Russ Peterson Jr.Corporate Ovations | Russ Peterson Jr.

iSpeak teaches workshops on Professional Selling to help sales leaders gather the most important data and then use that information to create the right message. Are your sales presentations closing eyelids or deals?

Russ Peterson Jr. is the co-founder and Managing Director of iSpeak, Inc. – An award-winning professional development training company. Russ is a speaker, international trainer, and published author on Professional Sales Communication and Business Communication. He delivers workshops, keynotes, and personal communication coaching services to business professionals in the US and around the world. His leadership blog assists leaders in giving voice to their vision. You can connect with Russ directly through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

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The “Who Am I?” Story

RPjr — Sun, 16 Dec 2018 11:02:19 +0000

And When to use it…

You’ve finally got the promotion you’ve been looking for at work. In this new position you will be leading a team of 12 people who have never met you before. Your manager suggests calling a team meeting where she will introduce you to your new team. “Then you can take over the meeting and introduce yourself. You know… just tell them more about yourself. It’ll be fun.”

That all sounds great, but now you start to feel some anxiety creeping in because this will be your first presentation to your team! What will you say? What will they think of you? How will they react to you?

When to Use the Model

You’ve got a lot on your mind, but we can help with a simple storyline (narrative) template called the “Who Am I?” Story. Your situation is a perfect time to use this story template. Any time you need to introduce your authentic self to a group, this model works great.

What Your Audience Does NOT want

I’m guessing you’ve all seen this before, when someone stands to speak in response to the request, “Hey, why don’t you tell us a little about yourself?” Most people respond to this with a chronological list of their resume. We all start to go a little numb when we realize you’re walking down your timeline year by year telling us about each of your pit stops along the way.

It’s a laundry list of company names and job titles which tells us nothing about the real you. We want to know the authentic you! To do that, you’ll need to take us back to a moment in time when you had to make a decision. We learn about other people when we watch them react in a situation.

Someone who knows how to tell more about himself without giving a timeline of events is Michael Dell. In his autobiography he tells several stories about his past. This one is a story from his childhood, but it tells us about how Michael Dell leads today.

One of Michael Dell’s “Who Am I?” Stories

The father of my best friend was a pretty avid stamp collector, so now naturally my friend and I wanted to get into stamp collecting, too. To fund my interest in stamps, I got a job as a water boy in a Chinese restaurant two blocks from my house. I started reading stamp journals just for fun, and soon began noticing that prices were rising. Before long, my interest in stamps began to shift from the joy of collecting to the idea that there was something here that my mother, a stockbroker, would have termed “a commercial opportunity.”…

I was about to embark upon one of my very first business ventures. First, I got a bunch of people in the neighborhood to consign their stamps to me. Then I advertised “Dell’s Stamps” in Linn’s Stamp Journal, the trade journal of the day. And then I typed, with one finger, a twelve-page catalog… and mailed it out. Much to my surprise, I made $2,000. And I learned an early, powerful lesson about the rewards of eliminating the middleman. I also learned that if you’ve got a good idea, it pays to do something about it.

What Do We Learn?

Stephen Denning, the author of The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling, does a fantastic job of breaking down Michael Dell’s story. Denning points out how we learn some very important things about Dell in this story, and I bet you can even pull more from it.

Michael Dell is entrepreneurial and bold
He’s aggressive and direct
We learn his perspective on his own actions from when he was young
Seeing where he was then and where he is now gives you the sense he will continue to follow that trend line

How do I build a “Who Am I?” Story?

What’s the formula for you to build your own story? It’s actually quite simple. Even after you construct the story, don’t forget to rehearse it a few times. Just knowing the story is very different from delivering the story!

Focus on a turning point in your life, maybe a fork in the road where a decision had to be made
Try to keep your story focused on the positive. If the turning point generates a negative feeling, leave the audience with positive at the end showing how you overcame it.
Inject a little humor when appropriate
Don’t focus too much on your good qualities. You don’t want to appear like you’re bragging.
Bring the story back to relevance for the audience.

It can take some practice but your audience will love this much more than you providing the timeline of jobs and titles you’ve had in the past.

Until next week,
Russ

Let’s connect…

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Want to Have Better Conversations at Your Holiday Parties?

