The earth is billions of years old. False 2. Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. False 3. On what day did God make dinosaurs? The sixth day 4. Dinosaurs lived with people. True 5. Which one fits the Behemoth described in Job 40? 6. The next time someone says the earth is billions of years old, what can you say? WERE YOU THERE?
The earth is billions of years old. False 2. Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. False 3. On what day did God make dinosaurs? The sixth day 4. Dinosaurs lived with people. True 5. Which one fits the Behemoth described in Job 40? 6. The next time someone says the earth is billions of years old, what can you say? WERE YOU THERE? In primary school you get points for neatness. That stops in secondary school, where you can only lose marks if you are not sufficiently neat. The same holds true for presenting. You’ll only know it wasn’t good enough when it doesn’t have the desired effect. This is particularly obvious in the case of a presentation where your objective is to SELL.
The presentation itself is rarely the element that clinches the sale. It’ll be you, your team and your fabulous idea that does all the heavy lifting ...
But, just like the neatness problem in school, a poor presentation will lose you marks – and probably the entire sale, even if the other elements are pretty solid.
The earth is billions of years old. False 2. Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. False 3. On what day did God make dinosaurs? The sixth day 4. Dinosaurs lived with people. True 5. Which one fits the Behemoth described in Job 40? 6. The next time someone says the earth is billions of years old, what can you say? WERE YOU THERE? But how neat, cool and groovy your presentation is, is in your control. A below-par preso is a terrible reason to lose a sale. And ‘pretty good’ is rarely good enough any more ...
and customers after less-than-stellar presentations? (I offer other people’s views because my feedback for these kind of mistakes is deeply unpleasant and my mother might see this talk some day.)
articulate – even brilliant – people simply cannot express themselves coherently, so they tell you everything they know, in the hope that you will take something out of the resulting mess. Do. Not. Do. This. Decide what you want to say. Distil it. Then say it. Clearly.
They got married Cos the shoe - the glass slipper - and it totally fitted! But not on the ugly sisters And there was a fairy godmother - wit de shoes And a meanie stepmother She couldn’t go to the ball - loadza yucky jobs Totes miserable! And de midnight - and de bong bong bong Cinderella!
- really sell - when he is on his feet. He does this by telling a beautifully coherent, massively considered, story that resonates with the audience in front of him.
the shore. How long has it been in the water? A marine bacterial molecular clock provides the answer. How concise can you make it? Get your core message down to its shortest form. We got some hapless scientists to distil the essence of their PhD research down into a tweet.
to be appreciated And all this effort is about the only people who matter – your audience. Demonstrate understanding and appreciation of them by preparing a cogent, coherent message
don’t like text. And grown- ups really don’t like being read to. Where possible, illustrate your point. Show, don’t tell. * All right, all right, I know you can’t avoid text altogether, but could you at least stop putting entire sentences up on your slides? Please?
The thing I hear most frequently from clients who want to be more effective on their feet, as they begin to understand what is going to be involved in achieving that.
2. I got it, but I didn’t care 3. I couldn’t really see, so I lost interest 4. You read your fricken slides so you can f**k right off! 5. I could see you were making it up as you went along So what’s my point? If I was to distil it down to a tweetable point, what would it be? 5 feedbacks you never want to get ...