Category Archives: Personal Competitive Advantage

message, Personal Competitive Advantage, Slides, Style, Technique

Touch the Cave Wall . . .

January 13, 2019 Stanley K. Ridgley

Touch your own cave paintings in your especially powerful business presentation — Take ownership of your business presentation and embrace 10,000 B.C. technology

It’s 10,000 BC, and you’ve painted a detailed graphic on your cave wall for your upcoming business presentation.

It depicts your keen analysis of the recent successful hunt.

Now, you offer to show it to your group, perhaps young hunters seeking essential knowledge.

How would you deliver your hunting presentation?

Would you stand to one side and gesture vaguely at your cave wall graphics as you give your presentation on how to take down a mastodon?

Would you?

More likely, you’d take ownership.

And if you did, you’d take your first step to achieving personal competitive advantage.

Here’s how you’d do it . . .

Own the Cave Wall Presentation . . .

You’d step over to the wall and run your fingers over the colored lines.

You’d trace the outline of the images as you shared the story that the painting illustrates. You’d use the graphic to bring your presentation to life.

Likewise, in your own business presentations today, when you interact with your PowerPoint slides, I suggest that you use 10,000 BC technology – you should “touch the cave paintings” to meld with your presentation.

Especially Powerful Mastodon Business Presentation — Breathe life into your Business Presentation!

Take ownership of your business presentation, and touch the cave paintings you’ve created to flesh out and support your message.

Step to the screen when you’re ready to refer to a chart or a graph.

Orient us to what we’re about to see.

Explain the vertical and horizontal axes so that we can quickly grasp the data.

By stepping to the screen and gesturing, you enhance your participation in the presentation, becoming the animation for the slides under review.

And you preclude using one of the most heinous devices ever created that can destroy potentially outstanding business presentations.

The Laser Pointer.

Think of the Laser Pointer as a Presentation self-destruct button.

That’s right . . . self-destruct button.

Don’t Self-Destruct!

Even the best of us occasionally thumb that laser pointer self-destruct button that is built into most remote control clickers.

Personal Competitive Advantage — Lose the laser pointer, Skywalker

But you want to deliver a Laser Pointer Presentation, don’t you?

You’ve waited your entire life for the chance to legitimately use that laser pointer!

Haven’t you?

You’ve pictured yourself be-suited and commanding the room . . . standing back, perhaps with a jaunty posture, as you sweep the screen behind you with the little bobbing speck of red light. The meekest among us is invested with bombast and hauteur by even the most inexpensive laser pointer.

Don’t do it.

Put down the light saber, Skywalker.

The laser pointer is 21st century overkill technology. It distances you from your presentation message at the exact moment you should meld yourself with it.

How so?

If something is so crucially important on your slideshow – perhaps a graph or a series of numbers – that you must direct audience attention to it, then step into the presentation. Gesture to the data with your hand.

Use 10,000 B.C. Technology

Merge yourself with the data. Step into the presentation so that you, in essence, become the animation that highlights your points of emphasis. Don’t divide audience attention between you, the data on the screen, and a nervously darting red speck.

Instead, concentrate your audience focus on your major points, touching the screen, guiding us to the facts and figures you want us to internalize.

It’s a cave painting, so run your hands over the cave wall.

Show us what you want us to see with your hand.

Now, I issue a caveat here.

If the screen behind you is so high that you cannot reach it, then you might be justified in using the pointer.

But probably not.

Instead, if you want to highlight or draw attention to your points of emphasis, then utilize the highlighting animation available on most multimedia platforms.

Nothing is more gratuitous in modern business presenting than the laser pointer. And few things more irritating than the laser pointer presentation.

Rid yourself of this awful affectation today. Pledge never to deliver another laser pointer presentation in your business life.

Instead, run your hands over the cave wall, touch the cave paintings to meld with your presentation and communicate with your visuals in especially powerful fashion to gain especially powerful personal competitive advantage.

For more on Business Presentations, consult my book The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

Confidence, Personal Competitive Advantage, Preparation

That Bad Presentation is Your Fault

November 12, 2018 Stanley K. Ridgley

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, Personal Competitive Advantage

The World Expert?

October 18, 2018 Stanley K. Ridgley

Who is the World Expert on Business School Presentations?

Assuming that there is one.

And depending, of course, on what we mean by “expert” and what we mean by “world.”

Those quibbles aside, that expert would be me.

Yes . . . me.

I’m the World Expert on Business School Presentations.

At least that’s what Google says.

And what Google says must be true, right?

The World Expert? What Bombast!

If you’re a regular reader – and there must be millions – then this assertion comes as no revelation. If you’re a new reader, this assertion likely strikes you as, at bare minimum, bombastic and riven with hubris.

Hubris of a sort that took down Dornish Prince Oberyn Martell.

On the other hand, it well could be true.

It could be true, because I Googled the search phrase “World’s Expert on Business School Presentations.”

My search results?

Of 1 billion websites worldwide, my site — this site right here —appears at the top of organic search results.

Go ahead, try it.

The World Expert!

So, what does this mean, practically speaking?

It strongly implies that I am the Best in the World at what I do. And what I do is train business school students to become especially powerful business presenters.

The World Expert on Business School Presentations?

Yes, that would be my first and quite natural inclination. I’ll savor that interpretation in my private moments.

But other than that it implies much about how we can create and develop a personal brand.

Especially Powerful Branding for Personal Competitive Advantage

Indeed, for didactic purposes, it shows the power of a consistent and focused brand.

And the power of brand-building over time.

It’s the same brand-building process I advocate in my seminars on personal branding as the foundation of your business presentation persona.

That brand-building process includes a big, hairy audacious goal – to become the Best in the World at what you do.

To become the World Expert on your subject matter, your skill, your service.

That’s a worthy goal and one you just might reach. And it’s a sure-fire way to build your personal competitive advantage.

For more on brand-building from the “World’s Expert on Business School Presentations,” have a look at the Complete Guide to Business School Presentations.

Confidence, Personal Competitive Advantage, Power

Power Words . . . Words of Power

September 16, 2018 Stanley K. Ridgley

Especially Powerful Power Words! — End self-sabotage in your business presentations with Positive Power Words!

We can remedy public speaking self-sabotage by the ready application of Power Words.

I think you already know that we sabotage our own presentations more often than we recognize.

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, and complete meltdown.

We concoct a destructive fantasy that we then dutifully fulfill.

The Negative Spiral Down Begins . . .

Negative self-talk begins with the most ubiquitous cliche in business school – “I hate presentations.” This is the chief culprit that leads to inevitably awful presentations.

It undermines everything we strive for in business school presenting.

How can we construct a positive presentation experience on such a spongy foundation?

Negative self-talk results in physical reactions.

We talk ourselves into failure.

Nervousness, trembling, faltering voice, shaking knees, sweating, and flushing.

Moreover, our sour and weak attitude ensures that we aren’t the greatest source of strength to our teammates if we happen to be delivering a group presentation.

The negative spiral guarantees that things get worse before they get better . . . if at all.

We have, in fact, no greater guarantee of failure and we forfeit personal competitive advantage.

How could anyone succeed at anything with this type of visualization?

Let’s try something different . . .

Think Like a World-Class Athlete

The world’s elite athletes train the mind as well as the body. Visualization of successful outcomes is one of the techniques they use to prepare for competition.

At moments when confidence is most needed, many athletes go to their “power words.”

These are words that help visualize success and victory rather than failure and defeat.

The words can be anything that the athlete has found to negate nervousness. It can be something as simple as mentally reciting “Power!” or “Victory!” at a crucial moment.

Say, just before a critical service in a tennis match.

This technique works. And it can work for you.

I collaborate occasionally with sports psychologists and mental toughness coaches who train athletes in visualization techniques. These psychologists affirm the utility of Power Words.

They assert that power words can affect performance in positive ways.

All of them are of one opinion that the mind-body connection – healthy or unhealthy – impacts performance tremendously.

Develop professional presence with power words for personal competitive advantage — Positive Self-Talk with Power Words is an Especially Powerful Technique

Lets leave aside the specific techniques for a later time and the psychological underpinnings of it that go back more than a century.

Let’s say here that we must at least rid ourselves of the negative self-talk.

We do this to give ourselves a fighting chance of succeeding at business presenting.

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

Quite possibly, it’s the widespread ignorance of how to deliver a powerful presentation. This ignorance can mean incredible uncertainty of performance.

