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    October 2013Corby Guenther

    [email protected]

    415.559.6185

    BulletProofPresentation

    Training

    mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]
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    Why live presentations are a powerful tool

    Were constantly bombardedwith information. We get somuch email that peopleignore the vast majority of it.

    Its hard to get anyonesattention while theyredealing with all that noiseand information.

    Were often working withpeople in distant locationsand time zones who haveother priorities andexpectations.

    When you do take the time toread anything, its often badlywritten, hasnt had muchthought put into it, and hardto understand.

    Its di ! cult to do businessor to collaborate in a writtenformat. Its next toimpossible to make a humanconnection.

    The Power of Small Talk

    There are many reasons to walk down the hall or pick up the phone to have a conversation instead of sendingan email. But one of the best is for the opportunity to make chit-chat. A few minutes spent talking about kids,dogs, or the weather can work wonders for a relationship and for your power to persuade.

    Were overwhelmed We work with people allover the world

    Its hard to get anyonesattention

    Most writtencommunication isnthandled well

    Writing isnt a great formatfor negotiating, persuading,or building relationships

    Weve lost manyopportunities for realconversation

    Technology has eliminatedmany opportunities for directinteraction. Livepresentations help by gettingus together in one place.

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    Whats in it for you?

    Live presentations are your best shot at beingpersuasive.

    Presenting allows you toshow yourself at yourbest.

    Planning yourpresentations gives youthe chance to frame theargument.

    Presenting well inspirescondence and leaves alasting impression.

    Your wardrobe and theway you present yourselfcan redene how people

    think of you.

    Strong presentationshelp you earn anaudiences attention the

    next time you need it.

    Be the star of your own show

    Presenting can be your chance to shine. Think of it that way and it can be really exciting. Make it your thingand you can be a star.

    Be persuasive Control your messageMake a good impression

    Show your value Manage your image Get them to come backnext time

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    Were all presenters

    The kind of event carefullycrafted to distribute ano ! cial message orposition.

    The big ballroompresentations thatprovoke fear in speakersand audiences.

    The presentations thatmany of us sit in every daywithout realizing howimportant they can be.

    Presentations dont alwaysinvolve groups. Some ofthe most important are

    one-on-one.

    An opportunity to makea quick pitch, much likethe Jeopardy exercise.

    A critical non-workevent. Just remember tomake the bride happy

    and you cant go wrong.

    Informal presentations can be as important as the formal ones

    You need to be prepared if you run into your CEO in the lobby and she asks you what youre working on or ifyoure looking for a job and someone at a cocktail party asks what you do. You never know what might lead tonding a new job--or having to look for one.

    Company-wide meetings Project status meetingsKeynote speeches

    Interviews Elevator Speeches Wedding Toasts

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    Simple storytelling techniques

    Keep it relevant

    Just as you should never tell a joke at the beginning of a presentation solely for the sake of telling a joke, youneed to make sure that your stories are directly relevant to the objectives for your presentation. If youraudience cant gure out why youre telling a story theyre likely to think youre showboating and wasting time.

    Probably the rst kind ofstory that comes to mindin presentations. Whatsthe backstory? How didwe get here? Whats next?

    Chronological

    Stories dont need to becomplicated. They can beas simple as a pair ofbefore and after pictures.

    Before and After

    Starting with a quotationthat illustrates your topic isa classic presentationstrategy and gives youevidence for what youwant to say.

    Quotations

    Using an extendedmetaphor to tell a storygives your audience afamiliar structure to follow.

    Metaphor

    Another variation onChronological or Beforeand After stories. You canuse Cause and E " ect to

    focus on how a specicsituation occurred.

    Cause and E " ect

    Making your topic personaland showing the audiencehow you relate to it is a bigstep toward getting them to

    share your ideas.

    Personal Anecdote

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    Presentations arentabout slides, theyreabout persuasion

    Remember that presentationsare not just the delivery ofinformation. If they arentdesigned to persuade anaudience they really have noreason to exist. What you have

    instead is just facts, chit-chatand lost time which peoplecould have put to better use.

    If youve ever sat through apresentation and felt it was atotal waste of your time orcouldnt even gure out what itwas about, its probablybecause the persuasive

    element wasnt well dened ordidnt exist in the rst place.

