Tag Archives: presentation

TNF #108: New size = new product

Welcome Professionals…

…I was writing an article for a newspaper recently. The editor advised me that the article had to have exactly the size of 3,500 characters (including spaces). I had a document that was about 13,000 characters and I thought I would just cross out some paragraphs, condense some lines and it would be finished. Wrong!

I ended up writing the whole text all over again. I was able to use the material I had as a collection of content and I was able to use the main conclusion. Everything else had to be redone for this new edition. I needed a new story line, some new examples and it turned out to be much quicker to rewrite the article than altering every single sentence. It seems so obvious when you think about it. If you take some paragraphs out of a text, the text will not make sense anymore.

The same applies to presentations. A convincing presentation is always geared towards objective, audience and timing. When we face significant changes in one or more of these three dimensions, we have to rewrite the whole thing! I have seen so many case teams shuffling old slides into new presentations. It usually does not work.

It gets especially frustrating when case teams start producing slides while the person who knows the audience and will have to hold the presentation is not even in the room, yet. This leads to rather unpopular night shifts.

Wise presenters plan upfront and have their material crafted on individual requirements!

Hope you can skip the night shift this time,

Malte

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TNF #105: The art of rehearsal

Welcome Professionals…

…Winston Churchill did it, professional musicians and actors do it, TED talkers do it – so why don’t we do it? In TNF #104 we discussed the power of rehearsal. A good rehearsal – when done professionally – will boost the effectiveness of your presentation by magnitudes!

So what is key for a professional rehearsal? Here is a checklist:

Plan a decent amount of time for a rehearsal. You may need some extra time for modifications to your presentation after the first dry-run and then do it again!
Get the team together when more than one presenter is running the show. Band members may practice their part alone, but every band has to practice together before entering the stage!
Rehearse with a proper audience. Get some critical minds who will give you constructive feedback. Don’t just do it in front of the mirror, this is not the same!
Remember your words. You must always know the first and last sentence of your presentation by heart! The intro and outro have be fluent and to the point. You can improvise with words inbetween, but never allow yourself a weak start or ending.
Keep your technological support idot-proof. At least plan a backup procedure in case something goes wrong.
Practice eye-contact on your most important lines, also practice accentuation!
Practice how to work the room. When moving during the presentation, set your steps deliberately. Who will you turn to, who will you engage with?
Don’t be too hard to yourself. Every dry-run will feel a bit awkward and never close to perfect. You will rock the show when lights go on and adrenalin kicks in!

Taking the rehearsal seriously will get you to a completely different level.

Knock on wood!

Malte

TNF #104: The power of rehearsal

Welcome Professionals…

…As top management consultants, we deliver most of our work in presentations. From the proposal pitch throughout sharing first hypotheses and intermediate results, convincing stakeholders up to giving a presentation on final conclusions and recommendations to a steering committee. All of these are presentations whether we use a formal slide presentation or free speech, whether we talk to a group or one-on-one.

A good preparation of these presentations is key and everybody knows that. Yet, I see a lot of effort put into the content while the power of a rehearsal is untapped. Only few teams and individuals acutally take the time for a proper rehearsal.

Of course, good content is the foundation of every presentation. Deep analytics, rigorous problem solving, creative thinking, and logical conclusions are crucial to every presentation. This work has to be done professionally without any doubt.

Once the content is clear, I see presenters spending a lot of time and effort in structuring the presentation, choosing the right words and graphs, adding pictures, polishing colors and so on. This is also quite important. While the polishing often goes on to the last minute before the presentation, a proper rehearsal is skipped in most cases.

This is a great mistake. While content, structure, and appearance are certainly tablestakes to every presentation, there are some additional elements of equal importance. These include

good connection between presenter and audience
projection of self-confidency
fluency and flawless execution (esp. when more than one presenter is involved
projection of a positive attitude

The above are most important elements for building a trustful atmosphere to move and convince the audience. This is why we do a presentation in the first place, otherwise we could just pass on a written document. Achieving these features takes a lot of general training and experience. It does also require specific training for the individual presentation. This is done by a proper rehearsal.

I will cover the key features of an effective rehearsal in next week’s TNF.

Stay tuned,

Malte

TNF #090: Tailor the message

1 Reply

Welcome Professionals…

…Here comes a reminder on an old principle that probably every consultant already knows: The message of a presentation must be tailored to the receiving audience!

Sure, you might say. This is so simple and obvious, yet it gets forgotten so many times. All too often we tend to use the material that we already have and skip the extra tailoring effort. We like the messages that sound convincing to ourselves, not necessarily pursusasive for the individuals we address. We think within the frameworks that work for us, but may be too complicated for the attention span of our listeners.

For every presentation that we prepare, we must answer the most basic questions first:

Who is our target audience of the message/presentation?
What is their status (knowledge, opinion, goals, capacities, restrictions, etc.)
Where do we want to move the audience?

Once the key message is tailored, we should review the following three questions to make our message pursuasive:

How can we create a supportive atmosphere in the beginning (a compliment, a joke, an appreciation of the audience, a consensus, etc.)
How can we address stakeholders during our presentation and show them that we understand them and that we care?
How can we finalize with a positive call for action?

Everything else is just PowerPoint,

Malte

TNF #031: Did you bring some cookies?

2 Replies

Welcome Professionals…

…yesterday, I have been a judge in the jury of Business@School. This is a pro-bono initiative from the Boston Consulting Group, teaching highschool kids at the age of 14 about business. Three groups of students presented their business business plan for a new commercial idea they had worked out. An interesting and fun event. The striking experience I want to share with you relates to the cookies.

One group had the idea of founding a cookie gift service. They would prepare a jar with all cookie ingredients and a recipe that can be purchased as a gift and will be delivered to the recipient. Now comes the interesting element: At the end of the presentation they presented one jar with the ingredients and one jar with the freshly made cookies. They offered a cookie to each of the jury members. What a difference this made!

Up to this point, it had just been a usual business case presentation. The moment we tasted the cookies, the relationship between the jury and the presenting team was taken to a new level. The presentation received a new dimension, a sensual attachment.

The same was true earlier this week, when I met the partner of an IT consultancy. Instead of describing his product portfolio, he pulled out a little booklet that was so small, he was carrying it in his suit pocket all the time. I immediately had a deeper connection to his offering than before.

We usually present our concepts and talk about them the consulting-way. We shall think of means to add a bit more flavour and sensual product experience to it. It will make a great difference!

Enjoy your cookies!

Malte