It’s Called Presenting, Not Talking Out Loud Page 3
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• I tried to use some descriptive language
instead to offer relatability – “oozes.” I
wouldn’t use that term in my industry, but I
think it works here.
• I mentioned that the mold stays closed for a
certain amount of time – which is what we
technically call “cycle time.” But I didn’t use
that term. No need to.
• I didn’t offer many details, such as the types
of resin available (there are so many types of
resins, btw). And I didn’t get into colors, etc.
CASUAL INTRODUCTIONS
While there is a dedicated chapter on introductions
and different intro techniques, I’d like to talk a little
about casual introductions here. But remember that
this is here in this chapter as it relates to the
importance of your audience.
What I mean by a casual introduction is taking the
opportunity to “break the ice” with your audience.
It’s the verbal equivalent of shaking hands. It’s a pre-
introduction, in other words, prior to jumping into
your actual presentation and your actual
introduction technique.
Let me share with you a technique I borrowed from
politicians on both sides of the aisle. It works more
with audiences that you don’t know.
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I first need to tel you two unofficial terms I came up with: “guaranteed” and “non-guaranteed”
audiences.
Non-guaranteed audiences are audiences that don’t
have to be there. So you need to work hard not only
to keep them, but to “hook” them from the start.
Guaranteed audiences are your employees, whether
you’re a CEO, SVP, VP, or department head of some
type. They can also be your cohorts in a classroom
setting, etc. Guaranteed audiences are essentially
audiences that wil be there whether they want to or
not, to put it simply.
Non-guaranteed audiences are clearly harder. Here
are some examples of where you may find non-
guaranteed audiences:
• Sales presentations
• Fundraising meetings
• Union meetings
• Political stump speeches
One way to capture the attention of a non-
guaranteed audience is to tel them what you think
they want to hear, starting with your introduction. I
realize that doesn’t sound so good to everyone but
let me explain with a personal anecdote.
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About two years ago, I was asked to do a
presentation on marketing/entrepreneurship to a
group of veterans at an institution that I’ve been
associated with for a very long time. It’s a program
that offers veterans an opportunity to go into
business for themselves. The program doesn’t have
traditional grades or rigid attendance, and those in
the program are not really considered students. So I
knew that while my presentation was part of the
overall program, the participants didn’t necessarily
have to be there the entire time.
I’ve done hundreds of presentations, but admittedly I
stressed over this one beforehand, not because of
the content I was going to share – I knew my stuff—
but because of how I felt I needed to start. I wanted
to acknowledge their service in the armed forces
while at the same time not coming off as
disingenuous.
I finally decided to muster up enough courage and
introduce the presentation like this:
Before we begin, I just want to quickly thank you al
for your service and sacrifice.
Judging from the warm smiles that I saw across the
room of approximately 30 veterans, I knew it was a
big hit. It takes some nerve to do it, believe me, but this actual y works.
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If you’re a businessperson and you’re rallying
students around a cause that you’re a big benefactor
to, for example, you may want to say something like
(I’l use New York University, since that’s one of my
alma maters):
Isn’t it a great day to be a Violet!?
In that case, you wait for an applause. And unless
you’re a very controversial figure, I don’t see why
you wouldn’t get a big one. Remember, this
technique is about praising them.
If you’re worried about not getting an applause, just
ask for one (and start applauding too, off course).
Just slightly adjust and say this:
Isn’t it a great day to be a Violet!? Why don’t you al
give yourselves a round of applause, you deserve it!
I have to seriously say I think this is so much better than talking about the weather, assuming the
weather is nice. The president of a company once
started a presentation talking about the weather for
an entire two minutes. It was mid-September and
there was about two weeks of no rain and that
slightly cooler, but stil nice September weather
(tristate area). Seriously, two minutes is a long time
to talk about the weather! I was honestly saying to
myself, “Ok dude, I get it, it’s nice outside.”