    Its up to you to make yourpresentations effective. Therst step is to make sure youunderstand why youre doing apresentation to begin with,what you hope to accomplish.Of course you cantaccomplish anything

    productive if you dont have agoal.

    The single most importantthing you need to do whencreating any presentation is todene your objective and keeprening it throughout theprocess of writing your talk so

    your goals are clear andrelevant to your audience.

    Presentations must be persuasive

    If you dont have a good reason for a meeting, s aveeveryones time

    and cancel

    What all presentations have in common

    The reason yourpresentation exists in therst place. What do youwant to accomplish?

    Message

    You

    Audience

    Who are they, why are theythere and what do youwant them to do, think orfeel?

    Why are you giving thispresentation and notsomeone else? How can

    you be persuasive?

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    Questions to ask about your message

    A presentation withoutan objective is apresentation thatshouldnt be given.

    Stay focused on yourgoals and the strategies

    youll use to achievethem.

    Storytelling can be themost e " ective way tobond with and persuadean audience.

    Show them that you know your stu " , but dontoverwhelm your audience

    with information.

    Plan your presentationaround possiblereactions, especially

    emotional ones.

    All formats arentsuitable for everypresentation. Plan what

    you use strategically.

    Whats your objective? What story can you tell?What do you need to do toaccomplish it?

    What evidence do youhave?

    How is your audience likelyto react?

    What format makes sensefor your presentation?

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    Questions to ask about your audience

    Who are they? How do they feel about you?

    What do they know about your topic?

    What will they be interestedin?

    Whats the right tone forthis group?

    What do they have incommon/what are their

    di " erences?

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    Questions to ask about yourself

    Are you the rightpresenter?

    Do you have enough timeto prepare?

    Do you have enoughauthority?

    Can you be an enthusiasticadvocate?

    Will your style be a good tfor the audience?

    Can you still say no tothis assignment?

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    You things to remember

    Dont try to be someone youre not. Chances arethe role wont t you.

    Make an e " ort to be yourbest at every presentation.Try to be alert, enthusiastic,present.

    Show your audience that you really believe what youre saying. Becondent rather thantentative.

    Tell your audiencesomething about yourselfand theyre more likely to

    feel positive about you.

    Dont get thrown o " bysmall details. Change

    your plans when you

    need to.

    Surprising your audienceis one of the best ways toget them to remember and

    act on your presentation.

    Just keep moving

    Even experienced presenters can get thrown o ! track when little things go awry. But dont make a big deal ifyour slides dont work quite right or you forget a minor idea. Chances are that your audience wont evennotice if you dont point it out.

    Be yourself Make a strong argumentBe your best self

    Tell a personal story Be exible Do something unexpected

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    You things to remember

    Its your responsibility tocreate a relationship with

    your audience and involvethem in your presentation.

    If you want your audienceto be excited about yourtopic you have to showthem that you are.

    Sales is all about presentingand persuading, so theres alot we can all learn fromsales techniques.

    Audiences listen and arepersuaded better if youspeak conversationally.

    Try to make your voice andthe words you use soundas normal as possible, not

    inated or awkward.

    Dont do anything that willmake the audience turn on

    you. Once they do you have

    no chance to persuade.

    Look the part

    How you dress for a presentation is important, but dont always wear your best suit. Think of your outt as acostume. Your wardrobe needs to be appropriate for your topic, your audience, and your environment. Whatworks for a talk at a beach resort is very di ! erent from a court appearance or a job interview.

    Be engaging Learn from SalesBe enthusiastic

    Be conversational Use your own voice Dont make them resent you

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    Handouts--how will you use them?

    Removing informationfrom slides and putting itin handouts helps solvethe slideument problem.

    Rather than just printingslides, design customhandouts to serve as therecord of your talk.

    Clean up your slides byputting branding in handouts,where your audience willhave this information later.

    Dont distract from yourown talk by distributinghandouts at the wrong

    time.

    Dont waste time ande " ort on handouts if theaudience or occasion

    doesnt require them.

    Resist the urge todistribute handoutsinstead of having a talk.

    Your role is too important.

    What purpose do your handouts serve?

    Like every part of your presentation, its important to keep in mind what you want handouts to accomplish. Arethey simply exhibits? Are they meant so your audience has a place to keep notes? Are they your marketingmaterials? Make sure they suit your needs and those of your audience.

