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No this isn’t another rant about how bad PowerPoint is, its a useful article about how to develop your content before you turn to presentation tools like PowerPoint….

I’ve blogged before on the importance of getting clear about your outcome before putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard so this time I want to talk about the next step, developing your content.    In my experience, a great first step is to brainstorm all the possible content areas then sit back review them.   The second step is to  look again at your outcomes and the time available and then  choose what you are actually going to cover in your presentation from the mass of possibilities you have generated.

One great tool to help you do this is a piece of software called mindmanager (other mind mapping software packages are available!).   Mindmanager allows you to generate ideas, capture them electronically in a brain friendly format, and then to reorganise them into a logical flow for your presentation. 

As you can see from the image.  Mind maps differ from traditional note taking techniques in that you start in the middle of the page with your topic and then radiate out from it, with main branches that cover the core theme areas and sub-branches that cover the ideas that relate directly to those theme areas.

Once you have your initial mindmap, leave it to settle for a while and then review it.  Have you got everything?  Are there any core areas missing?  Add in any missing bits then consider your outcome and timing.   Which of the bits of information present best support the action you desire from your audience.   In my experience most presentations should not have more than four main themes and preferably only three.    

Delete the irrelevant material and focus in on the core areas.   What information do you need to support them?   What examples, case studies etc can you use to support your arguments?    Now add two more branches. An “introduction branch” and a “conclusion branch”.  

Your introduction branch should cover the following areas.

1. The context or setting for the presentation
2. The role of the audience in this context (remind them who they are e.g. project managers or sales reps etc.)
3. The problem they are facing (e.g. the scepticism and boredom of audiences turned off by so many poor presentations)
4. The desired end result they want (A new way to enthuse and engage their audience that is fun for the presenter too)
5. A brief summary of the solution (i.e. adopt the approach I am going to outline tonight and success is a foregone conclusion)

Your conclusion branch should cover the following areas:

1. A reminder of the problem and the desired result (We simply cannot afford to continue making dull and boring presentations.)
2. A quick recap of the actions recommended  (Craft your presentation as a story that flows, eliminate most of the text from your slides and replace it with appropriate images, finally learn to deliver it with passion, enthusiasm and conviction.)
3. A call to action (I challenge you to adopt this approach and be prepared to be amazed at the difference it makes)
4. Any questions?

Recently I’ve been researching the whole area of online marketing and one theme has come out from all the experts and Guru’s I’ve been reading. 

It’s a theme that  believe all offline marketers and presenters also need to be reminded of regularly.  The most effective online marketing sites succeed because they  create a relationship between the producer and the client.     What’s more, they tailor their message to a particular niche or client profile.  They don’t try to be all things to all people.

Why?  Because most people don’t like to buy from strangers.  They need to feel that they know, like and trust you before they will be prepared to part with their hard earned cash.

The best presenters I know have a mindset that is all about building relationships with their audience.  

• They have a clear picture of the profile of the audience they are presenting to. 
   
• They work hard to  understand their fears, concerns and problems so that they can relate their content directly to the needs and wants of their audience.

And how do they build those relationships?

Well first and foremost they are honest and authentic.   Sometimes the people who come to me for help think that they need to become someone else in order to be a good presenter.  They think they need to take on a new “persona” in order to be successful.    Whilst I can understand where they are coming from, experience has taught me that quite the opposite is true.

When you can be yourself in front of an audience, then you will connect much more effectively.  Most people can smell insincerity a mile off.      I once was on a course and one of my fellow delegates gave a technically perfect presentation but afterwards everyone commented on how it didn’t seem “real”.      We could sense that we were seeing an act rather than the truth.    

My challenge to you is, next time you present, set the intention to “be yourself and to really connect with your audience.”  I know that if you do it, you will enjoy the experience much more and so will your audience.
 

Recently I was lucky (or unlucky depending on your point of view) to attend a conference where there were some pretty average presentations.  Afterwards I started to compare notes from some of my fellow delegates as to what were the most common failings of presenters.

 Afterwards I continued this discussion online and here are a summary of the things that drive audiences nuts!

• Lack of clear purpose for the presentation (other than filling a time slot)
• Presenters who stand in front of their own projector and pretend to be a screen
• Presenters who spend most of their time reading out the words on their slides
• Presenters who show complex and unintelligible slides and then apologise for showing them
• Presenters who don’t make eye contact with their audience
• Presenters who try and compress two days worth of data into a 15 minute presentation
• Lack of congruence - i.e presenters who say one thing on stage and then behave in a contary manner when off stage
• Presenters who fail to think about the interests of the audience
• Presenters who fail to involve the audience
• Using material created by someone else without a proper understanding of the content
• Using copies of the PowerPoint slides as a hand-out without proper background notes
• Using jargon and TLAs
• Not monitoring the energy level in the room.
• Using the invitation to present to sell (a) his/her own product(s) (b) his/her own ego.
• Making repeated grandiose reference to “as I say in my latest book…”
• Too long!
• They present because they’ve been asked not because of their ability
• The presentation is delivered, they do not talk to anyone
• Try to be funny when they are not
• Give solutions for which there are no problems
• Start and finish as opposed to have a clear beginning, middle and end.
• Lack enthusiasm
• Turn up in the first place. It would be kinder to have an attack of stage fright.
• Using PowerPoint because it’s what ‘proper’ presenters do.
• Using every animation and effect in PowerPoint because it’s there.
• Relying on notes and the content of the talk is clearly as much a surprise to the presenter as it is to the audience.
• Apologising at the start of the presentation for the ‘boring’ content
• Failing to project to the back of the room, promising to raise their voice or adjust their microphone, and then carrying on exactly as before while asking “is this better?”
• Forgetting business can be fun - we’re all human and laughter makes learning easier.

