image from wikipedia, used under creative commons license

“thank you for coming out here today; i appreciate you all being here at the lincoln memorial with me.

“first i want to talk to you about abraham lincoln and his emancipation proclamation just to give you a little back story on what we’ll be talking about today. next i want to introduce the concept of ‘the bank of justice’ before moving into the urgency of now — why we need to act now to make a change. finally, i want to discuss my dream for the future.

“so, with that, let’s get started…”

if martin luther king, jr. started off his ‘i have a dream’ speech with that kind of introduction, in what ways do you think the impact would be different? would his speech be as famous as it is today? would we teach it to our kids in middle school? in college communication classes?

i don’t need, nor do i want, a purpose or agenda slide from you in your presentations. if there’s a specific purpose, i’m sure that i probably already know what it is. i was either sent an invite to your meeting — which hopefully, for both our sakes, has already mapped out the reason — or i found your talk whilst reading through the program list of breakout sessions at a conference. what i want from you is a story. i want a reason to believe in what you’re talking about.

we’ve already taken care of the purpose long before you took the stage. right now — with you standing in front of me — it’s your time to shine. it’s your time to share your story.

i want to know: what’s your dream?

you might have someone stay behind to ask questions after you give a presentation, have someone approach you after reading a whitepaper, have someone respond to an online posting, etc.. in all cases, though, it seems as though there’s a very short amount of time to actually do something with that attention.

if you wait too long, don’t follow up, or spend your time asking for permission you’re going to lose that person and your idea isn’t going to spread. don’t ask permission: JUST GO (and apologize later)

what was worse than being stranded in denver’s airport after a redeye flight cancellation fiasco was being stranded in presentation after presentation filled with slides of information and no real message. for some reason, it seemed to me that people forgot a very key aspect of any presentation: a clear, understandable purpose.

there’s no doubt in my mind that those people who presented their work at these conferences are smart, talented, ambitious people. i was honestly surrounded by some brilliant people — leaders in their field with more certifications and degrees of higher learning than they have the wall space for. but knowing what you’re talking about and being able to pass that information on to others is an entirely separate matter.

it’s imperative that you reach your audience. why are they there? what’s in it for them? you have to convey what you’re talking about, where is it going, and why they should spend the next 30 minutes listening to you speak. you have to connect.

each of my presentations started off with a reason for listening ['this is going to solve these specific problems that our clients are having'], and each ended with a call to action ['this is just one example, and it's only the start. let's build on this together']. i was shocked to see just how few followed the same approach and just how many presentations i felt lost in.

we’re better than this, and there’s no shortage of resources available to help us improve.

• resonate and slide:ology by nancy duarte are must reads
• nancy also has a collection of tools on her organization’s website you can view for free
• the naked presenter and presentation zen by garr reynolds are also canonical texts

even if you don’t give presentations in your day-to-day work, read these books or any of the hundreds of articles online devoted to making presentations better. at some point in time, the lessons you learn are going to be valuable; i promise you that.

image by sarahkim, flickr artist

i wrote not too long ago about the keys to an effective presentation.  it’s strange how sometimes you don’t listen to your own advice, though, john… seriously.

guilty as charged.

i found myself this week in a situation where i had three briefs to deliver to three different audiences all within the span of a few short hours.  it’s hard to ‘get up’ for those kinds of meetings, have a short break in between, and then recapture that tough mental focus again.  (oh, and then repeat that once more for the last brief of the day)  i was feeling confident, however (i usually do), especially since i was closing it out with the same marketing brief i had given dozens upon dozens of times already.  but i should have known better than to take things lightly.

just because a quarterback knows how to play football doesn’t mean he can skip film sessions to prepare for the week ahead.  and just because a hockey player knows how to shoot a puck doesn’t mean he can skip off-ice conditioning.  you need to be prepared.  you need to work hard at being good; it doesn’t just happen.