    Move supportinginformation

    from slides to handouts

    Put your logos andbranding on handouts

    instead of slides

    Use handouts as yourpermanent record

    Plan the best time todistribute handouts

    Consider whether theaudience expects and

    needs handouts

    Dont let handouts take your place

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    Step away from the keyboard!

    The moment you learn about a presentationyoure going to deliver is not the time to re upPowerPoint and start typing bullet points. Atthis early phase in the process of developingyour talk youre probably not even sure whatyour presentation is actually about, and youreally shouldnt even be committed to the ideaof using slides.

    Besides, PowerPoint is a lousy place to workon developing your ideas. The fact that its solinear (slide one, slide two, slide three) makes ita difcult tool for brainstorming, exploringideas, moving them around and editing them.In our experience people get so attached totheir initial attempts at slides that they dontmake a lot of the changes that would improve

    their work. Something about PowerPoint justlooks nal to many people.

    The other element where drafting a talk inPowerPoint generally fails is in accounting forthe performance part of a presentation. Itdoesnt give presenters a good format forplanning what theyll be doing during the talk:the jokes theyll tell; how theyll work with theaudience; what theyll be doing as they standin front of the room. PowerPoint encouragespresenters to focus narrowly on their slides,and presentations suffer from the lack on anoverall plan.

    Instead, start thinking of writing apresentations as a process where you shouldonly start creating your visual aids (whethertheyre slides or something else) late in thegame.

    Think of creating your presentation as a writing process

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    How fear affects presentations

    Rather than face ourfear, most of us put o " our presentations, which

    just makes it worse.

    Because we procrastinatewe dont give ourselvesenough time to create ane " ective presentation.

    We try to divert theaudiences attentionfrom us to our slides.

    Our fear of the audiencecauses us to avoiddealing with them or even

    making eye contact.

    Nerves make us look andsound awkward, whichcan ruin our credibility

    with an audience.

    Avoiding interaction withthe audience wastes theopportunities to persuade

    presented by a live talk.

    We forget to focus on our objective

    When fear takes over our brains go into survival mode and we forget that we have any goals beside survivinguntil the end of the hour. When youre nervous about a talk its especially important that you keep remindingyourself of your objective.

    We procrastinate We hide behind the screenWere not prepared

    We pretend the audiencedoesnt exist

    We sweat, stammer anddget

    We dont take advantage ofthe live format

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    Streamlining your presentations

    Dont feel like you have toshow the audience everything

    you know. Give them just whatthey need to see.

    Force yourself to edit byself-imposing a limitednumber of words or slidesfor your presentation.

    Keep in mind what you wantto accomplish and removeanything that doesnt helpaccomplish it.

    Follow a model for creatingslides like the 10/20/30 ruleor our Six Slide Solution.

    Audiences dont want toread blocks of text. Givethem headlines and theyll

    be grateful.

    Know what each slide ismeant to accomplish andremove anything that

    isnt relevant.

    Identify the purposeof each slideWrite headlines andconclusions ratherthan paragraphs

    Use a model forcreating slides

    Simplify Focus on yourobjective

    Impose limits on yourself

    Develop your message before creating visual aids The easiest way to fall into the trap of creating slides full bullet points and too much text is to startworking on your presentation in PowerPoint. Figure out your message rst and know what you wantto say before you even start creating slides. Your visual aids should just be there to support yourmessage, they shouldnt be your entire argument.

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    Dont ll slides with textOf all the most common problems we see with presentations,this may be the easiest one to solve. Just dont do it.

    Weve worked with many presenters who treat presentation

    slides like Word documents, copying and pasting wholeparagraphs out of Word and thinking that theyll work just neas slides. Dont do this--trust us!

    Just remember that your slides are there to back up what youhave to say; they arent supposed to act as your script. Far toomany presenters wind up relying on these kinds of slides andreading them to their audience rather than actually deliveringtheir talk in an engaging way. This just sucks all the life out ofany presentation--you might as well hand everyone adocument and have them read along with you.

    The other major danger with slideuments is that youraudience will try to read them for themselves and one of twothings will happen. Theyll get frustrated that the text is toosmall for them to read, or theyll read your words faster thanyou can say them and grow bored waiting for you to catch up.Neither result is good.

