Articles
Anytime I teach a seminar on presentations, I find myself addressing three types of people: there are those who really want to improve their presentation skills, those who find the rules a little silly because they are truly convinced presentations can’t be that hard, and those who have egos the size of the Great Dismal Swamp and reject any direction because they already know what to do.
It’s a fact: very successful people, whether they are lawyers or cabbage wholesalers, succeed because of leadership skills and drive that most mortals don’t have. To be honest, I want my lawyer to have an outsized ego. If I end up in a courtroom, I will not be best defended by the shy and retiring type. Trust me on this one.
But nobody knows everything and that’s why the most confident barrister will benefit from a brief refresher course on presentations.
Ready?
Appearance Counts
How you dress is important. Gentlemen: Wear a blue or black suit. Not brown. Not a sport coat, not a blazer. It doesn’t matter if the audience is in swimwear, you wear a suit, an expensive white shirt (no loud patterns) and a subtle blue or red tie (nothing loud). Black shoes, black socks. Look at pictures of the President. Dress as he does. Ladies, subtle, well-tailored business attire. Six inch heels are terrific but distracting. Keep the jewelry to a tasteful minimum.
Remember—when you are presenting to a small group of people, your audience is examining every facet of your clothing and grooming up close. Mom was right: you never get a second chance to make a good first impression.
Openings Are Key
Do not start your presentation by telling a joke. Jay Leno tells jokes. You shouldn’t. To tell a joke properly you need three things: good timing, the ability to read an audience, and material that not a single person in the audience has heard. The story about the lawn mower and the space aliens that had Uncle Bumpy and Aunt Else snorting and turning red at Christmas will fall flat in front of an audience. Worse, you’ll hear polite laughter. Ouch. The temptation to have ‘em rolling in the aisles’ is often strong. Resist it. You aren’t funny.
Other than perhaps thanking your host, begin your presentation immediately. You don’t have much time before members of the audience start thinking about their golf handicap. Plus, thanking everybody but the banquet captain is a downer. In addition, you run the risk of leaving somebody out, an oversight that redefines “politically incorrect.”
Be Careful About Content
Never, never, never make a sexist, racial, or ethnic comment or tell an off-color joke. This is a business and a reputation killer. I was in the audience when a popular syndicated columnist used the “n” word. All of the sound was sucked out of the room. You could see his reputation go up in a puff of very foul-smelling smoke.
Don’t talk about your family. Nobody cares. Similarly, there is not a single sports metaphor the audience hasn’t heard. In fact, there probably isn’t any metaphor of any kind the audience hasn’t heard. Try to avoid them.
Don’t brag about yourself. That gets tedious. Avoid talking about yourself at all. Your audience is not interested in personal stories. Your trip to Bango Bango is boring.
Audiences like surprises. Use your own best judgment here. Senior partners wearing clown noses and making balloon animals may bring the firm’s competence into question, but the use of a cartoonist, or “scribe,” to illustrate your remarks as you make them, is compelling.
Remember that every good presentation—every single one of them—should tell a story. Every presentation has good guys and bad guys. Keep your audience in suspense about who wins. No, your situation is not different. Every presentation follows the same rules. More than a few times I’ve heard that financial data can’t be presented like a marketing plan. Yes it can.
If you’ve got a really big presentation, use a pro to help you put it together. You’ll find a list online.
Don’t read your speech. It’s a sign that you don’t care about your audience. If you don’t care enough to properly prepare, then the audience won’t care enough to pay attention.
Don’t ever, ever look at the screen to make sure the slide changed. Doing that is the sign of a hopeless amateur. And if someone is changing the slides for you, never say, “Next slide please.”
No matter what, keep PowerPoint to a minimum. If you use it, you should rely on a professional PowerPoint artist.
Never talk down to your audience and imply that you are smarter than they are. Never use a $5 word when a $1 word will do. (Mark Twain said that). You can say, “Conduct yourself in such a way that you impact others with the expectation that the other party may see the value of your actions and then reciprocate in a manner consistent with your mindset and subsequent action plan.” Or you can say “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” We are overrun with corp talk. Say what you mean in words people understand. Using big words doesn’t make you sound smarter. Using big words is showing off, nothing more. And why would you want to erect unnecessary barriers between you and your audience, anyway?
Your audience will remember one thing you tell them. Build your presentation around that one thing. Research shows that an audience will retain just 8% of what you say. They’re not giving you their complete attention. They can’t. It is neurologically impossible because they’re bombarded with other things to think about. Your audience wants to pay attention. Depending on how important the topic is, they will give it everything they have. They’ll take notes. But full retention is the Holy Grail. Work to leave them with an overall message. There’s an old saying here in the South attributed to just about every rural preacher. Asked how to deliver a successful sermon, the preacher answers, “Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em, tell ‘em, then tell ‘em what you told ‘em.”
Don’t talk for over 20 minutes. Period.
Pre-Presentation Preparation Pays Off
Learn as much as you can about your audience. And never make assumptions about anyone. It’s the guy in overalls who always pays cash for his Cadillac.
Don’t worry as much about what might go wrong as about what will go wrong. “Be prepared” is the Boy Scouts’ marching song for a reason. Have a contingency for everything. If old Mr. Particlebrooder drops dead just before you get to the section of your presentation on the strength of the litigation department, what would you do? What if the fire alarm goes off? Remember that in an emergency audiences look to the person with the microphone, and that’s true for audiences of 4 or 400. You DO know by heart where the fire extinguishers and emergency exits are, right? How do you deal with a heckler? If you’re speaking to a large group, make friends with the banquet captain and the folks who run the lights and sound. Sets fall, power fails, audience members get hysterical. Being prepared is the difference between a pro and an amateur. Again, things happen. And, yes, they can happen to you.
If you are presenting in a client’s office, ask in a very nice way if you can see the room in advance. Once in Minneapolis, before the presentation started, a client and I had 15 minutes in a room we’d never seen. It was a storage room, with boxes stacked along two walls covering the electrical outlets. Whenever possible, never give a presentation in a room you haven’t seen in advance.
Always test the sound system in advance.
Meet the person who is going to introduce you and always know what’s going to happen after you finish your presentation.
In a small group, know your agenda and everybody’s role.
For a small group presentation, know everything: who’s running the AV, his cell phone number, when he will be there (an hour in advance, minimum); the cell phone numbers of all the participants; the caterer, the menu, the caterer’s cell phone number, when will the food arrive, if anyone in your audience has food allergies; what kinds of drinks and snacks are available (always have snacks and drinks; hunger kills attention span), who will refresh the drinks and snacks and when will they do it.
Be aware of brand sensitivities. Dianne Culhane, who is one of the best event producers I have ever known and a true friend and mentor, taught me an important lesson. I was part of a team that produced a huge meeting for The Coca-Cola Company. It was the first time I had worked on a Coke meeting. The rules were simple: no blue pipe and drape, tablecloths, napkins or glasses (Pepsi colors). No Stoli at cocktail parties or the bar (Pepsi imported Stoli).
Be totally redundant: have on hand 2 projectors, 2 copies of the presentation, 2 laptops, twice as many handouts as you’ll need.
Finally, remember the immortal words of Duke Ellington: “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.” Have fun.