my first brief — which was luckily the most important since it was with the client and not my own project team — actually went rather well.  i hit my major points, i handled questions, and i kept to my time limit.  i did, however, prepare for that one.  i spent about a day working on my slides and building my story.  what was i going to say?  how was i going to say it?

my second brief started off a bit like bambi standing on the ice for the first time.  i did regain some fluidity in my presentation once the audience began asking some questions, though;  overall it was an effective brief.  was it the best?  certainly not, but i got the job done.  i prepared for this presentation as well, but didn’t spend nearly as much time as i should have to storyboard everything and prepare a voice track to go along with it.

then it was time for my last brief, and i was stumbling all over myself.  i repeated far too many words and phrases making everything i said seem disjointed, i unintentionally skipped all over my slide bullets with no regard for flow, and even a few times didn’t even remember what slides i had used in the brief.  i left that meeting thinking, “wow!  could i have done anything else to mess that up even more?”

perhaps if i showed up late… or without any pants on.

knowledge of a topic is no substitute for hard work.  if you want to play with the pros, you’re going to have to hit the gym — every day.  sit in those film sessions, and ride that stationary bike.  you never know when you’re going to have to go into overtime in a game 7, so are you going to rely on your knowledge of shooting free-throws, or are you going to spend 15 minutes in the morning shoot-around knocking down baskets from the stripe?

hopefully i won’t be blogging in response to this lesson any time soon.

image by misssluluu, flickr artist

i was recently in an internal marketing meeting with one of the higher ups in the firm (when you’re a lvl 2, pretty much everyone is “higher up” than you are..), and — not to brag at all, but — i nailed it.

while i had some high esteem leaving the conference room, i thought to myself on the elevator: “gee, i sure hope to god i did nail my presentation; i’ve been giving pretty much the same brief for a year now.”  bringing a new capability to market takes a while, and i’ve probably sold my work to both internal and external stakeholders at least once a month since i started working at booz allen last february.  that’s certainly no short amount of practice time.

so the other day when i was giving my brief about how we came up with the idea, and how all the different pieces all come together to create a singular picture, about all of the benefits that can come from using this tool, they were the same words that i’ve said a hundred times over.  that’s where i think the lesson comes in at:

effective presentations start with preparation.

i’ve seen some really horrible presentations before, and one of the things that many of them have in common is a lack of conviction.  if you’re giving a presentation to a crowd of people, and you’re looking back over your shoulder constantly to your slides — or worse yet, reading off of them — how can you expect those people to believe in what you’re saying?  is this product really good?   is it actually going to make my enterprise better, faster, cheaper, or more efficient?  because you don’t seem convinced of it yourself.

you need to have, and speak with, conviction.

it is nearly impossible to create a powerpoint in a couple of hours across 2 or 3 days and deliver an effective presentation the next.  you have to have an intimate knowledge of not only the topic, but what your story is going to be.  you can only gain this familiarity through preparation.

storyboard your presentation.  take your slides, print them out, and literally storyboard them.  move content around to see where it fits best, scrap content entirely that doesn’t add value, and build a story that’s both logical and compelling.

practice your presentation.  i know it sounds stupid, but having an internal monologue or even talking to the wall will help you prepare.  you’ll formulate your words ahead of time and end up creating a speech that you internalize and can reproduce when delivering the presentation.  in addition to cutting down on the number of “but, umms” you have, it will also give you a grasp on the amount of time it will take to give it.  you already know the subject (or you wouldn’t be giving a presentation on it!), so now is the time to focus on the delivery itself.

don’t listen to other people… kind of.  if someone says your presentation doesn’t make sense the way it is, then yes, you’re going to want to look into that.  don’t, however, incorporate their feedback unless it fits your overarching plan.  remember that it’s your presentation in the end, and you’re the one who has to deliver it.  if you’re uncomfortable going into a particular sub-topic, or if others suggest that you talk about a topic that doesn’t fit into your overall story — then don’t.  it’s ok to say, “i appreciate your feedback, but that’s not exactly what my goal is here.”

