a presentation tip that will change your life

TeachUPresentation.com

Presentation Skills Tips That Matter

Poor presentation skills could be costing your business a lot of money.

http://www.teachupresentation.com/


About You

Let’s agree on a few assumptions:

1. PowerPoint (slide) presentation is the accepted means of presenting information

2. Presentation skills are important to functions other than sales (Management, Operations, HR, Logistics, Supply-Chain, etc.)

3. A poor presentation affects outcome

If these are true, improving presentation skills can have a positive impact on every function of your business. Improvement translates to monetary gain.



About You

Other than learning how to make attractive slides, what is there to learn?

Pretty is not enough.

Presentation requires strategic thinking to get the results you want.



You Want

You want to be persuasive.

You want to gain support for an idea.

You want people to understand a new process.

You want to motivate a team.

You want to present technical information in an understandable way.

You want to present tough news and have it well-received.

You want to communicate uniform direction to many people.



Thinking Required

All of these require an ingredient often missing in presentation.

Strategic Thinking



Approach Presentation Correctly

There is a right way, wrong way and better way to do anything.

If you are reading this, you are probably doing okay.

But you could be doing better.



Our Clients

- One client turned a $3.5 million dollar problem into a gain.

- One client received a $5 million building at no cost.

- One client turned an environmental nightmare into a financial gain and a PR bonanza. And they did it honestly.

- One client boosted sales by 500%.

- One client delivered very bad financial news to investors and didn’t lose a single one.

- One client needed a very expensive piece of equipment and got it in spite of a very tight budget.

- One client gained enough investors (in a day) to fully fund a new venture.



How?

These clients, people like you, learned to use strategic thinking to get exactly what they wanted from their presentations.



Where to Start?

You start by thinking about exactly what you want from your presentation.

This is painfully obvious; rarely done.



It’s About

When I ask the question:

What’s the most important thing to consider as you create a presentation?

The answer is almost always:

Decide what needs to be covered.



Wrong Answer

Every word, image, video, chart or story should be contributing toward achieving a goal.

The most important thing to consider?

Exactly what you want to accomplish with the presentation



Get What You Want

You want to accomplish something. Decide on that specific objective.

Now, you must look at everything through the eyes of your audience. That is thinking strategically.

What do they (your audience) need to know to be persuaded to your objective?



How?

When you think about your objective, think about what is in it for them.

You must give them the information they need and want from you. Use their language. You must anticipate questions and answer them before those questions are asked.

Let’s look at an example of strategy in a non-sales situation.



Example

Bad News

Your sales target for Q3 was missed by 7%. Ouch. You have to deliver your results to the CEO.

So…


You Can Do This And Explain Yourself

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

Q 1 Q 2 Q 3 Q 4

Budget

Actual

Or Anticipate and Deal With It

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

Q 1 Q 2 Q 3 Q 4

Budget

Actual

Trend is going in the right direction.

Note: In spite of missing Q3 target, we are ahead of target YTD ($.07 Mil) and we fully anticipate hitting Q4 target.

We Will Make Q4

We have taken measures to exceed Q4 targets:

1. Reduced operating expenses and shifted savings to marketing

2. Conducting sales training

3. Ride-alongs with under-performing sales staff

4. Working existing customer base for service sales

Commitment: Widget Division will exceed Q4 target or will reduce following quarter operating expense by sales dollars missed.


Whoa!

Big change.

The color change to green gives a psychological softening to the bad news.

Adding the tend line shows that things are going in the right direction.

Adding the comment gets the news on the table under your own terms---you know it’s coming, why not deal with it?

You show positive steps top correct---anticipating the question, “what are you doing to correct this?”



Commitment

Finally, you are making a big commitment about what you will do if your plan fails.

Make reasonable commitments.

Making the commitment, with a penalty to yourself if your plan fails, greatly diffuses argumentation.



Comments

I cannot go into all the detail necessary to explain this strategy in this 10 minute presentation.

However, think carefully about the commitment. Be reasonable but take responsibility for your plans.

A commitment or promise with a penalty if unfulfilled means nothing. “I promise we will make target” means little.



REAL Promises

When I offer to teach advanced strategic presentation at your business, I charge no deposits upfront. All the responsibility to deliver is on me.

Which is a real guarantee?

Satisfaction or your money back

Satisfaction or do not pay

See the difference? There’s a penalty for failure with the second item



Making A Serious Commitment

Making a real promise, a promise that carries a penalty to the one making the promise, gives reassurance to the other party.

Always remember that a promise that doesn’t contain a clause that says if you fail to deliver you’ll pay a price has little value.

This technique has value in every function of your business. When management says that a new program will make things better, employees will take that promise more seriously if there is a ‘failure to deliver’ clause.



Let’s Recap

We agreed that presentation is important to every function of your business.

We saw that focusing on the objective of a presentation leads to a better outcome than simply covering material.

We saw that changing how information is presented can improve the reaction we get. Proper planning can head off difficult questions.



Recap

Finally, we saw that making a commitment to fix a situation has a lot more strength if we include a penalty provision.

A promise is a lot stronger if we commit to doing something we do not want to do if we fail. This must be done carefully and wisely.

If you want to get past the bad news, get the new project approved, buy that new piece of equipment or add to your marketing budget, backing up the request with a serious promise will greatly improve your chances of getting what you want.



It Works

This is just one of many tips we include in our advanced presentation classes and workshops. It works. Clients like you report big victories every week.

Like you, they were skeptical at first. As they used this, and the other techniques we taught them, they saw better and better results.

Those improvements have produced revenue and saved costs.



Think About a Workshop

You took the time to read through the SlideShare presentation. Thank you. Hopefully you learned something new that will benefit you.

We offer onsite advanced presentation training that pays for itself. Every department will benefit from a workshop or presentation training class.

Write this down: SSDISC500

Get a quote for a class or workshop at your business. Mention that code and you'll get a $500 discount. You'll be saving and making money for your business.

Contact me directly to discuss your presentation training needs, get your quote and take your discount.

[email protected] or Call: (530) 467-5690


mailto: [email protected]

a presentation tip that will change your life

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