Personal presence distinguishes the business presentation as a distinctly different form of communication, and it is 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.
Forfeiture of 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, and they would just as soon compete with you for your firm’s spoils on other terms.
Become an automaton, and 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 and 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?
What message does your presentation appearance transmit to people?
Oftentimes, we don’t consider that our physical appearance transmits messages to those around us . . . Most certainly, the presentation appearance of a speaker before an audience conveys non-verbal signals.
This happens whether you are conscious of it or not.
Your presentation appearance sends a message to your audience, and you cannot decide not to send a message to your audience.
You cannot tell an audience to disregard the message your appearance transmits. And you can’t dictate to an audience the message it receives.
Are you the “Ageless Rebel” Battling the “Man”?
What’s you message? That you don’t care?
That you’re confident?
That you’re attentive to detail?
That you care about your dignity, your physique?
Is your appearance one big flip-off to the world because you fancy yourself an ageless rebel, shaking your fist at the “man” and refusing to “conform” to the “rules?” If so, then you pay a dear price for so meager a prize.
That price comes in the form of losing competitive advantage to your peers, who may want to spend their personal capital for more luxurious rewards.
Many young speakers seem unaware of the messages that their appearance conveys. Or worse, they attempt to rationalize the message, arguing instead what they believe that the audience “ought” to pay attention to and what it “ought” to ignore.
Presentation Appearance as Your Destiny
You simply cannot dress for lazy comfort and nonchalance and expect to send a message that conveys seriousness, competence, and confidence. That conveys a powerful professional presence.
This is the lesson that so many fail to grasp, even on into the middle management years.
“I’m a rebel and exude confidence and independence!” you think, as you suit up in the current campus fashion fad. The message received is likely much different: “You’re a slob with no sense of proportion or clue how to dress, and I’ll never hire you.”
The best public speakers understand the power of appearance and mesh their dress with their message.
Take President Barack Obama, for example. He is a superb dresser, as are all presidents. On occasion, you will see the President speaking in open collared shirt, his sleeves rolled up in “let’s get the job done” fashion.
And that’s usually the message he’s trying to convey in such dress: “Let’s get the job done . . . Let’s work together.”
Politics, Schmolitics . . . He’s a Sharp Dresser
You will never see President Obama address the nation from the Oval Office on a matter of gravity with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled-up. Ronald Reagan, the great communicator, was also a sharp dresser.
The lesson here is that your dress ought to reinforce your message, not offer conflicting signals.
Here are some basic suggestions for ensuring a minimum pleasing appearance . . .
While many definitions are about, I’d say it’s that congeries of qualities, skills, experience, and brio that sets you apart from your peers in a narrow slice of your own professional bailiwick.
It’s something peculiar to yourself and your own experience. It’s up to you to discover, build, enhance, nurture.
It’s easy to offer a laundry list of qualities that we might imagine constitutes Personal Competitive Advantage. Charisma . . . confidence . . . style . . . panache . . . smarts.
Personal Competitive Advantage surely comprises much of that . . . maybe. Because Advantage can vary from person to person, from field to field.
Gain Personal Competitive Advantage through a carefully crafted strategy
This frustrates folks.
I know this sounds vague, and there’s an excellent reason for it.
Only you can assess capabilities, intentions, and resources.
Only you can develop a winning Unique Selling Proposition.
And only you can then identify a winning position for you to carve out and make your own.
Many students feel cheated when they realize they must actually craft this position themselves rather than find it in a mythical “success manual.”
But craft it you must.
Here’s One Guide to Advantage
One way to position yourself for personal competitive advantage is to utilize the “Four Actions Framework” developed by the authors of the business bestseller Blue Ocean Strategy.
This framework involves examining the standard metrics along which you compete in your chosen profession. You then manipulate those metrics in four ways to yield something fresh and new.
Something attuned to your particular value offering.
Eliminate. Reduce. Raise. Create.
First, Eliminate . . .
. . . decide how you compete in your particular bailiwick. Identify the competitive metrics.
Personal Strategy for Competitive Advantage
Then, eliminate the metrics that don’t concern you or on which you are weak and see no low-cost way of improving.
Second, Reduce . . . lower emphasis on low-profile and low-value metrics.
Maintain your competitive presence on these dimensions, but only enough for credibility.
Third, Raise . . . emphasize the key metrics in your field that you believe are key success factors. These are metrics that most people believe are substantial and essential to their own well-being.
Fourth, Create . . . innovate and create new metrics. You thus become #1 in a new category – your own category.
Overarching all of this . . .
Inventory your present skill set, your deepest professional desires, and the raw materials now available to you. These three factors constitute your capabilities, intentions, and resources.
Evaluate whether your capabilities, intentions, and resources are consistent. Are they aligned with one another? Do they have strategic fit?
Does it make sense when you eyeball it?
These are the first steps toward crafting a Personal Competitive Advantage. Start thinking this way to lay the groundwork.
One surefire way to gain personal competitive advantage is to pledge to become an especially powerful business presenter.
In fact, it’s an open secret, very much like a football laying on the field, waiting to be picked up and run for a touchdown.
Develop Your Presentation Voice for Personal Competitive Advantage
Several months ago, I here asked the rhetorical question “Do you have a case of Bad Presentation Voice.”
Rather than mere provocation, the question addressed the issue of your presentation voice quality, one of the key issues in business presenting today.
“Bad Voice” is a problem that goes largely unaddressed. For many reasons. Pride. Ego. Sensitivity.
As such, it remains a debilitating burden for many people who could otherwise be superb speakers and cultivate a personal competitive advantage.
Your Presentation Voice
Your voice can be a sensitive issue.
We tend to think that our voices are off-limits when it comes to changing, let alone improving.
We believe the voice is “natural” when, in fact, it’s likely the product of undisciplined and random influences – parents, peers, television, celebrities, radio, occasional mimicry.
The result can be awful.
Many influences in our culture have, in the last decade or so, urged on us a plaintive, world-weary whine as voice-of-choice. Thus, voice becomes a matter of style – not just in the slang we choose to use.
It also affects the way our voices sound when we use that slang.
So what’s a “Bad Presentation Voice?”
Do you swallow your voice in the back of your throat so that you produce a nasal twang? Is it pinched?
Do you use your chest as the resonating chamber it ought to be, or does your voice emanate from your throat alone?
High-pitched. Small. Weak. Pinched. Nasal. Raspy.
Unpleasant.
Next time you stand in line at the convenience store, listen to the people around you. Focus on the voices. Listen for the trapped nasal sound, the whine of precious self-indulgence.
Or the sound of air rasping across vocal cords. A voice that has no force. No depth. A voice you could swat away as you would backhand a fly.
A voice from reality television. A cartoon voice. A voice that can even hurt your social life.
Cartoon Presentation Voice
The cartoon voice is more prevalent than you might imagine. Several reasonably-known celebrities have cartoon voices, and they usually dwell in the wasteland of daytime television.
Take this person called Kelly Ripa, who participates on a daytime television show. This ABC Network television program, an abysmal offering, serves up Ms. Ripa not for her voice, but for other attributes.
This show is worth watching, once, if only to hear Ms. Ripa’s slam-on-the-brakes whine.
Two other champions of the squeaky, whiney cartoon voice are people who appear to have achieved questionable fame for all of the wrong reasons: Kim Kardashian and Meghan McCain. Their voices are barely serviceable for even routine communication.
They embody all that is wrong with regard to acquiring a powerful business presentation voice.
They exhibit habitual pathologies of the worst sort.
But . . . my voice is “natural!”
If you want to become a good speaker, but you do not accept that you can and should improve your voice, it means that you are much like an un-coachable football player. Oh, you want to become a superb football player, but you refuse to listen to the coach.
He tells you to develop your muscles and coordination in the gym, but you refuse.
Develop a Powerful Business Presentation Voice for a Personal Competitive Advantage
Instead, you respond that your body’s musculature is “natural.” You believe that you can become a great football player without “cheating” with weight training or cardio conditioning. Or by modifying your “natural” physique by exercising and building your muscles and coordination.
I’m sure you see the absurdity in this.
The same is true when it comes to your presentation voice. Voice is an extremely personal attribute, and people don’t take criticism lightly, perhaps viewing it as a self-esteem issue or an attack on personhood. It’s not.
Don’t bristle at the notion that you should strive to develop a mellifluous and compelling presentation voice. This is naiveté and vanity and ego masquerading as who-knows what.
