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December 2001

In this month's free e-news from Wilder Presentations, I'd like to discuss two ideas for presenters and one for designers. As always, there's a monthly challenge.

FOR PRESENTERS:

Step 6: USING THE KINESTHETIC MODALITY

In October you read about how visual people need to see the whole picture to really comprehend the message. In November we discussed how auditory types retain the spoken word and don't need all the fancy bells and whistles. Plus, some auditory types need to talk out loud in order to truly process the information.

Who are the kinesthetic types? Kinesthetic types process life through bodily sensations and feelings. For example, when kinesthetic types listen to a talk, they notice a bodily sensation such as a knot in their stomach or goose bumps on the skin, then attach a feeling to what they hear. If their head begins to pound as they listen, they might say, "That recommendation just doesn't feel right to me."

Kinesthetic types also like to keep themselves physically busy. At the extreme, they come to your presentation with a stack of paper and sit there working and listening at the same time. They can do many things at once and still retain the information you present. Because they are feeling-oriented, kinesthetic presenters usually show and speak with more emotion than their visual or auditory counterparts.

What does a kinesthetic presenter need to do when preparing for a presentation? The kinesthetic presenter needs to organize a talk and include pertinent facts, charts, and tables to convince an auditory and visual audience. For a kinesthetic type, the feeling of "it's right" or "this makes sense" comes from an internal physical sensation. A visual type, however, will see how all the information fits together and then make a decision based on the big picture; while an auditory type will remember the words and be able to repeat them in order to corroborate the chosen decision.

According to kinesthetic people,

"The truth of a thing is the feel of it, not the think of it." (Stanley Kubrick)

"Some people feel the rain; others just get wet." (Roger Miller)

Here are some strategies for kinesthetic types:

· Get them doing things. They like having the slide handouts so they can write on them.

· Ask them questions like: "How does that feel to you?" "What's your gut feel about this?"

In this world of overabundant data presentation, kinesthetic people can be very helpful in pinpointing problems. They can listen to a one-hour strategy presentation and then zero in on the exact issue that needs to be addressed by saying, "That third-core strategy feels like the one we need to start with." Look over the questions you ask your audience and be sure to include a few for the kinesthetic types. One might be: "After my explanation, do you have a handle on the situation now facing us?"

Next month we'll wrap up this segment by discussing  how to quickly identify the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic types in your audience.

FOR PRESENTERS:

MORE ON TRIAL LAWYERS FROM FAYE STONE

For that past two months, we've been discussing trial lawyers' strategies that can be useful to you as presenters. Faye Stone sent me some more ideas. A trial lawyer herself, she was trained by her father, who was one of the best trial lawyers in Massachusetts.

· Know the pertinent facts. Commit all the pertinent facts to memory and then rehearse them-out loud. Practice speaking clearly, without hesitation.

· Recheck people's work. If the work was done by a paralegal, check it. If using citations, be sure to include page numbers where the law can be found. You want to be able to easily retrieve the information.

· Check voice volume. In a jury trial, don't overwhelm the jurors with a loud delivery.

FOR PRESENTERS:

HAND-WAVING FOUND TO AID RECALL

The above headline was in The Boston Globe on November 16, 2001. In experiments with nearly 100 adults and children, psychologists found that gesturing while explaining a math problem improved the recall of a previously memorized list of numbers or letters. Researchers noted that even blind people gesture with their hands when talking to blind listeners, suggesting another purpose to hand-waving. So next time you are trying to remember something, gesture-don't stand up there without moving. You may be making it harder on yourself to remember the talk you practiced.

FOR DESIGNERS:

PUTTING YOUR 50 SLIDES ONTO ANOTHER BACKGROUND

Let's suppose you have a 50-slide presentation and you want to only put only the text on another background. What's the easiest way? Go into outline view. Copy all the text. Open your new file with the different background and paste all the text into outline view.