    Stick to headlines or bullets (lets say no more than ve perslide) and ll in the rest of what you want your audience toknow as youre speaking. If we were going to include this ideain a presentation (and you know we will), the slide would justsay Dont ll slides with text. Thats it!

    Use originalimages

    Coming up with original,meaningful images for yourpresentations can be achallenge. But try toproduce your own imageswhenever possible.

    Audiences are much morelikely to be impressed withand remember visuals thatthey know youve created,and using your own imagesgives you a chance toshare a story and anemotional connection withthem. On the ip side,nothing looks lazier or lessimaginative than using thesame old clipart that yousee in presentation afterpresentation.

    Whatever you do, dontuse the cartoons that comewith your Microsoftproducts. Everyone hasseen those over and over(and over) again. If yourenot up to creating yourown, there are free photosand graphics availablefrom Microsoft and Flickr,or places like iStockphotowhere you can buy imagesfor a couple of dollars. Justdont steal them, andcertainly dont use picturesthat still have a watermark

    saying Not Licensed forUse.

    Anchor ideas with images Always remember that your visual aids are only there tosupport what you have to say.

    Clip art that is just there to decorate your slides isnt useful--its actually distracting. Too often people stick an image ontheir slide just because theres a placeholder for one in thetemplate theyre using. The great power of using images is

    that, when carefully chosen, theyre much more memorablethan words are on their own. You dont want to waste thisopportunity, so make sure that you use images that reinforcewhat you have to say.

    Marketers have been taking advantage of this memory trick foryears in order to get us to remember company and brandnames--think of all of those cheap wines you see on the storeshelves that are named with some combo of a color and ananimal. You should take advantage of this trick, too.

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    Tips for creating slides

    Reading your slides willbore your audience andlikely put them to sleep.

    Unattractive and low-resolution images make

    your ideas look cheap.

    Make sure that the oldestperson in the audience willbe able to read your slidesanywhere in the room.

    Keep any animatedtransitions simple andavoid using sounds toaccompany them.

    Dont forget that yourvisuals represent you and

    your ideas. Dont let them

    make a bad impression.

    Minimize your use of logosand branding to avoidoverwhelming your slides.

    Use logos andbranding with careRemember your visualaids represent you Avoid distractinganimations andsounds

    Dont create slidesas a script

    Keep text big andlegible

    Use good qualityimages

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    Weve already talked about the importance of nottreating your slides like Word documents.Slideuments are unholy hybrids that arent well-suited to accomplishing anything.

    But theres another important reason to keepyour visuals simple and limit them to one idea perslide. Your audience is much more likely toremember what youre talking about if youpresent one idea at a time . Dont make youraudience search for whats important on your

    slides or allow them to read about one topic whileyoure still speaking about another.

    Rather than having one slide with seven bullets,

    create seven slides that each represent one idea. Theres no shame in having a lot of slides as longas theyre relevant--your audience wont eventhink about how many you have as long as youkeep the presentation moving (and you dontmake the mistake of numbering your slides).

    Stick to one idea per slide

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    Divide complex ideas into multiple slides

    Given the chance, most people will take the path ofleast resistance. And because PowerPoint and Keynoteboth default to slides with bullets, most presenters windup creating slides with bullets.

    But you dont have to.

    The rst example on the left shows how most people create slides;they start with a title and add bullets until they run out of room orideas. Sometimes they even combine more than one main idea andmultiple sets of bullets on a single slide in order to cut down on thenumber of slides in a presentation. The result is that all of these itemsmake it hard for the audience to read, focus on, or remember theindividual idea that each bullet represents. Because theres so muchmaterial up there onscreen the presenter usually winds up readingtheir points without adding anything helpful.

    A better strategy is to organize your presentation as an outline whereeach item has its own slide. That way you and your audience canfocus on each idea one at a time. We nd that strictly limiting eachslide to one idea is also extremely useful in helping us write ourpresentations and make sure that the ow of our talk and thetransitions between ideas actually make sense. Eliminating all of theextra stuff helps make it clear when your points dont really gotogether.

