presentation coach

The information imperative...

When Detroit or Tokyo tries to sell me a car, do they present column after column of engineering and performance statistics in their expensive TV ads? No. They use luscious, vivid, sensual images of beautiful people doing beautiful things in beautiful places. They suggest mystery, style, aspiration to make me want that car, desire that car, covet that car — for reasons other than logic.

When politicians stump for my vote, do they recite economic formula and municipal performance data? Not if they want to survive the primaries. Instead, they talk about jobs and roads and taxes and the education of our kids and the future. About security and freedom. About the sins of the other guy. My rational brain isn’t their target. They’re aiming for my heart, my anger, my passion, my dreams, my fears.

Do not dismiss this process as merely manipulation. Think of it instead as an information imperative.

These people know they have to reach me, whether to sell cars to keep an economy healthy, or to get my vote to keep a political ideology alive. They’re trying to get me to listen, to hear them amidst all the noise of everyday life.

They speak to me in ways that make me want to listen, in terms that matter to me.

Now, there are ethical issues in play here, of course. But that’s the topic of another discussion in another forum. What we’re about right now is understanding the forces at work in a good presentation or speech. Understanding the tools used by the great public speakers to capture and hold and audience’s attention, and to persuade that audience to action.

Here’s what those great speakers know:

Public speaking is about how you use words — and a speaking style — to frame your message in terms an audience understands, feels and responds to. It's about knowing your objective while always working to satisfy the audience's needs. It's about making the information you share vital to someone else.

Public speaking is about being heard.

Crashing...

Well, it happened again: An important and timely topic, relevant to the audience but in a presentation keyed entirely to the digital projection of video clips and slides.

Moments into the presentation, the technology failed.

And thus, I regret to say, did the presentation. Spectacularly.

The laptop-driven digital projector, perched amid a tangle of cables on a little table in the middle of the luncheon audience of more than 150 people and triggered by a remote in the presenter’s hand, would not respond to any instruction.

Blank screen.

Dead air.

Awkward silence.

An animated troubleshooting dialog quickly began between the speaker on the podium (still speaking into the microphone, by the way, so everyone could hear and experience her consternation) and a valiant member of the audience who volunteered to try and fix the projector. The rest of the audience, meanwhile, was left to simply sit and watch and wonder why on Earth they were there.

It only took a few endless moments, but the topic of the day morphed smartly into the technology failure. The speaker apologized and apologized and apologized for the malfunction, assuring everyone over and over and over again that “it worked in my office before I came over here!”

Eventually, mercifully, she accepted reality and gave up trying to overpower the technology. Instead, incredibly, she attempted to recover her presentation by describing, in detail, what the audience would have seen if the projector had worked as planned.

In other words, rather than build a case for her premise, she resorted to reading a video script verbatim (.”…and in the next scene, you would have seen…” “…it’s too bad the computer isn’t working, because this next slide is really something…”)

Oh, the humanity!

Just imagine, please, reading the script of your favorite TV show or film aloud to your colleagues as opposed to them watching it for themselves. A few things get lost in the translation, don’t you think?…like drama and context and perspective and impact.

Was this particular presentation salvageable? Unfortunately, no, not the way it appeared to be structured. The presenter was entirely dependent on a series of still and video images to make her case. Thus, when the images failed to project, she had no fallback, no Plan B. She essentially was left with little alternative but to apologize, fold her tent and retire. Opportunity lost. (And her reputation as a credible authority didn’t get a lot of polish out of it, either.)

Two lessons here:

First, plan your remarks as remarks. As you craft your content, pretend there are no visuals to support your main points. So, when the visuals fail to appear, you still have a cogent presentation in hand with which to continue. Perhaps not as colorfully, or as dramatically, but you would still be able to make your case with authority and conviction.

Second, if and when your technology fails, accept the failure and walk away from it cleanly. Don’t linger trying to tinker with the plugs and buttons, and don’t waste time or energy expressing your regrets or before you know it, you will have made your equipment failure the most memorable part of your program.

