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Survive Your Presentation Info Run with Teamwork!

Posted on by Rick E

Creating a compelling business PowerPoint requires more resources than you think.

To convince your investors, you need sales and market data from your accounting teams. Thoroughly pitching your products requires having to talk to your sales and marketing divisions. Meanwhile, you’ve got to coordinate with your creative teams to make your presentation more visually engaging. That’s not counting the coffee, snacks, and energy drinks to keep yourself awake long enough to put all of these together.

Indeed, making your PowerPoint impressive requires considerable effort, but with the right supplies, you’ll survive the worst and power through to the end. Let’s take a look at three tips to make stockpiling your resources easier.

1. Have a Dedicated Information Source

powerpoint information source

Resources are always a necessity for any business. The question is, how much of them do you need? (Michaelson & Michaelson 2010, 16).

The same applies to the information you’ll be using for your presentation. Luckily, there’ll always be someone in your company who can give it to you, be it the marketing team, sales department, or even the middle managers. The trick is to know who holds which information. That way, you’ll avoid asking people who can’t help you or, worse, people who only give blank zombie-like stares, saving you time when gathering information.

Aside from your marketing and sales departments, you could glean insights from your customers to make your presentation more convincing. This information could come from your in-house or partnered research group. It could even come from your customer care people if you have them.

Once you find out who has the info, get to these people… fast.

Other companies are on reconnaissance for bits of info. Like hungry scavengers, they want to find them before you do.

2. Delegate Your Tasks

delegate task

Everyone in the company will be skilled at something (Michaelson & Michaelson 2010, 23) in order to survive.

Simply tossing the entire presentation deck to your admin assistant won’t cut it. Because each of your teams will have their own specialties, it’s best to collaborate when you can.

Better yet, make a quick list of who edits what. This is vital for getting your facts and talking points straight. Your finance team could lay out the data in a more understandable format, your marketing team could simplify the technical words, and your creative team can make the designs more appealing.

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By splitting the work between your departments, you’ll end up finishing the deck faster. With different people and departments adding to the presentation, this will familiarize yourself with each person’s specialized knowledge.

Knowing more about your topic from different perspectives makes you more confident. In effect, you’ll avoid sounding like a droning, aimless zombie when presenting.

3. Communicate Regularly with Your Teams

communicate

Every business grows. Even your competitors.

This is why you have to safeguard your sources while improving your team’s collaboration.

Information isn’t meant to be holed up in a prison. It should be free to spread and grow stronger. There will always be new updates: higher sales figures and projections, new images and designs from your creatives, and new products from your marketing department. In order to keep offering the best for your clients, keep yourself well-stocked with these developments.

Stay ahead of the competition as much as possible. To do that, safeguard the backbone of your business (Michaelson & Michaelson 2010, 87). In this case, this means your information sources. You’ll never know when someone will eventually surround your base and steal your business right from under your nose.

Survival is The Key

survival is the key

In a fast-paced, dog-eat-dog environment, those who allocate and use their resources wisely reach the top of the pile. Your presentation bug-out bag should include all the necessary information to survive any speaking engagement.

Keep yourself updated with everything about the competition, and be on alert for new insights you can use to improve your company. This will keep you ahead of the game, long enough to establish a profitable relationship with your business partners.

To help give you the extra edge, you can even get in touch with a presentation partner. It’ll only take a few minutes for a FREE quote!

Check out and share our infographic with your teammates!

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References

Michaelson, Gerald A., and Steven Michaelson. Sun Tzu the Art of War for Managers, Second Edition: 50 Strategic Rules Updated for Today’s Business. 2nd ed. Avon, Mass.: Adams Media, 2010.

Preparation: The Secret Weapon to Presentation Survival

Posted on by Rick E

It’s impossible to survive a zombie apocalypse without weapons.

When we say weapons, they can either be concrete arms, defense tactics, or escape strategies.

You need to get in shape and plan your journey to travel the path of survival.

The same thing applies with presentations.

Make this happen with a clear and organized discussion flow.

To do this, you need one powerful weapon to cover all your marketing efforts:

Preparation.

Let’s look at useful chunks of your pitch that we can connect with this presentation weapon.

Who’s Your Audience?

1 - Who’s Your Audience
Before you attack, you should know who your targets are first.

Whether facing the undead or a living, breathing crowd, know who your audience is and what they do.

Understanding your audience beforehand is the first step to structuring your content.

Investigate how much they know about your topic, their possible take on your idea, and what they expect from your presentation.

This helps you determine the succeeding steps needed to market your product.

When’s the Right Time?

2 - When’s the Right Time
You can’t strike at just any time.

As the saying goes, “Preparation and timing make a good formula for success.”

Timing matters if you want to combat fearsome zombies or people’s short attention spans.

With proper speech delivery and a well-timed topic, a great business opportunity awaits you.