So there is no shortage of mistakes that can be made.  The good news is that the solutions are relatively simple.

Have a great week

A couple of night’s ago I attended my local Toastmasters club and one of the guest’s comments got me thinking….When people come to the club for the first time most are nervous and not a little afraid.

Standing up and speaking in front of a group of strangers can certainly be scary, at least in our own imagination. So where does that fear come from and what are we afraid of?

I wonder what is the worst thing you could possibly imagine happening to you in a presentation? Now imagine that you worst nightmare came true! What would be the real impact?

• Would you die? - Not really!
• You would get the sack? - Unlikely
• Would people laugh at you? Well possibly but most would be sympathetic
• Would they remember you? Yes!
• Would you learn something from the experience? - I hope so.

One of my students once described a situation where she actually fainted in the middle of an important business presentation. She was certainly embarrassed at the time but afterwards, when I asked her what had happened, she said that her boss had been very sympathetic and supportive and so had the client! She still worked for the same company and had learned a lot from the experience. No next time you are fearful of a presentation, ask yourself the following questions;

1. What am I really afraid of?
2. What is the worst thing that could happen?
3. How likely is it to happen in reality?
4. Even if it did happen, would it really be the end of the world?
5. What would you like to have happen instead?
6. What would it look like, sound like and feel like if you gave a positive, confident and well prepared presentation? Hear the applause, feel the good feelings and see yourself successful.

Last week I gave up a day of my time to help develop young entrepreneurs as part of a schools enterprise day.  During the day I think I learned why so many will go on to become poor presenters….

The kids (sorry students!) were great as were the teachers and their challenge was to research, design, budget and market a design for a teenage play area.   When it came to marketing the kids (sorry again!) were wizards with the computer and whilst some were busy using DTP software to design tickets and flyers, others were using PowerPoint to produce a presentation.  And guess what sort of presentations they prepared…

Yes you guessed it. Dull, boring slides with far too many words and few if any pictures.  Their slides were their script and the result was a host of presentations that failed to reflect the creativity and energy that had gone into producing the designs and campaigns. What a pity.

How can we expect these youngsters to break away from this ineffective mold, f we continue to teach them in the same way and indeed one wonders what the presentations produced by their teachers look like.  

We need to start earlier and catch these budding entrepreneurs before they get into the same habits of their current day counterparts.    

Last week I was listening to the radio and I happened to hear an interview with a Dave Alred, a coach who specialises in helping people perform well under pressure. He has studied a wide range of people in many different contexts including world class athletes, rugby players, army personnel and business executives and has coached the England Rugby Squad.  

One of the attributes of the top performers was the ability to cultivate an attitude of inevitability and he illustrated this by talking about a clip from the old Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, A Fistfull of Dollars.   In the film, Clint’s character is walking down the main street en route to a showdown with a group of bad guys.  As he passes the undertaker he tells gives him some  money and tells him to get three coffins ready before continuing on the the gunfight. 

Afterwards, when all the baddies are dead, he walks back to the undertaker, apologises and says, better make that four coffins. In other words, Clint went into the situation as if the outcome where he would win and the bad guys wouldn’t was inevitable. How could you apply this principle to your sales presentations?  What would you need to be thinking?   How would you need to be feeling about that outcome in order to make it inevitable?

We have delivered a number of training courses to the Marketing Staff of the Open University over the years and we are delighted that once again, that have chosen Gavin to deliver three workshops in January and Feb 2008.  

The two tailored programmes - Building Successful Business Relationships and Achieving Goals and Managing Time will help OU staff increase their productivity, reduce their stress and improve their influencing skills with clients and colleagues.

Hi After an inspiring presentation at a local business networking group I’ve migrated by hosted blog with blogger to an installed wordpress blog and it was relatively painless.   A big thank you to David Bell of Sugarweb who gave a clear and concise introduction to how to create a wordpress blog. Not only does he know his stuff, but he’s areally nice guy too!

Thanks also must go to those amazing people who developed wordpress, the blogger import function worked a treat and was  sooooo simple.  Wish I’d done it months ago!

Look out for more posts soon.

Gavin