It’s a self-imposed handicap and an excuse for inaction. You hold yourself back.
It’s also a manifestation of fear. Clare Tree Major observed this fear almost a century ago in college students of her time:
“People are exceedingly sensitive about changing their methods of speech for fear it will bring upon them the ridicule of their families and friends. . . . Charm and grace and beauty will come only when speech is unconscious – not while you have to think of every word and tone. If a thing is right, there can be no question of affectation. It is a greater affectation to do the wrong merely to pander to the less cultured tastes of others. If you know a thing is right, do it. If you have not this ideal and this courage, then it will waste your time to study correct speech. ”
What is your voice but a means of communication? Does it have purposes other than speaking or singing? Other than communicating? And if we consider this carefully, it’s easy to see that clear communication depends upon the timbre of your voice.
It does matter what others think of your voice, since you use it to communicate, and it is others who receive your messages. Doesn’t it make sense, then, to cultivate the most effective voice you possibly can? So that you might communicate most effectively in especially powerful business presentations?
Put another way, doesn’t it make sense to eliminate what is unpleasant, ineffectual, shrill, and dissonant from your voice, if possible?
Enter the Power Zone for especially powerful presentation charisma
Business Presentations are filled with paradoxes.
For instance, the Power Zone of presentation charisma . . . a place everyone wants to be, but where almost no one wants to go.
It always amazes me anew the reasons people concoct for not becoming powerful speakers.
The Power Zone is a metaphor for that realm of especially powerful business presenters, a place where everyone is a capable, confident, and competent communicator. Where every meal’s a feast and every speech kissed by rhetorical magic.
A place for larger-than-life presentation charisma.
Yes, you can go there. And almost everyone claims they want to go to the Power Zone.
But even when people are told clearly how to reach the Power Zone of Presentation Charisma, most don’t go.
They contrive the darnedest reasons not to, from ideological to lazy.
In my presentations to various audiences, I am often faced with the gadfly who knows better, sometimes vocal, oftentimes not. The person who opposes what I say. Usually for spurious reasons.
And it’s an exercise in futility for the gadfly. I make no argument against the gadfly’s objections, whatever the source.
Because the choice to enter the Power Zone is personal and completely optional.
Presentation charisma is yours for the taking. It’s entirely up to you.
Ideological Objections to Presentation Charisma
The Choice is Yours to Enter the Power Zone of Presentation Charisma
The latest batch of objections I heard sprang from one woman’s ideology. She apparently believed in au courant political philosophy that dictates how people should behave and react to others based on . . . Well, based on what she believed to be right and proper. Or what ought to be right and proper.
In short, rather than communicate with people in the most effective way possible, she wanted to do something else. And if the audience doesn’t like it? We, she’d then lecture her audience on why they’re wrong if they don’t like her way of presenting, whether based on appearance, voice, gestures, or movement.
She wanted to deliver presentations her way. She wanted to blame her audience if they didn’t respond with accolades. More . . . she wanted my affirmation that this was okay, too.
That it was just a “different” way of presenting, if not altogether superior.
She complained that my presentation of techniques, skills, and principles that build presentation charisma “sounds like it’s from 100 years ago.”
And I say praise the Lord for that.
Presentation Charisma from 25 centuries of Practice
I draw on 2,500 years of presentation wisdom of Presentation Masters like Aristotle, Demosthenes, Cicero, Quintilian, Webster, Bryant, and Roosevelt, so I’m not doing my job if it sounds otherwise.
She complained that the gestures seemed “too masculine” and that she would feel “uncomfortable” doing them as she believed they don’t look “feminine.”
I replied to her this way . . .
Don’t do it. Just don’t.
“Don’t do them. Don’t gesture this way. Don’t do anything that makes you feel ‘uncomfortable.’ Don’t utilize gestures proven 100,000 times to be powerful and effective. Go ahead, substitute what you know to be better. Do exactly what you have been doing all along, and emerge from this lecture hall not having been changed one iota. Not having learned a damned thing. And then . . . you can wonder at how you have’t improved. At all.”
But do that with the full knowledge that you leave the competitive advantage you might gain just sitting on the playing field. It’s there for someone else to pick up. The principles of building charisma are gender neutral, and some folks have problems with that. Too bad. That’s the way it is. Consult Alix Rister for a female perspective . . . that is to say, a professional perspective on how to build presentation charisma.
Your Comfort is Irrelevant to Presentation Charisma
Comfort? You don’t feel “comfortable” utilizing certain gestures? Since when did our “comfort” become the sine qua non of everything we try? Who cooked this “comfort” thing up, and when did it gain currency?
Has any greater cop-out ever been devised?
Of course you don’t feel “comfortable” doing something you’ve never tried before.
A baby feels anything but comfort as it springs from the womb and is forced to breathe air instead of amniotic fluid and faces the cold of a delivery room.
A child feels anything but comfort as he learns the periodic table and the multiplication table or riding a bike or a new sport or meets new people and is forced to hear contrary opinions.
An athlete feels discomfort as she trains to develop skill, power, speed, and strength in the gym so as to perform at a superior level.
Does it feel “comfortable” to push forward and extend our capabilities into new and desirable areas? You think presentation charisma is easy and that you ought to wear it comfortably from the first minute? It’s often a difficult process, but we certainly don’t accept “discomfort” as a reason not to do something necessary to achieve a goal.
“I just don’t feel comfortable.”
Of course you don’t feel “comfortable” speaking before a group if you’ve never done it before or done so with no success. Of course you don’t feel “comfortable” acting in charismatic ways. Speaking with presentation charisma. That’s the whole point of especially powerful presenting – expanding the speaker’s comfort zone to encompass powerful communication techniques that lift you into the upper echelon of business presenters.
And drawing upon 25 Centuries of wisdom and practice to do so.
But some folks scowl at this. It requires too much of them.
Or it conflicts with the way they think the world ought to work. Or the Seven Secrets for Especially Powerful Presenting aren’t mystical enough for them. Secrets ought to be . . . well, they ought to have something akin to magic sparkles, right?
You may find this somehow unsatisfactory and unsatisfying or in conflict with your own ideology or philosophy. If you believe the answer should somehow be more mystical or revelatory or tied to the high-tech promises of our brave new world, then I say this to you: “Go forth and don’t use these techniques.”
Don’t fume over this or that nettlesome detail. It’s completely unnecessary. No need to argue about anything.
No one compels you to do anything here.
And this is what is so infuriating for the habitual naysayers – complete freedom. The freedom not to travel into the Power Zone of Presentation Charisma.
I show you the way to the Power Zone, where you can be one of the exceptional few who excels in incredible fashion . . . but you can choose not to go.
If not, good luck and Godspeed with your own opinions and philosophies and endless search for presentation excellence located somewhere else. Let 1,000 presentation flowers bloom!
But if you elect to draw upon the best that the Presentation Masters have to offer, then I offer congratulations as you step onto the path toward the Power Zone of Presentation Charisma. The path toward that rarefied world of especially powerful presenters.
Wing it if you will . . . but expect a disastrous presentation
Always speak to the people in your audience in ways that move them, and this means presentation preparation.
Offer them something that speaks to them in the language they understand and to the needs they have.
Always offer them your respect and your heart.
Does this seem obvious?
That’s the paradox.
We often forget that our audience is the other player in our two-player cooperative game. We mistakenly contrive our message in our terms.
We say what we want to say and what we think our audience needs to hear in language that gives us comfort.
Then we blame the audience if they don’t “get it.”
It’s Your Fault, not Theirs
Too many speakers across the spectrum of abilities never consider the needs of their audience or why they have gathered to hear the message.
Often, a presenter may simply offer an off-the-shelf solution message that isn’t even remotely tailored to the needs of the folks gathered to hear it.
In short, they don’t engage presentation preparation. At all.
They “wing it.”
Paradoxically, this occurs quite often when men and women of power and accomplishment address large groups of employees or conference attendees.
Infused with the power and, too often, arrogance and hubris that comes with great success, they believe this success translates into powerful presenting.
They offer standard tropes.
They rattle off cliches, and they pull out shopworn blandishments . . . and they receive ovations, because those assembled believe that, well, this fellow is successful, so he must know what he’s doing.
What he says and the way he says it, whatever it was, becomes gospel.
The Curse of Hubris and Contempt
But what we actually witness from presenters of this type is actually a form of contempt. Presenters from 16 to 60 offer this up too often.
