Why Business Presentations Don’t

Workand 4.5 Ways to Fix Them

30,000,000 PowerPoint presentations given daily around the planet. That’s just Ppt! That’s about 15,000,000 man-hours spent listening to presentations.

When was the last time you sat through one that you thought was really compelling?

The fact is, the state of business presentations is awful. Stale. Same old same old. While there is lots of talk about the need to change, lots of references to “death by PowerPoint”, few companies do anything about it. Why?Priorities.... A common reason given is competing priorities. There are too many

things to work on, too many things to train the team about.

However, at the end of the day, it is often how well your team tells their story that makes the difference!

The fact is, almost all valid competitors have product strengths, sales relationships, good marketing and qualifying skills. The easiest, and most cost-effective way to develop competitive advantage and create a differentiation from your competitors is by developing compelling , remarkable presentations that make a lasting impact on decision-makers.Creating better slides with less bullet points and more media is important. That’s a great first step, but not the answer. A major study concluded that over 90% of what makes a presentation memorable is the result of the delivery, not the material.

People will not remember much of what you present, simply because that’s the way the brain works. We all have short memory, and when competing with all the other issues we think about almost moment by moment, your “important points” will slip through the grey matter. However, people do remember how you made them feel, and what impression they had of you as a communicator and representative of your firm.

So, we know presentations need to be better, and we know that making them better will improve our chances of success. How, then do we go about improving our business presentations?

Here are 4.5 steps to make that happen.

1. It’s not about you. How do you and your team start your presentations? My guess is something like introductions, company history, your most compelling advantages (customer satisfaction, financial strength, longevity etc), and the agenda for the presentation. Pretty close? Also...

BORING...Here are the problems with that. •First, that is how your competitors start their presentations as well, so you

look, sound and act just like them. •Second, that opening tells your audience that this presentation will be

another snoozer, and they begin to consider other competing issues running around in their brain.

Your prospects, customers, partners care first and foremost about “what’s in it for them?”, not who you are and why you are there. They already know that. Tell them something that lets them know you are interested in solving their problems. Don’t waste their time and turn them off by telling them about you. Its not about you!

2. Plan for your presentation.Most business people plan for their presentations by opening PowerPoint or Keynote and filling in slides. That is 99% of the planning process. They build slides based on what they believe the prospects need to hear and what they believe are the most important things to talk about.

Building the presentation information should be the last thing done.

The first priority is to analyze the situation. ➡Who are you presenting to? ➡What are their roles in the decision? ➡What are the most critical problems they need to solve? ➡What is the background of the situation, including past efforts,

competitor’s positioning, urgency, cost of doing nothing, etc? ➡Most importantly, if you were sitting in the audience, what would you

need to hear and how would you want that information delivered in order to make a decision?

Once you completely understand the environment, your audience and how you need to present, only then should you start to build the actual presentation.

We almost never put our audience hat on and

consider our presentation from the point of view of

our prospects.

3. Prepare to impress.Prepare your material (slides, media, leave-behind, etc) with the intention

to impress your audience more than to inform them. Yes, of course they need the information, and their decision will be at least partially based on data. However, as perfectly

articulated in the words of the poet Maya Angelou, “People may not remember what you say, but they will always remember how you made them feel”. Remember that!

Decision makers can find vendors and product suppliers on any street corner. It’s problem solvers they need, and in order to be considered as such, you need to bring more than a solution to the table. You need to bring;

•trust•integrity •experience•creativity •ideas •...and vision.

Those things are conveyed by your ability to be an impressive and inspirational communicator, not by your ability to read and interpret PowerPoint slides.

Create a presentation that is really a conversation, a discussion between you and your audience. Make it interactive and display your true value as a partner, not just a solution provider. By the way, most of your competitors will not do this, which is reason enough for you to.

4. Make your information impactful.While considering that 90% of your presentation impact is based on how you present, you do have to present something of value in terms of information. It is important to remember two things. (1) People will only remember one key point, if you are lucky, and (2) Data combined with images creates a more lasting impression.

Develop your slides as visual clues to what you want to discuss.

Remember...less is better.

Here are some tips.• Use simple, high quality images and basic, one word or a few words of text. • If people can’t “get” your slide in 5 seconds or less, it is a bad slide. • If you include audio or video clips, make them relevant and short. • Stay away from “cute”, meaning clip art or animated images. • Use a single picture that covers the entire slide, then place text over that.

Consider getting away from the slide deck and utilize white boards or flip charts to sketch out ideas and visions.

Decision makers have said in surveys that they prefer a discussion to a slide presentation, so give them that.

Then build a leave-behind piece which contains the details of what you want them to consider, and make that high quality as well. Do not make it simply a printout of your slides. Make it different, make it powerful. Include all the stuff that you would love to have shown but didn’t. Focus on things that solve their problems, and things that they may consider unique to your offerings. This is what they will refer to when they evaluate your solution.

4.5 Practice. This is what the vast majority of business presenters do not do. This is what can set you apart, can make you memorable. Once you have a draft of your presentation, run through it out loud. Then run through it with a third party. You will invariably find places that need tweaking.

Tweak them. Then practice it aloud several times until you are comfortable with the delivery as much as the material. If you are part of a presentation team, practice together. Make sure all are comfortable with their roles and with their performance.

You have been in the audience listening to presenters who obviously have not practiced, and you know it shows. Don’t be one of them!! Step ahead of your competition and ensure you will be remarkable, powerful, impactful, and compelling. That does not come from your information, it comes from

you.....

Creating a compelling, differentiating presentation is not rocket science. Neither is stepping above and beyond the low bar set by your competitors. It takes some strategy, some common sense, and some effort. The results are indeed remarkable.

John Lowe Be Compelling Now 919-264-4591john@becompellingnow.com

Remember, hope is not a

strategy