RPjr — Sun, 25 Nov 2018 11:04:03 +0000

3 Reminders to Help Strengthen Conversations & Relationships

If you’re like me, as we enter the holiday season, I begin to think about the parties and family gatherings to come. We all enjoy seeing the friends and family but let’s be honest… sometimes our conversations could be improved and we’re the ones who might need to change! I began this year with a blog post on “How to have the best conversations in 2018.” It was based on a tool I learned from Michael Hyatt.

How are you doing?

What’s the status of your conversations in 2018? Have you improved as a conversationalist and as a friend? I know I’ve seen some improvement in myself but I’ve still got a ways to go. I’m working on it. As we enter the holidays, now is a great time to remind ourselves of the tools we can use to improve our conversations with others, but more importantly, improve our relationships with others.

Reminder 1: The One Conversation Rule

In a quick summary of “How to Have the Best Conversations in 2018” the one rule to try at the dinner table is the “One Conversation” rule. What this means is that when you have a table of 8 people, you have 1 speaker and 7 listeners. You have one conversation at the table. No side conversations are allowed.

I’ve tried this before and found that it is an incredibly powerful tool for building relationships between everyone.

Reminder 2: What should we AVOID in conversations?

Through research, observation, and my own personal experience I’ve found there are 7 things to avoid when in conversation with others. I call them the 7 deadly sins of poor conversations. I’m not calling any of these out in judgement because I’m willing to admit, I’m guilty of each one.

The road to improvement for anything begins with awareness because once you’re made aware of a situation, you’re faced with a decision. You are at a fork in the road and you can see the two paths clearly. Once you are at the fork and you can see the fork… you must make a choice. Awareness is the exposure to the fork in the road. We always begin change at the fork.

Are you guilty of these 7 deadly sins in your conversations?

Reminder 3: What should we DO in conversations?

Instead of the 7 deadly sins you could just strive to do the opposite, but is there more? Learning again from my own personal mistakes and failures, along with the coaching and research from others, I’ve discovered 5 tools to have the best conversations. I call these tools “virtues” because they seem to be the foundation of solid conversations and more importantly, solid relationships.

Virtue can be defined as “moral excellence.” In that sense, virtues are closely related to core values. They are the essence of truth and cannot be simplified to anything more foundational that itself. They stand alone as a truth.

You will notice how “The 5 virtues of great conversations” are all centered on questioning and listening. None of the virtues of conversation center on your speaking. It’s not about you speaking… it’s about what you’re doing when you’re NOT speaking!

“	It’s not about you speaking… it’s about what you’re doing when you’re NOT speaking!

I hope your Thanksgiving was filled with family, friends, and great conversations. As we move into a season of holiday parties and gatherings, my hope for us all is that we build stronger relationships with each other by leveraging some of these conversation tools.

Thankful for you all!

See you next week,
Russ

Let’s connect…

The post Want to Have Better Conversations at Your Holiday Parties? first appeared on Russ Peterson Jr..

Three Things to Keep your Audience on the Bus

RPjr — Sun, 18 Nov 2018 11:04:11 +0000

They'll stay engaged when they don't get lost

I thought he was wrapping up his message but then he said, “… and we could also start reviewing the project timelines weekly… and also, we really need to look at… also, there’s a new way we could…” I was starting to wonder how many “alsos” we were going to get!

Where is the Bus Going?

This is the FIRST element you need to give to your audience. Most of us has been taught or we have learned by watching others that when you start a presentation, you should tell the audience what you’re going to cover in your message. Every audience wants to know where you plan on taking them. Admit it… if you were about to go on a tourbus but there were 20 buses all lined up and going to different locations, you’d ask the driver “Where are you going?” before you got on any bus!

The audience we speak to is no different. I’ll admit, when they show up to hear you speak, they probably have a good idea of what you’re going to share with them already, otherwise… why would they show up in the first place?!

But by starting with a brief note on where your message is going, you reassure them they will get what they came for! Similar to you being on a plane and the captain comes on before you push back from the gate and she says, “Well folks, we are bound for Houston today so if Houston is not in your plans, I suggest you exit now.”

The captain’s message just reassures every passenger… You showed up here today to get to Houston and that’s where I’m going to take you. That is a reassuring start to the journey. Let’s do the same for our audiences.

The next two elements your audience wants… structure and flow.

