Nicholas Bate

The Guy Who Stops

your presentation becoming a crisis.

Preparing this weekend for an interview next week?

Sadly, despite all the advice available to them, many, many interviewees still disappoint their interviewers. Some of this is down to the interviewer: poor job specification, poor initial screening and so on. But if you are an interviewee, ask yourself the question: if your life depended on being successful at this interview would you, could you have prepared more? Would you look smarter, would you have more enthusiasm and better questions?  Would you have researched the company more? Would you have role-played the tough questions you might get with a good friend?  You have probably answered yes. Well here’s the interesting thing: your life does depend on it. The quality of life you eventually get depends significantly on the quality of the job you accept. A couple of extra hours work at this stage and even a missed episode of Grey’s Anatomy or The Shield will save possible hours of pain every day in a job which is simply not you, even though it does pay the rent. If you decide to accept an interview, prepare as if your Life depended on it. It does.

Just a thought.

Presentation Re-Invent

You too can have a new, improved, presentation. Cultural Offering shows you how.

12 Ways To Make Your Presentation More Impactful For The Audience and More Fun For You

1. Get into the room early and work out how you can get physically closer to the audience.
2. Remove as many distractions as possible: posters in the audience eye-line, for example.
3. Remove all obvious sense of time e.g. a clock above your head.
4. 1/3 into your presentation use a story to reinforce the points you are making.
5. 2/3 into your presentation change media e.g. from PowerPoint to whiteboard.
6. Do the Q & A before the summary.
7. Start on time. Yes, even though many people are late. Reward the behaviours you seek.
8. Finish on time. If you continue to talk, you many have them physically, but certainly not mentally.
9. Read Presenting101.
10. Stay in control: do not let someone asking questions remove your leadership position.
11. As soon as you finish and the room clears, write your own personal review: what went well? And less well? 
12. Plan your presentation to meet your outcome, not to fill the time available with PowerPoint slides. 

Questions in Presentations

If there is a fear beyond the fear of giving the presentation, there is the fear of taking questions during the presentation. And yet I would suggest questions from the audience to you are essential for two reasons: (1) the nature and number of the questions you receive correlates closely with the buy-in and understanding of the audience i.e. have you done what you were there for? And (2) it causes you to think on your feet and raise your game-a natural accelerator for developing your best presenting skills.

So perhaps rather than planning to dissuade questions, plan to encourage them by:

• Being in the room to meet those who arrive early so people discover you are approachable and happy to take a query or two;
• In long presentations having a mid-session pause where you allow people a minute or two to review what had gone so far and raise any issues;
• Allow enough time for a full Q&A;
• 'Seeding' quieter audiences by mentioning questions from previous sessions;
• Thanking those who question you to encourage others.

Presentation Palpitations?

It's Sunday evening and you're worrying about your presentation next Tuesday. That's why you need the support of Andrew Lightheart and all the other great presentation skills bloggers he'll introduce you to.

Got a Presentation Next Week?

You can get instant inspiration from these guys:

Fortify Your Oasis;

Breaking Murphy's Law;

Real. Smart. Now.

7 Ways to Connect with your Presentation Audience

1. Ask questions, especially rhetorical...so why do I keep emphasising the importance of defending price...?
2. Make it sensory rich. Tell your story with detail. How late was your plane? How valuable was the business?
3. Less is more. Make what you do say valuable to your specific audience. So thus, in your company that would be a saving of $5.5/head...
4. Connect with early arrivals. Get in the room early and greet as many people as you can.
5. Talk from the back of the room, too. Make sure you have a roving mike and can include all areas of the room.
6. Keep to time. Breaks and close.
7. Respect every one in the audience, even those who apparently are being 'difficult'. Handle then assertively not aggressively.

What Goes Wrong at Conferences?

I'm speaking at a lot of conferences at the moment. A lot goes really well, but conference organisers could make it a lot easier for their audience if:

They did less. In the quest to keep people interested many organisers pack in a lot of speakers. No; what you need are fewer speakers and ensure they are really good.

They did more. Too often conferences are like the worst of politicians: all sound-bite and no action. Create a method for capturing agreed actions and reporting one month after the event on progress.

They DIDN'T start the previous evening. Typically people fly in-late-from all over the world. They hit the bar. Day 1 at 0900 is not  pretty sight. Start at 1100 day 1. Do 2h then lunch etc etc. It means a day's alcohol free work is pretty well guaranteed.

They forget the freebies. Special folders, bags and T-shirts have zero long-term use. Save that money and the money from starting on day 1 rather than the previous evening and invest it in something that really wins business.

They took the post conference feed-back seriously and didn't get all defensive about it.

Thunderbirds are Go

I don't know if you have ever seen a Thunderbirds episode but creator Gerry Anderson loved making everything really hi-tech and even invented a whole field called 'supermarionation'. Stunts were fabulous and the puppetry sheer wizardry. But you know what makes an episode fun to watch? The characters. The Hood. Brains. And of course Lady Penelope.

That's the big problem with so many PowerPoint presentations: big on supermarionation but very low on story and chartacter. Call on International Rescue and get some help with your big pitch. Brains may stutter a little but he'll be able to help.