually subcontract all the work out to smaller companies. Then there are the specialists and one man bands. Almost every training company offers some form of public speaking training, on the basis that their trainers are always standing up talking to people, so they should be able to teach other people how to do it. I would suggest that in the case of giving a business presentation this is not always true. No matter how good the agenda would appear to be, the success of any training course depends on the lecturer. Who will be running the course you are attending? If the training company can't or won't commit to who will be running a particular course, be very wary. Does the company provide feedback and client testimonials for individual lecturers? Don't rely on general company wide testimonials, they may not relate to the individual who will be running your course. Ask for specific testimonials for your specific lecturer. Ask if you could talk to someone, in a similar position as yourself, who has been on the same course with that lecturer in the past. Good training companies should be able to arrange this without any problem. Look for trainers who have been there and done it, not just the ones who talk about it. If you are looking for a business presentation training course look for one run by a business person, who has given lots of business presentations not an out of work actor, who knows about appearing on stage but little or nothing about business. Finally, check what you will get in terms of course materials. If is just a copy of the lecturer's sides than this is fairly useless as a source of additional learning. Look for courses which provide a source of ongoing reference material, check lists and the support to ensure your future success. I wish you every success in your choice of presentation trainer
and your future presentations.
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How
to Choose a Presentation Training Course There are hundreds of different presentation training courses available, all of which promise to banish your nervousness and make you an accomplished public speaker. How do you choose the right course for you? With the rise of networking meetings the need to be able to give an effective presentation in only 60 seconds has become increasingly important. These short speeches, sometimes called “elevator pitches” compress all the rules of presenting in to one short burst. 7 Questions to ask when creating a presentation One of the hardest aspects of developing a new presentation is deciding where to start. To help you I have 7 questions that you should ask yourself, or the others around you, which will help to define and structure your presentation. Be Yourself, Be Nervous, Be Passionate Worried about giving a presentation? Don't let the nerves take away your emotion. Why Corporate Presentations fail There are two main causes behind the failure of most corporate presentations. Firstly, the person who designed it is not always the person who presents it, and secondly they have to be designed as a one-size-fits-all presentation. Designed for what the author thinks will be a typical audience. Who needs presentation skills training? Why spend good money and valuable time attending a Presentation Skills course? More to the point, why should you send your staff on a presentation skills course? The standard percentages that are often quoted in relation to public speaking, are that 7% of the information is conveyed verbally, 38% vocally, and 55% visually. These percentages have become an urban myth, propagated by presentation trainers and voice coaches around the world. The problem is that they are wrong! The three most common mistakes when giving a presentation The three most common mistakes, made by presenters around the world are:
Five Aspects of an Effective Presentation These are:
Opening for a Presentation or Speech First impressions are very important. People often make instant judgments when a speaker stands up to talk. Start by giving off a poor impression and it will take a long time to recover, if you ever do. How to Structure a Presentation that Sells Here is a 10 step model which will have them begging for more.
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The One Minute Presentation |
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With the rise of networking meetings the need to be able to give an
effective presentation in only 60 seconds has become increasingly
important. These short speeches, sometimes called “elevator pitches”
compress all the rules of presenting in to one short burst. Think about the objective of your talk. Is it to sell your products and services? I think not. Networking groups do not usually like the high pressure sales pitch and no matter how simple your product or service is I doubt that you could do it justice in 60 seconds. I suggest that the objective for your talk is to spark an interest so that anyone who is interested can find you and talk about it in more detail later. It may also be to make people remember you and what you do, so that if and when they hear someone else asking for help in that area they will remember you and pass on your details. Are you good at remembering people names? Most people are not good at remembering your name unless they are already interested in you and think it might be important to remember your name. So starting your 60 seconds with your name and your company’s name is a complete waste of time. What you should do is put a spin on what you do to make it more unexpected, more interesting and therefore more memorable. I run presentation skills training, so I might start by saying “I teach business people how to talk, for those of you who already know how to talk, I’ll teach you how to make people listen.” For an accountant rather than saying “I’m a chartered accountant with 35 years experience in handling the accounts for small businesses” you might start with “I count beans”, for a florist “I soften wills and strengthen hearts” for a copywriter “I put your thoughts and emotions into other people’s heads”. I’m sure you understand the idea, you want some intrigue in your introduction. Having established what you do, the best way to make it memorable is to tell a story. One with which your fellow networking friends can associate. Tell them about a funny incident or a particular success you have had recently. I always remember a story by a guy who works in data recovery. He told me one of their clients called him from his hotel room in New York. The client had just arrived in town to give a major presentation the following morning. Unfortunately, while out sightseeing he had dropped his laptop and it had been run over by a Yellow Cab. The laptop was ruined and it held the only copy of his presentation. Luckily, he remember putting my contact's number on his phone a few weeks before. He called, my contact then called the local agent, who sent someone out to the hotel, recovered the data and enabled the presentation to go ahead as planned the next morning. Finally, end the presentation with your name and your call to
