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Your
Presentation Success Is Our Passion
Present It Right...The First Time!
POWERPOINT
LIVE CONFERENCE 2004:
REGISTER A FRIEND FOR
ONLY $125!
Here is the
latest information from the organizers of the conference. These
are their words, not mine. I am attending; let me know if you'll
be there.
Are you planning
to attend the PowerPoint Live User Conference in San Diego from
October 10-12? Take a friend along. Through a new Tell a Friend
Program, you can register a colleague or coworker for just $125.
This is not a typo. Here is how it works:
1. After you register for the conference, tell a friend about
it.
2. They visit the website at www.powerpointlive.com
and click Registration.
3. They fill out the registration form. In the Comments field,
they type "I am a friend of (your name)."
4. We charge their credit card the regular conference fee of $795.
5. We then immediately issue a rebate of $670 to you.
6. You distribute the rebate to your colleague as you see fit
If your company paid for your registration, then it really does
not matter who gets the rebate and how it is apportioned out.
But if you are paying your own way, then it might feel unfair
to you that your friend gets this fantastic price while you do
not. That is why the rebate goes to you, so you have the opportunity
to distribute the savings evenly.
LISTEN
TO YOUR AUDIENCE AND GET TO THE POINT
I was recently reminded of a cardinal rule of any
sales presentation, be it a phone call or a presentation in front
of two hundred people: get to the point quickly! I have been getting
estimates for a new roof, which may cost as much as $30,000. Don't
run the risk of loosing your prospect's interest by going on and
on until your audience is silently-or vocally!-begging you to
stop.
That
is what one roofer did. In reality his company may be the best,
but I almost told him to leave before he even looked at the roof.
He wanted to sit down and give me a lengthy pitch about roofs
and what I needed to know. I was not interested in the theory
of roofing; I just wanted him to look at the project and tell
me what he saw. About halfway through what was shaping up to be
a half-hour pitch, I suggested he go look at the roof now. I had
to make that suggestion three times. Once I heard a price and
his description of the job to be done, I would have been much
more willing to sit through his sales pitch.
When you are presenting, your audience makes suggestions to you
all the time. Do you pay attention? When the boss asks a question
basically trying to move you along in the talk, do you respond?
When a prospect says she has only 20 minutes, do you waste time
on nonvital information? When on a web call and the customer requests
information, do you continue with your script regardless, or do
you change to answer the question?
Next
time you are talking on the phone, running a Webinar, or presenting
live to a group, get to the point your audience wants to know
sooner rather than later. You will have a better chance of keeping
their attention.
LOOK
AT YOUR AUDIENCE'S FACIAL EXPRESSIONS
In this season of heightened political awareness,
I thought some of you would like to know about Dan Hill at Sensory
Logic, a scientific consumer insight firm. I read about his critique
of politician's faces in the New York Times. Here is the link:
http://www.sensorylogic.com/NYTimes%2071804SL.pdf
The New York Times said Dan Hill's firm "... uses a system
developed at the University of California at San Francisco to
interpret the movements of 43 muscles in the face."
According to the company's web site (www.sensorylogic.com):
Sensory
logic captures what your customers can't or won't say. Since 55%
of communication is based on facial expressions, and only 7% on
what people say, you can never be optimally effective by relying
on that 7%.
What does that mean for presenters? How do you get better at reading
your audience's facial expressions? First, at least listen to
what they have to say, as I described above in the discussion
about getting to the point. Second, learn about facial expressions
and body language. Check out Sensory Logic's web site. For more
information, read Dan Hill's book Body of Truth or other books
on the subject.
USE
AN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Well-designed
slides are important in making a point, but what really helps
your audience is a succinct, to-the-point summary of your company
or product. The first two slides are examples of a company executive
summary. The last slide is an example of a project update executive
summary.
The slides
show the audience a one-slide summary of the company.The
presenter can talk more about each point as it comes up or speak
in more detail on subsequent slides. I challenge you to send me
an executive summary slide. I may show next month in Presentation
Points.
PRESENTERS
Get to the point sooner rather than later.
DESIGNERS
Create an executive summary and send it to me.
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