The lack of presentation preparation by any speaker communicates a disdain for the audience and contempt for the time of people gathered to listen.
For instance, last year a successful young entrepreneur spoke to our assembled students about his own accomplishments in crafting a business plan for his unique idea and then pitching that idea to venture capitalists.
His idea was tremendously successful and, as I understood him, he sold it for millions.
Now, he stood in front of our students wearing a ragged outfit of jeans and flannel shirt and sipping coffee from a styrofoam cup. He was ill-prepared to speak.
He offered-up toss-off lines.
What was his sage advice to our budding entrepreneurs for their own presentations?
Slob Cool . . . another sure path to presentation failure
“Make really good slides.”
Say what?
That was it.
Just a few moments’ thought makes clear how pedestrian this is.
What does it truly mean? You need a millionaire entrepreneur to tell you this?
“Really good slides” means nothing and promises even less.
I guarantee that this youngster did not appear in his own presentations wearing his “cool slob” outfit.
Likely as not, he developed a great idea, defined it sharply, and practiced many times. It was presented knowledgeably by well-dressed entrepreneurs, and this is what won the day.
And this is the lesson that our young presenters should internalize, not toss-offs from a character just dropping by.
So many of the dull and emotionless automatons we listen to could be powerful communicators if they shed their hard defensive carapaces and accepted that there is much to be learned.
Much can be gained by respecting the audience enough to speak to them as fellow hopeful human beings in their own language of desires, ambition, fears, and anticipation.
Conversely, we all can learn from the people we meet and the speakers we listen to, even the bad ones.
Presentation Preparation
In business school, you sometimes espy classmates who demonstrate this pathology of unpreparedness.
It’s called “winging it.”
Many students tend to approach presentations with either fear or faux nonchalance. Or real nonchalance. It’s a form of defensiveness. This results in “winging it,” where contrived spontaneity and a world-weary attitude carries the day.
No preparation, no practice, no self-respect . . . just embarrassment. Almost a defiant contempt for the assignment and the audience.
This kind of presentation abomination leaves the easy-out that the student “didn’t really try.” It is obvious to everyone watching that you are “winging it.”
Why would you waste our time this way? Why would you waste your own? You have as much chance of achieving success “winging it” as a penguin has of flying.
Winging it leads to a crash landing of obvious failure. Whether you care or not is a measure of character.
The chief lesson to digest here is to always respect your audience and strive to give them your heart. Do these two things, and you will always gain a measure of success, and you will gain personal competitive advantage.
Imbue your business presentations with passion for especially powerful impact
If you don’t enjoy what you do every day, you’re doing the wrong thing.
You’re in the wrong line of work.
Likewise, if you can’t get excited about your presentation topic, showing presentation passion, you shouldn’t be presenting at all.
Remember, there is no such thing as an inherently “interesting topic.” As an especially powerful business presenter, it’s your job to invest your topic with a distinctiveness and verve that captures your audience.
You Provide the Presentation Passion
Interest is something that you do. You invest your presentation, regardless of the topic, with power, zest, verve, bravura, and excitement.
One powerful technique at your disposal is “passion.”
Inject Presentation Passion
This means to embrace your topic. Regardless of whether you personally believe it to be interesting. Your task is to take a topic – any topic – and turn it into a masterpiece of presentation passion.
Whether your subject is floor polish, chocolate milk, or bed linen, you create a presentation that holds your audience rapt.
You seize your audience by the metaphorical lapels, and you don’t let go.
Tough? Yes.
Which is why business presenting is not the cakewalk that many people try to portray it.
Passion is your solution, a powerful tool to create masterful presentations that sway your audience.
Passion and enthusiasm, energy and brio can overcome so much that is otherwise wrong with today’s business presenting. In fact, there is so little of this done today, that demonstrating presentation passion can become an important component of your personal brand and the source of 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 to 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.
The Reason Why Many Business Presentations Sputter
Many folks don’t know how to begin a presentation.
Do you?
What?
“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 confidently and strongly? Or do you tiptoe into your presentation, like 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?
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 soldier in his bunker? 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.
Set the Stage with Your Situation Statement
You 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.
Don’t assume that everyone knows why you are here. Don’t assume that they know the topic of your talk. Ensure that they
Personal Competitive Advantage through Powerful Business Presentations
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.
Put the Pow into Your Powerful Business Presentation!
Now, let’s add some Pow to it. 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 have 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.
For more on putting the Pow! into powerful business presentations, have a look here.
Malcolm X was a powerful presenter, a passionate man of strong belief and charismatic bearing, and the Malcolm X presentation is a textbook on how to sway an audience
Like snapping a towel to skin, you want to sting your audience in a good way, and no better way to do it than a Malcolm X presentation.
Make it sit up straight, snap their heads in your direction.
You can do this several ways, and it’s up to you what you choose, but it should fit your audience and the topic of your presentation.
One effective method is the use of a “grabber” line.
This is a surprising and unconventional sentence or an unusual fact that immediately alerts the audience that its about to hear something special.
Not just another canned talk.
One of the greatest public speakers of modern times was the late Malcolm X. His speeches are textbook examples of how to grab an audience, mesmerize it throughout his presentation. He then mobilized his audience with an especially powerful call to action.
His techniques are so powerful that he deserves a category all his own.
And so I coin what I call the Malcolm X Presentation.
The Malcolm X Presentation
Whether you agree or disagree with him is irrelevant to the point that he was a captivating communicator who drew from a deep well of powerful presentation techniques. His charisma was unquestioned and it grew organically from the wellspring of passion that he invested in his cause and in every speech.
Malcolm’s speeches are just that – speeches – and they are written for the ear and not the eye. They are best read aloud so as to absorb the measured beats, to feel the repetition of key phrases, and to learn the effects of certain rhetorical flourishes.
When you read sentence after sentence, you sense the power and the deep moral outrage coming through, sometimes explicit but most often through a steady recapitulation of ideas using different phrases, but key words.
You gain a sense of the gathering storm, you almost hear rolling thunder in the distance.
The Malcolm X Presentation used word pictures and various other rhetorical techniques to stir his audiences to action
Today, I mine his speeches for their cadences, their imagery, their use of allegory, anaphora, and turns of phrase. With respect to grabbing an audience’s attention, too many presentations and speeches begin with routine thank-yous and ingratiation of the audience.
They sputter with stale phrases, a gripping of the podium and a squinting at notes or giving jerky backward glances at an unreadable projection screen.
Remember that a speech is tremendously different from a written document.
Pauses and repetition, tone and inflection are essential with the spoken word. Let’s look at the beginning of a typical Malcolm X speech and see how he grabs his audience.
Read it with his spoken delivery in mind.
This speech – Message to the Grass Roots – was delivered in Detroit on November 10, 1963. Irrespective of the time and place and circumstance, which of course will leaven our approach, note that Malcolm begins his talk by immediately establishing intimacy with the audience.
We want to have just an off-the-cuff chat between you and me . . . us. We want to talk right down to earth in a language that everybody here can easily understand.
We all agree tonight, all of the speakers have agreed, that America has a very serious problem. Not only does America have a very serious problem, but our people have a very serious problem.
In the space of four sentences, Malcolm has drawn in his listeners and layed out a situation statement that, at that moment, captivated his audience.
He establishes a mood of confidentiality and rapport. He then states boldly – “America has a very serious problem . . . We have a very serious problem.”
Who wouldn’t want to hear what comes next?
No Chit-Chat in a Malcolm X Presentation
Notice that he did not engage in throat-clearing and chit-chat. No “Thank you Mr. Chairman” . . . no “So good to see so many committed activists tonight and familiar faces in the crowd.” Notice also the use of repetition of key phrases: “Very serious problem.”
Straight to the point, and a bold point it is. See what comes next . . .
America’s problem is us. We’re her problem. The only reason she has a problem is she doesn’t want us here.
And every time you look at yourself, be you black, brown, red or yellow, a so-called Negro, you represent a person who poses such a serious problem for America because you’re not wanted. Once you fact this as a fact, then you can start plotting a course that will make you appear intelligent, instead of unintelligent.
Has Malcolm studied his audience? Is he reaching out with a message that is directly relevant to his listeners?
Most important of all, has he grabbed your attention?
He surely has.
Malcolm was expert at executing Presentation Snap, grabbing his listeners in a way that zeroed in on them. He focused on their needs, concerns, desires, hopes.
He framed the issue in colorful language, and created listener expectations that he would offer bold and radical solutions to real problems.