action. There is a much greater chance that they will remember your
name, once they are interested in what you do. And of course, no
business presentation is complete without a call to action which
tells the audience what you would like them to do. For me that call
to action is “Give me a day – I’ll change how you give a
presentation, for ever”
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7 Questions to ask when creating a presentation |
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One of the hardest aspects of developing a new presentation is deciding where to start. To help you I have 7 questions that you should ask yourself, or the others around you, which will help to define and structure your presentation. These questions come from a summary of the answers I received from a question posed on LinkedIn, and I would like to thank everyone who responded to my question “What three questions do you ask yourself when you create a presentation?” Let us start with an assumption that you know roughly what the presentation will be about. The questions to ask, starting with probably the most important question of all are: 1. Who is my audience and what do they care about? The more you know about you audience the better. How many of them will there be? What do they know about this topic already? How receptive to your ideas will they be? What are the demographics and psychographics of the audience likely to be? The number one question that the audience members will be asking themselves is: WIIFM? (What’s In It For Me?). After you have created the presentation, go through each and every part of it and ask “Why is this bit important to my audience?” If you don’t have a clear answer, then change the presentation.
2. What is the goal of the presentation and how will I measure the success in meeting that goal?. Your goal should be relatively short term, so that when you measure how well you achieved it, you can still remember how the presentation went. Think about the goal in terms of “What do you want your audience to do as a result of the presentation?” “What would everyone do in an ideal world?”. The more quantitative these actions are the better. A secondary question, once you have established your objective is “What call to action shall I use at the end of the presentation to reinforce this objective and encourage people to meet my goals?” The last thing you should say before you sit down is your call to action, which tells people how to meet your objective. 3. What pain does this presentation cure and how do I express or get the audience to feel that pain in the opening? A well established principle of the solution selling approach is that without pain, there is no change. If people are completely happy with the way things are they will never feel the need to change. In order to create a need for change you have to expose the need, which is mostly commonly done by exposing the pain. As business presentations are invariably promoting some form of change you need to establish a case for change early on in the presentation. Highlighting only the pains can leave a sour taste in the mouth, so ensure you also paint the vision of success, i.e. what it will be like once that pain has gone away. 4. What would potential objections be to my message and how do I overcome such objections? If there are likely to be any potential objections then you are far better tackling them head on rather than trying to skirt round them. Thinking of the three worst questions you could be asked and formulating a response to those questions will boost your confidence and give your presentation a more rounded feel. 5. How can I make my messages memorable? All too often presentations are listened to and then quickly forgotten. You need to think about how you can make it memorable. Think about where your passion lies in this topic, devise ways to make your audience think about the subject. After all the more people do the more they understand. Your visual aids can also help to get your message fixed in their memory. Use creative imagery that creates a strong mental image, rather than the ubiquitous text bullets. 6. How much time to they have to spend with me? There is nothing worse than running out of time or running overtime. Establish up front how much time you have for the presentation and then ensure you take 10% less. 7. How will I grab their attention at the start? There is little point in giving a presentation if your audience are not listening. Right at the start you need to grab their attention and make them think about the subject to hand. The reaction you are looking for is a “Wow! I thought this would be good but this is going to be great! I really need to give it my full attention!” Answer these 7 questions and your presentation should be practically complete. Thanks to everyone who contributed by answering my questions on LinkedIn. You can see the original questions and answers here And here. http://www.linkedin.com/answers?viewQuestion=&questionID=571190&askerID=1347785 Finally, if answering all 7 questions seems a bit too much for you then there is another approach to presentation development promoted by David Eastman, of Chicago which I think deserves a mention. It is: 1. What's up? 2. So what? 3. Now what? As David says “Those are the three subliminal questions most participants have when attending any presentation. I structure every presentation around those three questions so the participants understand my main points (and the problems or situations to which they apply), why those points are important, and then how to apply the information they just received.” All the very best with your future presentations.