Ignorance, uncertainty, and pressure to perform breed fear.

This fear of the unknown drives up anxiety and results in stage fright. So the key to reducing that anxiety is uncertainty reduction – thorough preparation and control of 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 leave to our own adaptability and confidence to field the remaining unexpected 10 percent.

Envision Your Triumph with Power Words

No one can win by constantly visualizing failure.

Envision this, instead – you deliver a tight, first-rate presentation that hits all the right notes. One that weaves a story that grips your audience.

A story that keeps the audience rapt, and ends in superb closure, a major ovation and a satisfying feeling of a job well-done.

When we take the stage, we focus mind on our intent, and we charge forward boldly and confidently.

We execute our presentation with masterful aplomb.

We mentally recite our chosen power words to squeeze out the doubts and anxiety, wring them dry from our psychic fabric.

The right kind of preparation means we can deal capably with the handful of unknowns that nettle us.

Positive self-talk . . . power words . . . is an essential part of your schema for preparing an especially powerful presentation and developing personal competitive advantage.

Find more on preparing the right way in The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

Personal Competitive Advantage, Structure, Technique

Presentation Bookends

January 21, 2018 Stanley K. Ridgley

Bookend your presentation to give the audience a satisfying experience . . . and give yourself a powerful personal competitive advantage.

You can bookend your segment of a group presentation, too.

“Bookend?”

What are presentation bookends, and why is this so important to audience response?

Bookending brings your audience full circle.

You first hook your audience with an intense introduction, and at then at the conclusion of your presentation, you recapitulate.

This provides a sense of closure and completion for the audience.

Presentation Bookends, the How

Start your presentation with an anecdote, cue, or visual image that hooks your listeners into the narrative. This is your “grabber.”

Your “hook.”

It can’t be a gimmick, or the audience will feel cheated.

Your grabber must startle and delight your audience. An interesting fact, a controversial statement.

A powerful phrase.

personal competitive advantage with presentation bookends — Bookend your Presentation!

You then follow with your situation statement, which flows naturally from your grabber.

Your clear situation statement of only one or two sentences tells the audience exactly what they will hear.

Start to finish.

One of the best grabbers/situation statements I’ve ever heard was this pithy formulation:

“There’s a deal on the table. Don’t take it. Here’s why.”

That grabber is direct and is almost enough for a situation statement as well. It pulses with power. If you’re the one associated with the “deal on the table,” how could you not want to hear what comes next?

In fact, it encompasses the entire presentation in three especially powerful sentences.

That’s your first bookend.

Your Middle

Then you offer your major points of your presentation, usually three major points.

Why three?

Because of the Rule of Three that I have spoken of in this space so many times. We seem to be hard-wired to receive information most efficiently in threes.

Whether it’s a slogan or a fairy tale, when information is grouped in threes, we respond well to it and we remember it better.

“Duty. Honor. Country.”

“I came. I saw. I conquered.”

Especially Powerful Personal Competitive Advantage — The Rule of Three generates personal competitive advantage

“Stop. Look. Listen.”

“The Three Little Pigs.”

“Goldilocks and the Nine Bears.”

Wait . . . the last sentence jars, doesn’t it? It doesn’t feel right.

Try to craft your presentation to constitute three parts.

For instance: Product Concept, Marketing Plan, Financial Analysis. Something like that.

This three-part presentation structure serves you well as a framework for most any presentation.

As you wind to a conclusion, you then construct your second and final bookend.

Now . . . Bookend Your Presentation!

You say these words: “In conclusion, we can see that . . .”

Then, repeat your original situation statement.

With this simple technique, you hearken back to the original introductory anecdote, cue, or visual image that launched your presentation.

Finally, say: “We believe that our presentation substantiates this.”

You come full-circle, so to speak. With this, the audience gains a sense of completeness. Satisfaction.

This recapitulation of your theme knits together your segment into a whole. Your audience appreciates the closure.

Rather than a linear march, where nothing said in your presentation seems to relate to anything that came before, you offer satisfying closure with your presentation bookends.

You bring your audience home.

You bring you audience back to the familiar starting point. This drives home the major point of your talk in two especially powerful ways:

1) the outright repetition of your theme, cementing it in the minds of your listeners, and . . .

2) the story convention of providing a satisfying ending, tying up loose ends. Giving psychological closure with your presentation bookends.

It’s an elegant technique that can pay big dividends in terms of audience response. And it can imbue you with personal competitive advantage.

Try it.

For more especially powerful tips on how to bookend your presentation, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting, your essential companion throughout B-School.

General, Personal Competitive Advantage, Structure, Technique

The Especially Powerful Rule of Three

January 14, 2018 Stanley K. Ridgley

Your Business Presentation structure can rarely do better than this powerful Rule of Three in Presentations

Apply the Rule of Three to the middle section of your presentation.

You build your talk in stages. You argue the case for your recommendation.

Through all of this, the Rule of Three is the best method you can use. From it you gain personal competitive advantage.

The Latin phrase for it is “omne trium perfectum” (everything that comes in threes is perfect).

Yes, apply the Rule of Three . . . and apply it ruthlessly.

Here I offer controversial advice, and not every presentation guru will agree with it. But it forms the basis for an especially powerful presentation.

With it, you never go wrong.

Think about that for a second. How many things in life can you say that about? You never go wrong.

What is this Rule of Three?

For a moment, let’s consider this “Rule of Three.” This is always a successful method in structuring the staging portion of your presentation.

This means that you select the three main points from your material. Then you structure your show around them.

It’s that simple.

And it’s powerful.

Rule of three — Rule of Three: for especially powerful personal competitive advantage!

Think about this for a moment.

There is something magical about the number three.

We tend to grasp information most easily in threes.

Consider these examples:

Stop, look and listen – A well–known public safety announcement

“Friends, Romans, Countrymen lend me your ears” – William Shakespeare

Veni, Vidi, Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered) – Julius Caesar

“Blood, sweat and tears” – Winston Churchill

“Faith, Hope and Charity” – The Bible

“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” – the Declaration of Independence

“The good, the bad and the ugly” – Clint Eastwood Western

“Duty – Honor – Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, and what you will be” – Gen. Douglas MacArthur

The Rule of Three in presentations is a standard structural model advocated by many presentation coaches. And with good reason.

It’s a powerful framework, incredibly sturdy. Think of it as a reliable vessel into which to pour your superb beverage.

With the rule of three, you can – literally – never err with regard to your presentation structure.

Here’s an Example . . .

Offer substantiation for your thesis and ultimate recommendation in three main points.

Strip down all of your convoluted arguments, all of your evidence.

Restrict all of your keen analysis to the three major points that you believe make your case.

In the Toughbolt Corporation example above, note that in our thesis statement and ultimate recommendation, we mentioned three positive reasons for our chosen course of action:

“ . . . this presentation demonstrates that this course of action is fiscally sound, the best use of scarce resources among the alternatives, and a basis for rapid growth.”

These three factors serve as your basic Rule of Three structure for the middle of your presentation.

Most efficient use of resources over other expansion alternatives

Financial Analysis of the projected acquisition

Projected returns and growth rate

Does this mean that other information is not important?

Of course not.

It means that you have selected the most important points that make your case and that you want to rivet in the minds of the audience. The Rule of Three in presentations means that you select the major facts not to be “comprehensive” in your presentation, but to be persuasive in your presentation.

With respect to subsidiary points that appear in your written analysis, you have the opportunity to address those issues in a question and answer session to follow your show.

Follow the Rule of Three to gain especially powerful personal competitive advantage.

For more proven techniques like the Rule of Three in presentations, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

General, Personal Competitive Advantage

Especially Powerful Presentations

January 4, 2018 Stanley K. Ridgley

What if you could give especially powerful presentations?

That sounds like a worthy goal, right?

Sure, it does.

But if you’re like most of the 1.3 million English-speaking business school students worldwide, you’ve muttered I hate presentations more than once.

And you probably have issues with your business school and its treatment of presentations.

And that’s why you’re here.

Welcome to the world of especially powerful business presentations.

One in 1 Billion?

Of more than 1 billion websites worldwide, this is the only site devoted exclusively to business school presentations. I could be wrong about that, and I hope that I am.

But . . .

Even if this is a lonely outpost today, we know that as quickly as the online community responds to the needs of its users, that could change tomorrow.

I trust you’ll let me know, so that I can link to these nooks and crannies of the web that may hold secrets that we all need.

