Monthly Archives: November 2018

General, Introduction

The How of Presentation POW!

Especially Powerful Business Presentations mean personal competitive advantage
Powerful Business Presentation Skills Yield Personal Competitive Advantage

You can front-load your introduction and put the Pow! into Powerful Business Presentations . . .   seize your audience from the first second of your show.

Or you can tiptoe into your business presentation so no one notices you.

Which would you choose?

You’d choose the introduction with Pow, of course!

But many people don’t.

Many folks in business school, in fact, simply don’t launch powerful business presentations for one excellent reason.

Many folks don’t know how to begin a presentation.

Do you?

Do You Know the How of Presentation Pow?

“Of course I know how to begin a presentation.  What kind of fool does this guy think I am?”

But do you?  Really?

Does your intro have Pow?  Consider for a moment . . .

Do you begin with confidence and strength?

Or do you tiptoe into your presentation, as do so many people in school and in the corporate world?

Do you sidle into it?  Do you edge into your show with lots of metaphorical throat-clearing?

Do you back into it?

Powerful Business Presentation for personal competitive advantage
Do you poke your head out instead of delivering a powerful business presentation?

Do you actually start strong with a story, but let the story spiral out of control until it overshadows your main points?  Is your story even relevant?  Do your tone and body language and halting manner shout “apology” to the audience?

Do you shift and dance?

Are you like a turtle poking his head out of his shell, eyeing the audience, ready to dart back to safety if you catch even a single frown?

Do you crouch behind the podium like a spider in the corner of his web?

Do you drone through the presentation, your voice monotone, your eyes glazed, fingers crossed, actually hoping that no one notices you?

One major problem with all of this is that you exhibit horrendous body language that destroys your credibility.

Try this instead . . .

Set the Stage with Your Situation Statement

Begin with your grabber . . . then follow immediately with your Situation Statement.

The Situation Statement tells your audience what they will hear.  It’s the reason you and your audience are there.

What will you tell them?  The audience is gathered to hear about a problem and its proposed solution . . . or to hear of success and how it will continue . . . or to hear of failure and how it will be overcome . . . or to hear of a proposed change in strategic direction.

powerful business presentations
POW! can Yield Personal Competitive Advantage!

Don’t assume that everyone knows why you are here.

Don’t assume that they know the topic of your talk.  Ensure that they know with a powerful Situation Statement.

A powerful situation statement centers the audience – Pow!  It focuses everyone on the topic.

Don’t meander into your show with chummy talk, thanking the board for the “opportunity,” thanking the conference staff, thanking the bartender for generous pours.

Don’t tip-toe into it.

Don’t be vague.  Don’t clear your throat with endless apologetics or thank yous.

What do I mean by this?

You Need Pow!

Let’s say your topic is the ToughBolt Corporation’s new marketing campaign.  Do not start this way:

“Good morning, how is everyone doing?  Good.  Good!  It’s a pleasure to be here, and I’d like to thank our great board of directors for the opportunity.  I’m Dana Smith and this is my team, Bill, Joe, Mary, and Sophia.  Today, we’re planning on giving you a marketing presentation on ToughBolt Corporation’s situation.  We’re hoping that—”

No . . . no . . . and no.

Direct and to-the-point is best. Pow!

Try starting this way:

“Today we present ToughBolt’s new marketing campaign — a campaign to regain the 6 percent market share lost in 2011 and increase our market share.  By another 10 percent.  A campaign to lead us into the next year to result in a much stronger and competitive market position.”

You see?  This is not the best intro, but it’s solid.  No “random facts.”  No wasted words.  No metaphorical throat-clearing.

No backing into the presentation, and no tiptoeing.

You have set the stage for a powerful business presentation.

Add Some Presentation Pow!

Now, let’s add some Pow to it.

Here, in fact, is the How of POW!

A more colorful and arresting introductory Situation Statement might be:

“As we sit here today — right now —  changes in our industry attack our firm’s competitive position three ways.  How we respond to these challenges now will determine Toughbolt’s future for good or ill . . . for survival . . . or collapse.  Our recommended response?  Aggressive growth.  We now present the source of those challenges, how they threaten us, and our marketing team’s  solution to regain Toughbolt’s position in the industry and to continue robust growth in market share and profitability.”

Remember in any story, there must be change.  The reason we give a case presentation is that something has changed in the company’s fortunes.

We must explain this change.  We must craft a response to this change.

And we must front-load our introduction with Pow! to include our recommendation.

That’s why you’ve assembled your team.  To explain the threat or the opportunity.  To provide your analysis.  To recommend action!

Remember, put Pow into your beginning.  Leverage the opportunity when the audience is at its most alert and attentive.  Right at the start.

Craft a Situation Statement that grabs them and doesn’t let go, and you gain incredible personal competitive advantage in your presentations.

For more on putting the Pow! into powerful business presentations, have a look here.