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Be Yourself, Be Nervous, Be Passionate |
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Many articles about giving a presentation start off saying how people are nervous or even frightened of speaking in public. Then they go on to provide guidance on how to get over the nerves and give a good presentation. All the good advice of preparation and practise, taking deep breaths, sucking a mint, not drinking the water, remember the audience are just people, that they are on your side, that nothing nasty will happen etc., is all very well intentioned but it doesn’t always help. The fact is that for many people, controlling their nerves puts them into to “I’m a serious business person” mode or “I can stand in front of the audience and not look nervous” mode. With one of these hats on, they feel they are able to give a good presentation, speak clearly and get all the facts across. The problem is that in removing their nerves, they also remove all the passion and emotion from their voice. They become slightly robotic and dull in their delivery. Even people for whom presenting is part of their daily job, and who you might expect to be good presenters because they are doing it all the time (e.g. lecturers, trainers and salespeople) can fall foul of this. I’m sure you all remember a teacher or lecturer, who droned on and on. What is the point in giving a presentation when you could just type it out and let people read your script? After all, your audience can read it far quicker than you can say it, and then you could all go home and get on with your lives. For a presentation to be effective their needs to be something else, other than a well written script, there needs to be some emotion. The speaker needs to communicate their feelings and their passion to their audience. Think of all the really good presenters that you have listened to. I would suggest that what made them good speakers was that they caught and held your interest; they believed in what they were talking about; their passion and enthusiasm came through. So the next time you stand up to speak, don’t worry about being nervous. Let your emotions show. Your audience will love you all the more for it and they may even keep listening to the end of your presentation.
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Why Corporate Presentations fail |
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How many corporate presentations have you sat through? How many of them have really excited you? Why are so many business presentations boring? It all starts with the person who created the presentation, typically someone in marketing or business development. They accumulated a lot of knowledge about their markets and about their products services and solutions. They know what benefits their solution provides and they know what problems their target audience are looking to solve. They also know they need to provide a consistent brand image. This is all really good knowledge for creating a presentation about their company and how it can meet the needs of their market. They set about creating a spectacular PowerPoint presentation, often utilising the skills of graphic designers to create aesthetically pleasing slides. This result is then approved by senior management and after several iterations is rolled out across the company as out new corporate presentation, which must be used in all sales situations. After weeks and months of effort this corporate presentation, which the authors are so proud of, then fails to wow the audience. Why? There are two main causes behind the failure of most corporate presentations. Firstly, the person who designed it is not always the person who presents it, and secondly they have to be designed as a one-size-fits-all presentation. Designed for what the author thinks will be a typical audience. What affect do these two factors have in the design of the presentation? In designing a presentation for someone else to give there is a tendency for the author to spell out every single aspect of the presentation. After all the person delivering it may need to be educated in what to say, and may need to be reminded of the particular benefits that they should bring out. This leads to lots of text on the slides. Slides full of bullet points, to ensure that the presenter says the “right” things about the company and stays “on message”. In cases where slides purely contain images the author can not be sure that the presenter will say the right thing. Having slides with lots of text is not good presentation practise as the more inexperienced presenter tends to read the slides then say what the slides say. Good for ensuring they say the right thing, but really boring for their audience, who can read the slide far quicker then the presenter can say it, and who effectively gets ahead of the presenter and then stops listening, because he/she already knows what the presenter is about to say. The second problem is the one size fits all nature of corporate presentations. Because the author does not know exactly who the audience will be, and what particular aspects of their products, services and solutions will be of interest, then tend to include everything. Very few audiences will actually be interested in everything a company has to offer and different people will be interested in different levels of information about the company and its products and services. For example, while the CEO of a prospective client may be interested in your financial success, geographical coverage, and number of employees very few technicians will be interested in this information. What they want to know is the technical details about your products. The end result is a presentation where up to half the content is irrelevant to your audience, which makes the whole presentation particularly boring. How can you avoid these two fundamental problems, and still ensure that your staff bring out the right points for their audience? To reduce the amount of text on your slides I recommend that you put all the information that the speaker needs to know in the speaker notes, not on the slides. Go through your corporate presentation and ask your self, what elements of each slide are there for the speaker and which elements are there for the audience. Then put all the speaker stuff in the notes section. Don’t write a full script in the notes, because some people will try reading the script when they give the presentation which invariably comes across as dull and boring. Include an opening phrase for each slide and a set of bullet points on the areas to be covered. The second problem can be addressed by creating a slide library, rather than a corporate presentation. Create a variety of different slides for each aspect of your presentation according to the potential needs of different audiences. You will still want to keep the overall structure of the presentation consistent, but have different slides for different audiences which can be plugged in according to the needs of each particular audience. Of course, designing a good usable presentation is only half of it, the other half is educating your staff in how to deliver a presentation with enthusiasm, passion and purpose.
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Who needs presentation skills training? |
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Why spend good money and valuable time attending a Presentation Skills course? More to the point, why should you send your staff on a presentation skills course? These are questions that I am asked every day. The quick answer is: “To learn how to talk” but I understand if you think that answer is rather flippant. After all everyone can talk already, and as for what to say, how can a trainer who has little or no experience of your company or your job know what to say better than you do? Anyway, training courses are an expensive luxury, which we can’t afford in the current economic climate. Anyone who needs to learn how to give a business presentation can just watch how other people in the company do it. "We don’t need presentation training." Does that sum up your attitude to Presentation Skills Training?