The SECOND Element is the Structure

Going back to the metaphor of you on a tour bus, let’s assume you’ve been riding on the bus now for about 90 minutes and the bus driver tour guide hasn’t said a word. About 60 more minutes into it someone yells out to the bus driver, “Hey, when are we gonna get there?” The bus driver replies with, “Ummmm, I’ll have to look. I didn’t really plan out a route for us today and I’m not quite sure where we are right now.”

Okay… how do you feel now? I’m guessing several emotions are flooding in and none of them are good. Just like you’d never want your tour guide bus driver to be unprepared with a route or lost, you’d never want your speaker to be unprepared with a structure to the message or lost in their own data.

Remember, what you bring to the stage is contagious. If you are nervous and anxious because you’re lost… your audience will soon feel the same.

A simple structure to a message is to give them 3 key points. There is some kind of magic in threes where humans like hearing it and it’s easy to remember. Just give them a structure you both can follow. One simple structure Kevin Karschnik teaches often is the “Past, Present, Future” structure.

The THIRD Element is the Flow

If flow is done poorly, you might get the never-ending story. Have you ever been in one of these presentations before? You’re not quite sure what the destination is and even if you did, you’re also not sure how far along the path you’ve already traveled! The two questions to start weighing on everyones’ minds are:

Where are we exactly?
Is this ever going to end?

When your audience can’t track with your message, they get lost. Now they have to make a decision… “Do I attempt to figure out where he is right now with this content or… do I give up and check my email on my phone?”

One of the simplest ways to create flow in your message is to deliver transitions between your key points. You can even recap the previous message, point them to the structure of what you told said you were going to give them, then transition into your next point.

Transitions serve as signs along the highway. If the bus were cruising down the road and you thought, “Huh… I wonder where we are right now. I was reading a message on my phone and I just started listening to the tour guide again. I wonder where we are in the tour?” and just then, we pass a sign on the side of the road and it tells you exactly what town we are leaving and which town we are entering.

You are transitioning from one city to the next. Now you know where you are located and neither you or the tour guide is lost. Simple transitions might sound like this, “So now that I’ve shared my past experience with you, let’s move on to what I’m doing now…”

It doesn’t take much to give the audience the structure and flow they crave, but it will take a little planning. Take the time to plan out a good route with transitions along the way.

Your audiences will thank you!

See you next week,
Russ

Let’s connect…

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What’s More Important… Logic or the Feeling?

RPjr — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 11:02:29 +0000

... and one tip on how you can engage in your next presentation

“Do you recommend starting with a statement or a story?” We had just introduced 4 different ways to grab your audience’s attention and one of my students wanted to know how best to select the right one for your audience. “How do I know which one will be best for my audience?” He was on the right track with his questions because the answer always lies there… with the audience!

We definitely have choices for how to engage our audience from the very start. Depending on your audience and the situation for you speaking, one method may be more effective than the other.

You Could Go With The Data Option

My business customers have no lack of data when it comes to presenting to their audiences. All of my students have mountains of information, research, and data to pull from when presenting their update or their persuasive message.

Logical arguments are great, but as much as I want to believe every choice I make is based on logic, research studies continue to show we make all of our decisions based on feeling. Then we use logic to justify and support the decision.

Feelings Are Important

In one sense, you could say we all make statements “because we felt like it” instead of it logically being the best choice. Angela Duckworth, in her book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, she points out how feelings are the basis of almost every decision we make. In fact, in one study, participants had suffered brain trauma and through corrective surgery had lost the part of their brain responsible for feelings. Unfortunately, they were human robots with no emotions.

As neuroscientists studied these patients they all had something else in common besides the inability to feel emotions. None of them could make a decision. Even the most simple of decisions and they could not select something. It’s obviously a sad situation, but also completely fascinating. Further proof that emotions play a huge part of every decision we make.

The Feelings Option

Knowing that feelings play a huge part of any decision your audience is going to make, my question to you would be… What kind of a feeling will your presentation generate in your audience? If you think about so many of the presentations you’ve sat through at work, my guess is that the feeling generated by many business presentations is one of sleepiness or boredom!

While I’m sure you grab the audiences attention with your logical arguments, supported by data. It is important to consider the feeling you’d like to generate and then make sure you are incorporating the delivery tools to make that happen.