Conclusion, General, Magic

Put Magic in Your Presentation

Especially Powerful Personal Competitive Advantage
Magic Presentation Words can Cast a Spell to Deliver Personal Competitive Advantage

I know magic words.

Magic presentation words.

Words to help you deliver a magic presentation that rivets the audience’s attention and guides them along a path that you’ve chosen.

Magic presentation words that bring your audience to a conclusion that your listeners, themselves, believe they arrived at on their own.

In fact, I know a series of magic spells to use during business presentations.

These are spells to get you out of trouble, spells to dazzle the audience and lead them where you want to go.

But you won’t believe it’s magic.

Disbelief in Magic Presentation Words

You see, we may not know what magic is, but we do think we know what magic is not . . . and it’s surely not the seemingly mundane advice given in a blogpost about business presenting.

The trouble with offering folks a formula to help them deliver a magic presentation is that they don’t recognize that the magic isn’t for them.

Not at all.

Magic Presentation Words like an Incantation
Magic Presentation Words? Sure, and they can bestow personal competitive advantage on anyone who learns and uses them

The magic is for the audience.

The magic is for the effect it has on the audience.

And the effects are mostly subtle.

So, when I reveal the magic words, the subtle and especial incantations that move the audience en masse, it’s invariably the case that the people who hear them are not happy.

They feel somehow cheated.

They just know that whatever else these words are, they surely are not “magic.”

And they ignore the power of magic that they could acquire in their presentations, the subtle and powerful effects achieved by words so unobtrusive that the audience doesn’t even consciously register them when they’re spoken.  The audience simply reacts in ways you want it to.

Here’s an example.

At times, even the finest presenters get themselves in trouble toward the end of a presentation.  Having these magic words near to hand can salvage a speech that is careening off-course.  A speech flirting with disaster.

Your Magic Presentation Words

When your talk is winding down and you feel yourself suddenly spent . . .

When you begin to spiral out of control and cannot remember your train of thought . . .

When your pulse quickens and your mind goes blank . . .

Grasp for two words.

Your Magic Words.

“In conclusion . . .”

That’s it.  Just two words.

Conclude with Pith and Power

These two words have rescued thousands of presenters before you, and they’ll rescue you as well.

These two words work a magic on your psyche that is almost inexplicable to what a logical, reasonable person would believe.  As soon as you speak them, the path to the end of your talk becomes clear.

And your audience responds with keen attention, summoned to a state of alertness by this simple yet powerful formulation.

Speak them, and suddenly you know what to say and do.

And your audience is with you in spirit.

Here is what you do.  Confidently add another phrase to your magic words, this way . . .

“In conclusion, we can see that . . .”

“In conclusion, our recommendation makes sense for reasons just given . . .”

“In conclusion, this means that . . .”

See how it works?

You see how incredibly easy it is to get out of the sticky wicket of a talk spiraling down out of control?

“In conclusion” leads you out of the wilderness and back onto your prepared path.  It leads you to restate your thesis in concise manner and then . . .

. . . stop!

You’re done.

But you’re not done building your Personal Competitive Advantage by improving your business presentation skills . . . consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting for more on magic presentation words that spellbind your audience.

Confidence, Personal Competitive Advantage, Preparation

That Bad Presentation is Your Fault

Really bad presentation isn't especially powerful
Sometimes the Bad Presentation is bad for obvious reasons . . .

That bad presentation is your fault.

You sabotaged it.

Screwed it up.

All of us sabotage our own presentations more often than we imagine.

And we do it through self-defeating behaviors.

These self-defeating behaviors come in many forms, but negative self-talk is one of the chief culprits.

We tell ourselves repeatedly that we’ll fail.

We envision humiliation, embarrassment.  Complete meltdown.

We Set Ourselves Up for Bad Presentations

Negative self-talk begins with the most ubiquitous cliche in business school.  That cliche is “I hate presentations.”  This culprit leads to awful presentations.  It undermines everything we strive for in business school presentations.

How can we build a positive presentation on such a spongy foundation?

Negative self-talk translates into bodily reactions of nervousness, trembling, faltering voice.

Shaking knees, sweating, and flushing.

Moreover, our sour and weak attitude can infect our teammates if it happens to be a group presentation.  The negative spiral down means things get worse before they get better.  If at all.

There is, in fact, no greater guarantee of failure.  How could anyone succeed at anything with this type of negativity?

Do You Think Like a World-Class Athlete?

The world’s elite athletes train the mind as well as the body.

Visualizing success is a technique they use to prepare for competition.  I work occasionally with sports psychologists and mental toughness coaches who train athletes in visualization techniques.

All of these experts agree that the mind-body connection – healthy or unhealthy – impacts performance tremendously.

Let’s leave aside the specific techniques and the psychological underpinnings of it that go back more than a century.  Just say now that we must at least rid ourselves of the negative self-talk.

