Plan a moment in your business presentation that you know you are going to enjoy – and create your ideal environment

The recent death of ad man Peter Marsh reminded me of two very useful tips for enhancing your confidence and boosting your impact in business presentations: 1) Plan a segment of your presentation that you know you are going to enjoy 2) Wherever possible, make the environment work for your presentation as much as what you say and what you show.

Together with Rod Allen at the agency Allen Brady & Marsh, Peter Marsh was the brains behind the famous R White's "secret lemonade drinker" and "gotta lotta bottle" campaign for milk. They were the kings of the catchy jingle and became known for an overtly theatrical style of presentation. This extended to creating an environment that best suited their presentations. Most famously of all they purposely turned up late for a British Rail pitch, where the client waited at a table with half-empty coffee cups and overflowing ashtrays. Just as the client was about to leave, Marsh appeared and said: "You've just seen what the public think of British Rail. Now let's see what we can do to put it right". The agency won the business.

Now, I’m not going to suggest you should wear white suits or go into song and dance routines, as Peter Marsh did. That’s all a bit 1970s anyway, but the point is that he was clearly enjoying himself as he drew on his background as an actor. There is much to be said for letting a little more of the ‘real you’ shine through – you are likely to excel and your audience will warm to you.

More specifically, having a segment that you know you are going to enjoy presenting will underpin your confidence as you move towards it, then you can bask in a bit a glory as you move on from it, towards your all-important Call to Action.

I have a number of little moments that I enjoy in my training sessions and talks. It won’t really help to quote them here out of context but they tend to be short videos, little anonomised stories from training sessions, and references from magic, movies and music.

As for creating environments that support the presentation, I can be more forthcoming. I used to work in Drinks PR and was always faced with having to launch products out of season. So for a summer drink I was announcing in February I hired a theatre backdrop of an English garden on a summer’s day and brought my outdoor furniture into the boardroom. Similarly, when selling a promotion for an after-dinner drink, I divided the long boardroom table into two. When the moment came, I darkened the room, lit some candles and invited my audience to move to the other end of the table – which was set for dinner. In neither situation did the audience have to imagine the scenario I was proposing – they were already living it.

Furthermore, they enjoyed the experience and I enjoyed creating it – to successful conclusions on both occasions.

New Year’s resolutions for business presenters – should you drop the PowerPoint?

It’s the time for new beginnings and fresh approaches, so anyone with a business presentation high on their New Year agenda may well be considering some changes in how they address their audiences.

“Should I abandon PowerPoint”? is the question I am most frequently asked by those seeking a radical re-think. “No” is my emphatic answer for most scenarios. What I do recommend to many people, however, is that they view PowerPoint in a rather different way.

You need first to see PowerPoint as a tool that is there simply to help you get your message across to your audience. Too many presenters regard their PowerPoint slides as ‘the presentation’ and the slides end up driving them rather than supporting them. “You are the show”, I tell them!

Having re-framed PowerPoint in your mind as a tool, it now needs to be seen as just one of a number of different options within your toolbox. You should really use whatever tool is going to do the job most effectively: that may well be PowerPoint, but it could also be a simple picture on a board, a flipchart, a group exercise, some music or old-fashioned technology such as an overhead projector.

For all my talk of ‘tools’, PowerPoint is really just a ‘Visual Aid’ and the best way to decide where you need Visual Aids – if indeed you need them at all – is to do an initial run through of your presentation without any aids at all. This puts the focus in the right place – on you and what you are saying – and it points to where you need aids. The moment you struggle to explain something or perhaps take too long to describe a feature is the moment you need a Visual Aid. Then you can decide what type of Visual Aid would do the job most effectively in this instance and you can make this decision objectively, without PowerPoint becoming the automatic default.

“So should I give up the bullet points”? is the next question I am often asked. “Not necessarily” is my usual response. Bullet points can actually be very effective in capturing and reinforcing the essence of what you are saying, while also framing related points together in a natural group. Two points are key to doing this effectively:

·      Restrict your bullets to a list of five; ideally make it three

·      Keep them all to one-liners

The moment a bullet point spills over into a second line it loses the majority of its potential impact and audience members are now having to choose whether to listen to you or read bullet points.

To see how this all works I invite you to watch any Steve Jobs presentation. He always uses PowerPoint (or his own Keynote version) but he only ever puts anything on the screen if it is actively helping him – and thereby his audience – at that particular moment. Most of the time it’s about him and his products, along with appropriate props and demonstrations.

One firm recommendation I can make – and something you might like adopt as a New Year’s resolution – is as follows:

Drop the bullet points – and indeed the PowerPoint – from your opening and closing passages. A blank screen as you open enables you to establish a personal connection with your audience members before their attention gets sucked into the screen. Then, as you close it’s time to deliver your Call to Action – the moment at which you need to look them straight in the eye and ask them for something. Generally speaking, that is so much more effective coming from you – speaking straight from the heart – rather than via a bunch of bullet points.