For now, focus on the grabber to seize the attention of your audience. Mull this excellent example from the Malcolm X presentation and ask yourself how he contrived it . . . and how it works.
In subsequent posts, we’ll look at more examples from Malcolm X as he moves through delivery of his presentation, building to his call for action at the end.
If you want to learn more about the techniques that energize a Malcolm X presentation, as well as the secrets that other powerful speakers use in their presentations, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.
Training and Preparation help you clear a high presentation bar
You know the lament of those folks who will never clear the presentation bar.
“I’m just not comfortable doing that. It’s just not me.”
This is what passes for sage wisdom in some quarters in reaction to new ideas, new methods, different techniques, and sometimes just good advice.
What hokum.
For example, look at the big offensive lineman, who could end up starting for the football team, perhaps even take his performance to the next level of competition. Coaches schedule his training regimen. He responds:
“I’m just not comfortable with all these exercises. It’s just not me.”
Hokum, yes . . .
You won’t hear that comment often in the locker room or on the battlefield, but we hear it all the time in other venues of life.
You hear it from would-be business people. Students, in particular.
I think you know that the future isn’t bright for the player or soldier or businessman with this kind of precious attitude.
Of course not.
Developing new skills, new abilities, new strengths is uncomfortable. It means changing our behavior in sometimes unfamiliar ways.
And instead of meeting the challenge, we can find ourselves taking a short cut.
Quiet Charisma . . . the Oxymoron
We attempt to redefine our goals to encompass what we already do, so that we no longer have to stretch or strive to meet the original tough goals.
We may find ourselves redefining what it means to excel, we lower the bar so as to meet our lower expectations . . . rather than continue to strive to excel to achieve a lofty and worthy goal.
We move the goal posts closer.
Several years ago, I was delivering a lecture on how to develop charisma. A young woman, who was surely not a charismatic speaker offered this gem “What about people who have quiet charisma?”
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I mean people who don’t exhibit these characteristics you’ve been talking about, but show a quiet charisma.”
Those characteristics that I had referred to are personal magnetism, a seeming aura that radiates enthusiastic goodwill, a mesmerizing speaking style, and a kind of restrained hyper-kinetic internal fuel cell that you sense could move mountains if unleashed [here, of course, I exaggerate . . . but the point is made].
This person expressed that she was extremely “uncomfortable” with the techniques that, in fact, would help her become more charismatic in delivering her presentations.
But rather than experience that discomfort, rather than strive to clear a high presentation bar, she chose instead to appeal to me to redefine charisma to include her own behavior.
Unambitious . . . a Lower Presentation Bar
Behavior that was the exact opposite of charismatic. She wanted to move the goalposts closer. She wanted to lower the bar.
Oxymoronic “quiet charisma.” Charisma on the cheap. Easy charisma.
There’s no such thing
To reach a worthy goal, we may have to step outside of what is sometimes called our “comfort zone.” I prefer to think of it as enlarging our comfort zone rather than stepping outside of it.
Any time we begin to rationalize and redefine our goals, it is time to pause and reflect. Are we selling ourselves short? Are we fooling ourselves? Are we forfeiting personal competitive advantage?
Are we telling ourselves that we possess “quiet charisma” instead of doing the hard work and practice necessary to achieve the real thing?
Yes, you do have a passion. But likely as not, it’s been buried under a ton of necessity, the debris we call the business of life.
Is your Passion buried?
If you find that your passion is buried, then this is the time to rescue it as one of the most potent factors in delivering your most powerful presentations.
Once you explore your own visceral feelings, your passion, it becomes that much easier to invoke passion in presentations. To actually feel passion for the subjects of your shows.
Can you generate passion? Of course you can. Will it be “artificial” passion? Of course not.
With a tip o’ the hat to Gertrude Stein . . . passion is passion is passion.
Passion can help you build professional presence as well as convey your presentation message in a powerful way
Unless you have passion for a subject and demonstrate that passion, you will always be at a disadvantage with respect to those who passionately embrace their subject.
If you are in competition with several other teams pitching a product or service to a company for millions of dollars – and there is no noteworthy difference in the quality or price of the service – then how does the potential customer decide?
On passion.
Put Passion in Presentations!
If he sees a real passion for the work in one team, if he feels the energy of a team driven to success and truly excited about the offering, don’t you think he’ll be inclined to the team that stirs his emotions?
The team that makes him see possibilities?
The team that demonstrates passion in presentation?
The team that helps him visualize a glorious future?
The team that shares his own love and passion for his product or service and sees in you a shared passion for achieving something special in partnership?
Reread the previous paragraph, because it encapsulates so much of what is absent in presentations today, and so much of what is needed.
Passion cannot substitute for substance . . . but when it augments substance, it wins every time. And you gain personal competitive advantage by virtue of it.
Passion has served as a crucial element in verbal communication for centuries. Two of my favorite quotations on its power follow:
“True emotional freedom is the only door by which you may enter the hearts of your hearers.”
Brees and Kelley, 1931
“Earnestness is the secret of success in any department of life. It is only the earnest man who wins his cause.”
S.S. Curry, 1895
Recognize in yourself the capacity for passion and the necessity of putting passion in presentations for power and impact.
Recognize that you have the wherewithal to embrace even the most staid material, the “dullest” project.
Remember always that it is you who make it better. You who invest it with excitement.
You are the alchemist.
It’s your job to make it interesting
Many times you hear an “interesting” presentation about an “interesting” topic. It is well-done, and it engaged you.
Have you ever admitted to yourself that you might be the missing ingredient? That perhaps it is your task to invest a project with interest and zest? That what makes a project “interesting” is not the topic . . . but rather the interaction between material and presenter.
Ultimately, it is your task to transform a “case” or business situation into an interesting and cogent presentation. It is your task to find the key elements of strategic significance and then to dramatize those elements in such a way that the audience is moved in powerful and significant ways.
Yes, you can do this. You don’t need an “interesting” case to do it.
Power Words can generate personal competitive advantage
Here I speak of Power Words for Business.
Words are the stuff of power.
Anyone who works with words for a living knows their power.
Well, let me issue a caveat . . . anyone who works with words ought to know their power.
Every profession has its power words. Words that elicit emotion. Power words that move people to action.
When we use the right power words for business presentations, the effect on an audience can be electric.
And this is why we should be concerned about power words for business.
Power Words for Business
Words have power.
A power that is amorphous, deceptive, difficult to master, if it is at all possible to master.
It’s necessary to respect words and their function. To understand the visceral strength in well-structured phrases, sentences, and paragraphs that hang together seamlessly in such a tight formation that a reader cannot imagine them written in any other way.
While teaching writing is not my primary function, I do provide fundamental instruction of a Strunk and White nature so as to raise the bar to an acceptable level.
Before you eye-roll at such a rudimentary approach, let me assure you that today’s undergraduate students desperately need the salving coolness of William Strunk and E.B. White. If only for clarity, concision, and pith.
For the pleasure of reading Strunk and White’s masterpiece, The Elements of Style. For it is a minor joy to read.
To re-read.
Many young people – not all, but enough – want to be creative and innovative, to think outside of that box we always hear about. I note that they must first understand the box and what it contains before they can profitably “think outside” of it.
Because likely what they consider fresh and new and sparkling has been done before. Usually, many times before.
Cliches heard for the first time are like that.
Words can be weak . . . or especially powerful
The task is to understand how words fit together to convey ideas, notions, fact and fiction. They must understand the communicative function of words as well as their evocative power.
Power words for business can imbue a business presentation with impact and energy.
Just as power words against business have been in use for decades. So much so, they’ve become shopworn cliches.
Power Words Against Business
I urge students to recognize tendentious surliness masquerading as neutrality, entire social, political, cultural arguments embodied in single phrases – sometimes single words. Listen for those arguments that use power words against business.
They must recognize sloganeering in their own writing and arguments. If not, they face being caught short when challenged on a lack of depth or understanding.
Recognize sloganeering in your writing.
Example?
At the risk of agitation, let me detour into the realm of the classroom, where words that characterize well-hashed issues come freighted with all kinds of baggage.
Certain phrases can embody one-sided faux arguments. Anti-business arguments with no substance.
Power words against business.
“Widening gap between rich and poor” is one of those tropes. It has become a kneejerk pejorative.
Regrettably, it’s used more frequently by young people these days and some of my overeager colleagues.