Let’s look at this from another perspective. How many presentations have you sat through? Probably, hundreds if not thousands. How many of those presentations do you actually remember?
And what percentage of those that you remember are you remembering for all the wrong reasons. The ones that went wrong. The really boring ones. The ones where the presenter made a fool of him or her self. How many really good presentations do you remember? Less than a handful? That is not a very good percentage success rate, is it?
Are your presentations like everyone else’s presentations? Do you do what most other people do? Are they really that boring, instantly forgettable, and a complete waste of time? Attendees at my Effective Business Presentation course have discovered, how to create and deliver memorable, motivational, must see presentations. I’ll explain what goes wrong and why, and you will discover how to conquer your nerves and wow your audience with an effective business presentation, in your very own style. For people who are new to presenting, you will discover the right way to give a presentation, for the more experienced presenter you will learn what is good and bad about your current style and how to enhance and tune your presentation skills. For both the novice and the more experienced the end result is the same, the ability to confidently deliver, a compelling presentation. No Budget Hopefully you now see the benefits of sending people on a presentation skills training course, the only problem left is: “because of the current economic climate we have cut our training budget.” OK, so times are hard, there is less business available in many markets, you need good strategic decision making to ensure that your company not only survives the recession but continues to grow. Does that mean you should cut the training budget? Question: Why do companies invest in training their staff? Answer: To make them better at their jobs. Question: When confronted with a difficult business conditions would you prefer your team to be better at their jobs or worse at their jobs? Answer: To be really good, so that we win new business and keep our customer base. Question: Tell me again, why have you cut all your training? Answer: Errrrr…..
Make your company and your staff stand out against the rest, ensure they know what they are doing when they are talking to your customers and prospects.
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Understanding an Urban Myth |
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The objective for most business presentations to is educate and
influence people, while at the same time providing some
entertainment to keep them interested. To achieve this, the
audience must understand what you are saying. There are three
aspects to understanding what someone is saying:
The standard percentages that are often quoted in relation to public speaking, are that 7% of the information is conveyed verbally, 38% vocally, and 55% visually. These percentages have become an urban myth, propagated by presentation trainers and voice coaches around the world. These percentages are not only misleading, they are wrong. The origins of these figures are two separate studies, one conducted by Albert Mehrabian and Susan Ferris (1967) which compared vocal tone to facial cues, and the other by Mehrabian and Wiener (1967) which compared vocal tones to single words. The single word used was “maybe”. Mehrabian himself says "My findings are often misquoted. Clearly, it is absurd to imply or suggest that the verbal portion of all communication constitutes only 7% of the message." However, that said, the way you say something has a tremendous affect on the way the words are received and the visual stimuli have yet another affect. What to aim for is having all three communication mechanisms, verbal, vocal and visual, to be in line with each other and to re-enforce each other. Verbally Are the words that you are using easily understood by your audience? Try to avoid jargon and slang. Follow the KISS principle, decide what your main message should be and stick to it. Do not confuse the issue with a number of smaller less imported side issues, which do not support your main theme. They may be interesting points but if they are tangential to the rest of your presentation, they are best avoided. Vocally Can your audience hear you? Are you talking loudly enough? Are you talking too loudly? Talking too loudly can be as frustrating for the audience as someone who talks too quietly. I remember one sales training presentation I attended where the speaker felt he had to shout to make his points. The first couple of times he shouted everyone paid attention, the next couple of items people started to become irritated and from then on, everybody switched off and did not listen to a thing he was saying. As well as the volume, try to enunciate clearly and do not mumble. Put some feeling into your voice rather than just reciting information in a monotone. By varying the pitch, tone and volume of our voice, you will capture people’s attention and they will understand you better. If you are unsure of how to put that sort of feeling into your voice, practise by reading young children stories from their books. Most people become more animated when doing this. Visually What the audience sees has to reinforce what they are being told, and how they are being told it. If you were told by the managing director that the company was doing really well and it was destined to break all its targets, while he was slouching about with a face as long as a wet weekend. Would you believe him? Your visual aids, e.g. PowerPoint slides, should illustrate the points that you are making verbally, they shouldn’t just be a list of bullet points but convey some added value. Remember, all three aspects must corroborate each other. Having either of them contradicting what you are saying will ruin the communication.
