Monday 28 April 2014
Ditch the storytelling structure for your business presentation, but use personal stories to bring corporate messaging alive
I had a little
rant recently, suggesting: ‘There's too much talk about Storytelling, not enough about
how, when and when NOT to apply storytelling principles’. Well, last week a nice example of what I was
talking about came up when I was coaching a PR executive in Presentation
Skills.
The brief was to create a presentation
about her agency with the objective of encouraging other bright young
executives that this was the agency
to join. So, in true Lewis Carroll
‘Begin at the beginning…’-style, she started off thus: “First, a bit of
background: we were founded in 1984 by….”.
“Hang on a minute”, I said, “what was the
brief?” “To encourage young PR executives that this is the best place to come
and work”, she responded. “So why are
you starting off with ancient history?”, I said, “none of them were even born until
some years after that date!”
As with the construction of so many
business presentations, all the information was there; it was just in the wrong
order to work as a truly engaging piece of communication. In this case we
thought again about our audience. They were people who were keen to progress
their careers and wanted an exciting place in which to work. So a bit of
excitement should be first on the agenda. We re-constructed the presentation as
follows:
1. Open with three of the most high profile and dynamic pieces
of work recently undertaken recently by the agency; the examples also display a
broad range of different types of work.
This should engage the audience immediately – hey, this is the kind of work I would like to do!
2. A little bit of background – we were founded in 1984 etc. Placed
here, this is designed as reassurance
that it is also a ‘robust’ agency – they
do great work and it looks they can offer job security too.
With the audience now actively and
suitably engaged, you can relax a little, show some case histories, encourage
discussion etc.
Then you need high focus once more for
the all-important ‘Call to Action’ at the end – the moment when the presenter spells
out what she wants the audience to do as a result of her presentation. My
client was very clear that her big message was ‘this is the place for the best young PR people to come and work’
and she chose to wrap this up in the company’s stated values. My view was that this was a good approach,
but if she simply ran through the words, that is how it would probably be perceived
– as a bunch of words. To make it work for her she needed to pick one of those
values and tell a story about how it
related to an experience she had had while working at the company. As well as
making the values come to life, the audience would be able to relate to those
values, through the speaker – here is someone like me, living a life that I
would like to live myself.
By thinking strategically – and rather
ruthlessly - about storytelling structure, but then building in personal insights
at key moments, your presentation really can remain ‘happily ever after’ in the
minds of your audience.
Monday 14 April 2014
Killing the PowerPoint to bring focus back to yourself just needs ‘Plan B’
Last week I promised to reveal how you can blank out the
screen when using PowerPoint – so as to bring focus back to yourself and clear away
any distractions.
You simply press the B key and it blanks the screen; press
it again and the image returns to the screen. Similarly, if you press W it whites out the screen.
This facility is built into PowerPoint but few people know
about it. I have asked audiences numbering one hundred for a show of hands as
to how many people know what happens if you press the B key and had a mere
three or four responses.
The greatest need I have ever seen for the B key during a
presentation was when a PR man was talking through his consultancy’s
credentials. Very appropriately, he
said: “Before I conclude, let me tell you about some of the fun things we do”
and right on cue up went a picture of some professional women enjoying a night
out.
He continued: “We find this is a really god way of
connecting with one of our key target audiences, many of the journalists we
deal with are women etc etc. So, why
should you appoint us? Well, three reasons: first…..”. At the crucial moment of
his ‘Call to Action’ nobody was paying attention to what he was saying – they
were still looking at a picture of attractive women! Had he used the B key at that point, the
distraction would have been cleared away and attention would have come back to
him with the additional benefit of the now blank screen indicating ‘change of
mood – this is where we get serious again’.
Finally, it can take a while to get used to using this nifty
little tool and I have even heard people say: “But I can’t keep turning it
off”. My response is “Don’t think in terms of turning it off; focus instead on
turning it on when – and only when –
you actually need visual support”. Then I show them how Steve Jobs used to
deliver his brilliant product launch presentations and I say: “Notice how he
never puts anything on the screen unless it is actively helping him at this
particular moment”.
Presentation Magic. German edition published April 29.
Labels:
Powerpoint,
presentation skills,
Steve Jobs
Monday 7 April 2014
Why can’t PowerPoint shake off its ‘death by’ tag?
There
are many people throughout the business world and beyond who hate PowerPoint
and I discussed what I believe to be the root cause of its perceived failings a
while back in a blog I wrote at the time of PowerPoint’s 25th
birthday. You can click here to
read the article.
The
fact is, though, that the ‘Death by’ tag has been blighting PowerPoint for a
long time now. Why does it persist? Why don’t we just stop using PowerPoint or,
preferably, use it better? Recently have I discovered one key factor that I
believe does much to perpetuate ‘Death by’ accusations.
Alongside
my work as a Presentation Skills coach, I devote time to mentoring Apprentices
in the world of PR where I began my career. At an early part of their programme
the Apprentices have to outline the role and responsibilities of PR executives
at different levels. It dismayed me that they kept submitting work declaring
that PowerPoint presentations were one of the responsibilities of an ‘Account
Assistant’ - the entry level position just below that of ‘Junior Account
Executive’.
“No,
no, no” I responded, “PowerPoint is simply a tool that supports the speaker, so
it needs to be put together – or at the very least briefed – by the speaker
themselves so that they receive visual support to what they are saying”.
The
Apprentices looked confused and showed me the text book from which they were
learning. And there, alongside ‘research, maintenance of media lists and
general administrative duties’ was listed ‘PowerPoint presentations’ as one of
their duties.
Frustrating
as it was to make this discovery, it was not actually too much of a surprise. I
often get collared by minion types who say: "can you spare a few minutes to
advise me on some ‘decks’ of slides I have put together for the chief exec when
he sees the board next week". It’s not really helpful at times like this to hit
them with the truth which is as follows:
- You are confusing a bunch of PowerPoint slides with a presentation. You (or whoever is actually speaking) are the presentation; the slides are merely support.
- You MUST see the slides as support – a simple tool to help you get your point over – if and when appropriate. If your starting point for the presentation is the slides, then the speaker will be driven by those slides and they won’t really be themselves, let alone speak from the heart. And the audience's attention will almost inevitably flit between what the speaker is saying and what is being depicted on the slides.
- When creating a presentation think of yourself as a film director. They do not get their cameras out until they have thought through and planned out exactly what they want to get across! If you start without any visual aids at all and simply speak out loud you will soon discover where you need some visual support – the moment you are struggling or taking too much time to describe something is probably the point at which you need a visual aid. The solution may well be PowerPoint, but it may be something even more appropriate to this particular situation such as a prop of a simple board.
So how
do you kill the PowerPoint at a strategic moment (without powering down your projector)?
Come back to this blog next week and I’ll tell you about the little known but most
useful tool that's built into PowerPoint to help you.
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