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Another thing you may want to try, before getting into the actual introduction to your presentation, is
to compliment the audience on a basic level. Since
I’m also an adjunct instructor, there has been times
in my career where I spoke to incoming interns on
behalf of the company I was working for. On those
occasions, I used the fol owing type of casual
introductions:
So great to meet you al. Thanks so much for coming
in on a Friday morning in the middle of the summer.
Don’t worry, I won’t talk too long and get in the way
of your weekend plans.
If you’re concerned, no, this isn’t an example of not being confident or being concerned with taking up
their time. This is simply being a little political (in a
good way) and starting the process of connecting
with them. It also shows that, once again, you are
self-aware. It works a little better than just
rhetorically asking “How are you?” I’m sure the
incoming interns are excited about working in your
company in the Fall, but they are most likely 18-21-
year-olds, and YES, in the middle of the summer on a
Friday they probably have the beach or weekend
plans on their minds!
Remember that whether you are a CEO, a student, or
anything in between, when you’re giving a
presentation, you’re working for the audience.
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DON’T (NECESSARILY) ASSUME
I’l keep this short and sweet. Let’s say you’re doing
a presentation on an individual. Don’t necessarily
assume that everyone in the room knows your
subject. If you can safely assume and you definitively
know that they know, fine. But even with famous
people, don’t assume. I think it’s hard to find anyone
above the age of, say, 15 or so, that doesn’t know
who Socrates was. But you should make a quick
reference of some
kind, especially if you’re not
certain that everyone knows your subject. Also, if
you have a photo of Socrates on a slide, you should
provide some reference to him. Most people don’t
know what Socrates looked like as a man.
Remembering your audience means the Who, What,
and Why, and they’re intermingled.
THE WHO
For example, if you’re a heart surgeon and doing a
presentation on the latest techniques in heart
transplant surgery, you’l adjust depending on
whether you’re speaking to a room of your peers
such as other heart surgeons at a conference or
speaking to a room of medical students.
If it’s to a group of medical students, you may need
to provide some base info that you wouldn’t need to
provide to a group of heart surgeons.
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CONNECT THE DOTS
Caution here…don’t fall into a classic trap! As in the
above scenario, there wil be times when you’ll need
to provide some base info, not because the audience
may not know it—they may— but because they may
need to be presented with it in order to connect one
thing to another. The heart surgeons already know
how to connect things without you explicitly saying
it. In this case, providing the base information to the
medical students serves as reinforcement or a
reminder rather than “teaching” it to them.
THE WHAT
Let’s say you’re an investment whiz and have made
mil ions trading in the market. It’s important to you
to help the layperson learn some of the techniques
that made you successful.
If you’re doing a presentation to a group of middle-
class, first-time investors, you’l want to not only
simplify the information, but also tone down your
rhetoric. Rhetoric doesn’t always have to be a bad
thing. But if you’re an investment whiz, let’s face it,
you’ve probably gained a wealth of experience and
with that comes a level of confidence and an “air” of
being pretty sure of yourself. That style might be
completely fine with your peers, but won’t work all
that wel with first-time investors. They have no use
for the “bravado;” they need the building blocks.
Also, you want to ensure you’re not intimidating
them.
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THE WHY
Your objective may not be as obvious to your
audience as you may think. When Steve Jobs
introduced the iPad in 2010 during one of his famous
Apple keynotes, the audience had a good idea of
what he was going to share. For months there had
been news and rumors in the tech world about Apple
introducing a tablet.
What Jobs decided to do was to start off by
discussing the iPhone and Mac. You may think that
was irrelevant for introducing a new tablet, but he
chose to walk us through what the phone and the
laptop did and didn’t do as wel , so he could set the
stage for a third-category device that would be
better for certain tasks. Jobs keenly understood that
his work on the iPad wasn’t complete; he stil needed
to communicate the value proposition to the skeptics
and walk us through why we should carry around a
third device.
Hindsight is always 20/20. In retrospect, that was a
smart move in his presentation technique. If he
started with the iPad and its functions, some
members of the audience stil wouldn’t know why
we needed it. The take away here is just because
your audience may know the what, you stil need to
tel them the why. That’s your job, not theirs.