They supposedly identify a “problem” that must be corrected without pausing in their feverish idealism to recognize that the gap between rich and poor is always getting wider. This happens whether an economy is strong or weak.
It’s the nature of economic growth.
The proper question to ask is this: “Is everyone getting richer and better off than before in a dynamic and thriving economy?”
Or is the situation one in which the poor are getting poorer with no chance or even hope of improvement? These are two quite different situations, conflated by the trope “widening gap between rich and poor.”
Making the distinction, however, brings more complexity into the picture than some folks feel comfortable with. The issue no longer fits on a bumper sticker.
It’s almost too much to bear the notion that “everyone is better off” while simultaneously there is a “widening gap between rich and poor.”
“Everyone is better off” is a first-rate example of power words for business presentations.
“Sweatshops” Anyone?
Single words sometimes embody entire arguments.
This relieves the user of the burden to make the point of the begged question. In my own bailiwick, “sweatshop” is one such politically and socially freighted word.
As in the “debate over sweatshops.” In my classes on Globalization, this “debate” is addressed forthrightly.
But in its proper terms and in its proper context.
The preening certitude of a person posturing against “sweatshops” is a sight to behold. No gray area, no moral conundrums. It seems as clear-cut an issue as anyone could imagine. It’s like arguing against “dirty dishtowels.” There is no pro “dirty dishtowel” lobby. Just as there is no pro “sweatshop” lobby.
See how easy to get on the side of the angels? Who other than an evil exploiter could possibly take a stand for “sweatshops?” Right. No one does.
A part of me envies that kind of hard-boned simplicity. It’s borne of shallow naivete.
“Cultural Imperialism” Anyone?
Hand-in-hand with “sweatshops” comes something called “cultural imperialism.”
This is merely a pejorative reaction against the introduction of goods and services and ideas into modernizing societies. Such “cultural imperialism” supposedly constitutes an attack on the “traditional way of life” and local culture.
Power words versus weak words: Your choice
In my lectures to Russian students in Izhevsk and in Ufa, Bashkortostan, I meet this kind of attitude quite frequently, as if someone is compelling locals to drink Coca-Cola, to smoke Marlboros, to wear Italian shoes, or to dine at Chinese restaurants.
The call for preserving “traditional” ways of life smacks of condescension of the worst type. It is, for example, an attitude that suggests that locking subsistence farmers into their pristine “traditional” circumstances as delightful subjects for exotic picture postcards is a positive.
“Traditional” is one of those power words against business. When you hear it as part of an argument, look closely for anti-business bias. You’ll find it.
Some students are angry and somewhat confused when I note that all that is offered is a choice.
Choice is one of those Power Words for Business.
A choice to work as one’s ancestors did, ankle-deep in dung-filled water of rice paddies, or to work in a new factory, earning more money in one day than the traditional villager might ever see in a year.
A choice to purchase goods and services previously unavailable.
A choice to live better.
Exploitation . . . or Choice?
A choice, that’s all.
An alternative.
Some people, professional activists among them, just don’t like the choice being offered, even as earlier there was no choice. There was no chance for improvement.
Rather than offer their own range of additional choices, these folks harass those companies that provide economic opportunity, a chance for a better life. The chance for newly empowered local workers to earn beyond subsistence wages and to then spend money at the kiosks that quickly spring up courtesy of entrepreneurs who instinctively know how the market works.
The chance to utilize the new roads built by the foreign company as part of infrastructure improvement.
So, in my classes, I refer to Nike and other firms that manufacture abroad as establishing Economic Opportunity Centers throughout the developing world. Companies that expand the range of economic choices open to local workers.
Economic Opportunity Centers
Some students express a kind of confused disbelief that local factories contracted by Nike (Nike does not own or operate them) could in any sense of the phrase be called Economic Opportunity Centers.
Personal Competitive Advantage through Power Words
But, in fact, that phrase is more accurate as to what is actually happening when compared in many cases to a subsistence farming economy that it augments.
With that point made, we shift to compromise language of a more neutral cast – Nike and many other companies that contract manufacturing with local producers are engaged in Economic Activity Abroad.
Whether that activity is in some sense “good” or “bad” depends upon whom you ask – an activist sitting in an air conditioned Washington office, hands steepled, giving an interview to National Public Radio on the evils of Globalization.
Or a young foreign worker, who now has a choice and a chance to work indoors, to earn more money than before, to better his lot and that of his family.
A choice and a chance to move up.
A choice that earlier was not available.
Power Words for Business Presentations
Now, I have dipped into the hot, turbid political waters of Globalization only because that happens to be the topic at hand for me now, daily.
I have roamed a bit, but the theme that runs through this essay, I think, is the power of words – to persuade, to deceive, to communicate, to obfuscate.
Power Words against business have been used far too long without challenge. Realize that we can harness Power Words for Business and leaven our business presentations with impact, immediacy, and positivity.
Regardless of one’s opinion of the issues I surfaced here to illustrate the theme, I believe that folks in this forum recognize more than most this especially powerful medium.
Whatever conclusions my students arrive at with regard to the debates at hand, they will have at least been exposed to the power of words for business and the subtlety of language.
Here is the power zone paradox: The Power Zone is a place everyone wants to be, but where almost no one wants to go.
This is really the strangest thing, and it always amazes me anew the reasons people concoct for not becoming powerful speakers.
Power Zone as Metaphor
The Power Zone is a metaphor for that realm of especially powerful business presenters, a place where everyone is a capable, confident, and competent communicator, where every meal’s a feast and every speech kissed by rhetorical magic.
Where you have personal competitive advantage over that vast majority of folks who, for various reasons, choose to be mediocre.
Yes, you can go there.
And almost everyone claims they want to go to the Power Zone. But even when people are told clearly how to reach the Power Zone, most don’t go. They find an excuse.
They contrive the darnedest reasons not to, from ideological to lazy.
In my presentations to various audiences, I am invariably faced with the arguer, the gadfly who knows better, sometimes vocal, oftentimes not. The person who is adamant, steadfastly against what is being said.
Usually for the most spurious of reasons.
No Argument Here
And it’s an exercise in futility for the gadfly.
Because the choice to enter the Power Zone is personal and completely optional. And so I make no argument against the gadfly’s objections, from wherever they come.
The latest batch of objections sprang from one woman’s ideology. She apparently believed in au courant political philosophy that dictates how people should behave and react to others based on . . . well, based on what she believed to be right and proper.
Smugness versus Powerful Presentation Principles loses every time
In short, rather than communicate with people in the most effective way possible, she wanted to do something else . . . and then lecture her audience if they didn’t like her way of presenting.
Whether based on appearance, voice, gestures, or movement.
In short, she wanted to deliver presentations her way, and blame her audience if they didn’t respond positively and, presumably, with accolades.
She complained that my presentation of techniques, skills, and principles “sounds like it’s from 100 years ago.”
And I say Praise the Lord for that.
I draw on 2,500 years of presentation wisdom of Presentation Masters like Aristotle, Demosthenes, Cicero, Quintilian, Webster, Bryant, and Roosevelt, so I’m not doing my job if it sounds otherwise.
She complained that some of the gestures seemed “too masculine” and that she would feel “uncomfortable” doing them as she believed they don’t look “feminine.”
I replied to her this way . . .
The Comfort Cop-out
I told her, “Don’t do them. Don’t do anything that makes you feel ‘uncomfortable.’
Don’t utilize gestures proven 1 million times to be powerful and effective. Substitute whatever you think you know to be better.”
But do that with the full knowledge that you leave the competitive advantage you might gain just sitting on the playing field for someone else to pick up.
They’ll be happy you did.
But what about “comfort?”
You don’t feel “comfortable” utilizing certain gestures? Since when did our “comfort” become the sine qua non of everything we try? Who cooked it up, and when did it gain currency?
Has any greater cop-out ever been devised?
Comfort is irrelevant in the Power Zone
Of course you don’t feel “comfortable” doing something you’ve never tried before.
A baby feels anything but comfort as it springs from the womb and is forced to breathe air instead of amniotic fluid and faces the cold of a delivery room.
A child feels anything but comfort as he learns the periodic table and the multiplication table or riding a bike or a new sport or meets new people and is forced to hear contrary opinions.
An athlete feels discomfort as she trains to develop skill, power, speed, and strength in the gym so as to perform at a superior level.
Does it feel “comfortable” to push forward and extend our capabilities into new and desirable areas? Likely as not, it’s a difficult process, but we certainly don’t accept “discomfort” as a reason not to do something necessary to achievement of a goal.