Make your ideas parallel to your audience’s needs. Tailor your content and get all the facts you need so that it will appeal directly to their interests.

Plan when to strengthen your main idea for greater impact. If someone asks you about your speech’s purpose, create a hook in the beginning, then emphasize it more by citing examples of how they’ll benefit from it.

A logical path explaining your concepts from slide to slide also trims down your thoughts into a more digestible format.

On the other hand, a smooth speaking approach gives your audience time to think about what you said.

If you play your cards right, you can even get them to join your side.

Where Should You Go?

3 - Where Should You Go
If you wander aimlessly, you’ll exert tons of energy but get nowhere fast.

Some people fail to survive a grueling presentation experience.

This happens when there’s no clarity between what the presenter wants to say and what the audience wants to hear.

Of course, you want your presentation to go nowhere but up.

This end goal can be best achieved with a coherent flow of ideas.

Consider things like the best parts in your speech to emphasize a problem and a solution.

The classic story structure—beginning, middle, end— is ideal for outlining your key points.

Communicate exactly what you’ll be covering in each part, including why they should care, and what they’ll be taking away.

This approach keeps your viewers from getting bogged down with heavy data.

Equip Yourself for Survival!

4 - Equip Yourself for Survival!
You can’t win a battle without the right tools and strategy.

You can’t win over a crowd just by showing up.

To survive, you have to be well-armed and equipped to make your business pitch a success.

It requires many important elements like coherent flow and masterful planning.

Understand the basics of knowing your audience, proper timing, and outlining thoughts to give your business pitch a huge impact.

Don’t come to any battle empty-handed.

Be quick on the trigger with preparation to conquer your presentation!

 

References

“Getting the Presentation Structure Right.” Presentation Process. n.d. Accessed September 24, 2014.
Brooks, Max. The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead. New York: Three Rivers, 2003.

3 Fool-Proof Ways to Master the Art of Presentation Survival

Posted on by Rick E

When you’re delivering a presentation in the boardroom or stage, you don’t want your audience to start zoning out and giving you zombie-like stares.

They may look docile, but the minute you finish, these people could end up swarming to the door, eager to leave.

That outbreak is the last thing you want to cause as a presenter.

How do you go about avoiding it?

A visually compelling PowerPoint that highlights your strengths is a great way to keep them engaged, but making one is never easy.

The best ones are usually made with teamwork and relevant information about your offers.

Let’s take a look at how we can avoid a zombie-audience outbreak:

1. Know Your Team

You may know your audience from the inside-out, but do you know your teammates?
You may know your audience from the inside-out, but do you know your teammates?

Each member of your team will always have a specialty (Michaelson & Michaelson 2010, 23).

One of them might know where to get the best information for your deck’s content, while another might be good at writing your script.

Learning to work well with your colleagues will save you loads of headaches and save your energy when it’s time to present

2. Know Your Tools

It's not owning the tools that makes you good. It's how you wield them that will keep you a cut above the rest.
It’s not owning the tools that makes you good. It’s how you wield them that will keep you a cut above the rest.

A highly visual deck makes great impressions, but knowing the other tools and your presentation area are equally important factors.

Simple things like testing out your screens, projectors, and your lapel microphones can save your presentation from technical difficulties later on.

Make sure your deck is formatted to run on the screen you’ll be using for the boardroom. You’ll avoid projecting misplaced graphics because of working with in wrong screen resolution.

3. Know Your Moves

Now that you know who and what you're working with, it's time to put your skills to use.
Now that you know who and what you’re working with, it’s time to put your skills to use.

Presentation techniques are another thing to master.

Nothing induces a mass zombie-like look faster than a person standing still and droning on during the whole pitch.

To master your moves, you need to look into two things: your body language and your speaking style.

Are you the type of presenter who likes to tell stories? Or will you take the time to know your audience?

Whichever style you prefer, always remember to employ appropriate body gestures and avoid slouching.

Putting on a professional look and a lively persona is one of your most effective weapons against zombifying your own audience.

One Last Thing: Teamwork Always Works!

You could survive the apocalypse alone... but working together with others will make the experience so much easier.
You could survive the apocalypse alone… but working together with others will make the experience so much easier.

It’s hard to survive a presentation that makes you or your audience looking like the walking dead.

In these situations, working as a team will always get you through.

By working together with your sales and marketing teams, you’ll be able to get the info you need to make your presentation as comprehensive as you can.

Mastering your tools will prevent any technical delays that can bore your audience.

Honing your presenter’s techniques can keep everyone’s eyes on you and focused on what you have to say.

Who knows? By following this guide, you might even prevent yourself from looking like a zombie when you step into the boardroom.

 

References

Michaelson, G., and Steven Michaelson. Sun Tzu: The Art of War for Managers: 50 Strategic Rules Updated for Today’s Business. 2nd ed. Avon, Mass.: Adams Media. 2010.

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