It’s Called Presenting, Not Talking Out Loud Read online

  It’s Called Presenting, Not Talking Out Loud

  A Quick, Strategic Guide for Effective Presentations

  By

  Al Golzari

  Copyright Ó 2018 by Al Golzari

  All Rights Reserved

  KINDLE VERSION

  GPG, LLC

  AVALON GUIDEBOOKS

  www.presentingbook.com

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  than for “fair use” as brief quotations embodied in

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  permission from the author.

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  INTRODUCTION

  The purpose of this guide is relatively simple and

  modest. The focus here is not on general business

  communications but rather on presentations.

  The motivation came from my desire to help, and the

  belief that I bring something unique to the table.

  Something that makes sense – for the majority of us.

  In a natural way.

  I don’t have any formal training in communications

  aside from taking a communications course while I

  was pursuing my MBA. Nor do I come from the

  consulting, human resources or career coaching

  worlds. My background is actually in consumer

  product development and sourcing, in addition to

  adjunct teaching in marketing,

  innovation/entrepreneurship, and international

  business.

  However, I do consider myself a pretty solid natural

  presenter. I’m a talker, not a writer, and have always

  been told I had the “gift of gab.”

  I accidentally fel into teaching business

  communications at the graduate level a few years

  ago. I’m a marketing guy and, in many schools, the

  business communications program is housed within

  the marketing department. I had innocently reached

  out to the marketing chair of one of the universities

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  I’m affiliated with and asked if he needed me to teach additional marketing classes the upcoming

  semester. He asked if I would be wil ing to teach a

  few sections of business communications since there

  were some immediate vacancies at the time. I

  briefly hesitated but figured I’d go for the challenge.

  As with anything new, I needed to iron out the

  wrinkles. It turns out, though, I was pretty good at

  teaching business communications. My approach

  was pragmatic – take my natural presentation skills

  and marry them with all of the lessons I had learned

  about effective business communications from my

  industry experience.

  Something inherently seemed to be working, and the

  students generally seemed to be responding

  positively. Some of the most insightful feedback I’ve

  received have been comments like:

  “I didn’t think I was going to get anything out of this

  and saw it was another required, fluffy

  communications class and a waste of my time, but

  you real y taught me some useful things.”

  “Your assignments, specifical y, gave me the

  preparation I needed to land the job I wanted.”

  So I stayed with it, serving at the pleasure of the

  marketing chair and business communications

  program director.

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  Early on, I started to realize how much I already knew but never quite had the opportunity to share.

  It turned out that these business communication

  courses were precisely that missing forum. With my

  corporate experience and some careful thought

  came an opportunity to introduce my own

  assignments, strategies and techniques. Some of

  these were, and stil might be, a bit unorthodox, but

  they work. This is what I’d like to share with you.

  This guide – I’m purposely calling it a “guide” and not

  a book— is not an attempt at yet another

  communications text. There are enough of those.

  I’m also not trying to compete with any of those

  texts.

  My background in marketing and innovation has

  prepared me wel enough to ensure that I

  differentiate myself among the competition. What

  I’m providing you is a handy, user-friendly guide to

  use in industry or school.

  You’l find this more strategic than tactical, although

  I blend both at times. That doesn’t mean it isn’t

  practical; it very much is. In other words, if you first

  fol ow the principles I’ve laid out in this guide and

  apply them, no matter your skil level, I guarantee

  you wil become a more effective speaker and

  presenter.

  Whether you need to brush up on your industry

  skills, or enrol ed in a communications course or

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  school in general, or if you are preparing for an

  important presentation or speech, you can rely on

  this guide as a handy reference. I am of the firm

  belief that public speaking and presenting is an art,

  not a science. And while some of us have natural

  speaking abilities, we ALL need practice from time-

  to-time.

  I’m rooting for you…

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  WHO THIS GUIDEBOOK IS FOR

  This guide is for anyone doing presentations and

  wants to:

  • Improve

  • Reinforce

  • Build Confidence

  The goal has been to create a guidebook that cuts

  out all of the fat and unnecessary theory for those

  who just need the keys. Some chapters are

  approximately only a page to a page-and-a-half, by

  design.