One of the best ways to generate feelings in your audience is with a story. It works so much better than just presenting the statistics.

You tell me what sounds more engaging to you:

“Every night in the greater Houston area, over 300,000 children go to bed hungry at night because they can’t afford enough food.”

“I’d like you to meet Emma. Emma is 4 years old and she lives with her single mother in the 7th Ward area of Houston. Emma’s mom is currently working for Houston Metro during the day and a local bar as a waitress in the evening. Emma’s father left them both at home when Emma was only 3 months old…”

So What’s Next?

Consider using a story to supplement your persuasive argument the next time you present. Your audience will feel like giving you a Corporate Ovation when you’re done!

Until next week…

Russ

Let’s connect…

The post What’s More Important… Logic or the Feeling? first appeared on Russ Peterson Jr..

5 PowerPoint Tips That Will Blow Your Mind

RPjr — Sun, 14 Oct 2018 11:02:59 +0000

And Save Your Time!

“No way!” was the expression I heard as every student dropped their heads to scribble down the PowerPoint shortcut on their Satori pages. “You don’t know how much time you just saved me!” was the next comment I heard. Bill Kreiger, one of our Master Instructors, had just shown the group how to use the eyedropper tool. When we teach our Visual Storytelling workshop we share a few PowerPoint shortcuts and they’re always met with extreme appreciation.

Here are the 5 best PowerPoint tips we give, based on student reactions in our Visual Storytelling workshops.

The Color Eyedropper

If you’ve ever wanted to color a shape or object on your slide to perfectly match the color in your company logo, the color dropper is for you. Even if it’s not your company logo, if you want to match the exact red or blue of any other object on your slide, you can easily do it here.

No more guesswork!

How to:

Select the object you want to color
Select Format / Shape Fill / Eyedropper
Point the Eyedropper to the color you want to pick up / copy and click!

The Zoom Tool

Have you ever struggled with an audience who wants to choose where the presentation topic should go? If you’ve ever wished you could have an artistic way to create a main-menu type of slide with clickable areas for jumping to different parts of the message, you just found it. (This is only available in the most recent version of PowerPoint)

How to:

To add a Zoom, go to Insert / Zoom.
To summarize the entire presentation on one slide, choose Summary Zoom
To show selected slides only, choose Slide Zoom
To show a single section only, choose Section Zoom

Filling Pictures to a Shape

Similar to the profile pictures you set up for a social media platform, this tool allows you to fill a shape with your picture. So you can take your photo and wrap it to a circle. Or you can fill a starburst with your logo or your number one product line.

How to:

Right-click on the object you’ve drawn and select Format Shape
Then select the Fill option and choose Picture
Select the file name of the picture and then click Ok

Double-Click on the Format Painter

Most people are familiar with the format painter tool used to copy all formatting for text or objects and apply it to other text or objects. But many don’t know you can Double-Click on the Format Painter to hold the formatting on the paintbrush. This will allow you to apply the formatting to many objects without having to go back and turn on the painter after each application.

How to:

Select the object or text you want to copy the formatting from
Double-click on the Format Painter
Go click on as many objects or items as you want to apply the formatting
Click once on the Format Painter to turn the tool off

The Duplicate Tool

Ever struggle with drawing multiple objects and getting them the same size? Ever try to copy and paste an object so you don’t have to draw it multiple times, but then struggle with getting it lined up perfectly? You need to know this tool! At first glance this tool sounds no different than copy (Ctrl + C) and paste (Ctrl + V), but that’s where you’d be mistaken.

If you duplicate an object (Ctrl +D) and then move it in alignment to the first object you drew, you can copy it again (Ctrl + D) to make a third object and it will follow your lead in both alignment and spacing!

How to:

Draw your first object and then use Ctrl + D to duplicate it
(it will be placed down and to the right of the original)
Drag the new object to the alignment and spacing you want, relative to the first object
Press Ctrl + D again and watch it follow your lead!

What’s your favorite PowerPoint tip?

Reply to this email or post your tips for us all!

Until next week…
Russ

Let’s connect…

The post 5 PowerPoint Tips That Will Blow Your Mind first appeared on Russ Peterson Jr..

