This is just like a PowerPoint presentation with no bullet points

This is a wonderful video of a financial writer (Bethany McLean) talking about hedge funds. Notice how the video has a sentence on a slide and then the speaker talks about that topic following the slide. This is almost like a presentation without bullet points – a subject on the screen followed by a cvonversation. Note also how she spoke without reading any notes.

The beauty of simplicity

One of the worst features about Microsoft’s PowerPoint software is that it has far too many bells and whistles. It offers far too many “things” for the presenter. You can have those awful  bullet points fly in from the top, fly in from the bottom, fade in and fade out, fly in from the left or fly in from the right. You have an endless supply of cheesy clip arts to choose from. You can have your huge corporate logo and your name on every slide. I have seen slides where these junk takes up a third of the real estate.

Try to keep your presentation slides simple. One idea and one picture. The rest are just distractions.

I recently purchased a 12-cup coffee maker from a big box store. It costs $10! And it has only ONE button. That’s the on/off switch. The coffee tastes the same as that from a programmable high tech coffee making machine that costs 10 times as much.  

Simplicity is the key.

Captivate your audience

In an interview with Olivia Mitchell, Rowan Manahan mentioned that during an effective presentation, the audience should be “captivated without knowing why”.

When you do a PowerPoint presentation without those dreadful bullet points, you will find that your audience will pay attention to you and at the end of the presentation, they will come up to you and compliment you on keeping them awake.  But very rarely will they notice that they have not been bombarded with bullet points. They just know they you have captivated them and they don’t know why!

This happened to me when I did my 2-day seminar on environmental regulations in southern California a month ago. The topic of environmental regulations can be deadly dull. An attendee came up to me at the end of the two day seminar and said:” I don’t know what you did. But I was paying attention to you all two days.”

So – try it. Try it without bullet points and see the results! You will like it and your audience will like it even more.

What to say when you don’t have the answer to a question?

It happens to all of us at one time or another. Someone in the audience ask us a question about our presentation and we do not have the answer to it. What should we do?

The answer is clear: Just say “I don’t know.”

This is a much better strategy than to ham and haw and try to evade the question and give a non-responsive answer. All that bobbing and weaving is not going to do you one bit of good because the audience is doing to see right through you. So it is much better for you to just confess your ignorance AND ask if anyone in the audience has the answer.

In his seminal book “Moving Mountains”, Henry Boettinger says “quibbling and evasion produce disgust. If you don’t know the answer, say so directly.”

A wonderful presentation on the question: “what leads to success?”

I came across this little gem on YouTube by Richard St. John. He answered the age-old question: “What leads to success?” with a presentation that is simple, clear, funny and short. It also embodies the concept of visual thinking. I hope you enjoy it.

Vary your tone of voice

The difference between a boring presentation and an exciting one is the tone of voice used by the presenter. Never use a monotone. At various stages of your talk, your tone should go from slow to fast, loud to soft, humorous to serious and melancholic to joyful.

Try to use plenty of interesting and out-of-the ordinary examples throughout your presentation. A speaker once discussed the boring topic of aerodynamic equations by citing the example of the flight of a bumble bee. Examples like that can keep your audience’s attention focused on your presentation.

The difference between a presentation with variety and one without is like the difference between a rive and a canal. If you are floating down a river, it offers you different surprises at every bend. You may go from farmland to gorges to forest just by floating along a river. A canal, on the other hand, is a man-made ditch that is straight and not very interesting.

A good presentation is a river. A bad one is a canal.

Connecting with your audience

One of Tom Peters’ presentation tips is “By hook or by crook..connect, connect and connect” with your audience. There are many ways you can achieve that. The most obvious one is to maintain eye contact with the audience by NOT reading your notes. Talk to them the same way you talk to your friend.

 

 

 

 

Another way is to relate to your audience’s experience by telling stories. Remember: every presentation is a story. You connect with them by sharing part of your experience that is similar to theirs.

 

 

 

 

For example, when I give my 2-day presentation on environmental regulation (a potentially deadly dull subject) to an audience made up of environmental managers, I relate to them by telling them the failures and successes that I had when I was a corporate environmental manager. I connect with them through a shared road map of our past. I was experiencing the same challenges that they are having now. That’s where the connection occurs. As a result, I am able to make a deadly dull subject sound interesting to the audience.

 

Contrast this approach to that taken by many attorneys before the same audience. The attorneys cite regulations ad nausea because many of them have never visited a factory or have to be responsible for compliance in a corporate setting. They have no stories to tell that the audience can relate to. On top of that, these attorneys show up in full business suits when there is not a single tie in the meeting room. 

 You just can’t connect this way.     

How to overcome your fear of public speaking

It is perfectly natural to feel a bit nervous before making a presentation. Even a seasoned professional may feel a butterfly in his/her stomach. There are two main reasons we feel nervous before we speak to a new audience. If we feel uncomfortable or are not very familiar with the subject at hand, we get nervous. We don’t know if we can handle a question from the audience.  If we don;t know the audience at all, we feel a bit unease.

The best way to deal with these two main causes is very simple. Learn your subject well and get to know the audience before your presentation. Make sure you know the subject as well as you know the back of your hand. Gather as much background information as possible about the subject so that your self confidence is high. You don’t include all your knowledge in your presentation. You keep it in your head.

Get to know your audience before you speak. Mingle with the crowd if possible. Engage in small talk with individual members of the audience. Once you have done that, the audience will cease to become “total strangers” to you and it will be easier for you to “have a conversation” with the audience when you are making your presentation.   

Matching your audience in style

When you make your presentation, make sure you are not under-dress or over-dress. The way you dress should “match” the way your audience dresses. Attorneys are notoriously bad at this. I used to make presentations at Executive Enterprises’ environmental seminars held at resort hotels. Some of the guest speakers were attorneys. They always showed up in their three-piece suits to speak to an audience that was made up of engineers and plant managers. Almost every member of the audience was in polo shirts or open collars. There was not a tie in sight. And these attorneys were wondering why they were not making rapport and connection with the audience.  

You should always try to dress in the same style as your audience so you don’t stick out like a sore thumb. If you are not sure how the audience would dress, you can show up wearing a tie and jacket but be prepared to take them off if necessary. Removing your jacket, taking off your tie and rolling up your sleeves in front of a group of engineers will do wonders for you. It tells them you are one of them.

A great slide presentation

Here is a wonderful slide presentation made by Rowan Manahan.

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