But right now, this instant, I do believe that this is it.

Think of this place as your Official College Guide to Business School Presentations.

And this place – everything about it – is designed to give you personal competitive advantage.

But . . .

What if you already feel reasonably confident, competent, and thoroughly satisfied with your presenting skills?

I congratulate you and at the same time encourage you. I encourage you to continue improving.

Discover a technique used by a popular speaker. Adopt a new stance you saw in a TED talk. Practice that incredible gesture your friend uses when he’s excited.

In short, recognize that presenting is a skill that can always be refined, always be improved.

Perhaps you’ll find a secret or two right here.

Don’t hate presentations!

I believe, and you may agree, that business school students need credible, brief, and direct resources on presenting – solid information and best practices, not vague generic “presentation principles” and certainly not “communication theory.”

In short, you want to know what works and why.

You want to know right from wrong, good from bad.

You want to know what is just opinion and what, if anything, is carved in stone.

You’ll find answers here to the most basic questions.

What is this beast – the business presentation?

How do I stand? Where do I stand?

What do I say? How do I say it?

How do I reduce 20 pages of analysis into a four-minute spiel that makes sense and that “gets it all in?”

How should we assemble a group presentation? How do we orchestrate it?

How do I pass the baton?

Where do I begin, and how?

How do I end my talk?

What should I do with my hands?

How do I conquer nervousness once and for all?

How can I tell “what the professor wants?”

How do I translate complicated material, such as a spreadsheet, to a PowerPoint slide so that it communicates instead of bores?

Centuries of Especially Powerful Presenting

Business School Presenting answers every one of these questions and many more that you haven’t even thought of yet. You may not like the answers.

You may disagree with the answers.

Fair enough.

Let a thousand presentation flowers bloom across the land. Listen, consider, pick and choose your pleasure. Or not.

But you should know that I offer here the distillation of 2,500 years of public speaking and presentation secrets, developed by masters of oratory and public speaking and refined in the forge of experience.

Folks who certainly did not hate presentations . . .

Cicero, Quintilian, Demosthenes, John Adams, Patrick Henry, Daniel Webster, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama – all find their places in the pantheon of the most powerful presenters of all time.

They all have drawn upon the eternal verities of presenting.

In turn, they have each contributed their own techniques to the body of wisdom. You find those verities here.

On the other side of things, let me hear your own presentation stories from your campus that illustrate challenges particular to your school and academic concentration.

The various subdisciplines in business – finance, marketing, accounting, human resources, and such like – have their special needs. And they are all tractable to the fundamental and advanced techniques of powerful presenting.

So think deep.

Consider the personal competitive advantage that can be yours when you develop especially powerful business presentation skills.

And learn not to hate presentations by consulting my book The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

Drama, Executive Presence, General, People, Personal Competitive Advantage

Business Presenter as Hero

January 27, 2017 Stanley K. Ridgley

Before computers.

Before television and radio.

Before loudspeakers.

Before all of our artificial means of expanding the reach of our unaided voices, there was the public speaker – the earliest “business presenter.”

The Business Presenter

Public speaking was considered an art form.

Some did consider it the highest art.

Public speaking – or the “presentation” – was the province of four groups of people: Preachers, Politicians, Lawyers, and Actors. The first saved your soul. The second took your money. The third saved you from prison. The fourth transported you to another time and place, if only for a short spell.

Other professions utilized the proven skills of presenting – carnival barker, vaudevillian, traveling snake oil salesmen.

No, these were not the earliest examples of America’s business presenters.

But they surely were the last generation before modernity began to leech the vitality from public speaking.

To suck the life from “business presenting.”

Skills of the Masters

The skills necessary to these four professions were developed over centuries. The ancient Greeks knew well the power of oratory and argument.

The knew the power of words.

How the right words could bring especially powerful vitality to a speech.

In fact, Socrates, one of the great orators of the 5th Century B.C. , was tried and sentenced to death for the power of his oratory. He filled his presentations with the “wrong” ideas.

In our modern 21^st century smugness, we likely think that long-dead practitioners of public speaking and of quaint “elocution” have nothing to teach us.

We’ve adopted a wealth of technological firepower that purports to exalt our presentation message.

And yet the result has been something different.

Instead of sharpening our communication skills, multimedia packages have supplanted them. Each advance in technology creates another barrier between the business presenter and the audience.

The Business Presenter and Powerpoint

Today’s presenters have fastened hold of the notion that PowerPoint is the presentation.

The idea is that PowerPoint has removed responsibility from you to be knowledgeable, interesting, concise, and clear.

The focus has shifted from the business presenter to the fireworks.

This has led to such a decline that the attitude of the presenter is: “The presentation is up there on the slides . . . let’s all read them together.”

And in many cases, this is exactly what happens.

Almost as if the business presenter becomes a member of the audience.

PowerPoint and props are just tools. That’s all. You should be able to present without them.

And when you can, finally, present without them, you can then use them to maximum advantage to amplify the superior communication skills you’ve developed.

In fact, many college students do present without PowerPoint every day outside of the university. Some of them give fabulous presentations. Most give adequate presentations.

They deliver these presentations in the context of one of the most ubiquitous part-time jobs college students perform – waiter or waitress.

Presentation Training – More Money

Waiters and waitresses are business presenters.

For a waiter, every customer is an audience, every welcoming a show.

The smartest students recognize this as the opportunity to sharpen presentation skills useful in multiple venues, to differentiate and hone a personal persona, and to earn substantially more tips at the end of each presentation.

Most students in my classes do not recognize the fabulous opportunity they have as a waiter or waitress.

They view it simply as a job, performed to a minimum standard.

Without even realizing it, they compete with a low-cost strategy rather than a differentiation strategy, and their tips show it.

Instead of offering premium service and an experience that no other waiter or waitress offers, they give the standard functional service like everyone else.

Especially Powerful Dinner Presentations

As a waiter, ask yourself: “What special thing can I offer that my customers might be willing to pay more for?”

Your answer is obvious . . . you can offer a special and enjoyable experience for your customers. You can become a superb business presenter.

In fact, you can make each visit to your restaurant memorable for your customers by delivering a show that sets you apart from others, that puts you in-demand.

I don’t mean for you to put on a juggling act.

Or to become a comedian . . .

Or to intrude on your guests’ evening.

I do mean to take your job seriously. Learn your temporary profession’s rules and craft a business presentation of your material that resonates with confidence, authenticity and sincerity.

Display enthusiasm for your material and an earnestness to communicate it in words and actions that make your audience feel comfortable and . . . heroic.

The Hero Had Best be in Your Audience

Yes, hero.

Every business presentation – every story – has a hero and that hero is your audience. Great business presenters evoke a sense of heroism in customers.

Do this, and you win every time with an especially powerful show.

I have just described a quite specific workplace scenario where effective presenting can have an immediate reward. Every element necessary to successful presenting is present in a wait-staff restaurant situation.

The reverse is likewise true.

Especially Powerful Hero — Presentation Hero? Remember that it’s the Audience

The principles and techniques of delivering a powerful presentation in a restaurant and in a boardroom are not just similar – they are identical.

The venue is different, the audience is different, the relationships of those in the room might be different.

But the principles that inform the great business presenter are the same.

And so, back to the early practitioners of oratory and public speaking.

Here is the paradox: a fabulous treasure can be had for anyone with the motivation to pluck these barely concealed gems from the ground, to sift the sediment of computerized gunk to find the gold.

Adopt the habits of the masters.

Acquire the mannerisms and the power and versatility of the great business presenters who strode the stages, who argued in courtrooms, who declaimed in congress, and who bellowed from pulpits.

Their secrets offer us the key to delivering especially powerful business presentations.

The key to acquiring personal competitive advantage.

For more on becoming a great business presenter, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

General, Personal Competitive Advantage, Technique

Make the Right Presentation Choices

August 7, 2016 Stanley K. Ridgley

especially powerful presentation choices — Choose well, for an especially powerful presentation

To deliver an especially powerful presentation means that you must choose correctly more than 100 times . . . it means that you take the correct presentation choices from start to finish.

Of course, it may not be exactly 100.

It could be 120.

Or perhaps 80.

Regardless, every time you deliver a presentation, you choose repeatedly.

Dozens of times.

Invisible Presentation Choices

And most often, you’re unaware of the silent, invisible choices you make. Instead, your presentation simply unspools on its own, chaotic, willy-nilly . . . sometimes for the good, more often badly.