“I just don’t feel comfortable.”
Of course you don’t feel “comfortable” speaking before a group if you’ve never done it before or done so with no success. That’s the whole point of especially powerful presenting – expanding the speaker’s comfort zone to encompass powerful communication techniques.
Techniques to lift you into the upper echelon of business presenters. And drawing upon 25 Centuries of wisdom and practice to do so.
But some folks scowl at this.
It requires too much of them. Or it conflicts with the way they think the world ought to work. Or the Seven Secrets for Especially Powerful Presenting aren’t mystical enough for them. Secrets ought to be . . . well, they ought to have magic sparkles or something, right?
So . . . if you find this somehow unsatisfactory and unsatisfying or in conflict with your own ideology or philosophy . . . if you believe the answer should somehow be more mystical or revelatory or tied to the high-tech promises of our brave new world, then I say this to you:
“Go forth and don’t use these techniques.”
There is no need to fume over this or that nettlesome detail.
It’s completely unnecessary, because no one compels you to do anything. And this is what is so infuriating for the habitual naysayers – complete freedom.
The freedom not to enter the Power Zone.
Here, I show you the way to the Power Zone, where you can be one of the exceptional few who excels in incredible fashion . . . but you can choose not to go.
If you so choose, good luck and Godspeed with your own opinions and philosophies and endless search for presentation excellence located somewhere else. Let 1,000 presentation flowers bloom!
But if you elect to draw upon the best that the Presentation Masters have to offer . . . then I extend congratulations as you step onto the path toward the Power Zone, toward that rarefied world of especially powerful presenters where personal competitive advantage is yours.
I truly don’t mean to be a pain to my long-suffering students, but one exercise that elicits more scorn than it deserves is called “Especially Powerful.”
It consists of everyone rising to a standing position and striking a confident stance with feet shoulder-width apart and arms outstretched to either side, palms turned upward.
Picture it. This is a critical and powerful pose.
Power Personified
Then visualize a slight tilt of the head up and, in unison and in the best tradition of the deep-voiced Darth Vader, everyone repeats after me . . . “I feel especially powerful today!”
Several times.
“I feel especially powerful today!”
I’m not satisfied until the room reverberates with the appropriate tone and volume, indicating a robust and vibrant embrace of the exercise and what we’re trying to accomplish.
Which is . . . what?
Why do I engage in what, to some, might appear gimmicky or cute?
First, I don’t do cute. Second, the exercise accomplishes several superb physiological goals that improve a range of characteristics associated with business presenting.
We hear in some circles that nonverbal communication – your body language – comprises more than 50 percent of your message. Some studies contend that it comprises more than 70 percent.
For no other reason than this, we should be concerned with the messages we transmit with our posture, our expressions, our gestures. Yes, body language is critical to conveying your message.
But it is essential for another equally important reason.
It’s a reason not generally well-known or understood, and it constitutes a secret that I’ve utilized with my presentation students for years to invest them with confidence and new-found presentation power. Its core idea stretches back well more than a century, to one of the world’s first theories of emotion: James-Lange Theory.
William James and the Danish physiologist Carl G. Lange developed the theory independently of each other in the 1880s.
Here’s a taste of the real thing from Mr. James himself:
“My theory … is that the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur is the emotion. Common sense says, we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep; we meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry and strike. The hypothesis here to be defended says that this order of sequence is incorrect … and that the more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble …
Without the bodily states following on the perception, the latter would be purely cognitive in form, pale, colorless, destitute of emotional warmth. We might then see the bear, and judge it best to run, receive the insult and deem it right to strike, but we should not actually feel afraid or angry.”
And if you aren’t satisfied with the narrative of a 19th Century social scientist you never heard of, then take the theory of Charles Darwin, who in 1872 was one of the first to speculate that your body posture can have an effect of generating emotions rather than simply reflecting them.
The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it. On the other hand, the repression, as far as this is possible, of all outward signs softens our emotions . . . . Even the simulation of an emotion tends to arouse it in our minds.
So what does this have to do with powerful business presenting?
Everything.
We generally believe that our emotions affect our body language, and we ourselves have experienced the effects of stage fright. Emotions influence the way you stand, the way you appear to your audience. They influence what you say and how you say it.
So if we feel stage fright and lack of confidence, our body language telegraphs that. Moreover, once we become conscious of the effects of our fears, they worsen, and we get caught in a downward spiral of cause-and-effect.
But what if we could reverse that cause-and-effect? What if we could, say, strike a confident pose and suddenly find ourselves infused with confidence? Impossible, eh?
But James-Lange Theory suggests that very thing, that you can reverse the process.
Turn Negative Energy into Positive
You can use your gestures, movement, posture, and expression to influence your emotions. You can consciously affect body language associated with the emotion you want to experience – namely, confidence – and so gain confidence.
This means that we should lay the groundwork for our emotions to reflect our body language and our posture. Consciously strike a bearing that reflects the confident and powerful speaker you want to be.
This may sound too easy and leave you asking “what’s the catch?”
No, there’s no catch. And now that recent research has scientifically confirmed the dynamic I just described, the secret is out.
Several theories later and after many attempts to debunk James-Lange Theory, the most recent research at Harvard University and the Kellogg School of Business would seem to give Mr. James and Mr. Lange the proverbial last laugh.
A 2010 Harvard study substantiated James-Lange Theory and found that power posing substantially increases confidence in people who assume them while interacting with others. The Kellogg study early this year yielded the same findings.
In short, the way you stand or sit either increases or decreases your confidence. The study’s conclusion is unambiguous and speaks directly to us.
Our results show that posing in high-power displays (as opposed to low-power displays) causes physiological, psychological, and behavioral changes consistent with the literature on the effects of power on power holders — elevation of the dominance hormone testosterone, reduction of the stress hormone cortisol, and increases in behaviorally demonstrated risk tolerance and feelings of power.
This finding holds tremendous significance for you if you want to imbue your presentations with power. In our 21st Century vernacular, this means you should stand the way you want to feel. Posing with power – “I feel especially powerful today!” – improves your entire presentation delivery tremendously and in ways you’ve likely not imagined.
Power Posing can flood your system with testosterone and can suppress stress-related cortisol, so you actually do invest yourself with confidence and relieve the acute anxiety that presentations sometimes generate.
The lesson here is to affect the posture of confidence. Square your shoulders. Fix a determined look on your face. Speak loudly and distinctly.
Extend your arms to either side and take up lots of space.
Seize the emotional energy flow and make it work for you.
Reality TV Mimicry is a formula for Business Presentation Failure
No, I’ve never heard you speak or deliver a presentation.
But judging from what I hear in the classroom, in the elevator, on the subway, and in the campus coffee shops, the odds are good that your voice is probably pinched and smaller than it ought to be.
This is a result of many influences in our popular culture that, within the last decade or so, have urged on us a plaintive, world-weary whine as voice-of-choice.
The cartoon voice is more prevalent than you might imagine. Several reasonably-known celebrities have cartoon voices, and they usually dwell in the wasteland of daytime television.
One cartoon voice belongs to someone called Kelly Ripa, who participates on a show called “Live with Regis and Kelly.” This ABC Network television program, an abysmal daytime offering, serves up Ms. Ripa not for her voice, but for other attributes.
This show is worth watching, once, if only to hear Ms. Ripa’s slam-on-the-brakes whine.
Two other champions of the squeaky, whiney cartoon voice are people who appear to have achieved a degree of questionable fame for all of the wrong reasons: Kim Kardashian and Meghan McCain, who appear on television for some reason unknown to all but the producers of the shows they inhabit. Commonly called “divas,” their voices are barely serviceable for even routine communication.
Granted, these young women are not delivering business presentations, but their negative influence has infected an entire generation of young people who do deliver presentations. They embody all that is wrong with regard to delivering powerful presentations. If this sounds harsh, it is meant to be. They exhibit habitual pathologies of the worst sort.
Where do these people learn to speak this way, in this self-doubting, self-referential, endlessly qualified grinding whine?
One culprit appears to be the Disney Channel, inculcating a new generation of young folks into the practice of moron-speak. As well, numerous other popular young adult shows occupy the lowest rung of the speech food chain, passing on lessons in weak voice and poor diction.
Reality TV Infests Everything
Most anywhere, you can hear people who talk this way. They surround us.
