July 2007

Make slide titles informative - and surprising [more]

Pinpoint your emotional connections to your audience [more]

"I am very excited to be speaking to you today," not "Well, the weather is pretty cold and I'm glad we're all inside." [more]

Proofread your slides [more]

Monthly Challenge: Mark four places in your presentation to emotionally connect to your audience's interests and hot buttons.

MAKE SLIDE TITLES INFORMATIVE - AND SURPRISING

Slide titles are all too often boring and dull. Plus, they lack information. It's frustrating for the audience when the title says nothing about the slide.

I've been experimenting with several clients on creating a presentation in several levels. They give a 5-to-10-minute version of their talk with only the slide titles as well as the longer version using all the information on the slide. Giving a presentation with titles only forces you to write interesting and informative ones.

Now consider a presentation with many slides of charts. You will have three levels on those chart slides: an informative slide title, a subheading explaining the chart's key points, then the chart itself.

Here are some examples of title changes:

PINPOINT YOUR EMOTIONAL CONNECTIONS TO YOUR AUDIENCE

Look through the slides of your next presentation. Ask yourself, "Where am I using emotion to connect to my audience?" "What am I saying that will emotionally 'grab' my audience?"

Some of my clients who raise money still think that they can do it only from an intellectual viewpoint. They present charts and statistics, recounting detail after detail about different projects. But they forget that people have to be convinced emotionally as well. What are you doing to help people "feel" that giving money to your organization is not only a good idea factually, but also good emotionally?

Other clients present their projects to upper management. They, too, think that slide after slide of data will convince their audience that they are good at what they do. Recently I asked one of them, "Where in all these slides are you truly connecting to your audience? All I see is data." Find out the emotional hot buttons of your executives and speak to them. Excite your team members to motivate them and make them feel they have a stake in the project.

Opening Phrase That Will Empower You and/or Your Audience

"I am very excited to be speaking to you today," not "Well, the weather is pretty cold and I'm glad we're all inside."

Rather than reminding people about something negative, start with a positive statement. Explain, for example, that you feel excited or happy to be talking. A presenter who says, "I know you are busy people and have many things to do. Thank you for coming," only reminds everyone of all the things that they aren't doing because they are sitting and listening. Distracting the audience before the presentation even begins is hardly a positive way to begin!

Invite everyone in your audience; yourself included, to be present in the moment.

POOFREAD YOUR SLIDES

Here are some of the common grammatical mistakes that I see on slides. Find them and then look at the next slide to see if you caught them all.

Remember - these are the kinds of mistakes that your spell check won't catch.

Winning Presentations Public Seminar
October 16-17, Boston, MA

This seminar is open to those who both create and deliver presentations.

• Increase your presence in front of a group.
• Use opening, closings, and transitions focused on your audience's "need to know."
• Redo a presentation, including, if necessary, a new background and many slide design ideas.
• Learn how to create PowerPoint slides that enhance your presentation's objective.
• Leave with a personalized action plan and a video of the six presentations you gave during the seminar.
  

Corporate Consulting:
Presentation Performance Process for Your Company or Division
Save days of time creating a presentation. Put my process in place and save at least one-third of the time you used to spend putting together a talk. Guaranteed!

My clients include: The Gillette Company, Genzyme Corporation, CVS, Harvard Medical International, State Street Global Advisors, Mercury Computer Systems, Harvard Medical School, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Avid Technology.

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