Rather than conceive of the presentation as a series of choices, many folks view the presentation as an organic whole.

As something we simply “do.”

It’s presented as something that can be conducted via a series of “tips.” You’ve seen the articles on presentation tips.

Or business presenting is discussed as a “soft skill,” something you can pick up along the way. Perhaps in one of the ubiquitous and uninspired “communications classes.”

We receive vague instructions in a communications class, a place where mystification of the presentation is perpetuated, the myth of the “soft skill” is maintained, and presentation folk wisdom reigns . . .

“Make eye contact!”

“Move around when you talk!”

“Don’t put your hand in your pocket!”

Advice that is obscurantist at its best and can be downright wrong at its worst.

Not a “Soft Skill”

The delivery of the Business Presentation is not a “soft skill.” Approximately 80 percent of the presentation process is definable as a series of choices each of us must make.

And if you choose badly, you deliver a horrendous presentation.

How can you choose wisely if you don’t even know what the choices are? Much less the wise choice at each step along the way?

We seek easy solutions, the quick fix, the “secret” to turn a drab, staid, listless presentation into one that brims with vigor, zest, and elan.

An especially powerful presentation.

Failing that, perhaps just something that can flog a bit of life into our tired efforts.

One evening, we may see a memorable, delightful, scintillating presentation.

It’s a show that engages us, that sparkles with memorable visuals and that implants core ideas and powerful notions in our minds. A great presentation!

Why was it a great presentation?

Many folks answer with one – maybe two reasons. This is akin to medieval alchemists searching for a method to transform lead into gold.

A shortcut to wealth.

And so we contrive abstractions and unsatisfactory responses:

The speaker was interesting. The topic was relevant and au courant. Torn from today’s headlines!

It was the audience . . . he had a good audience!

But none of these easy answers yield something that we can actually use . . . something we can operationalize in our show. This is because no easy answer exists.

No one reason.

No single technique.

There is no business presentation alchemy. Except in the notion that we must get lots of things right.

The superb business presenter does 100 things right, while the bad business presenter does 100 things wrong.

What are the “100 Presentation Choices?”

Is it exactly 100?

Of course not, no more than great writing consists in getting exactly 100 things right, instead of getting them wrong.

For any talk, it could be 90, or it could be 150. Or something else.

The “100 things” trope suffices to convey that great presentations are planned and orchestrated according to set principles that can be learned, and those principles consist in proven practices.

Lots of them.

Practices that replace unthinking habits.

Techniques of posture, voice, syntax, gestures, topic, presentation structure, your expression, confidence, your movement . . . all of these done well or done poorly combine to yield either an especially powerful presentation . . .

. . . or a dud.

Especially Powerful — Scott’s Lessons: An especially powerful source for Abraham Lincoln

Go to Scott’s Lessons, the book that inspired and taught Abraham Lincoln as he grew into one of America’s great orators.

There, you’ll find a wealth of powerful techniques to transform even the most mundane of speakers into a champion.

More than 100 techniques?

Surely.

The important lesson is that great presenting is assembled from the verbal and non-verbal construction materials we select.

Lots of mistakes make for awful shows. But getting those 100 things right can yield a show that’s spectacular for no single, discernible reason.

That’s the power of synergy.

Take just one aspect of your show – the way you stand. Have you ever thought about it? Where you stand? How you stand?

If you’ve never given it thought, then you’re likely doing it wrong.

To learn how to adopt the perfect (for you) stance, go here and the secret shall be revealed. And you’ll have learned a handful of the essential 100 presentation choices to launch you on your way to deliver especially powerful presentations and to develop a personal competitive advantage.

The next step, of course, is to actually do it. In your next presentation.

More of the 100 Presentation Choices that constitute especially powerful business presentations here.

General, International, Personal Competitive Advantage

International Presentations – China

July 13, 2016 Stanley K. Ridgley

I not only travel a great many miles to special places, but also work with some of the brightest business leaders of tomorrow, endowed with the talent to deliver especially powerful international presentations.

In China, for instance.

China has already overtaken Japan as the world’s second largest economy, and its engine of domestic and international commerce is only just starting.

Especially Powerful Drive

With incredible knowledge resource capability and government that increasingly recognizes the power of individual initiative and the economic benefits that accrue from relaxing regulation, China is set for an economic renaissance to stagger the world when its gears fully engage.

MBA students at the Sun Yat Sen Business School in Guangzhou, who appear on this page, show a determination, drive, optimism, and coachability that should be the envy of the world.

These young people are cosmopolitan to an extraordinary degree, proficient in multiple languages, and eager to absorb the lessons of Western-style management.

Poised to enter middle-management as a sage class of entrepreneurial knowledge workers who embrace the proven techniques of modern industrial wealth production.

These techniques of course include especially powerful presenting, which can confer unmatched personal competitive advantage.

I’d go so far as to say that they constitute a new cadre of global executives, a new breed of 21st Century Managers, unencumbered with outdated notions held over from the industrial revolution.

A cadre imbued with the qualities of . . .

Cultural Competence

Technical Proficiency

Flexibility and Adaptability

Cosmopolitan Outlook

Team-work orientation

Personal and Professional Aligned Strategic Focus

International Presentation Advantage

A cadre who can deliver especially powerful presentations in a second or third language. International Presentations. Now that’s advantage.

And with an incredible hunger to become the best business presenters possible, who embrace the range of instruction found in The Guide to Business School Presenting . . . quite revolutionary to the Chinese education system.

The rest of the business world should take note.

China is an economic dragon on the cusp of a genuine Great Leap Forward.

General, People, Personal Competitive Advantage, Power

The Business Presenter

January 10, 2016 Stanley K. Ridgley

The Earliest Business Presentations likely were delivered in the amphitheaters of Athens and Rome — Cicero was doubtless as good at business presentations as he was at arguing before the Roman Senate

Before computers.

Before television and radio.

Before the bullhorn and all of our multifarious artificial means of expanding the reach of our unaided voices, the public speaker stood tall and apart.

The public speaker. The Business Presenter.

The Business Presenter

From out of mists of time, of the earliest Greek history came the public speaker as especially powerful citizen of the state, a persuader, a doer, a person imbued with almost magical powers to sway the crowd . . .

From the time of Corax in the 5th century B.C., public speaking blossomed and developed into what was considered close to an art form.

Some did consider it art.

Public speaking – or the “presentation” – was the province of four groups of people: Preachers, Politicians, Lawyers, and Actors. The first to save your soul, the second to take your money, the third to save your life, the fourth to transport you to another time and place, if only for a short spell.

Other professions utilized the proven communication skills of presenting – carnival barker, vaudevillian, traveling snake oil salesmen.

These were not the earliest examples of America’s business presenters, but they surely were the last generation before modernity began to leech the vitality from public speaking.

Began to suck the life from “presenting.”

Skills of the Master Business Presenter

The skills necessary to these four professions were developed over centuries.

The ancient Greeks knew well the power of oratory and argument, the persuasive powers of words.

Socrates, one of the great orators of the 5th Century B.C. , was tried and sentenced to death for the power of his oratory, coupled with his unpopular ideas.

In our modern 21^st century smugness, we likely think that long-dead practitioners of public speaking and of quaint “elocution” have nothing to teach us. We’ve adopted a wealth of technological firepower that purports to improve, embellish, amplify, exalt our presentation.

Yet the result has been something quite different.

Instead of sharpening our communication skills, multimedia packages have served to supplant them, providing barriers between speaker and audience. Each new advancement in technology creates another layer of insulation.

Young Business Presenter — Seize every opportunity to deliver a powerful and persuasive business presentation, and you’ll find your personal competitive advantage increasing

Today’s presenters have grasped feverishly at the notion that PowerPoint is the presentation. The idea is that PowerPoint has removed responsibility from you to be knowledgeable, interesting, concise, and clear.

The focus has shifted from the speaker to limp fireworks, and this has led to such a decline to the point where in extreme cases the attitude of the presenter is: “The presentation is up there on the slides . . . let’s all read them together.”

In many cases, this is exactly what happens.

The presenter pivots, shows us his back, and edges away from the stage to become a quasi-member of the audience.

PowerPoint and props are just tools. That’s all. You should be able to present without them.

When you can, finally, present without them, you can then use them to maximum advantage to amplify the superior communication skills you’ve developed.

In fact, many college students do present without PowerPoint every day outside of the university. Some of them give fabulous presentations.