Lazy Speaker’s Approach to Audience Engagement

RPjr — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 11:11:09 +0000

3 Simple tips to engage any audience

I asked my workshop students what they wanted to gain from the class. The first student responded with, “I want to be a more engaging speaker!” My initial response was delivered with a smile and a wink, “Don’t we all!” Of course, we certainly covered that topic in our class. To many peoples’ surprise, it’s not as difficult as you might think… but it does take some planning.

Here are three simple ways you can engage any audience with your messages.

Engage with Solid Arguments

Whatever you propose to your audience needs to make sense. If your recommendation is not backed by experience or research, the audience may find your proposal illogical. If it doesn’t make sense, they won’t agree to it.

Creating solid arguments just means you provide the answer first (executives love this) and then the supporting data; or you provide your thought process which logically leads to your conclusion (answer last.) Either way, there needs to be agreement with you on how you came to your conclusion and your proposed solution.

One simple tool used by speakers is the “What-Why-How” tool to construct the body of their message.

WHAT – is the situation you’re currently facing. Make certain you can paint this picture as less than ideal.

WHY – should we make a change? This should include the costs of not doing anything. Just leaving things as the status quo is going to be unacceptable. What is there to gain by changing the current situation? It’s important to get their emotional buy in here.

HOW – can we get it done? This is where you need to offer the logical solution to the situation.

Engage their Imagination

You know this is true, you love when a speaker paints pictures in your mind. It’s so attractive to an audience we will sometimes get caught up in the imagery and time seems to slip by. Building a tapestry of elements attractive to the mind’s eye can take a skilled orator and years of practice… or you can use this one short cut:

Just tell your audience to “Imagine if…” or “picture this for me…” and you are on your way. I know it sounds to simple, but it actually works. When you tell someone to picture something or imagine something, they will.

We relate to ideas and concepts we can picture. If we can’t picture the concept of your proposal itself, get us to picture the outcomes of your proposal. What would it look like if we succeeded? Help them create a future in their minds and you just became more engaging!

Engage their feelings

It’s true you’ll remember how someone made you feel even more than what someone said to you. Feelings are always a part of any decision we make. In fact, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio made an interesting discovery while working with people who had damaged brains. The area of their brain which was damaged controlled emotions. They could not feel any emotions. Here is something interesting about the group. They were unable to make decisions.

If you want to move your audience toward a decision, you will need to engage their feelings! One of the best ways to do that is with a story. You’ve seen plenty of speakers use stories to entertain and engage audiences. Stories are one fo the best ways we engage feelings because we can all relate to the story being told. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that stories require us to use our imaginations too!

Just do this one thing…

You can really boil down all of this advice into one simple tip. If you want to be an engaging speaker, just give the audience what they came for! When the audience gets what they want, they will love you. It will require a little more work on your part, but it will pay huge dividends in results and your audience will love you for your preparation!

Always give the audience what they came for!

See you next week,
Russ

Let’s connect…

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It’s not WHAT you say that’s most important…

RPjr — Sun, 30 Sep 2018 11:12:57 +0000

Can you finish that sentence?

You’ve heard it plenty of times, “It’s not WHAT you say that’s most important, it’s HOW you say it.” I disagree with that statement. I don’t think the WHAT or the HOW is most important. What’s most important is “what they HEAR!”

Too often I feel like the emphasis we put on speaking skills is on the speaker without putting too much thought into the WHY behind everything we coach into a speaker. Why would we coach a speaker to do the following:

slow down when you say this line
give a pause immediately after you ask this question
make sure your eye contact lands on other eyeballs
step toward the audience when you transition to this content

Why should we care?

As a coach, why do I care if the speaker does any of these things? Why is it important? Why do I think it would be good for the speaker to implement some of these things? Why…??

If we can’t answer the why question then we shouldn’t be coaching these things into people. I think sometimes we all lose sight of this “why” and it starts to hurt our own coaching and communication. There is an answer to the why question and it’s extremely important. But we may have to ask the why question several times to get to the real answer.

Why do you want the speaker to pause after that question?

Because… it will go the audience time to think about it.

Why do you want them to think about it?

Because… it will be more engaging to the audience.

Why do you want it to be engaging to the audience?

Because… I want them to really listen to the message.

Why do you want them to listen to the message?

Because… they will need to understand this to get their work done effectively.

There it is!