  If you’re a practitioner in any industry and need to

  make presentations, this guidebook can help.

  If you’re a student enroled in a communications

  course, my hope is that you can treat this guidebook

  as a supplement to the other materials your

  instructor has assigned. And it’s my sincere hope

  that some instructors would adopt this guide as part

  of their curriculum.

  I wanted to simplify and make this as practical and

  user-friendly as possible. As with all texts, you can

  read this from start to finish, and I hope since there

  aren’t many pages, you’l find it all concise and

  useful. If you were to read this from start to finish,

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  it’s probabl
y about a 90-minute read. However, you can also specifically flip to what you may need.

  There’s a short bibliography section at the end of this

  guide. Where I borrowed, I did my very best to give

  credit where credit is due. But for the most part, the

  content in this guide comes from my instinct and

  experience. And I hope that helps add greater value.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  This guide is divided into two parts: strategy and

  execution.

  STRATEGY:

  CHAPTER ONE | THE THREE C’S ................................................. 12

  CHAPTER TWO | ORGANIZATION AND PREPARATION .............. 16

  CHAPTER THREE | LEARNING FROM COMEDIANS .................... 38

  CHAPTER FOUR | AUDIENCE AND SELF-AWARENESS ............... 40

  CHAPTER FIVE | OBJECTIVE ....................................................... 53

  CHAPTER SIX | OWNING YOUR CONTENT ................................. 66

  CHAPTER SEVEN | YOUR STYLE ................................................. 69

  CHAPTER EIGHT | STORYTELLING, AUTHENTICITY, AND BEING

  CONVERSATIONAL ..................................................................... 87

  CHAPTER NINE | AGENDAS AND TRANSITIONS ........................ 92

  EXECUTION:

  CHAPTER TEN | PRESENTATION INTRODUCTIONS .................... 99

  CHAPTER ELEVEN | SLIDES ..................................................... 110

  CHAPTER TWELVE | DECIDING WHEN TO DO A PRESENTATION

  WITHOUT SLIDES .................................................................... 123

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN | HANDLING QUESTIONS ....................... 126

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN | PRESENTATION CONCLUSIONS ......... 131

  APPENDIX A | SLIDE EXAMPLES ............................................. 135

  APPENDIX B | FAMOUS SPEECHES ......................................... 142

  BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................ 144

  CHAPTER ONE | THE THREE C’S

  I came up with the three C’s – Conviction. Clarity.

  Context – a few years ago, after having witnessed

  many powerful and effective presentations, and

  equally as many ineffective ones.

  CONVICTION

  To speak with conviction means to speak with

  passion. Although passion is a clichéd term, and I

  hate clichés, it stil has value.

  Speaking with conviction shows you own your

  content. We’l discuss owning content in a separate

  chapter. To own your content means you know what

  you’re talking about or, at minimum, you give the

  impression that you do. Sometimes that is enough.

  This doesn’t mean you always have to be an expert

  in every facet of the topic you’re presenting about,

  but it does mean that you truly believe in the words

  you’re saying.

  I speak from experience; once you lose your

  audience’s attention, you generally never get it back.

  You really need to ask yourself, “If I’m not

  enthusiastic, why should the audience be?”

  Believe me when I say this: Conviction takes you

  half way to the finish line in a presentation.

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  You don’t need to scream or jump up and down or do cartwheels, per se. People might think you are

  crazy.

  However, speaking with conviction means that the

  words that come out of your mouth flow so wel and

  are so strong that they are hard to contest. Whether

  people agree or not, everyone respects what you are

  saying. Your words are unstoppable.

  CLARITY

  With all due respect, I find too many people today

  speak with “marble mouth.” You’ve heard the term.

  Their words seem a bit garbled. When speaking,

  they don’t finish each word before beginning the

  next one. I think most people can do something to

  change that. Enunciate.