Let’s give ourselves a fighting chance of success at delivering a good presentation.  Even a great presentation.

Bad Presentation is not especially powerful
Stop Negative Self-talk and Fix that Bad Presentation

So why do we talk ourselves down into the morass of self-defeat?

It could be the widespread ignorance of how to deliver a powerful presentation.  This ignorance means uncertainty of performance.

This ignorance and uncertainty breed fear.

It’s this fear of the unknown that drives up anxiety and can result in a bad presentation.  So the key to reducing that anxiety is uncertainty reduction.

And we can reduce uncertainty through preparation and by controlling the variables within our power.

Preparation is the second of the Three Ps of Speaking Technique – Principles, Preparation, Practice.

Can we foresee everything that might go wrong?  No, of course not, and we don’t even want to . . . instead, we plan everything that will go right, and we focus on that.

We rely on our own adaptability and confidence to field the remaining unexpected 10 percent.  This is one key to an especially powerful personal competitive advantage.

Envision Your Triumph

No one can win by constantly visualizing failure.

Envision this, instead – you deliver a tight, first-rate presentation that hits all the right notes.  It weaves a story that grips your audience, that keeps the audience rapt.  And it ends in a major ovation and a satisfying feeling of a job well-done.

When we take the stage, we focus.  We charge forward boldly, presenting with masterful aplomb and professionalism.  With this kind of psychological commitment, we squeeze out the doubts and anxiety.  We wring them dry from our psychic fabric.

We eliminate the bad presentation.

The right kind of preparation empowers us to deal with unknowns that nettle us.

Positive self-talk is essential to preparing an especially powerful presentation and developing personal competitive advantage.

Find more on how to eliminate the bad presentation in The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

General, Style, Technique, Tips

Stay out of the Tall Grass

Especially Powerful personal competitive advantage
Cut through that Presentation Tall Grass!

All of us do it, some more than others – we insert empty, distracting phrases that take us into what I call the Presentation Tall Grass.

You know the feeling of walking through tall grass.  Tall grass, as in knee high.

It slows you down.

Think of wading quickly through knee-deep water . . .

Right, you don’t wade quickly through knee-deep water.

You push forward.

Sluggish.

Likewise, tall grass tugs at you, brushes your legs.

Holds you back.  And in this case, it holds your audience back too.

It’s so unnecessary, too, so let’s see what to avoid and why to avoid it.

Presentation Tall Grass Phrases

In the business presentation, we sometimes enter the tall grass needlessly.

We insert qualifying phrases that add no necessary substance but do distract the listener from our main points.

These phrases do not cripple your presentation.  But if you can eliminate them, you move out of the tall grass.

Your presentation becomes cleaner.

Crisper.

So what do these Tall Grass phrases look and sound like?

personal competitive advantageHere is one of the most common tall grass phrases.  And it seems innocent enough.

“Now, I want to talk a little bit about . . .”

Say what?

No, you aren’t here to “talk a little bit about” anything.  You’re here to deliver powerful, even stunning information in a tight, direct presentation that grips your listeners.

The affected breeziness of “talk a little bit about . . .” conveys a chattiness that is anathema to most business presentations.

In some public speaking venues this toss-off line might be acceptable, but I find it difficult to think of any presentation of my own where I would say something like this . . . except by mistake.

Because it’s a phrase that creeps into our show at times when we aren’t careful.  I know that if I use it once, it’s bound to show up again.

And again.

As an affected filler.  So I train myself to avoid it.

Perhaps you should, too.

References to Repetition – Ugh!

“As my colleague mentioned before . . .”

“As I said earlier. . .”

We tend to say this from an over-cultivated sense of honesty.  It springs to the lips, unbidden, when we poise to deliver a point . . . and then we suddenly remember that another presenter said something similar earlier.

We believe that someone in the audience is ready to pounce, to call us on our repetition if we don’t confess.

So we feel compelled to “fess-up” and give credit to our teammate.  We inject this wholly unnecessary comment:  “As my colleague mentioned before . . .”

Uh-oh.

Suddenly, the audience is jolted into thinking back, tugged back to several minutes earlier, trying to remember if someone actually said this thing earlier and wondering why you’re saying it again.  In other words, you have injected all sorts of unneeded distractions into audience minds.

Suddenly, you’re in the presentation tall grass, qualifying and interjecting, distracting.

It’s discordant.

Don’t be discordant.

Simply deliver your point.  Don’t refer back to a teammate or to yourself, for that matter.  Simply repeat the information.

Are these small points?  Sure they are.  They’re like individual brushstrokes.

And that’s how any master paints a masterpiece.  A single brushstroke at a time.

Deliver enough bad brushstrokes because you believe that each stroke by itself is inconsequential, and soon enough you’re giving just another routine, bad presentation.

You don’t want that.

So stay out of the presentation tall grass.

For more on the smart choices in your business presentations and how to achieve personal competitive advantage, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presentations.