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Your
Presentation Success Is Our Passion
Present It Right...The First Time!
SHARE
ALL YOUR KNOWLEDGE OR KEEP SOME TO YOURSELF
More
and more I hear people asking me, "How can I be sure I am
giving the right information to the right group?" Sales people
ask me this. Managers ask me this. Technical people worry over
this issue. Why is this a problem that has caused many business
people sleepless nights? Are people more aware of this dilemma
now? Perhaps in part of the new business world, there are many
more meetings and more diverse people in those meetings. Plus,
in many levels of an organization, people are expected to share
information across functions by means of PowerPoint presentations.
How
can one be more accurate in presenting the right information to
the right group?
Here are several guidelines:
First,
do your own critique session.
Before you show the slides
to anyone else, print them. Lay your slides on a table and look
at them. Ask yourself these questions:
What information have I included that I know but my audience is
really not interested in knowing?
What level of detail about a subject should I omit? Should I keep
a hidden slide about this detail in case someone asks me a question?
Have I presented my messages in a way that they are clear, concise
and easy-to-follow?
Have I started at the top level with all my points and only gone
into as much detail as is necessary for this particular audience?
Second, ask before you give the talk.
Don't be shy. I don't hear many people doing this. Go ask some
people who will be in your audience what they want to know. Show
some of your presentation slides and ask for their candid feedback
about the information you have included in the talk.
What information do I need to omit?
What information should have more or less detail?
Is this the right level of information for the group?
Does my presentation need to be more or less big picture oriented?
Third,
ask after you give the talk.
What information should I leave in, take out and/or add for the
next talk?
Do you think I gave the right amount of information for the decision
maker in the room?
Did I give the right level of detail when asked a question?
HOW
GOOD ARE YOU AT DEBATING THE ISSUES IN A MEETING?
You
might give a fantastic presentation but lose your sale, be it
an idea or product, due to your lack of being able to debate the
issues skillfully. Here are a couple key points to remember when
you know you will have to deal with opposition during or at the
end of your talk.
Know
your opposition's position, even better than your own,
if possible. The more you know the objections, the better you
will be able to craft an answer. Train yourself to be able to
argue the opponent's position as well as your own.
Practice
with one or more people answering the tough questions.
Work with someone who will ask you the tough questions that might
come from a skeptical customer, aggressive manager or very detail-oriented
person. Practice your responses. Let's suppose you are a doctor
talking about a treatment. You explain it one way to your peers
who will understand your medical terminology. You explain it another
way to the hospital's management, stressing how offering the treatment
will enhance the hospital's image and truly help people. You explain
it yet another way to a patient.
Make
a compelling argument the first time. Give a very concise, audience-focused
presentation. You might have less to debate at the end of your
presentation.
Remember,
in business, part of negotiating is listening, not talking. Listen
to the person's arguments or questions and respond with calm and
persuasive points, not sarcasm and arrogance. You won't get what
you want that way. Graciousness in most situations will win your
more points.
ELLEN FINKELSTEIN'S POWERPOINT TIPS NEWSLETTER
Ellen has
a wonderful newsletter to which I suggest you subscribe if you
need to create PowerPoint presentations. (To subscribe, go to
www.ellenfinkelstein.com.)
She provides excellent pointers that you might not know. She also
explains PowerPoint features in such a way that you can understand
easily and apply the information. Here's one of Ellen's pointers
from her November newsletter.
"Reapplying
the slide master
Have you ever seen a presentation in which the text was jumping
around from slide to slide? On each slide, the title and text
were in a slightly different location. It made your eyes hurt,
didn't it?
Or maybe the
presentation's titles used several different fonts or font sizes.
Looked chaotic, yes?
When you're
editing a presentation and trying to get the titles and text to
fit, you sometimes move and resize the placeholders a little here
and there. But the end result is that your titles and text jump
around from slide to slide in a disconcerting way.
Or, you might
change fonts or font sizes, but you get a look that just doesn't
hang together.
How do you
get your placeholders to all line up exactly again? How do you
get all your text to have a single font and font size, just the
way it is in the slide master?
The solution
is to reapply the slide master. Follow these steps:
| 1. |
With
the slide you wish to change in normal view, choose Format
> Slide Layout. |
| 2. |
In the
Slide Layout task pane (it's a dialog box in PowerPoint 2000),
choose the current layout. |
| 3. |
Click
the Down arrow to the right of the layout and choose Reapply
Layout. (In PowerPoint 2000, click the Reapply button and
click OK to close the dialog box.)" |
HOW PEOPLE LEARN:
FOCUSED MATERIALS, NOT EXTRANEOUS
Richard
E. Mayer, professor of psychology at UC Santa Barbara, is the
author of many books on education and learning. He wrote Multi-Media
Learning.
I
have been showing some of Mayer's principles in my seminar Creating
PowerPoint Presentations That Get Your Point Across.
Last month you read about the first principle: Multimedia: Words
and pictures, not words alone. This month you will see some ideas
from his second principle: Coherence: Focused material, not extraneous.
This principle really makes you consider what information does
your audience really need to know. You can always hide slides
or set up hyperlinks in case the audience wants more details.
 |
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This
slide has an image, a quote very hard to read and key points
about a web site. The audience does not know where to look. |
 |
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This
slide only has the necessary information to make the key points. |
 |
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This
slide shows all the details which gives one message. |
 |
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The
information on the slide above was consolidated to give a
more general picture of the details. Very quickly, the audience
sees exactly what percent of the groups will be able to transfer
their credits. |
PRESENTERS
Before a presentation ask someone who will be in the audience
what he or she thinks about the level of detail on your slides.
DESIGNERS
Use
the reapply layout feature.
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