  I also find that many people speak way too fast. Why

  exactly? I’m not sure. I have some thoughts, but

  that’s irrelevant to this discussion.

  I’ve traveled to China for business many times over

  the years. English-speaking Chinese people have

  often told me that they enjoy speaking to me in

  English because I don’t talk too fast or too slow, and

  they can continue to enhance their English skil s. I’l

  take the compliment.

  When you speak, you should respect the words that

  come out of your mouth. Why do so many of us

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  wake up in the morning, put on nice clothes to either feel good about ourselves or to impress others, but

  when it comes to our speech we don’t invest nearly

  as much effort? We put so much energy into the

  way we look and the latest trends on social media,

  but we don’t concern ourselves nearly as much with

  how we come across when we speak? I’ve never

  understood that. Let’s stop making everyone else

  rich and famous by giving them all of our attention.

  Let’s invest in ourselves a bit.

  Speaking with clarity is an investment that lasts a

  lifetime.

  This sounds corny, but the truth is I’ve never hired

  someone who was qualified but had marble mouth

  during an interview. Instead, I’ve always given

  people who were well-spoken during an interview a

  bit more preference, even if they had a slight deficit

  in experience or a particular skil .

  CONTEXT

  If you’ve ever been given feedback that you speak

  too much (like I have), you may have wondered why.

  I’m going to guess that you were either slightly

  bothered by or indifferent to the feedback. I can bet,

  though, that no one ever mentioned how to help

  correct that.

  To speak with context is to be aware of who your

  audience is, your surroundings and your end

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  objective. I have a chapter on audience which wil further explain. For example, if you are doing a

  business presentation on sourcing and supply chain,

  consider how much you can reasonably assume your

  audience already knows and what they need to

  know. Stay within that range. Don’t provide

  unnecessary information.

  Furthermore, your tone should rest with whether

  your audience is comprised of senior or junior

  executives. Some people are better than others at

  accomplishing this. Some of us, myself included,

  need to practice.

  This is particularly true when we are passionate

  about the subject; we can sometimes get lost “in the

  romance.” It’s important to keep in mind that not

  everyone wil care about the topic as much as we do.

  While that may be a bit discouraging at times, it’s the

  truth.

  In short, it’s important to give your audience what

  they need—no more, no less.

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  CHAPTER TWO | ORGANIZATION

  AND PREPARATION

  I’ve seen many presenters fall short of their own

  expectations. They put in hours of preparation but

  end up wondering why their presentations weren’t

  as successful they expected. Often, the answer is

  mispl
aced energy. They dedicate hours to designing

  PowerPoint or Keynote slides, and focus too much on

  aesthetics— font sizes, graphics, etc. These aspects

  of presentations are important and necessary, but do

  not qualify as preparation. They’re more technical.

  By preparation, I am referring to strategic aspects —

  defining your objective (in case you’re not clear), and

  determining the overall structure to your

  presentation.

  To prepare is to organize. Organization is essential

  for your ideas to flow in a seamless sequence that

  makes sense. But it doesn’t have to be linear. It can, but it doesn’t have to be.

  The good news is that there are many ways to create

  and deliver an effective presentation. Movies, songs,

  and books have structure. So should your

  presentation. The fol owing sections of this guide

  discuss the above points in greater detail, focusing

  on the importance of strategic preparation.

  Before you get into the fol owing chapters to better

  understand each element, you need to come up with

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  a macro-level plan to organize your presentation –

  and figure out the best plan of attack.

  Al presentations consist of three basic pieces (I

  prefer to call them pieces as opposed to sections,

  because I think that works a little easier in the mind):

  • In the beginning, we have our introduction,

  which actually can be two parts. There’s the

  opening and the set-up (or preview). You don’t

  always need to have an opening in your

  introduction, but you may choose to, in order to

  entice your audience from the very start

  (assuming that you’l do an effective opening to

  really engage your listeners). Please refer to the

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  chapter on Presentation Introductions for more.

  This is our set-up, and there are many ways to set

  up a presentation.

  • In the middle, we have the “meat” of our