    Many presenters seem very concerned about the idea of having toomany slides, but the number itself isnt something you should reallybe worried about. Just having more slides doesnt mean that it willtake longer to get through them, and people wont be counting aslong as your slides make sense and you stay on each one only aslong as you need to. In fact, theyre less likely to get bored fromlooking at any one slide too long and much more apt to pay attentionwhen they can see that you continue to move rapidly through yourideas.

    Of the three examples on the left side of this page, we clearly preferthe third version. It allows you and the audience to focus on theparticular point that youre discussing at the moment and iteliminates the temptation for the speaker to read from the screenbecause there isnt even a complete sentence that could be read.

    The speaker has to ll in the details, which is how it should be.

    Never use just one bullet

    Since bullets should only beused in lists with multiple items,never create a slide with one

    bullet like the second exampleabove. It just looks like youdidnt take the time to clean itup.

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    At times you may nd yourself tempted to createa slide with many bullets in order to represent alist of items that you want your audience to beaware of but that you dont actually plan todiscuss in detail. You might want to do this torepresent the complexity of an idea, for example.

    But instead of resorting to all of those bullets,wed suggest that you consider using what wecall a scatter slide, like the one above. We usethis slide to illustrate the fact that there are a lot ofthings that you should think about before you

    agree to give a presentation. Well put this up onscreen and say something along the lines ofPlanning a presentation is a complicated task,and there are lots of questions you should askyourself before you agree to give one.

    But we dont discuss all of the individual items atthis point. We nd that using a slide like thisinstead of a bulleted list is less formal andreduces the audiences expectation that youneed to explain each item or that they need totake notes and write everything down.

    Consider creating a scatter slide

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    Display headlines and conclusionsrather than raw information

    Dont make you audience gure out what theinformation youre showing them means. Tellthem what you want them to see.

    Presenters tend to be proud of the data theyve gatheredand want to share it with their audiences. They also feelthat they need a lot of evidence to back up what they haveto say.

    But raw data is often more confusing than helpful.Spreadsheets projected on a screen are seldom legibleexcept in the smallest meetings, and unstructured dataisnt very persuasive. You need to tell your audience whatit means to you.

    The examples on the right are increasingly helpful atinterpreting data. The top one may look totally ridiculousbecause its so hard to read, but many presenters actuallyuse screenshots of spreadsheets. They often feel that thisis their only chance to share raw data with their audience,so they put it up there whether it can be made sense of ornot. If your audience really does need to see data on thislevel, send it to them in advance or give them a handoutso they can read it in your meeting. Putting it onscreen willonly serve to frustrate people.

    The second example is better because it actually makessense of the data and graphically represents a trend in thenumbers. Now we know that were looking at salesreports and we can compare the results by region oryear--if we can make sense of the legend and labels.

    The third slide is the one that really accomplishes yourgoals, though. It does away with the data altogether andtells the audience what you want them to know, that sales

    declined in every region in 2001. If you want them toanalyze the numbers further you could use this slide inconjunction with a chart slide, or just use the chart as ahandout.

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    Simplify your data

    Dont overwhelm your audiencewith information they dont need.If you are a lawyer, scientist, oraccountant who needs to give anaudience raw numbers to proveyour point or establish yourcredibility, give them theinformation as electronic les orhandouts.

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    Even though we recommend that you avoidbullets and create new slides for each pointthat is important enough to put on the screen,youll probably continue using them anyway.

    And they can be very useful in presentationsand other places, like email, where you wantyour audience to be able to scan and processinformation quickly. So its worth taking a fewminutes to go over guidelines for using bulletsin any written format.

    Use parallel structure

    Each item of your bullet points needs to havethe same structure. If you start the rst itemwith a noun, every items should start with anoun. If the rst bullet is a command (like ourlist above), every bullet should be a command.Whether you use complete sentences or

    fragments, make sure you do the same foreach point. This principle is called parallelismand its misuse is the most common problemwe see in bulleted lists.

    Punctuate consistently

    The rules for punctuating lists are pretty loose. The only thing that really matters is that youare consistent. If you punctuate the end of anitem, do the same for each of them. Capitalize

    the same way throughout.

    Make sure items are related

    Its all too easy for unrelated items to sneakinto a bulleted list. Check all of your bullets tomake sure that they truly belong in the samegroup and that each of them is an idea of thesame relative scope.

    Using bullet points correctly

    (The right way)

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