FREE! E-Newsletter Presentations Points is a free short monthly bulletin sent out by Claudyne Wilder. Every bulletin discusses two ideas for presenters and one for designers. There's also a monthly challenge for presenters and designers. Subscribe Now February 2003 Your Presentation Success Is Our Passion Present It Right...The First Time! This month I'd like to discuss two ideas for presenters and one for designers. As always, there's a monthly challenge at the end. FOR PRESENTERS: STEP 9: RECOMMEND NEXT STEPS ENCOURGE YOUR AUDIENCE TO TALK You have just stated your recommendations after a 40-minute presentation into which you put numerous days and many late evenings. Someone in the audience says, “I’m not sure I agree with your suggestions.” What do you say? Not, mind you, what would you like to say? You must confine yourself to what is appropriate to say. Before you open your mouth, consider that you have probably been talking more than the person who just made that statement. At this moment that person knows more about what you think than you know about what he or she thinks. You need to even the balance of power and interaction. Do this by encouraging a discussion. Ask a question and then be quiet. For example, ask, “Will you say some more about your thoughts on this subject.” Or “What specifically aren’t you sure about?” Here are some negotiating points to help you manage a productive conversation: Learn the power of silence. Talk no more than 50 percent of the time when discussing an issue. Remember: you cannot give anything away if you keep your mouth shut. Make it easy for the other party to agree. The person who disagreed is not your enemy. Do not sound locked into your view. Never box yourself or the other party into a corner. Avoid ultimatums and public positions with no escape route. Anticipate disagreement. Be prepared to request another meeting to work out disagreements. Speak in a language other people can understand, especially if you are a specialist and the other party is not. FOR PRESENTERS: USE A “SHARE INFORMATION” FORMAT There are many ways to organize your information. The share information format works well when you are asked to describe your work or department to another group within your company. You can adapt it for talking to groups outside your company. With this format, you relate what you are saying to your listener’s interests. You are saying, “Here is how what I do relates to your work.” The share information format List information to be shared. Explain the task. Define buzzwords and jargon. Relate to your listeners’ interests. Explain the significance of the information to the organization’s goals. Share the future vision of your department and how it fits into your audience’s goals and interests. Here’s an example The person giving this presentation works in a department responsible for e-learning. Information to share: E-learning training in the company. Our department’s tasks Decide which program to offer as e-learning. Survey managers to find out which programs they are interested in turning into e-learning experiences. Find out which vendors offer such training or will customize it for us. Buzzwords and jargon E-learning Distance and distributed learning Interactivity Asynchronous or synchronous learning and discussion Discussion thread Interface design Relate to listeners’ interests As customer service representatives you may be interested in learning specific subjects, such as how to deal with difficult customers. Would you rather learn at your own speed or spend time in a classroom setting? Explain its significance to the organization’s goals One organizational goal is to cut travel costs. E-learning can help us do that. One organizational value is to offer everyone training. E-learning is a way to do that on an ongoing basis. Future vision We plan to survey each department and discover how we can help you use E-learning to save time and make your learning faster and more productive. FOR DESIGNERS: CREATE A CUSTOM SHOW Many people give almost the same presentation to many different audiences. They end up creating a separate file for each situation. For example, they want to leave out certain slides for upper management but keep them in for their division. They want to use almost the same presentation for two different customers, but they end up creating separate files for each customer. You don’t have to create another file. Just create a Custom Show. In PowerPoint go to Slide Show>Custom Show. You will see that you can select just certain slides and make them another slide show within that file. Another tip from Ellen Finkelstein’s book PowerPoint 2000. (She now has one called PowerPoint 2002.) “Select an object on the slide where you want to create the option to jump to the custom show. Choose Slide Show>Action Settings. On either tab, choose Hyperlink To. From the drop-down list, choose Custom Show. PowerPoint opens the Link to Custom Show dialog box. Choose the Custom Show you want. If you want to return to the same slide after displaying the custom show slides, click Show and Return. (Otherwise, PowerPoint displays the custom show and ends the presentation). Click OK.” Print your Custom Show by going to Print and selecting Custom Show. A BEFORE AND AFTER EXAMPLE FROM THE CD SLIDES THAT WIN MONTHLY CHALLENGE: PRESENTERS Try silence and find out what your audience has to say about your presentation. Ask an open-ended question and then be quiet. DESIGNERS Use the Custom Show feature. TWO WINNING PRESENTATIONS PUBLIC SEMINARS Goal: To teach you how to develop, design, and deliver a persuasive, results-oriented presentation. In my last public seminar, three people created and gave real-work presentations. This is a real opportunity to take your presentations to the next level of professionalism. Dates: March 10 and 11, 2003 May 20 and 21, 2003 Time: 9 to 5 Location: Boston area Cost: $650 with a money-back guarantee 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. To subscribe to Presentation Points or visit my home page, go to www.wilderpresentations.com.