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CHAPTER FIVE | OBJECTIVE
As mentioned earlier, you wil want to establish what
your overall objective is when preparing your
presentation. In simple terms, always ask yourself
what is it that you’re trying to achieve. While this may seem a bit obvious, it’s sometimes taken for
granted.
Are you trying to share some information with an
audience? If so, it is probably more than an FYI. If it
is just a simple FYI, and you’d rather discuss it rather than sending an email, then we probably don’t even
need to call those situations “presentations.”
If you’re sharing information, such as an update, are
you also trying to persuade? You may not be sel ing
them, per se, but are you trying to influence some
type of behavior i.e. offering an alternative
insurance plan or unveiling a new business strategy
that requires employees to embrace a new mindset?
Alternatively, are you doing a highly interactive type
of presentation that requires high audience
involvement?
SHOW AND TELL
Remember when you were a kid and had “show and
tel ” in school? Those were exciting – and also
simpler – times, for sure. And I’m assuming that
your kindergarten or first-grade teacher didn’t gril
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you on your objective when you came to show and tel , right?
But if you really think about it, even the simple,
innocent activity of show and tel can begin to teach
us how we should think of presentations, as adults.
I’m sure you either brought something into class to
discuss? Maybe it was a new dol that you were
excited about. Maybe you didn’t have a toy to bring
but you brought pictures from a family vacation and
you told all of your cute, little classmates about it?
Maybe you got a new puppy and while you couldn’t
bring Fido to school, you decided to tel the students
why you got a dog instead of a cat, because of your
allergies, etc.
Anyway, the innocence of kids, coupled with show
and tel and all of its unassuming objectives can give
us a pretty good starting point to think about your
presentation.
THE FOUR OBJECTIVES
There are generally four main objectives of a
presentation (many authors wil use different
names), but they essentially boil down to the same
four. And they are not always fixed-point. In other
words, sometimes you can do a presentation that
has a bit of a blend of two or more.
For example, if you’re a coach giving your players a
locker room pep talk on what they need to do to win,
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don’t necessarily assume this is a tel /sel situation just because you’re the coach and the players are
your subordinates. This could be both tel /sel and
consult/join, since a good coach knows that he needs
the support from the players (the audience) in order
to carry out the mission. Lecturing players simply
isn’t going to cut it. I use Al Pacino’s “locker room”
speech from Any Given Sunday to il ustrate this (see
appendix B).
Borrowing a page from Mary Munter and Lynn
Hamilton, the objective of a presentation can be
thought of as one of the fol owing:
• Tell/Sell – used primarily when y
ou want the
audience to learn from you.
• Consult/Join – used primarily when you want to
learn from the audience, or need buy-in.
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You can categorize them in many ways, such as:
Let’s map this out a little more specifically so you can
get a better appreciation of what skil s and attributes
go with these, and hopeful y you’l get a better
handle on how to prepare your presentation.
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Skills
Attributes
Tell
Present
Clarity
Simplify
Precision
Summarize
Discipline
Interpret
Confidence
Tenacity
Connect
Listen
Openness
Question
Candor
Discuss
Patience
Probe
Curiosity
Debate
Humility
Provide/Receive
Accessibility
Feedback
Share
Engage
Respect
Col aborate
Trust
Facilitate
Empathy
Navigate
Self-awareness
Influence Propose
Transparency
Persuade
Authenticity/Passion
Lead
Decisiveness
Another important issue when forming your
objective is to ensure your presentation isn’t too
broad. We’l discuss agendas in another chapter but,
as you begin to structure your presentation based on
what you hope to achieve, make sure the various
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components are not so general that they become
separate presentations in of themselves.
In other words, try not to do too much and be overly
ambitious. Presentations and speeches can land you
a promotion, a new job, a new account. Heck, a solid
presentation/speech sometimes changes the world
in some way (see Nelson Mandela). However, they
are specific in terms of their objective. People who
understand strategy know that by staying focused,
they stay relevant.
PLAN, BUT WITH A LITTLE FLEXIBILITY
If you plan too “wel” in advance, you may come
across as too scripted and inauthentic, so avoid