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The three most common mistakes when giving a presentation |
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Think about the presentations you have sat through. Think about the good ones, the ones that enthralled you and kept your attention. Now think about the ones that bored you rigid, that had you looking at your watch to see how much longer this was going to go on. What made the difference? Why are some presentations so much better than others? What did the poor presenters do wrong? The three most common mistakes, made by presenters around the world are:
This is probably the most common mistake which people make and its effect is devastating for many presentations. By relying on the slides to remind you what to say next you are turning the whole process on its head. You are no longer giving a presentation; you are merely describing what the slides say to those members of the audience who can not read! Slides are visual aids, the purpose of which is to provide a non-verbal element of the presentation , which helps to reinforce what the speaker is saying. You should always start talking about a topic before you bring up the slide.
Even if your audience are ostensibly there to hear about your company’s products and/or services your presentation should not just be about the features and attributes of your products, services or your company as a whole. It should be about how your products and/or services affect your audience members, what benefits they will gain by using them, what problems they will overcome or what opportunities they can exploit.
There are two reasons why the answer to this should be “no”. Firstly, lists of bullet points do not make good visual aids. Secondly, if you display the full list of bullets and then start to talk your way through each of them one by one, the audience will get ahead of you. While you are talking about the first bullet, they will be reading all the others and then they have to wait for you to catch up with them.
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Five Aspects of an Effective Presentation |
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OSRAM – The Five Components of an Effective Presentation - Part 1 of 5 The Objective How do you give an Effective Presentation? What makes the difference between an average presentation and an effective presentation? There are five main components of an effective business presentation. The acronym OSRAM should help you to remember them and help you to light up your audience. The five components are:
You should consider each of these components in turn to maximise the effectiveness of your presentation. Neglecting any individual component can ruin an otherwise successful presentation. Put them together correctly and you will turn on a light in people’s heads; brighten up their lives; get your audience to see and understand things, about which they were previously in the dark. This series of articles looks at each of these components in turn and discover what needs to be done to ensure the success of that component. The Objective What do you want the audience to do as a result of your presentation? To create an effective presentation the first thing you need to decide is what the objective of the presentation is. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But there may be more to that simple statement than you first perceive. You could say that for a product presentation the objective is for the audience to learn about the product, but that would be a very poor objective, as there is no action associated with it and no way of measuring how successfully it has been accomplished. The question you should ask yourself is ‘Okay, after my presentation they will know more about our product, but what do I want them to do next?’. If your answer is ‘I want them to buy it’ then maybe you have gone to the other extreme. This objective may be fine if you work on a market stall and sell a vegetable chopper that cuts, slices and dices everything from tomatoes to pineapples. In that case, it may be realistic that after you have presented how easy it is to use and what a lovely job it makes, some people will want to buy one. For a market stall presentation, “selling the product” is a very good and plausible objective, which is measured by the thickness of your wallet at the end of the day. However, for most business-to-business sales, it is unlikely that the presentation will lead directly to the sale. The sale may happen months later by which time you will have forgotten how well the presentation went. So what is your objective? And how can you measure your success? The best objectives are SMART objectives. SMART stands for:
In the above examples objectives “getting the audience to know more about my products” is not easily measurable or very specific, and buying the product is not very timely. A reasonable objective, when the presentation is the first real contact that members of the audience have had with your company, may be for 40% to arrange follow up meetings with your sales force. When you are presenting at a conference on a subject, in which your company specialises, you may measure the success by the number of people who come up to talk to you after you have finished. You can set yourself a target of say 10 people. If only two people want to talk to you afterwards, then it may be because your presentation did not stir up enough interest. If over 20 people come to talk you, you will have exceeded your expectations. As every presentation has an objective it is important that the presentation concludes with a call to action that informs, encourages and directs people to meet your objective. If you want them to arrange a meeting with your sales force, you need to tell them to arrange that meeting and make it as easy as possible for them to do it. Consider having the sales force join you after the presentation so they can talk to their prospective clients, there and then. With an objective of having people to talk with you after a conference presentation, you need to tell the audience where you will be and that you would welcome the opportunity to discuss any aspect of the subject in more depth, on an individual basis, or answer any more specific questions that your presentation has raised in their minds. As you can see, by objective, what I am really talking about is what action you want the delegates to take following the presentation. Of course, yours is not the only objective you need to consider. What are the audience’s objectives likely to be? What do they want to get from your presentation? Understanding your audience and their objectives is the key to an effective presentation and is discussed in the section entitled ‘The Audience’. Your OSRAM objective should be SMART and remember to use a call to action at the end of your presentation to reinforce your objective.
