Welcome
In this issue I
would like to lay to rest an urban myth that only 7% of a presentation
is based on the words that you use. This figure is used by presentation
trainers and coaches around the world, but it just is not true.
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We also continue
with our A to Z of Effective Presentations, this issue we are on to the
“C”s.
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Understanding an Urban Myth
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
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.
A
to Z of Effective Presentations
In
this issue it is the turn for the “C”s, including: Call to Action -
Creative Visualisation - Confidence.
 When
you are giving a
business presentation, there is inevitably a reason why you are
presenting which is more than just to entertain. You may want to
educate your audience but invariable you are also trying to influence
them or persuade them into a particular course of action.
Think about why you are presenting, what is it you would like people to
do as a result of your presentation. It may be that you want them to
buy your products or services then and there, or maybe you have slightly
more modest ambitions to move them on to the next step in the sales
cycle.
Maybe you want them to change the way they think about something. If you
have given them an excellent, informative, entertaining and persuasive
presentation, do not end it without a call to action. If you just leave
people to go away and think about it, and no matter how fired up they
are by your presentation, they will go off back to their normal world.
Back to where other pressures are placed on them, where interruptions
are rife, back to what they are used to. Even with the best will in the
world, they will be distracted and may not follow through.
You need to set them a challenge, a call to action that will move them
further forward in the direction of your goal. You need to get them to
buy in to your proposition.
Ending a business presentation without a call to action is essentially a
massive waste of time. You have wasted your time and their time,
because without the call to action the chance of someone taking action
off their own initiative is very low.
Presentations are not one off events; they should be part of an
integrated plan to achieve your goals. The call to action coming at the
end of a presentation tells the audience what they should do next.
Without it, you are giving control over the process back to your
audience, which means you no longer have control. Control that you have
invested a great deal of time and effort in, by creating and giving the
presentation.
Creative Visualisation is a technique that you can use to instil
confidence in yourself, to calm the nerves prior
to a presentation and to help ensure your presentation is a success. It
is a technique that first surfaced in sports. Before a high dive
champion jumps off the top board, he or she may use Creative
Visualisation to imagine the perfect dive.
Springing off the board, curling in to the first roll, arms in tight,
knees up against the chest. Then extending out, fingers stretched, toes
pointing at the ceiling and back perfectly straight. This is followed
by the entry into the water, fingers first followed by the arms, head,
torso, legs then feet and toes, without a splash. Finally, surfacing to
rapturous applause and a perfect score from the judges.
By
visualising this perfect performance, it helps to convince you that you
can do it, it helps to make you think about all the various steps,
clarifying in your mind exactly what you have to do to make it perfect.
You can do the same with your presentation; imagine standing on the
stage, not fidgeting, talking loud and clear, the audience are hanging
on your every word, smiling back at you and when you finish, them rising
to give you a standing ovation.
Creative visualisation is
just one of the ways of overcoming the fear and nervousness of public
speaking.
If
you want people to believe you, you have to belief yourself first. You
need to talk like you mean it.
Leave out all those phrases like “I think….” and “Perhaps …” be more
definite.
Instead of saying, “I think, if we worked together we could probably
achieve our goal” say, “Together, we can achieve our goal”, “In fact, we
can exceed it!”
I
remember, when I was working for a large well-known software company, we
had a very important product launch of a completely new suite of
software. As part of this launch we were staging a massive presentation
for hundreds of existing customers and potential prospects.
It
was so important that we hired a voice coach to preview all our
presentations to ensure we were up to scratch. I gave my presentation
and was given a very positive assessment, except for one part where I
had to talk about the multi-lingual capabilities of the software. The
coach asked me if I believed what I was saying. I had to admit that it
was the one aspect of the product suite that had not yet been
implemented and that I had my doubts about how well it would perform.
She said that the doubt came across in my voice and that I either need
to convince myself that it would work or leave that part out of the
presentation. So I went back and talked it through with the developers,
learnt more about how they were going to achieve the support for
multi-lingual operation and became convinced that it would work. The
presentation went off with out a hitch.
When it comes down to it, if you do not believe it yourself, you will
never get others to believe it.
If you are enjoying
the “A to Z of Presentations” but can’t wait the years that it will take
before we get to “Z” in this newsletter, an alternative is now
available. My ebook “A to Z of Effective Business Presentations” is now
available. You can download it from
www.businesspresentation.biz This book provides everything
you need to know about how to organise, structure and give an effective
business presentation. All in one easy to read ebook.
Thank you for reading this far
I
hope you have found this issue of Markets View interesting and
informative. Don’t forget to check out my new website at
www.businesspresentation.biz there are free presentation tips and
tricks to download, my ebook “A to Z of Effective Business
Presentations” and an Excel workbook that will reveal your favourite
influencing styles.
Don't forget about the new tele-conferencing service. Put 0871 230
8892 in your mobile phone today, you never know when you might need
it.
If
you know someone who could benefit from training or coaching in
presentation skills, please pass on my contact details. |