so the next time you know that you have to give a presentation, ask yourself one question: do i know my presentation as much as i know the subject?

if the answer is yes, then go out and nail it.

image by csitscenter, flickr collection

i was in a meeting recently with a senior associate in my firm, and spent the vast amount of the 4 hours we had together furiously taking notes.  unfortunately i couldn’t write as fast as he was talking, so i ended up not capturing all of the information that was there for the taking.  for the most part, the vast majority of the time was spent discussing our earned value management capabilities at booz allen.  we did talk some about business in general and building capabilities that can grow and expand, and it was from this discussion that my largest, boldest, “even used a highlighter on it” note came from.  he said something to me that made a lot of sense:

always plan on success.

it’s a great quote.  you may mistakingly take it as an inspirational message, but that’s not at all what he intended.  it was actually meant to scare us, and remind us that we need to be prepared to succeed.  to be successful in business, it’s not enough to have a good idea.  even having passion and being a hard worker isn’t enough.  when you’re trying to stand up or start up something brand new, you have to have certain things in place to handle the change in environment.  nothing can kill a good idea quite like being unprepared to succeed.  if you aren’t ready to expand with the business, you’ll undoubtedly experience growing pains – much like wearing a shoe that’s two sizes too small.

the main question you’ll want to ask yourself, “if 5 clients called me today, would i be able to provide this product to them?”  here’s a simple checklist that should have you on the right track to answering that question with a “yes.”

• do you have the right people in the right markets?
  business is about having the right contacts and having those people in the right places to get your foot in the door.  securing a $12 million contract is going to be difficult if you don’t have someone helping you out from the inside.  identify these connectors in your organization and get their buy-in with your new business venture because they’re probably going to be the ones who make the first sales pitch to your prospective clients.
• do you have the right people to do the heavy lifting?
  you need to have a people strategy for the actual work as well.  identify the skills and roles that will be needed in order to roll out new business to your clients and make a list of them.  do you already have people on your immediate team that fit into those roles?  if not, can you quickly obtain those resources either through new hire acquisitions or by borrowing from another team within your organization?
• do you have the right resources to onboard new employees?
  along with the item above – if you are bringing new people onto your team or into your organization, you need to also have the right resources to train them and get them up to speed on how to deliver the expected results to the client.  they need to understand their roles and responsibilities as well.  you need their buy-in too, just as you’d expect from anyone else.
• do you have the right resources to make a splash in the market?
  now that you have the right contacts, and the right people strategy, and the resources available to ramp up production of your new product or services – you have to ensure that your marketing materials are set.  you should have an ‘executive summary’ brief developed that gives a high-level overview of the product or service and the benefits to the client at the enterprise level as well as the user level.  it’s also important to have a brief that you can take to the user level of the client’s organization that shows why they want what you’re selling.  are there conferences you can speak at?  are there white papers in your organization you can help co-author?  identify areas to get your name out there.

once you have the questions above answered, you can begin in earnest to develop your business.  it’s always fun thinking up new business and being a part of it from the start.  brainstorming and whiteboarding and cocktail napkin doodling are definitely the stories that people tell when people ask the question, “where did you get this new idea?”  what many people don’t see are the strategic moves that happen behind those romantic stories of serendipity.  it’s important that you don’t become enchanted with the stories of overnight success and put in the effort to build the foundations of long-term growth.  always plan on success, because it just might happen.

image by HikingArtist.com, flickr artist

my first “5 reasons..” post seemed to be fairly popular, so — ever the entrepreneur — i figured i’d capitalize on that success with my second installment. this particular list takes a look at your presentations.

if you’re a consultant like me, you live in powerpoint. you may even begin speaking in bullets. you turn everything you touch into simple, easy to read, easy to understand outlines of information.. even when it’s probably better to choose some other form of communication.