Most give simply adequate presentations.

They deliver these presentations in the context of one of the most ubiquitous part-time jobs college students perform – waiter or waitress.

On the Job Business Presentation Training

For a waiter, every customer is an audience, every welcoming a show.

Many students in my classes do not recognize the fabulous opportunity they have as a waiter or waitress – they view it simply as a job, performed to a minimum standard.

Without even realizing it, they compete with a low-cost strategy rather than a differentiation strategy, and their tips show it.

Business Presentation — The Waiter as Business Presenter

Instead of offering premium service and an experience that no other waiter or waitress offers, they give the standard functional service like everyone else.

As a waiter, ask yourself: “What special thing can I offer that my customers might be willing to pay more for?”

Your answer is obvious . . . you can offer a special and enjoyable experience for your customers.

In fact, you can make each visit to your restaurant memorable for your customers by delivering a show that sets you apart from others, that puts you in-demand.

I do not mean putting on a juggling act, or becoming a comedian, or intruding on your guests’ evening.

I do mean taking your job seriously, learning your temporary profession’s rules.

I mean crafting a presentation of your material that resonates with confidence, authenticity and sincerity, and then displaying enthusiasm for your material and an earnestness to communicate it in words and actions designed to make your audience feel comfortable and . . . heroic.

It means becoming an especially powerful business presenter.

The Hero in Your Audience

Yes, hero.

Every presentation – every story – has a hero and that hero is your audience. Evoke a sense of heroism in your customer, and you will win every time.

I’ve just described a quite specific workplace scenario where effective presenting can have an immediate reward. Every element necessary to successful presenting is present in a wait-staff restaurant situation.

The reverse is likewise true.

Hero Business Presenter — The Hero in Your Audience

The principles and techniques of delivering a powerful presentation in a restaurant and in a boardroom are not just similar – they are identical.

The venue is different, the audience is different, the relationships of those in the room might be different.

But the principles are the same.

So, back to the early practitioners of oratory and public speaking. Here is the paradox: a fabulous treasure can be had for anyone with the motivation to pluck these barely concealed gems from the ground, to sift the sediment of computerized gunk to find the gold . . . but few bend to pick them up.

Adopt the habits of the masters. Acquire the mannerisms and the power and versatility of the maestros who strode the stages, who argued in courtrooms, who declaimed in congress, and who bellowed from pulpits.

They and their secrets offer us the key to delivering especially powerful presentations.

For more on powerful presentations, have a look at The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

Imagination, Inspiration, Passion, Personal Competitive Advantage

Presentation Greatness: Find Yours

December 9, 2015 Stanley K. Ridgley

Presentation Greatness and great presentations — Finding your presentation greatness means changing the way you present to achieve personal competitive advantage through great presentations

Nike developed a well-known ad campaign with the theme: “Find Your Presentation Greatness.”

Well, it really didn’t refer to business presentations, but it well could have, without losing much in translation.

To wit:

“Somehow we’ve come to believe that greatness is only for the chosen few, for the superstars. The truth is, greatness is for us all. This is not about lowering expectations; it’s about raising them for every last one of us.”

I like the positive thrust of the ad series, which places the locus of excellence inside each of us and urges us to cultivate a desire to strive and succeed, come what may.

The Hard Truth . . . Our Greatest Enemy

Key in this is often the hard truth that often we can be our worst enemy when it comes to achieving success.

Business presenting can be like that.

More often than not, the biggest obstacle to delivering a superb presentation is our self-doubt and fear of failure. This can stymie the best of us. It can result in half-hearted efforts that give us an “out” when we flop.

“I wasn’t even trying,” we can say with a shrug. And thus spare ourselves the ignominy of putting our heart and effort into a presentation, only to have it “fail.”

The exasperating truth in this is that we need not fear failure. Or even a job poorly done. If we invest our minds and hearts in the right kind of preparation, we need not ever “fail” at delivering serviceable, even fantastic, presentations.

We all have the tools. We all have the potential. We can all give a great presentation.

But . . . the Path to Presentation Greatness?

But it requires us to do the most difficult thing imaginable, and that is actually change the way we present. This may seem obvious, but it’s not.

Many folks think that a great presentation exists somewhere outside themselves – in the software, in the written notes, in the prepared speech, in the audience somewhere.

The thought that we must step outside our comfort zone and actually adopt new habits while shedding the old ones is . . . well, it’s daunting. And I hear every excuse imaginable why it can’t be done. Usually having to do with “comfort.”

“I’m just not comfortable with that.”

Of course you’re not “comfortable” with that. You’re comfortable with your old bad habits. That’s what “habit” means.

These are new habits of superb presenting, and when you adopt them as your own, you become comfortable with them. When you do, you will be on your way to your own greatness.

You’ll be on your way to delivering especially powerful presentations. Great presentations!

To further your journey to delivering great presentations, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

Appearance, General, Personal Competitive Advantage

Hand in Pocket – World Leaders Say it’s Okay

November 19, 2015 Stanley K. Ridgley

especially powerful hand in pocket — Presidents are famous for the hand in pocket . . . it seems not to have damaged them

For the 1,000th time, it’s perfectly fine for a public speaker or presenter to put one hand in pocket.

No, it’s not “unprofessional.”

No, it doesn’t mysteriously “direct” audience eyes downward.

The “no hand in pocket” is part of that oral tradition of bad and vague presentation advice that seems to have taken on a life of its own.

Passed from person to person in anecdotal fashion.

Who knows where or why these things originate? Certainly not from the 2,500 years of public speaking literature.

While it may not contribute to your personal competitive advantage, it can bestow a message of calm competence.

And who doesn’t want that?

General, Personal Competitive Advantage

Personal Competitive Advantage

November 13, 2015 Stanley K. Ridgley

Personal presence offers personal competitive advantage, and it distinguishes the business presentation as a unique form of communication.

It’s the source of its power.

I should say potential power.

For much of the potential power of presentations has been forfeited in a shameless squandering of personal competitive advantage.

Forfeiting Personal Competitive Advantage

That potential has been squandered out of corporate fear, ignorance, egotism, conformity, and simple habit.

Lynda Paulson describes the unique qualities that a business presentation offers, as opposed to a simple written report.

What makes speaking so powerful is that at least 85 percent of what we communicate in speaking is non-verbal. It’s what people see in our eyes, in our movements and in our actions. It’s what they hear through the tone of our voice. It’s what they sense on a subliminal level. That’s why speaking, to a group or one-on-one, is such a total experience.

Here, Paulson has described the impact of Personal Presence.

It’s the tangible contribution of the messenger to conveying a convincing message. A skilled speaker exudes energy, enthusiasm, savoir faire – the speaker becomes part of the message.

Here is where you become part of the message and bring into play your unique talents and strengths.

Naked Information Overflow

But modern technology has swept the speaker into the background in favor of naked information overflow and pyrotechnics that miss the entire point of the show – namely, communicating with and persuading an audience.

Lots of people are fine with becoming a slide-reading automaton swept into the background, into that indistinguishable mass of grays.

And they’d be happy if you faded into the background, too.

Most people don’t want to compete in the presentation arena.

They would just as soon compete with you for your firm’s spoils on other terms.

If you become an automaton, you cede important personal competitive advantage.

You forfeit an especially powerful opportunity.

The true differentiating power of a presentation springs from the oratorical skills and confidence of the speaker. That, in fact, is the entire point of delivering a presentation – a project or idea has a champion who presents the case in public.

Without that champion – without that powerful presence – a presentation is even less than ineffective. It becomes a bad communication exercise.

It becomes an infuriating waste of a valuable resource – time.

Rise of the Automatons

Today we are left with the brittle shell of a once-powerful communication tool.

Faded is the notion of the skilled public speaker. Gone is the especially powerful presenter enthusiastic and confident, articulate and graceful, powerful and convincing.

Absent is Quintilian’s ideal orator: “The good man, well-spoken.”

We are left with an automaton slide-reader in a business suit.

This is surely a far cry from how we imagine it ought to be – powerful visuals and a confident presenter, in command of the facts and delivering compelling arguments using all the tools at his or her disposal.

This vast wasteland of presentation mediocrity presents you with a magnificent opportunity.

Your choice is to fade into that gray background as yet another corporate mediocrity mimicking the herd. Or to seize the moment to begin developing your presention skills to lift yourself into the rarefied atmosphere of the High Demand Skill Zone.™

Isn’t it time you decided to become an especially powerful business presenter and seize the personal competitive advantage it provides?