OSRAM – The Five Components of an Effective Presentation - Part 2 of 5 The Speaker The Speaker That’s you! Like it or not if you are giving a presentation you will be judged. Knowing that you are being judged is often a major factor in why people are nervous about giving a presentation. It is a perfectly normal reaction. My advice is to recognise that you are nervous, tell yourself that it is okay to be nervous and that it is perfectly normal to be nervous before a presentation and then try to put it to one side and get on with the presentation. The biggest factor in your success as a speaker is your confidence. If you are confident you will come across far better than if you are timid and nervous. One technique to improve your self-confidence before a presentation, is to say aloud the following statements, preferably before anyone else arrives in the room: ‘I am poised, prepared, persuasive, positive and powerful.’ ‘I feel composed, confident convincing, commanding and compelling.’ Write these two phrases on your first Cue Card. Say them aloud to convince yourself that they are true and you are more likely to give a confident, effective presentation. Confidence is all a matter of self-belief. You need to believe in yourself and you will be more confident, and come across as confident. Do not over do it though. Do not talk down to your audience they will never forgive you! Eleanor Roosevelt said, ‘No one can make you feel inferior unless you agree with it’. As perception is far more important than reality, looking confident can mask an awful lot of nerves that are bubbling up under the surface. The aim is to look like a swan gracefully gliding across the top of the water, keeping the feet, which are paddling like mad, hidden from view. Like the majestic swan, how you look and how you dress are very important in instilling that confidence in yourself and in your audience. Look out of place because of the way you are dressed and it will affect how well your message is taken. Although many businesses have a dress down policy these days, if you are presenting to a business audience it is usually advisably for a man to wear a suit and tie and a lady to wear a suit or similar business attire. Shoes should also be polished, as it is surprising what assumptions are still made about a person in business, based on the state of their footwear. When you are addressing a group of factory workers who are all dressed in overalls and you want to influence their behaviour, then a more casual appearance may be beneficial. You may want to appear less like one of the managers and more like one of the team. Every situation is different but there is never an excuse for not worrying about it. By wearing clothes that make you feel good, it will help to boost your confidence. Looking good is just part of it you also need to sound good. This means three things:
When you are projecting your voice, you use your diaphragm. This is completely different from shouting, which is achieved through muscles in your neck. It should not hurt to project your voice unlike it does if you shout too much. Finally, the most comforting thought to have before a presentation is that your audience want you to succeed. From the very outset, they are on your side. It is very rare to have an audience who does not want you to succeed, after all why would they be there. Why would they want you to waste their time listening to someone who is a poor presenter or who does not have anything worth listening to. So go give it, with enthusiasm, emotion and energy. OSRAM – The Five Components of an Effective Presentation - Part 3 of 5 The Room The Room Presentations take place in all types and sizes of rooms. They may not even happen in a room at all. The space and the facilities the room provides can make a huge difference to the effectiveness of any presentation. I have 3 simple rules about the room you are using for your presentation. 1. Arrive early You should always arrive early so that you can become accustomed to the room itself and check it over before your audience arrive. Arriving just before you are about to present, means there is no time to fix any problems that you may find and no time to grow accustomed to your surroundings. When you are one of a series of presenters, it is often best to practise your entrance. How will you get up to your speaking position? What does it feel like standing there? Where will I put my notes? A word of warning if you are using cue cards or notes, do not leave them on a lectern, keep them with you. It is all too easy for the previous speaker or the MC to pick up your notes along with theirs, leaving you helpless. Make a note of where people come in. Will late comers be able to join without interrupting your flow?
You should minimise the number and level of distractions, so that the audience pays attention to you. All too often presentations are made in an internal office room where various debris has been left behind by the previous occupant, including: writing on the white board or flipchart, books and papers left on desks or window sills, pieces of computer equipment that are not currently in use. All these things work as distractions from your presentation and should be tidied up before your audience arrive. Close the blinds on any windows in the room so that you audience are not distracted by what is going on outside. Make sure everyone can see you and the screen or flipchart (assuming you are using one). Try sitting in the back row to check that you can read the content of your slides. While you are there look around the room and make a note of anything that you can see that you do not need for the presentation and then remove those items. 3. Make sure that you know how to operate all the equipment. Now, I know you wouldn’t normally try giving a presentation if you didn’t know the basics of how any technology you are using works, but have you really thought through all the things that could happen during your presentation. Do not forget to turn off your mobile phone and the screensaver on your laptop. During rehearsals you will never spend more than 5 minutes on any one slide but in an actual presentation it is not unusual for some one to ask a question and you can be on the same slide for 15 minutes or so, which is when your screen saver will pop up. No matter how politically correct your screen saver is, it is very unlikely that it was intended to form part of the presentation. These days many other background tasks running on a PC can also interrupt your presentation such as “You have mail” messages, Instant Messaging text, anti-virus scans etc. try to turn all these things off before the presentation. Test the pens to make sure they all work, if you are going to use a flipchart or whiteboard. To make sure people can hear you, ask a friend or colleague to sit in the back row during the presentation, they can then signal to you if your voice is too quiet. When you are using a microphone, make sure you know how to turn it on, and do not forget to turn it off when you leave the stage. You do not want your private conversations being broadcast to the whole room. While I’m on the subject of microphones, don’t be tempted to tap it or shout “testing, one, two, three” to see if it working, it will make you look very unprofessional. With modern projection equipment, you should not need to turn the lights down for people to see the screen; however, it is always wise to check that there are no awkward reflections, which might interfere with people's vision.
