Nicholas Bate

9 Things Not to Say in your Presentation

1. The colours looked at lot better at 130 am this morning.
2. We are experiencing a paradigm shift in customer expectations.
3. I'm standing in for the guy who really knows what he's talking about.
4. There's probably too much on that slide.
5. I realise I will run over on time by about 20 minutes.
6. Ahh...so you don't have an extension cable?
7. Does anyone know how to get rid of that on the screen?
8. So, you've actually heard all of this before? Yesterday?
9. My wife chose this tie.

30 Minutes Before your Big Pitch to 35 People

-30. Get into the room. Pace. Get the feel. Walk to the back.
-29. Sort the temperature as best you can. Remember: it will get warmer.
-28. Remove distractions. Stuff left on white-boards. Yesterday's sandwiches.
-27. Load and check your slides.
-23. Adjust the furniture as best you can to get the audience as 'intimate' as you can.
-19. Ensure you have a flip-chart for impromptu stuff.
-17. Practice your opening 3 minutes, twice.
-11. Check your clothes.
-10. Get a bottle of water: have a sip.
-9. Walk tall. Breathe easily.
-6. Greet first arrivals. Smile and raise your energy.
-2. Scan and check all OK. Say 'We'll be starting in 2'.
-1. Close the door.
0. Start with a bang (and do not acknowledge late-comers until later).

A Great PowerPoint Slide

1. Cannot be read ahead: it needs your interpretation.
2. Doesn't distract from your message.
3. Complements what you are saying.

Such slides are rare which suggest we need fewer than we generally create.

Pinch (for your pitch) from the Movies

To give your presentation extra impact, pinch from the films:
1. Start in the middle. Well, perhaps not right in the middle but definitely not at the start. Skip all the boring bits...you can trickle those in later....get right to the heart of the matter. Just like a good film does.
2. Change time. Films have flash-backs. So can you: switch tense and talk case studies and make them real. Just like the films do.
3. Have a car chase. Pick up speed. Get really fast. Nearly lose it, then return to the main theme. Just as in a good film.

Remember: you are a film director now. And your audience expects the best.

Classy quotes

One thing it's always good to avoid in your presentation is people reading ahead-getting to your point before you have explained it. A quote in Latin always helps. Here are three which are very handy:
Mea Culpa: I got it wrong. It's my fault. I screwed up.
Tempus Fugit: time flies. There's a window of opportunity. Let's get on with it.
Carpe Diem: sieze the day. What's stopping us? Only us!

Yep-add a bit of class to your next set of slides. Use a nice Times font, of course.

4 x 4 Presenting

If you have ever been lucky enough to go on a proper 4 x 4 vehicle training day, I bet you loved the experience: you felt the bumps, you were so near the water some leaked in over the window top and you were sure you were going to roll on that incline. You were IN the experience; you felt exhilerated. You were not a detached observer. That's how a great presentation works: get them involved. Pull them in. Get physically close to the audience then tell them great stories and then be provocative and then... See the difference it makes.
Give them a 4 x 4 presenation. They get too many which just take the easy route from mid-town to down-town with a lot of boring stops at traffic lights and the same old scenery.

A presentation tip

Remove that which might distract from your message e.g.:
Stuff left on whiteboards and flip-charts which seems intriguing. Get rid of it.
Too obvious clocks, especially ones on the wall just behind you. Remove it during your presentation.
Left-over lunch. Wheel it into the corridor.
Blackberries. Just say NO.
Questions: decide what you want to do (as you go along/at end?) and stick to it.
Overly voluminous notes. Reduce and tidy.
Late arrivals. Try and ensure they enter from the back of the room, not front nor side.
That tie. Get rid of it.

Modelling Excellence

Modelling excellence i.e. replicating exactly what someone does in order to be as effective as them is not as easy as it seems. This worthy article attempts to capture what Steve Jobs does to create a stunning presentation. It's a good list of attributes-who could argue with them? But then you think-there must be something else, because I do all of those. And there is. It's often fogotten that if we are to model fully, we must model not only the mechanics of what the person does (well listed in the article) but also the person's mindset: their values and beliefs. And that's a whole lot tricker. But ironically enough False Steve Jobs, in the last sentence here may be a lot closer than he thinks to the truth. Which is that Steve Jobs has a particular presence with his audience. And great presenters always do-and that's the thing to strive for. Not just a simple zen-like PowerPoint slide. And that connection is very much about what you are and believe in rather than what you do or say. You have to be before you can do before you can have.

Notice the stuff which is not noticeable.

Two good presentation questions ...

...here

Presentation Basics 4

The longer your presentation, the more variety it will need to create 'spikes' of interest or spikes of change. Such spikes might be:
voice: softer/louder/faster/slower
different medium e.g. the white-board
change of style e.g. from bullets to anecdote
interaction e.g. Q&A
a prop e.g. bring along a sample
etc.

Build in some spikes. Or beware PowerPoint Induced Trance or PIT.