Sure, consider a brief attempt to get back on track, but only to prove the fault isn’t with a thrown power switch or unplugged cable. If the fix must be at the expense of the audience’s time, and it cannot be accomplished discretely by a third party, shut down the screen and simply inform the audience that you will be continuing without visual aids.

Then continue.

Don’t dwell on the technology failure.

Let me say that again: Don’t dwell on the technology failure.

And while you’re at it, don’t blame anything or anybody. Don’t whine or remind the audience what they’re missing by not seeing the pictures for themselves.

Instead, tell your story as it was intended to be told. With words. Good words, thoughtfully crafted. Ideas powerfully, cogently, persuasively expressed.

Make a case, not excuses.

The pictures were a bonus anyway. If you depended on them entirely to make your point, then perhaps your point wasn’t ready to be made.

Numbers...

While talking about the use of visuals during a small-group presentation skills clinic I was conducting, I cited a study that suggested how persuasion rates among audiences increased by 43 percent when they saw something as well as heard something.

“That’s interesting,” replied one of the participants. “And did you know that 72 percent of all statistics are made up?”

Numbers are wonderful things. We use them to measure, to keep score, to prove a point.

When in the wrong hands, though, numbers can rip the heart out of a good presentation, bleed it of its power to persuade, kill an audience’s desire to learn more.

Numbers require a lot of processing. It takes time for the typical brain to make sense of figures it has just heard. (“Let’s see… he said it was 31-point-9 percent… um, isn’t that something like one-third? Or is it closer to one-quarter?”) And while the brain is processing your numbers, it isn’t processing your message.

Where a real problem begins for some presenters — and thus for audiences — is the obsessive use of data to make a point:

“Sixty-three percent of all children are small. Compare this to a 1998 study that suggests 12.9 percent of that total actually is 47 percent less likely to grow by more than 3 inches over an 18-month period of time. This of course presupposes that the initial sample is less than 16 percent of the total surveyed over a 45-day trial period.”

Huh? Wait! Would you repeat that more slowly? In fact, say it a couple of times; once so I can hear it and then again so I can start writing it down.

Better yet, why don’t you just tell me what your point is.

If precise data are essential to your presentation, then deliver them in a published or projected format; as a hand-out or overhead, for instance. Let people read and assimilate the data at their own respective rates of comprehension — and give them time to do so before moving on.

Use your spoken words to create context for the data, to offer examples, to make your case; not to parrot the numbers themselves.

Translate your numbers into units of reference that add meaning. Create an image for audiences to see in their own minds. If making a case for highway funding, for example, instead of just declaring “50,000 cars use that intersection in a 12-hour period,” embellish and illustrate by following up with something like “…or the equivalent of the entire parking of the Live Oaks Mall every 90 minutes.”

(A caution, though: Avoid the cliché analogies that really don’t do the job. For example, don’t tell me that something is as long as three football fields. I’ve never seen three football fields end to end, so the picture still can’t form in my mind. And what about people who’ve never seen a single football field?)

The power of numbers is in their drama, in the stories they suggest. Look for that drama, the extremes, and use them to illustrate your point, to draw attention to it. These are what form the memorable images for your audience.

Consider:

“By the time I finish this sentence, four more miles of road will have been paved in the country…”

“…six more children will smoke their first cigarette…”

“…two people will get sick from contaminated meat…”

“…six new blogs will be launched.”

Understanding and context for most minds involves shapes and forms and experiences. These are seldom numerical in nature. Paint a picture with your numbers. Set a tone. Establish a premise.

“Ladies and gentlemen, by the time this hearing concludes, 9,000 cars and trucks will have passed through the intersection we are discussing this morning. By the end of today, and each and every day that follows, that will amount to the equivalent of the entire population of this city. It was not designed to handle that much traffic volume and cannot continue to do so any longer. With this funding proposal, however, we have the chance to do something about it.”

Then carry on with your conversation.

Always remember, the point of your presentation is not to impress but to make an impression. Too many numbers, too much data, can trigger a wrong impression among an audience that simply wants to know the bottom line.

Accountability...

Throughout Europe and the Mediterranean is enduring evidence of an ancient Roman empire.

