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When putting together their talks, many speakers miss a critical early step: understanding what type of presentation they need to give. What does that mean? Well, remember that your idea needs to solve a problem the audience has, or to meet an unmet need. That means you need to also understand what the audience needs […]
The Power of Contrast
Admit it. Just be honest. I won’t judge… But you have either sat at the edge of your seat in anticipation – OR (more likely) you have actually succumbed to the dark forces of the infomercial. It’s OK. We’ve all been there. Infomercials – which we all know and mock – are an incredibly powerful […]
How to Develop a Presentation – Six Essential Steps
I get asked this question a lot: “Once I have the idea for my talk, what do I do next? How do I actually put it together?” This is the process I use (and we teach): 1. Define the idea at a high level. Can I summarize it in 140ish characters? Concise = clear. Is it in my […]
Lessons from TED: How to Find the “Big Idea” For Your Next Keynote
THE PROBLEM A lot of presentation and speaking advice starts here: STEP ONE: Have a big idea. No arguments with that advice, of course. You need a big idea before you can figure out anything else about your talk. The problem is: how do you find yours? THE SOLUTION Here’s a framework I use with […]
How Easily is Your Audience Distracted?
We often hear that we live in an ‘age of distraction.’ And if you’re like me, it’s easy to think that it’s the OTHER person who has the problem…they’re the ones (often the younger ones) who can’t focus…right? But how easily are you distracted? And how easily do you think your AUDIENCE is distracted? While […]
How to Slim Down Your Presentation. Or, Having Your Appendix IN
I was sympathizing with some sales guys at one of our workshops recently. They were showing me some sales collateral that Marketing had created for them – and this was the old joke… that wasn’t, and isn’t, funny: It was an unbelievably dense deck. A bewildering quantity of material. It was the kind of deck that […]
The Beating Heart of Sales Messaging
Despite our best intentions, almost all presentations tend to revolve around the priorities and interests of the presenter. There are many reasons why this happens, but the deepest root is the natural self-orientation that sits firmly at the core of the human psyche. We are most interested in ourselves and we struggle to see the […]
Make your presentations better by “playing the enemy”
There’s a long-standing military tradition of having a team of people “play the enemy.” The idea being to get a deeper insight on what they might do. “If I were going to attack me… how would I do it?…” It always interesting to look at an issue from the other side of the fence, so let’s play […]