OSRAM – The Five Components of an Effective Presentation - Part 4 of 5 The Audience The Message Last but by no means least of the five components of an effective business presentation, is your message. It is surprising where the time goes to when you get up and start talking. In a 30 to 45 minute presentation, you have only time to get across three main to points. Keep it simple! If you cannot state your central message in one or two sentences, you probably have not narrowed your topic enough, or clarified your thoughts enough.
I have 3 golden rules for making your presentation memorable: 1. Never let them get ahead This first rule is more about ensuring people listen rather than making it memorable, however if your audience don’t listen in the first place they are very unlikely to remember anything. As soon as your audience gets ahead of you and thinks that they know what you are going to say next, they will stop listening. After all, why bother listening if you already know it? How can your audience get ahead of you? The classic way is if you put up a slide with 5 or 6 bullet points and start talking your way down the list. While you are on the first point they will have read them all and will be ahead of you. Another classic is giving out handouts of the slides before the presentation. Everyone is likely to read ahead, to see what you will be talking about and will already have decided if you might be worth listening too, even before you stand up to speak. 2. Just Do It My second rule comes from a saying by Confucius:
While this may not always be true, after all, there are some things you hear that you will never forget, I think the general gist is true. Take driving to a new location as an example. The first time you go you need to look at the map to see how to get there but if you drove their one day you can invariable drive their again later without looking at the map. However if you were a passenger on the first trip and then have to drive there yourself another time, you will probably need to check the maps again. This is because when you drove you actually did it and understand where the location is, when you were a passenger you just heard and saw but didn’t really understand where you were going. What has this to do with presentations? If you really want your audience to understand what you are talking about you need to get them to do things. Either physically or mentally. Make them think, ask them questions, get them to participate, not just sit and listen. Take them on a journey where they imagine using all their senses, describe what it looks like, what it sounds like, what it smells or tastes like and what it will feel like to do something. 3. Do it in threesFor some reason that I can not explain, the human brain remembers three things better than it does two or four. Politicians and advertising executives have used this in speeches and in advertising for thousands of years. Vini Vidi Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered) - as Caesar said. Grace Pace Space – Jaguar’s tagline in the 50’s Just Do It – From Nike The tag line “Just Do It” is not “Just get on with it” or even “Do It” which logically you may think would have more impact and be more memorable. It is “Just Do It” because of the rule of 3. However, it does not even have to have just 3 words as long as the rhythm is right: “The Best 4x4 by Far” - from Landrover works because the way it is said has three phrases “The Best” , “4x4”, “By Far”. I apologise that the above examples have a very British flavour to them, but thinks of tag lines from your favourite vendors are I’m sure many of them will be in “threes”. When you cannot do it in three, then use 5 7 or 10. Groups of 2, 4, 6, 8 or 9 are not recommended, as they are less memorable. Do not ask me why, they just do not work as well. I suppose that is why we have a top ten, and not a top six or top nine. Politicians, leaders and advertising executives all use the rule of three. Now you know about it, look out for it. You will be surprised how often it is used. As you can see from the examples above another favourite memory technique is to use alliteration. Combing the rule of 3 with some alliteration is particularly powerful. Location, Location, Location - the great rule of property Education, Education, Education – what this country needs according to New Labour So have three benefits at the end of your presentation, it will be easy to say, sound better and be more memorable. Those are my 5 Aspects of an Effective Business Presentation, Objective, Speaker, Room, Audience, Message. You need to consider all 5 aspects before you stand up to talk, otherwise you could be heading for a disaster.