 

Final question: “How do make that happen from a technical point of view”? Try pressing the B key. For many, one of PowerPoint’s most useful features remains hidden in plain sight.

Happy New Year!

The prime time to stop rehearsing and fiddling with your presentation is sooner than you think

I am not going to have a nag about the need to rehearse when you are giving a presentation - let’s take that as read and consider this:

When should you STOP rehearsing?  In an ideal world (and I am all too familiar with how grim things can be in the real business world) the answer is ‘24 hours in advance’. It’s what magicians call the ‘Hollingworth Rule’ after esteemed conjuror Guy Hollingworth who points to the futility of say, cramming for exams until the moment you walk into the room, and instead advocates a period of rest and reflection. It’s like the stories you hear of generals who pore over plans throughout the night, only to lose battles to rivals whose final briefing was: “Big day tomorrow, let’s all get some sleep”.

It that case, what’s the best chance of getting proper sleep the night before?  An important part of the early stages of preparation is – again in an ‘ideal’ world – to visit the venue in which you will be presenting. That enables you to make logistical plans but, most important of all, it allows you to visualise how things will be on the big day. As you lie in bed the night before you can then have it all quietly turning over in your mind and you will probably fall into deep asleep. If you can’t visualise the scenario because you are not familiar with the venue, you will have a sense of ‘nothingness’ churning away in your head and that will keep you awake.

Whatever you do, avoid any major ‘structural’ work on your presentation at the late stages.  I despair when people start offering ‘helpful’ comments the night before such as: “I think perhaps we should rethink these colour schemes”, or “can we add a demonstration of the product”.  Such suggestions can only create and add to stress levels at a time when all the focus should be on making the presenters themselves feel as comfortable as possible, which can only be jeopardised by changes to the format.

The one thing a presenter should do at the late stages is to become word perfect with how they plan to open and close.  ‘Firsts and Lasts’ are the most important parts of any presentation because those are the elements that audience members remember.  Even more importantly, a good start is essential to engaging the audience, making them pay attention and getting them to like you. The climax is where you deliver your ‘Call to Action’ and send them away with a message to remember.

So plan to stop fiddling with what are really no more than support materials 24 hours in advance, providing some time to devote to yourself. Use that time to visualise how good you are going to be in that scenario and to becoming word perfect at the bits that really matter. This will make you look and feel confident – not least because you can work free of notes and give full-on eye contact, just when it is needed most.

Three questions to ask yourself about the ‘Visual Aids’ in your business presentation

Before embarking on a business presentation the presenter should always review their content, asking themselves three fundamental questions about their Visual Aids. PowerPoint should certainly be included within the scrutiny; indeed that is probably where the questions need to be most probing.

1. Are my Visual Aids visual?

Without getting bogged down here in a debate about pictures vs. words, can your audience actually see the detail of your Visual Aids? How many times have you heard presenters declare: “I know you can’t really see this but….”.  Clearly it’s not visual, so it’s not aiding anyone; it may even be doing more harm than good.

Some of the business presenters I have coached remain oblivious to this point, so I end up asking them to come and join me towards the back of the room, where I ask: “Can you see anything on that screen”? 

To be sure that your Visual Aid is truly visual you therefore need to see it on the screen on which you will eventually be presenting and you need to view it from the back of the room. You may be surprised at how a Visual Aid that looked clear on your computer or the page from which you scanned it becomes quite indistinct once displayed on a big screen. 

Particular danger areas include:

• Grey print on a white background, which can become washed out.
• Maps and property plans with a level of detail that was designed to be read close up.
• Graphs with thin lines – which probably need bolding – and discreet, over-detailed or even sideways-positioned legends and axis markers.

As I say, I am not going to get into a pictures vs. words debate here, but you need to bear in mind that any bullet point loses most of its impact once it tips over into two lines. Look at the pictures below – a slide written for a business pitch; it is fine for a document, but useless for presentation. Then the same slide, edited down to work effectively as a Visual Aid.

Finally, bear in mind that you can fall foul of having too many pictures, every bit as much as you can having too many words. How many times have you been presented with a slide filled with multiple illustrations, making you think ‘where am I meant to be looking?’, with the result that you lose the thread of what is being said.

2. Who are my Visual Aids aiding?

All focus with any presentation should be on the needs of the audience. So are your Visual Aids helping the audience to understand what you are saying more clearly?  If they are simply helping you to remember what to say, they are not Visual Aids, they are prompts – and these should not be on display!

