Excellence in Presentations

There is a guy on LinkedIn who calls himself a “visionary, dynamic Operations Leader with a continuous improvement mindset and a high impact executive” who posted a chart like this one:

The chart is not his. He stole it and he thinks it is great. This is another classic example of a presenter trying to jam everything onto a single slide. The slide itself would not be so bad if they got rid of the fine prints and just went with the words in bold. But like bullet point slides, they just have to jam everything in it.

On the visionary thing: if someone needs to tell everyone he is a visionary, he is not much of a visionary. It is like an idiot claiming he is smart or someone who is poor claiming to be rich. Remember some politician calling himself a stable genius when he is neither stable nor bright?

That bit about being a “dynamic operations leader” and a “high impact executive” is straight out of the Bullshit Generator.

I was invited to view a presentation on SDG Token. The presenter started talking about SDG-linked token holders and he show this slide filled with words and graphics that are barely readable. As he droned on, I was trying to decipher those words on the screen. I was not listening to him at all. In fact, I found his voice a distracting annoyance as I tried to understand the slide.

In other words, the speaker lost me.

He then went on to another slide like this:

I had no idea what PIHG, AUTOMEDI, HoFT or FintechHK stand for. I was not listening to the speaker.

Later, by some miracle, the screen turned to this:

Here we have Sian Young have a conversation with Lowellyne James – one on one. No distraction. No cheesy clip art for me to decipher.

Folks…this is exactly what a presentation is supposed to be like – a one on one conversation between two speakers or with the audience. You do not need to flash your talking points for the world to see. Remember this: The last time you had a conversation with a friend, did you hold up a bunch of words next to your face while you talked? Of course not.

So let’s do THAT the next time you make a presentation. MAKE the audience focus on YOU and not a bunch of words and acronyms on a slide.

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As I said before, it is common for speakers – even seasoned speakers -to be nervous before getting on the stage. Your heart starts to pump and your palms get all sweaty. That is a normal response.

For many speakers, that butterfly in the stomach flies away as soon as they launch into their presentation. Why? Because they realize that the audience is actually listening to them. They are not throwing rocks at them. The speakers are connecting with the audience. Their confidence grows as they get deeper into the presentation. They are actually relishing the triumphant moment.

There is a trick many speakers use to gain confidence even before they start speaking.

The speakers remember a time when they accomplished something with great confidence. Maybe it was a time when they scored a goal playing soccer or when they won an award. It was a time when they felt they could do anything.

They relive that moment of great confidence just before getting on the stage.

Some therapists suggest “anchoring” those feelings of confidence by attaching them to some physical things or parts of your body. For example, you can anchor those confident feelings to a pointer or a pen while reliving that moment in your head. Or you can touch your shoulder while you relive your moment of triumph in your head.

So just before getting on the stage, you hold your pointer or you pat your shoulder in exactly the same way when you anchored that confident feeling. Your anchor will trigger that feeling of great confidence in you.

Now – all of these tricks will only work if you KNOW the topic you are speaking on. A speaker with an advance degree in French Medieval literature will ALWAYS be nervous when making a presentation on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity no matter how well rehearsed the speaker is.

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Before making a presentation, ask yourself these three questions. No one needs to know your answers. Be honest with yourself.

Question 1: Why am I the best person to make this presentation?

Question 2: What do I want the audience to do?

Question 3: What do I want the audience to believe?

I have said many times that you are telling a story when you make a presentation. Your story must have a beginning and an end. Let’s say you are trying to get your audience to solve a problem. You start by telling them the problem you are trying to solve. And then you tell them what the world would look like once the problem is resolved. So these are the beginning (point A) and the end (point B).

You spend the entire presentation on how to get from Point A to Point B. That is your story.

The best book on presentations I have come across is “Moving Mountains or the Art of Letting Others See Things Your Way” by Henry M. Boettinger. This 340-page paperback was first published in 1969. It is still available on Amazon.

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Come join me for a private one-on-one webinar session on how to improve your PowerPoint presentation.

This is how it works.

Email me to schedule a private one-hour online session on a day that is convenient for you and I will go over with you ways you can make your slides more effective. I will also offer you practical tips on what to do before, during and after a presentation. You will learn how how to handle stage fright. – something even an experienced speakers encounter.

As an option, you can also send me a couple of your slides and I will go over them with you.

You will also receive a PDF copy of my book on “Presentations that Work”.

The cost for the slide review AND the one-hour private one-on-one consultation is $75. Email me the best time and day for us to have the consultation. Payment can be made here.

Email me at norman@normanwei.com if you have any questions.

Norman Wei. A bit of information about me. I have made presentations on complicated subject matters to over 3000 corporate managers over the years. Many managers all over the world have attended my presentation webinars. You will learn from me best practices during this one-on-one private session. I will also share with you some practical tips on handling nervousness during a presentation. Over 100,000 people have read my blogs on presentations.

I have said repeatedly that instead of jamming 10 points in a slide, break them up into 10 separate slides. Each slide should cover a topic described in a short caption with a photograph that pertains to your topic. If you are convey fear, use this photo.

if your topic is on how your company’s chocolate is making people sick, show a photo of an emergency room filled with sick people.

Where do you get these photos? If your topic is about nature, take your own photos. If you need a sunset photo to convey serenity in your presentation, use the sunset photo you took with your iphone.

If it involves people, you need to get these photos from agencies such as istock. Why? Because you cannot use photos of strangers without their written consent. Agencies take care of all that. The cost is only a few dollars and there is a wide selection to choose from.

Do not look for photos on Google and use them. Many of them are copyrighted. Most of the time you may get away with it but all it takes is that one letter from the copyright owner’s attorney asking you to pay hundreds of dollars for using his client’s photo. That is a battle you do not want to have.

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