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Opening for a Presentation or Speech |
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First impressions are very important. People often make instant judgments when a speaker stands up to talk. Start by giving off a poor impression and it will take a long time to recover, if you ever do. But, what if this is not the first time the audience have met you? Is the opening of your presentation still quite so important? In my view the answer has to be an emphatic "yes". Indeed, the better people know you the more important it is to start with a good opening. Whether your presentation is a stand-alone event or just one in a whole series of different presentations, it is absolutely vital that you start by grabbing the audience's attention. If you don't metaphorically grab them by their lapels and make them pay attention, they are likely to be still thinking about the last presentation, or a phone call they had just before they arrived at the meeting. They may even be thinking "I hope this doesn't go on too long, I have things to do." You need to capture people's attention and confirm their hope that you will be an interesting person to listen to. You need to get them involved right from the outset. There is an age old saying about how to present: "Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them". When I first heard this I thought that seems a bit repetitive, surely people will get bored if I say everything three times. But I have since learnt that this single rule adds more to most presentations than any other, as long as you tell it right. The "Tell them what you are going to tell them" is your opportunity to grab the audience's attention. Put the core subject of your presentation across in a way that challenges the listener and makes the listener think. There are many ways of capturing your audience's attention:
The key to a good opening is to make people think; to wake them up and make them pay attention. For example, if you are an accountant and have to give a presentation on new tax laws, you could start by listing the main areas of taxation you will be covering. But most of your audience will probably be asleep before you have finished the introduction. An alternative, more attention grabbing, opening might be to ask "Who has too much money?", quickly followed by "So, why did most of you give too much to the tax man last year? During my presentation you will discover how to reduce the amount of tax you will pay this year." While grabbing their attention is important, it is also important that the opening is in line with the rest of the presentation. I saw a video once, of a headmistress trying to introduce a police officer to the children at an American junior school's assembly. The children were all noisily chatting away to each other and the headmistress's repeated requests for silence were being ignored. The lady police officer then tried to quieten them down with no success. So, she took out her revolver and fired a shot into the air. There was instant silence. She had their attention, but when she then asked in her most child friendly voice "How are you all doing today?" There was an equally stony silence. You only have one chance to make a first impression so it is worth thinking it through properly and working out the type of reaction it will generate. Once you have grabbed your audience's attention, keep them listening by telling them what they want to hear, rather than what you want to say. Finally, round off the presentation with a reference back to your attention grabber as part of the summary, in the "tell them what you told them part".
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How to Structure a Presentation that Sells |
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You know all about your products and services, you know all the features, the advantages over the competitor’s products and the benefits that you can deliver. You understand the problems that your prospects face on a daily basis, or what they would like to achieve. Now all you have to do is create a presentation to describe all this and make them want to buy it. How should you structure your presentation for maximum effect? Here is a 10 step model which will have them begging for more. 1. Start with a ”SMART” objective (SMART = Specific, Measurable, Appropriate, Realistic and Timely). Decide what it is you want to accomplish with your presentation and how you will measure your success. This should be in terms of what your audience members will do directly after they have heard your presentation. 2. Now, start your presentation by grabbing the audience’s attention. The reaction your are looking for is for people to think “I thought this was going to be good, but wow! this should be great, I really will have to listen”. Rhetorical questions are often a good way to achieve this. 3. Once you have grabbed their attention it is usually worth a sentence or two to establish your credibility. Why should these people listen to you? What experience do you or your company have in this area? 4. Now, given that you are trying to sell something, whether it is a product, a service, a solution or maybe just an idea or way of working, then you need to identify why it is needed. Because without the audience knowing that they need something there is no way they will spend money, time or resources on obtaining it. Usually the best way of doing this is to describe the problem they are no doubt experiencing without it. So describe the problem and the pain, make it as real as you can. 5. Having established the problem (or opportunity if you prefer to remain positive). Now is your opportunity to establish a vision of success. How wonderful it could be, if you no longer had that problem. It is vital that your audience buy in to this vision of success, that they really want it or need it. If they only pay lip-service to this vision of success they are unlikely to buy. 6. Now, tell them how you products, services, solutions, or ideas will work to start creating that vision. You may like to use cause and effect models, or problem/ solution models to help achieve this. As long as this middle part of the presentation is structured so that your audience can follow what you are saying, the actual structure is of less importance. Don’t forget to describe the benefit (“the what’s in it for you”) for every feature you mention. If you can’t think of a benefit to go with a feature, don’t mention the feature. 7. Once you have fully described you offering, finish with a summary of the benefits. 8. Now, given that this is a business presentation, and no-one can do business on their own, now is the point in the presentation where you put in the call to join together. Tell your audience that by working together you and them can achieve their hopes and desires. 9. In fact, by working together you can achieve the vision of the future that you laid out near the start of your presentation and that they all bought in to. So restate the vision, now. 10. Finally, you can have a Question and Answer session, and thank the audience for their time, but the last thing you should say before you sit down, is your call to action. Your call to action is an instruction to the audience on how they can fulfil your objective which you identified, right back up in step 1. Structure your presentation around these 10 steps and I guarantee you will generate a better response.
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