For more on personal competitive advantage through business presenting, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

Personal Competitive Advantage, Structure

Bookend your Presentation

October 21, 2015 Stanley K. Ridgley

Bookend your presentation to give the audience a satisfying experience.

You can bookend your segment of a group presentation, too.

“Bookend?”

What’s this bookending and why is it so important to audience response?

Bookending brings your audience full circle.

You first hook your audience with an intense introduction, and at then at the conclusion of your presentation, you recapitulate.

This provides a sense of closure and completion for the audience.

Begin with This . . .

The First Bookend.

This means to start your presentation with an anecdote, cue, or visual image that hooks your listeners into the narrative. This is your “grabber.”

Your “hook.”

It can’t be a gimmick, or the audience will feel cheated.

Your grabber must startle and delight your audience. An interesting fact, a controversial statement.

A powerful phrase.

Presentation Structure — Bookend your Presentation!

You then follow with your situation statement, which flows naturally from your grabber.

Your clear situation statement of only one or two sentences tells the audience exactly what they will hear.

Start to finish.

One of the best grabbers/situation statements I’ve ever heard was this pithy formulation:

“There’s a deal on the table. Don’t take it. Here’s why.”

In fact, it encompasses the entire presentation in three especially powerful sentences.

That’s your first bookend.

Your Middle

Then you offer your major points of your presentation, usually three major points.

Why three?

Because of the Rule of Three that I have spoken of in this space so many times. We seem to be hard-wired to receive information most efficiently in threes.

Whether it’s a slogan or a fairy tale, when information is grouped in threes, we respond well to it and we remember it better.

“Duty. Honor. Country.”

“I came. I saw. I conquered.”

“Stop. Look. Listen.”

“The Three Little Pigs.”

“Goldilocks and the Nine Bears.”

See how the last sentence jars? Try to craft your presentation to constitute three parts. For instance: Product Concept, Marketing Plan, Financial Analysis. Something like that.

This three-part presentation structure serves you well as a framework for most any presentation.

As you wind to a conclusion, you then construct your second and final bookend.

Now . . . Bookend Your Presentation!

You say these words: “In conclusion, we can see that . . .”

Then, repeat your original situation statement.

With this simple technique, you hearken back to the original introductory anecdote, cue, or visual image that launched your presentation.

Finally, say: “We believe that our presentation substantiates this.”

You come full-circle, so to speak, and the audience gains a sense of completeness. Satisfaction.

This recapitulation of your theme knits together your segment into a whole. Your audience appreciates the closure.

Rather than a linear march, where nothing said in your presentation seems to relate to anything that came before, you offer a satisfying circularity. You bring your audience home.

You bring you audience back to the familiar starting point, and this drives home the major point of your talk in two especially powerful ways:

1) the outright repetition of your theme, cementing it in the minds of your listeners, and . . .

2) the story convention of providing a satisfying ending, tying up loose ends. Giving psychological closure.

It’s an elegant technique that can pay big dividends in terms of audience response. And it can imbue you with personal competitive advantage.

Try it.

For more especially powerful tips on how to bookend your presentation, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting, your essential companion throughout B-School.

Career, General, Personal Competitive Advantage, Power

The Fallacy of “Presentation Tips”

April 27, 2015 Stanley K. Ridgley

Especially Powerful Presentations — It takes more than “Tips”

With regard to presentations and so-called “presentation tips,” I deal with two large groups of people.

For descriptive simplicity, let’s call these two groups “Natural Born” and “McTips!”

“Natural Born” and “McTips!” represent two extreme views of what it takes to become an especially powerful and superior business presenter.

Neither view is remotely accurate. And neither group is what might be called enlightened in these matters.

Members of both groups are frustrating and irritating in their own ways and completely self-serving.

Here is why . . .

Tale of Two Errors

We often look for folks to excuse us from what, deep down, we know we ought to do, or what we can do.

If we look hard enough, we find what we search for, and excuses are extremely easy to find. Let’s look at these two excuses that hold us back from fulfilling our potential as especially powerful presenters.

The first view would have us believe that great speakers are born with some arcane and unfathomable gift, combining talent and natural stage facility.

Especially Powerful Speaking — No, it’s not “natural born” talent

The first view would have us believe that Bill Clinton sprang from the womb declaiming that he feels our pain.

That Ronald Reagan was born orating on lower capital gains taxes.

That Oprah Winfrey began her talk show career in kindergarten.

If these great speakers were born with rarefied talent, then how might we become like them if we haven’t the genes for it?

Business Presentation Tips?

Doesn’t this sound foolish?

If the first view holds that great speakers are born with a gift, then quite logically this view leaves the rest of us to strive with middling presentation skills.

It’s an excuse for us not to persevere. Why bother to try?

Why not, instead, hire some of these natural born speaker types to do the heavy presentation lifting?

The rest of us can skate along and pretend that we’re not actually lazy . . . or frightened . . . or disinterested . . . or unambitious.

The second view is the opposite of the first.

This “McTips!” perspective would have us believe that delivering effective presentations is a snap.

The Second View . . . Presentation Tips!

So easy, in fact, that one of my colleagues assured me confidently and with not a little hubris that he could teach his undergraduates “everything they need to know about presenting in 30 minutes.”

He also assured me that “all that other stuff you talk about is B.S.”

Has the presentation landscape changed so much that what was once taught as a fine skill is now mass-produced in 30-minute quickie sessions of speaking “tips”?

I actually saw a headline on an article that offered 10 Tips to Become a Presentation God!

Have the demands of the presentation become so weak that great presenting can be served up in McDonald’s-style kid meals . . . “You want to super-size your speaking McTips?”

Hardly.

Especially Powerful Business Presentations — McTips – Presentation Fast Food

In the 1800s, public speaking was refined to an almost-art; “elocution” was the new science/art, and departments of elocution and public speaking flourished in universities throughout the land.

In Philadelphia, on Walnut Street in fact, the National School for Elocution and Oratory became a Mecca for would-be stars of the pulpit, the stage, the bar, and the political wars in the 1890s. It published books like this one.

On into the first decades of next century, public speech was regarded with respect and a high-skill to be mastered with much study and practice.

The fact is that despite however much we might wish otherwise, today’s PowerPoint high-tech software multi-media offerings cannot change the fundamental truth that it is still you who must deliver the presentation.

So no . . . you cannot learn “everything you need to know about presenting in 30 minutes.”

You cannot become an especially powerful presenter at the fast-food drive-in window, unless you want to ply presenting at the lowest common denominator. Unless you want to become one of the multitude of mundane slide-readers who populate every business and law firm from New York to Nashville, from Boston to Baton Rouge, from Savannah to San Diego.

Ask yourself . . . if learning to deliver top-notch presentations is so fabulously easy, then why are 9 out of 10 presentations such awful forgettable bore-fests? (and that’s a kind estimate).

The Third View – The Power Zone

There is a third group, and it is destined to remain small.

This group is privy to the truth, and once you learn the truth about presenting, you can never go back to viewing presentations the same way. Consider this pop culture analogy from the 1999 film The Matrix.

In The Matrix, humans live in a world that is not what it seems. In fact, everything they believe about the world is false. Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburn) promises to reveal the truth to Neo (Keanu Reeves) about his existence.

Morpheus offers Neo a Blue Pill and a Red Pill. The Blue Pill returns him to his old state of ignorance. The Red Pill reveals the secret, and once he learns it, Neo cannot return to his old life.

The process of presentation discovery is much like the red-pill/blue-pill choice that Morpheus offers to the young computer hacker Neo . . .

You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Likewise, you can stop reading this article this instant – the blue pill – and return to the righteous and relaxing world of “Natural Born” or “McTips!” Both viewpoints allow the average presenter to remain mired in mediocrity with an excuse that sounds plausible.

One perspective means you don’t try at all, while the other means you offer token effort as befits a low-level pedestrian task.

So, if you decide to take the Blue Pill, close this site and go your own way. Bon voyage! I wish you a hearty good-luck and Godspeed, and perhaps you will be happier for your choice.

But if you are one of the few who thinks for a moment . . . “Hmm. What if the Professor is right?”

Then . . . Take the Red Pill

Then you can read on to the next brief paragraph – the red pill – and be forever stripped of the excuse for mediocrity. For the truth is in the Power Zone, and once there, you will never be satisfied with your old presentation life again.

You cannot go back.