Next time you stand in line at the convenience store, listen to the people around you. Focus on the voices. Listen for the trapped nasal sound, the whine of precious self-indulgence. Or the sound of a voice rasping across vocal cords at the end of every sentence. A voice that has no force. No depth.
A voice you could swat away as you would backhand a fly.
I often hear this cartoon voice in the elevator as I commute between my office and classrooms. Elevator conversations are often sourced from lazy, scratchy voices. These voices are ratcheted tight in the voice box with barely enough air passed across the vocal cords. What do I mean by this?
Let’s have an example. Two young ladies entered my elevator the other day (any day, really), and one chattered to the other about her “boyfriend” and his despicable antics on “Facebook.” It was heinous.
I shifted eyes to the owner of this raspy voice whose favorite word in the English language was quite evidently “like.” Everything was “like” something else instead of actually it. And apparently “totally” so. Ya know?
“Like. Like. Like. Totally! Like. Like. Like. Totally! It was like . . . ummmm. . . okay . . . whatever. Ya know what I mean?”
She fired them out in machine-gun fashion. A verbal stutter and punctuation mark, apparently unsure of anything she was saying. Her voice was a lab experiment of bad timbre. It cracked and creaked along, word after squeaky word.
A pickup truck with a flat tire flopping along to the service station.
The air barely passed over her vocal cords, just enough to rattle a pile of dry sticks. Not nearly enough air to vibrate and give pitch and tone. No resonance came from the chest. The voice rasped on the ears.
Every sentence spoken as a question.
Dum-Dums . . .
Two major problems surface here. First, the cracking and grinding sound, which is at the very least, irritating. Second, the primitive infestation of what I call “dum-dums.”
Dum-dums are moronic interjections slipped into virtually every sentence like an infestation of termites.
“Like. Totally! Ya know?Ummm. Like. Totally! It was like, okay, you know . . . ya know? Ummm. Whatever.”
Dum-dums right off the Disney Channel.
Be honest and recognize that adults don’t speak like this. And if you choose to speak like this, you will never be taken seriously by anyone of import considering whether to give you responsibility. Cartoon voice peppered with Dum-dums gives the impression that you have nothing worthwhile to say, and so you fill up the empty air with dum-dums.
Dum-dums are the result of lazy thought and lazier speech. It started on the west coast as an affectation called “Valley Speak” and has seeped into the popular culture as relentlessly as nicotine into the bloodstream.
Exaggeration? No, it’s a voice you hear every day.
Listen for it. Maybe it’s your voice.
Your Ticket to Failure or a Chance for Redemption
In the abstract, there is probably nothing wrong with any of this if your ambitions are of a certain lowest common denominator stripe.
If you’re guilty of this sort of thing, in everyday discourse you can probably get by with this kind of laziness, imprecision, and endless qualifying. The problem arises when you move into the boardroom to express yourself in professional fashion to a group of, say, influential skeptics who are waiting to be impressed by the power of your ideas and how you express them.
Cartoon Voice infested with Dum-dum words – this debilitating pathological combination destroys all business presentations except one – a pitch for yet another moronic reality TV show. You cannot deliver a credible business presentation speaking this way. You are toast before you open your mouth.
Badly burned toast.
You’re on the express train to failure with a first-class ticket.
But the good news is that all of this is reasonably easy to correct – if you can accept that your voice and diction should be changed.
If you recognize that you have Cartoon Voice and that you pepper your speech with dum-dums, ask yourself these questions: Why do I speak like this?
Why can’t I utter a simple declarative sentence without inserting dum-dums along the way? Why do all of my sentences sound like questions? Do I really want and need to sound like this – a ditz – just because the people around me can’t seem to express themselves except in staccato dum-dums with a cracking voice?
Sure, You Can Hang on to that Bad Voice!
Deciding to change one’s voice is a bold move that takes you out of your current cramped comfort zone, but you don’t have to do it! Nope, don’t change a thing!
If you recognize that you have Cartoon Voice, and you are comfortable slathering your speech with Dum-Dums, and you see no reason to change just because someone recommends it, well then . . . keep on keepin’ on! Sure, it’s okay for your inner circle of chatterers. Relish it. Hang onto it, and don’t even give a backward glance.
Let 1,000 dum-dums flourish!
But do so with the clear-eyed recognition that Dum-Dums make you sound like a moron.
You make a conscious choice. Dum-Dums make you sound like a reality TV show lightweight unable to utter an original thought or even speak in complete sentences. You sacrifice personal competitive advantage so that you can continue to . . . do what?
Recognize that if you want to succeed in an intensely competitive business climate, you should consider leaving Disney Channel behind.
When you want to be taken seriously in a business presentation . . . speak like an adult.
To demonstrate honesty, decisiveness, humility, boldness . . . even fear. A motion toward the door, a shrug, a lifted eyebrow – what words can equal these gestures?
While its range is limited, presentation gesture can carry powerful meaning. It should carry powerful meaning. Speaking Master James Winans noted in 1915 that this form of nonverbal language predates spoken language.
Gesture, within its limitations, is an unmistakable language, and is understood by men of all races and tongues. Gesture is our most instinctive language; at least it goes back to the beginning of all communication when the race, still lacking articulate speech, could express only through the tones of inarticulate sounds and through movements.
Gesture is part of our repertoire of non-verbal communication. You have many arrows in the quiver of gesture from which to choose, and they can pack your presentation with power. And on rare occasion, can imbue your business presentation with majesty of epic proportions.
Yes, I said “majesty of epic proportions.”
Your careful, thoughtful presentation gestures increase your talk’s persuasiveness and lend gravitas to your words. In fact, gesture is essential to take your presentation to an especially powerful level, a level far above the mundane. You limit yourself if you do not gesture effectively as you present.
Presentation gesture offers a powerful means to enhance your presentation’s depth and meaning, communicating with far more power than words alone.
Don’t hate presentations . . . instead, dedicate yourself to change and growth
If you’re like most of the 1.3 million English-speaking business school population worldwide, you doubtless have issues with your business school and its treatment of presentations, which is why you’re reading this now – you might actually hate presentations.
On the other hand, if you feel reasonably confident, competent, and thoroughly satisfied with your presenting skills, then I congratulate you and suggest that you pass Business School Presentingalong to a buddy who might profit from it.
But I think you’re ready to improve.
Read on.
One in 1 Billion? Don’t Hate Presentations
Of an estimated 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.
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.
Business school students and young executives need credible and direct resources on presenting – solid advice 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 a matter of opinion and what, if anything, is carved in stone.
You want to know how to deliver an especially powerful presentation.
Here you find answers here to the most basic of 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?
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?
2,500 Years of 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 and presented here for your personal competitive advantage.
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, and in turn they have each contributed their own techniques to the body of wisdom. You find those verities here.
This guy sure didn’t hate presentations
On the other side of things, I’d like to 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, even as they are all tractable to the fundamental and advanced techniques of powerful presenting.
Power posing leads to especially powerful business presentations
I truly don’t mean to be a pain to my long-suffering students, but one exercise that probably elicits more scorn than it deserves is called “Especially Powerful.”
It consists of everyone rising to a standing position and striking a confident stance with feet shoulder-width apart and arms outstretched to either side, palms turned upward.
Picture this.
This is a critical and powerful pose.
Then visalize a slight tilt of the head up and, in unison and in the best tradition of the deep-voiced Darth Vader, everyone repeats after me . . . “I feel especially powerful today!”
Several times.
Feeling Powerful?
“I feel especially powerful today!”
I’m not satisfied until the room reverberates with the appropriate tone and volume, indicating a robust and vibrant embrace of the exercise and what we’re trying to accomplish.
Which is . . . what?
Why do I engage in what, to some, might appear gimmicky or cute?
First, I don’t do cute. Second, the exercise accomplishes several superb physiological goals that improve a range of characteristics associated with business presenting. Voice . . . stance . . . posture . . . confidence . . . poise.
In short, much of what we call body language.
Body Language
We hear in some circles that nonverbal communication – your body language – comprises more than 50 percent of your message. Some studies contend that it comprises more than 70 percent.
For good or ill, powerful posing has played a large role in history and has yielded personal competitive advantage
For no other reason than this, we should be concerned with the messages we transmit with our posture, our expressions, our gestures. Yes, body language is critical to conveying your message.
But it is essential for another equally important reason.
It’s a reason not generally well-known or understood, and it constitutes a secret that I’ve utilized with my presentation students for years to invest them with confidence and new-found presentation power. Its core idea stretches back well more than a century, to one of the world’s first theories of emotion: James-Lange Theory.