hey! we all do it (don’t lie. just fess up already). the problem is that many of us were never given the proper training, or the education that we did get on giving presentations was a bad one. so i hope that you take a look at the reasons after the jump here and make the necessary adjustments for your next presentation.

reason #1: you use horrible colors
are you printing it? are you projecting it? is it being recorded on video camera? these are all important questions that you need to ask yourself. first and foremost, let me state that YELLOW should never, ever be used in a presentation. i said never! asking any of the three questions above, yellow fails in each and every circumstance. it doesn’t print well, it doesn’t project well, and it’s all but invisible on video.

the colors you pick should marry well together. powerpoint 2007 should help you out a bit as there are now palettes specific to themes, but at what cost? looking exactly like everyone else’s presentations — that’s the cost. and in a competitive business environment, it’s a cost that you just can’t afford to pay. be massive, be bold, be #1 — choose your own kuler scheme. learning a very little bit about color theory is going to go a long way in helping you create presentations that have an impact. as elvis put so perfectly in his song rubberneckin, “i like what i see, i see what i like.” people will naturally gravitate towards good looking things. it’s science!

reason #2: you choose horrible fonts
enough with times new roman. or “basta!” as we say in italian. next person whose presentation i see with times new roman in it is getting a pencil thrown at them. it’s visually offensive. it doesn’t project well, and it’s even worse if being recorded on video. find yourself a nice, clean, rounded, sans serif font. tahoma works perfectly well, and helvetica is for gentlemen. don’t like either one? find a font that you do like, and stick to it. don’t be a politician; no flip-flopping. any presentation that has more than 2 fonts is automatically purged from my mind.

reason #3: you throw words and statistics around like frisbees
basta! enough with the slides that have more words and statistics than white space. if you’re trying to provide detailed information on something, write a document. create a report of your statistics. that kind of stuff doesn’t belong in a presentation.

presentations are supposed to be about YOU. not about words, not about statistics. anything and everything that you put on a slide should have a specific purpose; if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t belong in your slide deck. you, the speaker, should be the focal point of the presentation. when you have tons of words and outrageous amounts of statistics cluttering up your slides people are too busy reading and processing the information to pay any attention to you. so have documents and reports prepared to hand out if necessary. but you need to focus on 2 things: (1) is this important to what i’m talking about? and (2) what’s the main point of it?

reason #4: you ramble
people rely on their slides far too much and they don’t trust in themselves and in their own knowledge of the topic — no matter how many times they’ve given the brief. when you have a collection of bullets on your slides, you’ve essentially made yourself a script. “i need to talk about this, this, and this, then go into talking about this other thing..”

wrong.

you need to deliver a message. trust in yourself, and if you feel you’ve captured the message of the particular slide — move on. if you ever say in a presentation “as i just said,” or “as i mentioned a moment ago” in reference to something on the same slide, then you’ve made boo-boos. don’t rehash information that you’ve covered already unless it’s specifically there to drive home a point (and even this should be used in moderation). trust yourself — deliver the message — and take your bows. don’t ramble.

reason #5: you have no idea how much time you take
if you’re at a convention, or a camp, or a summit — or any of the various names that people give to large scale meetings with multiple speakers and multiple presentations — you only get a certain amount of time. the problem is, at many of the conventions that i’ve been to, people don’t know how long their presentations take. the worst thing possible is going over your expected time.

pro tip: just because you built the powerpoint doesn’t mean you know how to present it.

don’t make assumptions about how many slides it may take to present in the time given. know it. build your presentation, practice it, edit it, practice it, and edit it again until you get it right and within the time limit. it’s absolutely imperative that you practice your delivery. what words should you emphasize? what topics should you spend the most time on? does all of your media work? do your system demos work? what are your plans during loading times? what is your plan if your media/demo doesn’t work at all? these are all questions that you need to know before you step up to the podium.

yeah, your presentations suck. but don’t feel too bad, so do most others. but now you know that you can make your presentations better by fixing the mistakes above. heed my advice and stop the death by powerpoint.