There is the real benefit to the audience. The speaker speaks for the audience… always! I know the speaker showed up that day for a reason. The speaker has a goal to accomplish by speaking. But sometimes we forget the audience showed up for a reason too. Sometimes they have their own goals for attending the session.

Even if the audience doesn’t know why they showed up, they will assume they will gain something by being there. There is a benefit to them attending and you (the speaker) needs to make sure they get it. Do you want to know the secret to being one of the greatest communicators ever? It’s actually quite simple. Always give the audience what they came for!

“	Always give the audience what they came for!

You see it’s not WHAT you say that’s most important, and it’s not HOW you say it that’s most important. What’s most important is what the audience HEARS. The audience shows up for a reason.

So when it comes to you coaching yourself or others, it doesn’t take a masters degree in Neuro-Linguistic Programming to offer the best coaching. You just need to make sure you’ve answered the one question everyone in the audience has… “Why should I listen?”

Still trying to give them what they came for…

See you next week,
Russ

Let’s connect…

The post It’s not WHAT you say that’s most important… first appeared on Russ Peterson Jr..

How Some Executives Have Ruined Presentations

RPjr — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 11:02:51 +0000

and what they should do different to fix it!

“Our executives don’t want us to tell stories.” After the student made the comment another jumped in, “No way! He’s right! You don’t ever want to tell a story to our executives. They hate stories.” I found the response a little sad and the worst part… this wasn’t the first time I’d heard something like this.

These types of comments tell me something about the company and the executives. It tells me they’re creating a culture of mis-led communicators and unfortunately, it’s only going to get worse for the executives.

The Demands of an Executive

I’ve sold to executives and I’ve coached them. I’ve had the distinct honor and privilege to meat some amazing ones! Why do I think they’re amazing? Because they understand how to change a situation permanently by fixing a problem instead of a symptom.

When you’re presenting to your executives, have they put rules in place? You know what I mean. Have the executives outlawed certain types of presentations or certain tools? I’ve heard plenty of these rules from students over the past 20 years.

Never tell stories to the executives when presenting. It’s a waste of their time.
Never use animations in a powerpoint presentation. It’s childish and demeaning to executives.
Never use more than 4 slides for your presentation. You’ll end up taking too much time.
Put everything you want to say on one slide. This will prevent you from wasting executive time.
Always give the executive summary at the start. This way the executive can drill down on their personal areas of interest.

I guess what bothers me with wet-blanket rules like this is two-fold: Number one, they’re just solving a symptom at best. Number two, the executives actually think they’re solving the problem but they’re actually perpetuating the problem by creating an army of presentation foot-soldiers who only know how to present a message one way. They’re not being taught to think for themselves on how best to construct a message for any audience in any situation for any reason!

The Problem with the Quick-Fix

In reality, when executives are dissatisfied with the presentations being given to them, instead of focusing on how to develop the communication skills of the presenters, they go for the quick fix based on what they personally like and don’t like.

If the executives get burned a few times by presenters using too many animations for the wrong reasons, they will ban all animations.

If the executives get burned by someone using 47 jam-packed slides full of text for a 10-minute presentation, they ban anything more than 3 slides for a 10-minute presentation.

If they’ve been burned by one presenter telling a funny story to kick off a presentation because he read somewhere you should start with a joke, they ban all stories from future presentations.

These all fix a symptom, not the problem.

Let me ask you something…

If a chef puts way too much salt in your food and it tastes awful, would you ban the chef from ever using salt again when cooking for you?

Or would you tell the chef they can only use one teaspoon of salt no matter what he’s cooking?

Or would you tell the chef she could only put the salt in first, but never again after that?

Or…

The Proper Solution

Would you train up the chef to know the best times to use salt in a recipe and how much salt to use depending on the meal being prepared?

If you really care about fixing the issue then… solve the problem not the symptom!

Have a great week,
Russ

Let’s connect…

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Are you Killing your Audience Softly?

RPjr — Sun, 16 Sep 2018 11:02:09 +0000

3 Methods to Improve Your Presentations and Your Results

The audience began to shift in their seats at the 5 minute mark of the presentation. So far the presenter had successfully bored the audience with 6 slides of solid text and a mouthful of insincere pleasantries. After 10 more minutes of words on slides and a presenter reading the slides, two people walked out and several others were jumping on their phones checking email or facebook!

