Presentation Training - Why Are You Here?

You walk up to the dais, you know why you’re there; you’re there to give a presentation. You’ve edited, pared down and you’ve prepared and prepared and prepared. You know what you’re going to say and you say it…

And yet, everyone still looks bored.

How can this be?

Do you lack charisma?

Is there something about you that’s just dull?

No, you’ve made one of the most common mistakes in presentation; you forgot to think about the audience.

Why are the audience there? Here are a few of the common reasons.

·         They’ve been told to be there.

·         They’ve come to hear bad news.

·         It’s all part of a new initiative; that they don’t like.

·         They NEED to be there but would rather not be.

·         They’re marking time before the keynote speaker that they WANT to see.

·         They feel obliged because you’re a client.

·         They feel obliged because they couldn’t tell you face to face that they don’t want your product and they’re stringing you along before telling you that the budget (that wasn’t there in the first place) has been cut.

·         They want the CPD points.

·         They want to be proved right and given the ammunition to go back to their workplaces and tell management that they were right all along

·         It was free and it gave them a legitimate day off.

·         They want to learn something.

The list could go on.

Without thinking about the reasons that your audience is there, your presentation will always be just about good enough, but never great.

When you’re putting your presentation together thing about the majority of the audience, put them in to context, and try to take your ego out of the equation.

It’s very difficult to be honest with yourself when (chances are), they’re not there to see you speak… or at least, that’s not the whole reason they’re there.

Presentation Training - Telling Tales.

The human brain is a remarkable thing.

It takes in information at a phenomenal rate and then forgets most of it.

Our eyes see that we’ve put our car keys on the table, our brain registers that information pops it in to short term storage and we then think about cake.

Mmmmm cake…

After a few moments thinking about cake our brains return to the problem of where the car keys are and… nope, it’s gone. It never made it into the, you know, thingy, the bit that does the whatsit…

So why do some things stay and some things go?

One of the ways that our brains have evolved is through the creation and understanding of stories.

Stories have given Homo-sapiens an advantage over other animals. Animals with higher brain function (not worms and jellyfish) learn from experience, they do something, get hurt or scared or have a positive reaction and they learn from it. Even goldfish will learn to take food at specific times from specific places; they learn that there will be a positive outcome of their actions.

We don’t bother with that, we just tell each other.

For example “my friend ate that berry and was very ill, so now we don’t eat that berry” or “I just killed a tiger, and this is how I did it.” The primitive human group now stops getting poisoned and stops getting eaten by tigers.

Brilliant.

Our brains crave stories, we look for them when they aren’t there, we build coincidence to explain difficult statistics, we create religion to explain living together, we write novels and screenplays and lie about things.

We need context and narrative to remember… it’s what our brains were built for.

Humans ARE stories.

So why has that presentation just been information?

The list of figures goes in and falls straight back out again.

So what can you do to be memorable?

• ·         Build a narrative around your information, why is it there, why is it important, what lead to this, what does it mean for me.
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• ·         Give your information context
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• ·         Think about your beginning, middle and end.

The audience is looking for all of these things, and needs these things otherwise they won’t remember why you were there in the first place.

Presentation Training - PowerPoint is not your friend.

PowerPoint has killed the art of presentation.

That’s a bold statement, but it has truth in it.

Look at some of the great orators, some of the great movie scenes, some of the most inspiring speeches ever given; do they have a large PowerPoint slide behind them?

No, no they don’t.

Think of Alec Baldwin in ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ what would that scene have looked like with a PowerPoint presentation? Yes he does have a black board with a couple of acronyms but he certainly doesn’t have a sophisticated set of slides. No, he just has a sophisticated way of swearing… and brass balls.

PowerPoint is a very powerful tool… but that’s what it is, it’s a tool.

The problem is it’s a seductive creature that allows you to make things appear and fly out and fade and wipe and appear and whirl off into the distance and jump sideways and change colour and and and….

It’s remarkable how many people in business think that PowerPoint will do their job for them.