Remnants of impregnable fortifications. Immense arenas and amphitheaters. Vast public plazas and imposing temples.

Then there are the great aqueducts; mammoth public works spanning broad valleys to bring water across terrific distances to thirsty towns and cities.

This is a big Wow. After two millennia of wars and natural upheavals, many of these works — built without structural steel or similar “modern” technologies — continue to stand. Some still carry water to this day. They are remarkable monuments to design, engineering and building skill.

How have these aqueducts — like so many other Roman structures — survived when most later generations of buildings long ago crumpled into rubble?

My guess is the unequivocal way Roman builders were held accountable for their efforts. Legend has it that as the supporting scaffoldings and other temporary buttressing were removed for the first time, the designers and chief engineers would be required to stand beneath the arches. It was their code, their standard of professional performance, to be the first proof of their respective talents; the ultimate show of confidence that the job was done right and the resulting product indeed was ready to present to the world.

Now fast forward two thousand years… Just imagine for a moment how much better our contemporary speeches and presentations might be if the people making them were required to listen to them first. What if the presenter had to perform the equivalent task of standing under the arch as its capacity to withstand gravity was tested?

I’d like to think those of us in the audience would enjoy a vastly improved performance. We would hear content expressed cogently, crisply, with passion and interest, stripped of extraneous detail, flabby language, confusing digressions.

We would be spared meaningless PowerPoint exhibitions.

We would witness a speaker visibly interested in expressing an idea rather than simply enduring a speaking requirement.

It can be done. For instance, most public speaking self-help books suggest the presenter rehearse with a tape recorder of some sort. This is good advice. Hear yourself as others would and you will realize where you can improve.

Many coaches — myself included — rely on video to capture a rehearsal so the presenter can both see and hear herself before an audience does. The impact can be astonishing.

Take for instance some of these reactions:

“I had no idea I did that with my arms!”

“I don’t look like I believe what I’m saying, do I?”

“Wow, do I really talk that fast?”

“You know, I could have sworn I was speaking in complete sentences.”

“Wait a minute, what was my point with that last part?”

“Oh, dear.”

These are folks who stood under the arch. Full marks for them. They invested the time and realized there was a bit more engineering that needed to be done before they were truly ready to unveil their presentation to the world.

Their reward: A presentation that was complete, cogent, cohesive…able to stand on its own merits, with a delivery that was confident, practiced, well-paced.

As for the audience, rather than endure a fragmented assembly of words, jerky body motions, and half-formed ideas, they enjoyed a meaningful and worthwhile journey, clear of detours. They could focus on the value of the message rather than be distracted by the clumsiness of the messenger.

As you plan your next presentation, consider standing under the arch. Think not about yourself, or even the details of what you have to say. Think first about your audience and their expectations for a program that satisfies their need for information clearly, concisely and confidently expressed.

Craft your presentation with the means to endure. Give your audience reason to remember its message. It’s absolutely worth the extra time and effort.

Less is more...

My client sounded quite anxious over the phone. She had just learned she had been scheduled, finally, to brief the governor on a major project she and her agency had been championing for many months, and she needed to prepare the presentation. However, she had been told she would have just 12 minutes as her part of the afternoon’s agenda, which also featured other community leaders making similar briefings about their respective projects and needs.

Her problem, as she and I well knew, was there was too much information to offer. She easily could spend a hour talking about the details and implications of her project.

So, we met in a big, vacant conference room to organize her remarks. Our objective would be to see how we could distill her narrative down into something cogent, concise, and very, very brief.

First, we agreed that her job was not to educate the governor, but to leave him with an impression. Jettison the details. Stick with the big picture. After all, he wasn’t going to be tested on what he heard. It only had to register with him so he would be comfortably familiar with it when the topic came up in later discussions, as it was destined to do.

Second, we probed for the essential quality of her project, the the Big Idea, and kept peeling away layers and language until it had been reduced to a single sentence. That gave us our core theme from which we could build a bare-bones, to-the-point narrative.