Have you been in this presentation before? The sad truth is that we can all relate because we’ve all been there. And… if we’re all willing to admit it… we’ve probably all been this presenter at some point in our career too.

The Problem

Most presenters claim they don’t have time to create effective presentations so they just do a brain dump of data and information on each slide, never construct an appropriate message, and proceed to read the slides to the audience because there was no rehearsal either.

Audiences check out very quickly and they have every right because it’s obvious the presenter does not respect their time. Our most precious resource is our time. When a speaker delivers a poor presentation like this it becomes obvious she invested none of her own time to make the message more engaging or succinct. She’s too busy and didn’t want to waste her own time, so instead she’s going to waste ours. Nothing could be more rude.

Three-Step Solution

Now maybe the presenter has the time but just doesn’t know what to do. That is fair. Let’s take care of that right now by giving you three simple steps you can implement to create more engaging presentations for your audience.

Audience’s know when the speaker is unprepared. It sends a strong signal to each person in the audience, and most of the time it’s not a good one. Here are three simple tasks you can do to improve your messages.

1. Engage them from the Start

“Hi, my name is Claude Miller. I’m your ABC Sales Rep and today I’m going to tell you about our firm’s history and our service capabilities.” While I’m not going to say this opening to a presentation is absolutely wrong, I will say it could be much improved! This opening gave the audience two things (but not very well). The two items the speaker just offered is a credibility statement (he’s a sales rep) and a preview of the tour he’s about to deliver (history and capabilities.)

The two pieces most business presenters leave out are the two pieces the audience most wants. We call them the Attention and the Audience Benefit.

Attention

There are many ways to gain attention. In a sales presentation you could ask a thought-provoking question you know is on their minds or quote someone in the audience.

“If you had to scale up your distribution in 3 months without increasing costs, where would you start?”

“I was speaking to Jeremy before we started today and he told me…”

Audience Benefit

Deep down we all know our time is our most valuable resource. So when a speaker expects us to sit and listen, we are investing our time. We all want to know what our return on this investment is going to be. As a presenter, offer the benefit (“What’s In It For Me” WIIFM) at the start of your presentation.

“Today you’ll learn more about the finance tools we offer so the next time you need to scale your production lines, you can implement faster.”

2. Build a Structured Message

When the audience cannot follow your message they will get annoyed (because you’re wasting their time) and they will get tired or bored. Either way, each person will begin to check out and focus on something else. The message must have a structure and a flow to it. While there are many ways of structuring different types of messages, one of the most powerful and widely used structures we have found is called What-Why-How.

WHAT – Is the issue? What is the Problem? What is the focus? What is the situation?

WHY – Why did this happen? Why is it happening? Why is it important? Why do we need action now?

HOW – How are we going to move forward? How are we going to correct? How are we going to implement?

3. Build Graphical Slides

The use of pictures is more than just dropping a photo of a smiling customer on a slide with 8 bullets of text. Pictures and graphics with animations can create both focus and simplicity for the audience. The problem with so many slides is the sheer amount of information placed on each slide. The first thing the audience does when they see a new slide is they begin to explore with their eyes.

They are trying to make a discovery. In other words, what am I supposed to look at here and what am I supposed to see? If we cannot get to our first discovery within 3 seconds, we start to get frustrated. You may have been in an audience with a senior executive who felt this frustration and she just shouts out to the presenter, “What am I looking at here?” or “Where am I supposed to be looking?”

Creating a visual representation of your message does not have to be Hollywood production. It doesn’t have to take 3 weeks to create either. There are simple techniques you can implement using builds and animations to guide the audiences focus through the storyline.

You can also engage a company like BrightCarbon to assist in the development of your slide deck or to teach you better design techniques you can do yourself in PowerPoint. I’ve had the pleasure of working with this company before and they are absolutely amazing at what they can create and teach to you.

Don’t let your audience down and don’t waste their time!

Thinking about my next storyline…

Have a great week,
Russ

Books referenced in this post:

Corporate Ovations: Your Roadmap to More Effective Presentations, By Kevin Karschnik and Russ Peterson Jr.

How to Make the Ultimate Sales Presentation, Blog post by Joby Blume, BrightCarbon

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