It’s remarkable how many people in business complain about boring PowerPoint presentations and don’t recognise their own cognitive dissonance.

‘I can’t stop using slides…’ you say. ‘I have too much information to get across…’ you say.

I’m not demanding that PowerPoint should be thrown out; what I am saying is use PowerPoint properly.

• ·         One thought per slide.
• ·         If it can be said with an image then say it with an image.
• ·         Be visual.
• ·         Keep text to a minimum.

Let PowerPoint be the back-up for what you’re saying, the added impact to reinforce your presentation…

PowerPoint is the tool, not you.

Presentation Training - Eye Contact

I am British, I don’t know the name of the person who lives next door, I don’t like to be touched, I am reserved and polite.

I have been introduced to people on my first day at work, forgotten their name, and been too British to ask again. When I left that job, I still wasn’t sure what their names were.

However, one thing that sets me apart from most of the British is that I’m really good at eye contact.

When someone is speaking I look them in the eye and I listen, when I’m telling someone something important I look them in the eye, when I present I look around the room making eye contact with as many people as possible.

How did I develop this skill? Was I born in to a strange sub-species or communicative Brits? No, I forced myself to look people in the eye because as a journalist and radio presenter I knew that eye contact was one of the most powerful tools I could use.

If someone is listening to you, you want them to keep eye contact; it helps you gage their interest and it shows empathy. Eye contact keeps you talking, it makes you say the things that you may not have said to someone who looks away… it’s great from a journalistic point of view.

It’s also vital when you are talking.

Keeping eye contact that means that you have something worth saying, something that you believe, something that the listener needs to hear.

If you’re presenting eye contact can mean the difference between being presented at and being presented to; use sweeping contact, change the person you’re looking at as you pause or start a new sentence. If you’re posing questions look as many people in the eye as possible to show that it’s not rhetorical. Ask someone to answer directly, if they can’t move on. Invite people in to your world by looking at them.

Practice your eye contact today… just don’t stare at people on busses… that can end badly.

Presentation Training - Put The Notes Down

In 2005 a poll was conducted and its results stated that the top 5 fears in America were Terrorist Attacks, Spiders, Death, Failure and War.

Unless your latest intern is a psychotic extremist arachnid, with access to weapons grade plutonium, and a working knowledge of the geopolitical situation, you’re not going to see these things at work.

You ARE going to have to deal with the fear of failure, especially when doing something you haven’t been trained to do – Presenting.

Most business people at one time or another have to present to groups; and whether it’s to colleagues or pitching for a contract it’s one of the scariest things many people have to do.

That’s why we like notes… notes are our security blanket.

My son is four years old, and he loves his muzzy. 

His muzzy is any square of muslin cloth that he can chew on during the night. My wife and I know that he’s tired because he wants his muzzy…

He’s four years old… he’s allowed a security blanket.

You are in business… you’re not.

So what do you do?

This may sound stupid, but you put the notes down.

There is no excuse for lack of preparation, you know that you’re going to have to present so you prepare. Work out what you’re going to say with the help of notes, script if you want, and then pare back... Turn your script into sub headings and brief paragraphs, then pare back and turn your brief paragraphs into bullet points, then pare back and turn your bullet points into single words.

Throughout this process you’re still working from the ideas within the original script but you’re entering it into long term storage. Don’t worry about being word for word; this is a presentation not a play.

Once you have the single words that can guide you through the presentation place them on a single card. 

This is your tiny square of muzzy. It’s there if you need it, to re-set what you’re talking about.

Don’t forget that most of what you’re talking about is on a PowerPoint behind you, and on a screen in front of you.

How will putting your notes away help you?

It will stop you reading, it will stop you being flustered finding your place and killing the presentation; it will stop your brain abdicating the responsibility of remembering.
 Adrenaline is your friend, without your notes your brain has to do the work and recall the information it would otherwise not bother doing.

You are a professional; you’re being asked to talk about something that you know.So why do you need notes?