William James and the Danish physiologist Carl G. Lange developed the theory independently of each other in the 1880s.
Voice of an Especially Powerful Master
Here’s a taste of the real thing from Mr. James himself:
“My theory … is that the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur is the emotion. Common sense says, we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep; we meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry and strike. The hypothesis here to be defended says that this order of sequence is incorrect … and that the more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble …
Without the bodily states following on the perception, the latter would be purely cognitive in form, pale, colorless, destitute of emotional warmth. We might then see the bear, and judge it best to run, receive the insult and deem it right to strike, but we should not actually feel afraid or angry.”
We generally believe that our emotions affect our body language, and we ourselves have experienced the effects of stage fright. Emotions influence the way you stand, the way you appear to your audience.
They influence what you say and how you say it.
So if we feel stage fright and lack of confidence, our body language telegraphs that. Moreover, once we become conscious of the effects of our fears, they worsen, and we get caught in a downward spiral of cause-and-effect.
But what if we could reverse that cause-and-effect? What if we could, say, strike a confident pose and suddenly find ourselves infused with confidence? Impossible, eh?
But James-Lange Theory suggests that very thing, that you can reverse the process.
Turn Negative Energy into Positive
You can use your gestures, movement, posture, and expression to influence your emotions. You can consciously affect body language associated with the emotion you want to experience – namely, confidence – and so gain confidence.
You can control to a large extent how you feel by affecting an especially powerful pose
This means that we should lay the groundwork for our emotions to reflect our body language and our posture.
Consciously strike a bearing that reflects the confident and powerful speaker you want to be. This may sound too easy and leave you asking “what’s the catch?” No, there’s no catch.
And now that recent research has scientifically confirmed the dynamic I just described, the secret is out.
Several theories later and after many attempts to debunk James-Lange Theory, the most recent research at Harvard University and the Kellogg School of Business would seem to give Mr. James and Mr. Lange the proverbial last laugh.
A 2010 Harvard study substantiated James-Lange Theory. It found that power posing substantially increases confidence in people who assume them while interacting with others. The Kellogg study early this year yielded the same findings.
Seize control of your Pose
In short, the way you stand or sit either increases or decreases your confidence. The study’s conclusion is unambiguous and speaks directly to us.
Our results show that posing in high-power displays (as opposed to low-power displays) causes physiological, psychological, and behavioral changes consistent with the literature on the effects of power on power holders — elevation of the dominance hormone testosterone, reduction of the stress hormone cortisol, and increases in behaviorally demonstrated risk tolerance and feelings of power.
This finding holds tremendous significance for you if you want to imbue your presentations with power.
Especially Powerful posing is the norm among the powerful figures of history
In our 21st Century vernacular, this means you should stand the way you want to feel.
Posing with power – “I feel especially powerful today!” – improves your entire presentation delivery tremendously and in ways you’ve likely not imagined.
Power Posing can flood your system with testosterone. It can suppress stress-related cortisol, so you actually do invest yourself with confidence.
It relieves the acute anxiety that presentations sometimes generate.
The lesson here is to affect the posture of confidence. Square your shoulders. Fix a determined look on your face. Speak loudly and distinctly. Extend your arms to either side and take up lots of space.
Seize the emotional energy flow and make it work for you.
Presentation Passion means developing a professional and charismatic presence in delivering your business presentations
In our battle to fight through the white noise of life to communicate with others, we often ignore the most powerful of weapons at our disposal – Presentation Passion.
Passion, emotion, earnestness, brio, energy.
Sure, we pay occasional homage to emotion and to “passion.”
But more often than not, it’s only lip service.
You don’t really believe this stuff, do you? Or maybe your fear of others’ judgments pushes out thoughts of investing your talks with something interesting.
We save our presentation passion for other activities. For our sports teams and our politics and, perhaps, religion. We separate our “real” selves from our work and from our “formal” exposition in front of an audience.
Maybe we construct a barrier for the audience, to prevent an audience from seeing our vulnerabilities. Perhaps we affect an air of nonchalance as a defensive mechanism.
Nonchalance is the Enemy
Regardless of the reason, by not investing ourselves in our presentation and in our narrative, we render ourselves less persuasive. If we purge our presentation passion, we are less effective, perhaps even ineffective.
Emotion is a source of speaker power. You can seize it. You can use it to great effect.
And you can learn to do this more easily than you imagine.
James Albert Winans was a Presenting Master early in the 20th century, and he offered this beautifully crafted description of passion’s power. Brilliant discovered words from 1915:
A speaker should feel what he says, not only to be sincere, but also to be effective. It is one of the oldest of truisms that if we wish to make others feel, we ourselves must feel. . . . We know we do not respond with enthusiasm to an advocate who lacks enthusiasm. And quite apart from response, we do not like speakers who do not seem to care. We like the man who means what he says.
Do you mean what you say? Do you even care? Or do you sleepwalk through your assignments? Reading from a note card, reading from the slides behind you, oblivious to why you are up there?
Now, one purpose of this counsel is not simply for you to display powerful emotions in service to a cause. You are not simply “being emotional” for its own sake. You want to evoke emotions in your audience. You want them to think, yes, but you also want them feel.
You want to establish a visceral connection with your audience.
Don’t Purge Presentation Passion
Sometimes it may seem as if you must purge all emotion from your presentations, especially your business presentations.
It’s as if you are instructed to behave like a robot under the guise of looking “professional” or “business-like.”
We can find that we respond too readily to these negative cues. We think that if A is “good,” then twice as much of A is twice as good. And three times as much of A is even better.
And without presentation passion, our business presentations suffer.
The Indifferent Presenter?
So, let’s accept right now that emotion and professionalism are not exclusive of each other. Conversely, shun indifference.
The opposite of earnestness is indifference. An indifferent man cares no more for one thing than for another. All things to him are the same; he does not care whether men around him are better or worse. . . . There are other opposites to earnestness besides indifference. Doubt of any kind, uncertainty as to the thought or to the truth, a lack of conviction, all these tend to destroy earnestness.
You know the indifferent man or woman, delivering a presentation that obviously means nothing to him or her. Perhaps you’ve done this. Haven’t we all at one time or another?
Unknowing of emotion, believing that we cannot show we care?
Do you just go through the motions? I understand why you might cop this attitude. Layer upon layer of negative incentives weigh down the college student. Adding to your burden is the peer pressure of blasé. It’s perceived as “uncool” to appear to care about anything, to actually do your best. Certainly to do your best on schoolwork of any kind.
Understand from this moment that this is wrong. No, it is not a matter of opinion . . . it is not a “gray area.” It is incontrovertibly wrong.
If you don’t care, no one else will. And if you don’t care, you will lose to the presenter who does care.
Lose the job you want to someone else.
Lose the contract you want to someone else.
Lose the promotion you want to someone else.
Lose the influence you want to someone else.
It’s Time to Win with Presentation Passion
Does this seem too “over the top” for you? Of course it does!
That’s because you’ve likely been conditioned to look askance at the kinds of rich, lusty pronouncements that embrace emotion rather than scorn it.
And that is a major part of the B-School Presentation Problem.
When was the last time a business professor criticized you for showing too much emotion in your presentation?
Have you ever heard anyone criticized for it? For giving a presentation with too much feeling? Or for being too interesting?
For actually making you care? For actually being memorable for more than a few moments?
Now, think for a moment of the incredible power that might be yours if you embrace emotion and presentation passion when no one else does.
The wonder and delight of this is that it is entirely within your grasp to do so.
These Magic Words can conclude a presentation that spirals down out of control at the end
Let’s toss out a life preserver on how to conclude a presentation, because everyone needs a life-preserver at some point in his speaking career.
I’ve tossed this rescue device out many times to students in trouble during a business presentation.
At times, even the finest presenters get themselves in trouble, and having this rescue device near to hand can salvage a speech that is careening off-course, that is flirting with disaster.
Your Life Preserver to Conclude a Presentation
Occasionally we must be reminded of this quite simple device that can serve us well near the end of our talk.
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 life-preserver.
“In conclusion . . .”
That’s it. Just two words.
Conclude a Presentation 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 in terms that a logical, reasonable person would believe. As soon as you speak them, the path to the end of your talk becomes clear.
Speak them, and suddenly you know what to say and do.
Here is what you do. Confidently tack on another phrase . . .
“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 Presentingfor more on how to conclude a presentation.