That’s the paradox, the Curse of Freedom. It is completely within your power to seize the fruits of great presenting. It’s your choice.

You can launch an auspicious presentation career right now, right this minute. Or you can dismiss this site as yet another fraudulent claim to revealing secrets to you . . . only to have it exposed as a method that requires you to actually do something.

Presentation Tips? No way! — Choose the Red Pill and Become an Especially Powerful Presenter

A method that transforms you.

Choose the Red Pill. Step boldly into the Power Zone.

The Power Zone is the province of the privileged few who understand the truth that anyone can become a great presenter, with the right kind of hard work and the willingness to become a great presenter.

To join this third group requires you to take on a new state of mind.

A willingness to learn about stance. About voice. About drama. About gesture. About movement.

About 100 seemingly small things that add up to an especially powerful business presentation.

If you already carry this view, that’s superb. If you don’t . . . you can decide now to adopt it or forever be relegated to the other two groups – believing you’re not good enough, or believing you are good enough when you’re actually not.

Public presentations – great presentations – require study and practice and preparation and technique. Not “presentation tips.”

A deep philosophical, academic, and professional history undergirds public speaking. This history informs the very best presenters and their work. You dismiss it only to your great loss.

No, you need not become a scholar of public speaking.

In fact, few people have that deep an interest in the subject and even fewer can claim that kind of knowledge today.

But what you can and should do is this: Open your mind and heart to the possibilities of found treasure.

You actually can become a capable presenter. You can become a great presenter. When you enter the Power Zone, you are both cursed and blessed with knowledge. This knowledge represents two sides of the same coin.

You are cursed with the knowledge that the only limitation you have is you. You are blessed with the knowledge that you can become a good – even great – speaker.

An especially powerful presenter.

Now, you have no other real excuse. It’s totally up to you.

For the ultimate guide to developing your personal brand as an especially powerful business presenter, CLICK HERE.

General, Personal Competitive Advantage, Resources

A Treasure of Presentation Wisdom . . .

December 18, 2014 Stanley K. Ridgley

You’ve arrived at the most important website on the internet . . .

. . . on delivering the especially powerful business presentation in business school.

In fact, this is the only site in the world in English devoted exclusively to business school presenting . . . and that’s out more than 1 billion sites.

One billion?

Presentation Wisdom Websites

The internet reached the 1 billion website milestone long ago.

And while no other site focuses on the challenges of business school presenting, plenty of other sites offer superb advice on this or that aspect of delivering a great business presentation.

Presentations of all sorts, in fact.

And in this, we should all adopt a position of humility with regard to the enterprise we call “The Presentation.” We can always learn something new, fresh, different.

Perhaps a much tougher task for us, we can abandon what we thought was true, proper, correct . . . but which sapped our presentations of their energy and brio.

Where can we exercise this attitude of learning and unlearning so that we can become our best, fulfill our presentation potential.

Look Left . . .

I’ve compiled a great many of the best presentation sites that offer a trove of presentation wisdom, and links to them appear on the left of this site’s home page.

Many experts have crafted their own styles of presentation offerings, and you can gain much from exposure to their themes and unique content.

So do have a look at these superb sites to hone your skills. By doing so, over time you can vault yourself into the top 1 percent of especially powerful business presenters.

This is no idle claim. It’s a promise.

Most important, you can acquire a personal competitive advantage to last a lifetime.

Go ahead. Don’t wait. Plunge into the presentation pool right now!

Click and enjoy . . .

Career, Personal Competitive Advantage, Technique

Bad Presenting . . . the Business Ritual of Pain

November 25, 2014 Stanley K. Ridgley

Are Bad Presentations necessary? — Break the Painful Business Ritual

Is there some law, somewhere, that dictates that business presentations must constitute a painful business ritual?

Boring.

Barren.

Bereft of Excellence.

Given the number of long, dull, pedantic, repetitious, confusing – bad – presentations I see both inside and outside of the business school, I suspect there must be.

This dullness seeps into the consciousness. It numbs us, and begins to legitimize itself. It’s like a business ritual . . . a ritual of pain.

Corporate America seems addicted to this ritual.

And yet a conspiracy of silence surrounds bad business presentations and those who give them.

The Ritual of Pain is Ubiquitous

Bad Business Presentations are everywhere . . . and because they are everywhere, we think that bad business presentations must be legitimate.

They must be the norm. They must be bad, because that’s just the way it is.

And this bad presentation business ritual perpetuates itself, like some kind of awful oral tradition . . . like a ritual.

You see a bad business presentation that some people praise as good. It looks like this . . .

Some Vice President from a visiting company stands in front of you hiding behind a lectern. He reads from slides with dozens of bullet points taken from a written paper and pasted onto PowerPoint slides. He alternates looking at a computer screen and turning to look at a projection screen behind him. He rarely looks at you.

A Wasteland On the Screen

Unreadable spreadsheets appear.

Legions of tiny numbers march in cadence on the screen.

The presenter reads slide-after-slide verbatim, his head turned away from you.

The slides themselves are unintelligible.

It’s a bad presentation, and you can’t remember a damn thing except the three texts you received during the presentation as you checked your iPhone between yawns.

Given this familiar exercise in bad presenting, you could legitimately ask yourself, “Is this all there is?”

If bad business presentations are the norm – if this is the business ritual – you scratch your chin and perhaps you think “That’s not hard at all.”

I can be as bad as the next person.

Just Cobble Together a Bad Business Presentation

Cobble something like that together, and you think you have a business presentation. And why wouldn’t you think that?

It seems to have all the elements: A speaker-reader of slides (you), a PowerPoint display on the screen with writing on it, some numbers, and a 10-minute time slot to fill with talk.

Bad Business Presentations are the career kiss of death — Stop giving bad business presentations!

But what you actually have is something awful – just awful.

You don’t know what you want to accomplish . . . or why.

You have no idea what you should say . . . or why.

And you don’t view yourself as benefitting from the process in any way. Instead, you see it as something painful. Because it is painful.

The Business Ritual of Pain.

Let’s repeat, so there’s no misunderstanding . . . just awful.

This business ritual is painful and awful because of the way it’s been explained to you.

Because the explanations are incomplete. Because you never get the whole story.

Teaching you how to deliver a cogent, competent, powerful business presentation is always someone else’s job.

This can be a problem.

A problem because your career often hinges on how well you can present. And if you present badly, you needlessly handicap yourself.

I Feel Your Pain

Sure, there are “presentation”courses. But it seems that the good folks who actually provide you some sort of presenting instruction in school are often disconnected from your business courses.

They teach you “How to give a speech” or “How to introduce yourself.” But you don’t have the opportunity to engage in a complex group business presentation.

Oftentimes, these folks aren’t even in the business school. They can’t show you how to incorporate business content into your presentations – tools like the SWOT, value chain analysis, financial analysis, PEST, Competitive Intelligence, and such like.

And on occasion, professors in your business can seem indifferent to this business ritual.

For most of your professors, presenting is secondary. This makes sense, as each faculty has a specialty or functional discipline he or she is charged with teaching. Business “Presenting” is no one’s functional discipline, and so it goes un-addressed, orphaned to expediency and neglect.

It is the same in the corporate world. Your presenting woes are the same woes that scourge the American business landscape.

Boring, dull, numbing . . . all of this is equated wrongly with “serious.” We get the bad business presentation as the standard.

The Business Ritual in Corporate America

I attended a business conference on the west coast not long ago to watch the Business Ritual in all its ignominy.

Monotone voices.

Busy slides with tiny letters.

Listeners shifting in their seats.

Motionless speakers planted behind a lectern.

Aimless and endless talking with seemingly no point.

It seemed that no preparation and no practice had preceded these presentations.

Papers shuffling in the audience, because handouts were given prior to the talk.

This is more common than you might imagine. Communications consultant Andy Goodman conducted major research on the issue in 2005, surveying more than 2,500 public interest professionals and asking them to evaluate their presentation viewing experiences.

He then codified responses to this business ritual.

The average grade public interest professionals gave to the presentations they attended was C-. The average grade given to the visuals that respondents observed in presentations they attended was also C-.

When asked to recall presentations they had seen over the last few months, survey respondents said they were more than likely to see a bad business presentation as to see an excellent one.

This is the current state of presentations in corporate America and in business schools. Is it uniformly bleak? No, of course not.