Third, no visuals. There wouldn't be enough time in the presentation to set them up sufficiently and make them work. They would distract from the narrative. The power of this presentation had to be carried entirely in the economy of her words and the sincerity of her delivery. She understood also if her remarks were too complex to be described without charts and graphs, then her remarks were too complex.

She would have 12 minutes on the agenda. Let’s do better, we decided. Let’s bring it under 10 and buy a little breathing room. By the end of our session, she was covering the basics of the program — what it was, who was affected, why it was important, and what needed to be done to make it move forward — in about seven minutes.

After her meeting in the capitol, I asked how it went. “Great,” she said. “I did my pitch with several minutes left over.”

She had had the chance to witness other presenters as well.

“I felt like I was the only one to come in under the assigned time,” she recalled, “the only one who got right to the point.”

Okay. Now you’re the governor – or the CEO of your company or your customer – and you hear everything you need to hear on a topic in less time than was allocated. The message is refreshingly tight, crisp, basic, with a succinct account of the problem, a clear description of the proposed solution, and an explicit call to action. Meanwhile, everyone else presenting that day delivers a flabby, complicated, meandering narrative that ultimately fails to respect your time or interests.

Who has left the better impression? Who’s going to be remembered as the presenter with a story that’s under control and therefore, attractive to follow-on attention? Who ends the day the hero?

Few presenters get good marks for going on too long with too much. When it comes to conveying big ideas amid a crowded agenda, less is more.

Insulting...

Show of hands, please. How many of you have ever attended a presentation and the person introducing the main speaker decided to do his or her own shtick?

You know, when the introducer relies on tired one-liners and insider jokes (and insults) to describe the speaker?

“She graduated from Big City University… but we won’t hold that against her.”(Ba-da-bump)

“He worked for the Ain’t It Great company for ten years. If you can overlook that, folks, then you’d probably agree he’s had a pretty good career.” (Ba-da-bump)

“He’s been married to Margaret for six years… it must be love, I guess.” (Ba-da-bump)

Oooh, it’s painful to hear such things. It really is. It tells the audience the introducer is trying too hard to be funny, and failing successfully. Audiences cringe, the graceless humor grating on their senses, steeling themselves for the next awkward zinger.

I don’t get it. Why is it some folks think insulting the person they are introducing is funny?

Now, I’m not talking about a gentle, good-natured ribbing among colleagues in situations where the audience, the introducer and the speaker all have a long-standing bond or a shared experience — say, teammates at a sports club dinner or office colleagues at a TGIF thing, where a few chuckles, even belly laughs, at another’s expense is part of a culture of camaraderie (and where the introducer knows how to do it well).

No, I’m talking about formal introductions… say, when a new member is presented to a civic or service club, or a keynote speaker is introduced to a business luncheon audience.

The key to a great introduction is to convey respect for the person being introduced.

Yes, it can be humorous. Yes, it can (and quite appropriately, at times) evoke smiles, even laughter. But there’s a thick dividing line between chuckles and insults.

Diminishing, put-town humor is a very cheap laugh. And it leaves the audience feeling cheapened, too. It suggests the presenter and his or her topic do not deserve the audience’s attention or respect.

If you’re struggling with how to keep an introduction light and frothy, invest the effort to learn a little bit more about the person being introduced. Find an amusing—and brief— anecdote about what interests him or her, or about a milestone in his or her life. Ask if you can use it (please, ask first!), then work that into your remarks. It not only can help lighten the mood of the room, it will reveal more about the personality of the speaker more positively than some put-down rim-shot about which school she attended or how awful his marriage must be.

When you finish your introduction, folks in the audience should feel they know enough about the speaker to believe he or she knows and cares about the topic at hand; that he or she brings experience and insight to the situation; that the speaker is worthy of their time and attention.

The audience should be looking forward to the speaker’s remarks rather than feeling relieved the introduction finally is over.

Remember, when introducing someone, it’s not about you. Please don’t try to command the spotlight with your imitation of Don Rickles at a Dean Martin roast (egads, dating myself there, aren’t I?). That isn’t what the audience came to hear and it shouldn’t be the memory they take away with them.