GETTING THAT CD TO SELF-START

Jennifer Rotondo, President of Creative Minds, created a program called Run-It.

RunIt! is a simple program for PC users that you include on a CD along with your PowerPoint presentation. When the CD is inserted into the drive, the presentation automatically starts in Slide Show mode. Now your clients don't have to open the CD folder, locate a file, open PowerPoint, and then run the show-it's done for them. RunIt! eliminates steps and makes you look like a pro!

There are two versions.

1. RunIt! Basic is solely designed with the AutoRun feature.

2. RunIt! Plus will allow any users, even if they don't have PowerPoint on their computer, to see your presentation. You can also add linked media and special fonts, and even temporarily change your client's monitor settings so your presentation looks its best.

For more information, go to:

http://www.creativemindsinc.com/runit.htm

MONTHLY CHALLENGE:

Presenters

Start asking kinesthetic questions.

Designers

Be sure your slides are inviting to kinesthetic audience members. What would these slides look like? First, they would look inviting. Second, they would evoke a sensation or feeling in a kinesthetic person.

COMMENTS FROM OUR READERS:

When NOT to Say "Thank You"

This is from Nick Miller's newsletter. It is so relevant to presenters that I asked Nick if I could include it here. I love his newsletter. Especially if you are in sales, I suggest you subscribe.

Most of us (MOST of us) learned "thank you" early -- Thank you for this, thank you for that, you're very kind, thank you. We've learned to say "thank you " in many sales moments -- thank you for your business, thank you for the order, thank you for taking my call, thank you for meeting with me. It's second nature to us (the most of us who learned "thank you" early). Why or when should you consider NOT saying thank you? When so saying diminishes your stature with your client or prospect.

If you want to position yourself with stature equal to your client or prospect, you say, "I'm glad we could meet this morning," or "I'm pleased to connect with you," or "I'm delighted to see you," or something similar. If you bring value...if your experience and your company's product/service offering change a customer's business practices to increase revenue, reduce cost, save time, reduce aggravation, etc., and you can prove it.... your meetings with clients and prospects are "equal to equal." You bring value, they want to buy value (although they may not want to buy your particular value at the exact moment you appear). Your conversations with them, however brief, are "equal to equal." You say (equal to equal), "I'm glad we're meeting this morning."

If you say, "thank you for meeting with me this morning," you are subtly tipping the balance in favor of your client; you are positioning yourself as the weaker party, the supplicant, as if saying, "Oh, thank you, THANK you, grand and merciful prospect, for seeing someone so insignificant as I." When you say, "I'm pleased we're meeting this morning," you communicate appropriate delight while maintaining equal stature. You communicate strength. You give the impression of worthiness and confidence. You prompt your prospects or customers to ask themselves, "Why IS she so pleased we're meeting, what could she have in mind?" So, do you still say, "Thank you for passing the salt" at the lunch table? Of course. "Thank you for holding the elevator?" Yes. "Thanks for meeting with me?" Only if you're seeking a favor instead of a business agreement between equals.

© Clarity Advantage Corporation, 2001. All rights reserved. To subscribe go to www.clarityadvantage.com and click on Sales Accelerator Tools.

Pasting a Slide onto a Slide

Last month we discussed using a slide from another presentation. Simone Luchini adds:

That is a good trick to paste a slide from another presentation on to a slide so that you can easily and quickly use a slide from another presentation without having to fix the colors and look. Once that image is pasted on the slide, you can ungroup it, then animate any of the objects or text.

Presentation Points, written by Claudyne Wilder, usually comes out the first business week of each month. For more information, call 617-524-7172, e-mail claudyne@quik.com or visit my Web site, www.wilderpresentations.com.

Presentation Points may be forwarded via e-mail, printed for circulation, and quoted FREE OF CHARGE. No permission is required, but please mention where you got this information. It's also perfectly acceptable to post Presentation Points on your company's Intranet.

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Enjoy!

Copyright 2001, Claudyne Wilder. All rights reserved.