Glimmers of Hope . . . Gigantic Opportunity

Generalizations are just that – general in nature. I have seen a sufficient number of fine presentations to understand that, somewhere, superb instruction holds sway.

Or, at the very least, young people whose early development has trained them for the stage have found their way to the business platform. Good for them. But for the most part, it is as I have described here.

And this presents a magnificent opportunity.

Now that you understand the situation and why it exists, it’s time for you to join the ranks of especially powerful presenters. Becoming a superior presenter means gaining incredible personal competitive advantage that is difficult to imitate.

By investing your presentations with passion, emotion, and enthusiasm, you deliver especially powerful shows with persuasive power. Presentations that are anything but dull. So . . .

It’s time to revamp your business ritual.

Time to end the business ritual of pain.

Interested in more on fixing bad business presentations? Consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

General, Personal Competitive Advantage

They Don’t Get It = My Competitive Advantage

June 12, 2014 Stanley K. Ridgley

“They don’t get it . . . they never will . . . and that’s good for me.”

That’s what one young man said to me after a talk during which two young ladies walked out in a huff.

They walked out, and Ron was utterly delighted.

They left, because I called them out on their rudeness of continuously and ostentatiously texting during a presentation.

Their ignorance, My Competitive Advantage

They walked out, because I wasn’t speaking to “their needs,” and the seminar was a “waste of time.”

They walked out for the same reason that some women walk out when they hear a talk by legendary CEO Jack Welch.

Generally speaking, this type of walk-out isn’t there to learn anything new to begin with, but rather to get confirmation for what they already believe they know. It’s a kind of Dunning-Kruger effect.

Again, generally speaking, this type of walk-out wants validation for what they already believe. They want a familiar sermon that externalizes blame, that places the onus for their low self-perceived status as somewhere outside themselves.

So they search for someone who tells them what they want to hear. And for a sermon that likely will do them no good whatever.

And in this case, they walked out, because I wasn’t saying what they wanted to hear.

Likewise, if folks in my audience think they’ve “heard all this” and “this goes against everything I’ve learned about public speaking,” well then off you go!

Good Luck and Godspeed!

Good luck and Godspeed to you in whatever other 90-minute activity that will remain memorable for the rest of your life.

“They don’t get it,” Ron said. “They’ll keep on doing what they’re doing, never improving. That cuts the competition for me. And that is good for me.”

You see them in every walk of life . . . folks who stop learning.

Folks encrusted with cynicism. Folks who cannot grant that perhaps their hauteur is not warranted, who cannot see that their grandeur is not as lustrous as they believe, who lost their last shreds of coachability in high school and who elevate mediocrity to a virtue.

Folks who just don’t get it.

We don’t have nearly enough time to cater to them, to “have a conversation” about presenting.

If folks believe they already know how to present . . . already believe that there is nothing left to learn . . . believe that their actual performance matches what they believe they already know . . . then I encourage people not to attend my seminars, or to leave if they stumble-in by mistake.

Again . . . Good luck and Godspeed!

Negative Energy May Leave Now

I’ll even pay them a dollar at the door as they exit. Off you go! The sooner, the better.

Why?

Because their time is valuable and they should not waste it in activities they believe won’t benefit them.

Fair enough.

And we can proceed without the burden of angry cynicism and negative energy in the room. That’s fair as well.

Everyone wins!

We who remain learn much about the business presentation enterprise. And we achieve that sublime seminar state where naysayers and crabby folks have taken their troubles elsewhere and the atmosphere is more malleable and capable of producing the magic that occurs in what I call “good gestalt.”

Great things happen when smart people gather for a common purpose. And all involved can gain personal competitive advantage.

For more on good gestalt and becoming an especially powerful business presenter, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

General, Personal Competitive Advantage, Slides, Technique

Touch the Cave Paintings for a Powerful Business Presentation

March 19, 2014 Stanley K. Ridgley

It’s 10,000 BC, and you’ve painted a detailed graphic on your cave wall for your upcoming business presentation.

It depicts your keen analysis of the recent successful hunt.

Now, you offer to show it to your group, perhaps young hunters seeking essential knowledge.

How would you deliver your hunting presentation?

Would you stand to one side and gesture vaguely at your cave wall graphics as you give your presentation on how to take down a mastodon?

Would you?

More likely, you’d take ownership.

And if you did, you’d take your first step to achieving personal competitive advantage.

Here’s how you’d do it . . .

Own the Business Presentation . . .

You’d step over to the wall and run your fingers over the colored lines.

You’d trace the outline of the images as you shared the story that the painting illustrates. You’d use the graphic to bring your presentation to life.

Take ownership of your business presentation, and touch the cave paintings you’ve created to flesh out and support your message.

Step to the screen when you’re ready to refer to a chart or a graph.

Orient us to what we’re about to see.

Explain the vertical and horizontal axes so that we can quickly grasp the data.

By stepping to the screen and gesturing, you enhance your participation in the presentation, becoming the animation for the slides under review.

And you preclude using one of the most heinous devices ever created that can destroy potentially outstanding business presentations.

The Laser Pointer.

Think of the Laser Pointer as a Presentation self-destruct button.

That’s right . . . self-destruct button.

Don’t Self-Destruct!

Even the best of us occasionally thumb that laser pointer self-destruct button that is built into most remote control clickers.

But you want to deliver a Laser Pointer Presentation, don’t you?

You’ve waited your entire life for the chance to legitimately use that laser pointer!

Haven’t you?

Don’t do it.

Put down the light saber, Skywalker.

The laser pointer is 21st century overkill technology. It distances you from your presentation message at the exact moment you should meld yourself with it.

How so?

Use 10,000 B.C. Technology

Instead, concentrate your audience focus on your major points, touching the screen, guiding us to the facts and figures you want us to internalize. It’s a cave painting, so run your hands over the cave wall.

Show us what you want us to see with your hand.

Now, I issue a caveat here.

If the screen behind you is so high that you cannot reach it, then you might be justified in using the pointer.

But probably not.

Instead, if you want to highlight or draw attention to your points of emphasis, then utilize the highlighting animation available on most multimedia platforms.

Nothing is more gratuitous in modern business presenting than the laser pointer. And few things more irritating than the laser pointer presentation.

Rid yourself of this awful affectation today. Pledge never to deliver another laser pointer presentation in your business life.

For more on Business Presentations, consult my book The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

Own the Cave Wall Presentation . . .

Don’t Self-Destruct!

Use 10,000 B.C. Technology

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We Set Ourselves Up for Bad Presentations

Do You Think Like a World-Class Athlete?

Envision Your Triumph

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The World Expert? What Bombast!

The World Expert!

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The Negative Spiral Down Begins . . .

Think Like a World-Class Athlete

Envision Your Triumph with Power Words

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Presentation Bookends, the How

Your Middle

Now . . . Bookend Your Presentation!

For more especially powerful tips on how to bookend your presentation, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting, your essential companion throughout B-School.

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What is this Rule of Three?

Here’s an Example . . .

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One in 1 Billion?

Don’t hate presentations!

Centuries of Especially Powerful Presenting

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The Business Presenter

Skills of the Masters

The Business Presenter and Powerpoint

Presentation Training – More Money

The Hero Had Best be in Your Audience

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Invisible Presentation Choices

Not a “Soft Skill”

What are the “100 Presentation Choices?”

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Especially Powerful Drive

International Presentation Advantage

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The Business Presenter

Skills of the Master Business Presenter

On the Job Business Presentation Training

The Hero in Your Audience

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The Hard Truth . . . Our Greatest Enemy

But . . . the Path to Presentation Greatness?

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Forfeiting Personal Competitive Advantage

Naked Information Overflow

Rise of the Automatons

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Begin with This . . .

Your Middle

Now . . . Bookend Your Presentation!

For more especially powerful tips on how to bookend your presentation, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting, your essential companion throughout B-School.

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Tale of Two Errors

The Second View . . . Presentation Tips!

The Third View – The Power Zone

Then . . . Take the Red Pill

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Presentation Wisdom Websites

Look Left . . .

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The Ritual of Pain is Ubiquitous

A Wasteland On the Screen

Just Cobble Together a Bad Business Presentation

I Feel Your Pain

The Business Ritual in Corporate America

Glimmers of Hope . . . Gigantic Opportunity

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Their ignorance, My Competitive Advantage

Good Luck and Godspeed!

Negative Energy May Leave Now

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Own the Business Presentation . . .

Don’t Self-Destruct!

Use 10,000 B.C. Technology