3. Are my Visual Aids actually aiding anyone?

The most effective way to select Visual Aids is to start with none whatsoever – and that means no PowerPoint. Run through what you are planning to say to this particular audience and you will achieve a natural flow, in your own style – you will not find yourself being driven by whatever Visual Aids you have compiled. At certain points you will probably find yourself struggling to describe something or taking longer than you should to do so – in which case you probably need a Visual Aid. You only really want a Visual Aid on display if it is actively helping your audience – and thereby you – at this particular moment. You might be surprised at how few you really need.

There is plenty of research to prove just how important the visual sense is to communication and in particular to ensuring that messages are retained. But too many so-called Visual Aids are neither visual nor an aid to anyone.

Applause Cues are crucial to business presentations with a memorable message

I would like to add an element to what I have said before (see here) about the importance of ‘Firsts & Lasts’ in any presentation or speech: make your ending definite. Your audience needs to know for certain that you have reached your conclusion. At the risk of sounding a bit ‘showbiz’, you need to create an ‘Applause Cue’ – a little signal that indicates ‘that’s all folks’.

So what were Tony Blair and his speech writers thinking when they constructed his Sedgefield resignation speech? He had learned from both the occasional disaster (Women’s Institute conference) and many triumphs (The settlement train is leaving; She was the people's princess…; I feel the hand of history…). Prior to his final party conference he reportedly sought advice from Kevin Spacey in order to ensure he went out with a bang. And yet, when he came to make the really big speech in which he resigned as Prime Minister he finished as follows:

This is the greatest nation on earth.

It has been an honour to serve it. I give my thanks to you, the British people, for the times I have succeeded, and my apologies to you for the times I have fallen short.

Good luck.

You can see what happened if you click on the video below and fast forward to 8.52. He says: “Good luck”, then there is an awkward silence as audience members look at each other for a moment, before eventually bursting into applause as Blair raises his hands.  He had created a ‘Have you finished?’- style conclusion at one of the most crucial moments of his career.

So you need to create an Applause Cue, whether or not you are expecting actual applause. To achieve this you need a well constructed sign-off line, combined with a sense of rhythm and emphasis. Think in terms of: Dum-diddly-um-tum…dum-dum. Blair could never have achieved this with a mere two-word sentence. He needed to extend it a bit and add emphasis, gusto and perhaps even a wave as he utters the words “good luck”. 

This applies to the everyday business presentation just as much as it does to a Prime Minister bidding farewell to the nation. Your conclusion needs a carefully constructed ‘Call to Action’ – the message that you want your audience to go away remembering, but this needs also to be carefully rehearsed so that it acts as an Applause Cue. If necessary it can be as simple as: “Thank you for your attention” – as long as it sends out an unambiguous signal that you have finished.

Two final points. First, however awkward or nervous people tend to be about getting up to speak, once they have got started, they invariably find it difficult to stop. They tend to ramble on longer than required – another reason to instil discipline on how you finish.

Second, even with a well-constructed and executed Applause Cue, business audiences are often unsure as to whether applause is appropriate.  So when you are in control of a meeting, decide if you want applause. If you do, then get someone to act as ‘applause leader’ – once one person claps, everyone else is sure to join in, because applause is infectious!

Open and close your business presentation with more impact – by switching off

I am going to offer a little tip that can enhance the impact you make as you open and close a business presentation.

As I have discussed before (here) ‘Firsts & Lasts’ are the most important part of any presentation because, as Rule 13 of the Rules of Magic states, ‘Firsts & Lasts are remembered’. Moreover, the way you open is crucial to engaging your audience up front; and making anything happen as a result of your presentation usually depends on a successful ‘Call to Action’ at the close.

So what’s the little tip? Switch off the PowerPoint for your opening remarks; or don’t even switch it on until you have made them. This enables you to establish yourself as a person – with all those people in the audience – before a great deal of their attention gets sucked into the screen by your PowerPoint presentation. They can look you up and down, tune into your voice and run through all the 'first impression checks’ that our brains undertake automatically. With a combination of luck and design they will hopefully decide that they like you. Then you are all set to deliver your big messages – with some support from PowerPoint if appropriate.

You can repeat this trick at the end, just prior to delivering your big ‘Call to Action’.  Think about it – you are almost certainly asking your audience to do something or believe something; you may even be seeking to inspire them. That has to be better coming direct from you – straight form the heart and with full on eye contact – rather than via a list of bullet points on a screen.

It’s actually an old show business trick. Something like a big variety show would traditionally build to a big crescendo that was literally all singing/all dancing, with the stage full of people and the band playing at maximum volume. After much applause the curtains would close for a final time and then the star of the show would come out from behind them to say one more, very personal and heartfelt goodbye to his or her audience.  

So how do you turn off the PowerPoint without powering down the projector? Again, I have discussed this (here) before. There is a little tool built into PowerPoint that many people don’t know about but is invaluable to presenters as it brings attention back to you, while also clearing away distractions. Simply press the B key and it blanks the screen; press it again and it brings the presentation back.