My advice to be yourself when you give a presentation is not new. It is, however, not easy to follow. I learned this the hard way during my very first business presentation.
For the first ten years of my career, I was a software engineer. I was never asked to give a presentation of any kind and I was pretty happy with that. That changed when I was working for a vendor who sold supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. I was asked to give a presentation and, honestly, …
Read MoreMonday, September 18th, 2017 Tags: Authentic, be yourself, introvert speaking, public speaking
Category: Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking, Presentation Coaching, Sales Presentations, Technical Presentations No Comments
By Tom Nixon
Melissa was running through her upcoming slide presentation with me. She loaded up her PowerPoint deck with all the facts and figures she could find that would make her pitch irresistible. There was an almost endless march of slides with numbers, features and benefits.
I had to stop her and ask, “Why not tell your listeners a story? Or use a testimonial or a case-study?”
“Think of a success story that involves you and a client. Maybe you can get a quote from them or, better yet, a quote …
Read MoreMonday, September 19th, 2016 Category: Audience, Business Presentations, Graphics in Presentations, PowerPoint Slides, Presentation Coaching, Presentation Tips, Sales Presentations, Storytelling in Presentations 1 Comment
by Bob Goodyear
I just came back from a sales conference where I had the opportunity to train technical sales teams on various soft skills. One of the techniques that was taught was the 5 C’s of storytelling, that I’ve written about previously. After the sessions were over, I had several attendees talk to me. The most common question I heard was “When do I tell a story in a technical presentation?”
The “traditional” technical sales presentation is considered to be a “data dump” and the expectations are generally very low …
Read MoreMonday, May 2nd, 2016 Tags: better presentations, business presentations, Improve Your Presenation, presentation audience, presentation skills, purpose in storytelling, skilled storytellers, structure in storytelling, technical presentation
Category: Audience, Business Presentations, Communication, Conference Presentations, Presentation Structure, Presentation Tips, Presentation Tools, Sales Presentations, Storytelling in Presentations, Technical Presentations 8 Comments
by Bob Goodyear
Several years ago, I was asked to do a technical sales presentation for a Fortune 100 company that could lead to a very large software contract. All of the technical decision makers for the company would be in the audience as well as the CIO. This was a very important meeting for the sales team and I was being asked to come in as an expert to close the technical end of the sale.
As I prepared for the event, the lead sales executive …
Read MoreMonday, March 28th, 2016 Tags: business presentations, Improve Your Presenation, PowerPoint Mistakes, PowerPoint Presentations, PowerPoint Slide Tips
Category: Annoying Public Speaking Habits, Business Presentations, Conference Presentations, PowerPoint Slides, Presentation Structure, Presentation Tips, Presentation Tools, Sales Presentations 6 Comments
by Tom Nixon
Animation in PowerPoint or Keynote is a very slippery slope. It seems that the average user cannot resist the urge to fly in text or spin transitions from one slide to the next. Additionally, they must feel that once is certainly not enough — the stunning effect has to be repeated dozens, if not hundreds of times.
The average audience member doesn’t quite see it that way. The zooming and flying quickly becomes amateurish and nauseating for your viewers. I generally coach anyone but an experienced …
Read MoreMonday, March 7th, 2016 Category: Business Presentations, Conference Presentations, Graphics in Presentations, PowerPoint Slides, Presentation Structure, Presentation Tips, Sales Presentations, Technical Presentations No Comments
by Tom Nixon
I don’t know if this bothers anyone else — maybe it is just me and my graphic design touchiness. But it makes me crazy when I see distorted images — photos of people and objects (like a basketball) that have been stretched or crushed to make them fit a space. It can be seen all the time in slide decks designed by folks who should know better.
The human eye and brain are very aware of even the slightest of these amateur short cuts and that is …
Read MoreMonday, February 8th, 2016 Category: Business Presentations, Conference Presentations, Graphics in Presentations, PowerPoint Slides, Presentation Tips, Sales Presentations No Comments
by Kelly Vandever
As the year draws to a close, it’s time once again to recap the top 10 most visited blog posts of the year.
As you reflect over the last year and begin planning for 2016, we hope you’ll find these topics and thoughts helpful.
Thanks for a great 2015!
Kelly
#1 – What If I Don’t Like the Default Size 16:9 in PowerPoint 2013?
Currently, when opening a new slide …
Monday, January 4th, 2016 Category: Business Presentations, Conference Presentations, Leadership in Presentations, Notable Speakers, PowerPoint Slides, Presentation Coaching, Presentation Structure, Presentation Tips, Presentation Tools, Sales Presentations, Speech & Presentation Coaching, Technical Presentations, Training Tips 5 Comments
by Bob Goodyear
Have you ever sat in on a presentation or speech and couldn’t remember the points the speaker was making just 10 minutes after it was done? Maybe you remember that you felt good about what was being said but you just couldn’t talk about specifics to anyone afterwards. That is incredibly frustrating to me as an audience member. It’s even MORE frustrating, however, to me as the speaker because that tells me that I didn’t do a good job making my points memorable.
How can we …
Read MoreMonday, November 23rd, 2015 Category: Analogies, Audience, Audience Interaction, Business Presentations, Conference Presentations, Notable Speakers, Presentation Structure, Presentation Tips, Presentation Tools, Sales Presentations, Storytelling in Presentations 1 Comment
by Tom Nixon
There is a magical, left-brain/right-brain effect that using words plus images can have on your communication efforts. The words and logic appeal to our need to have the facts and to reason our decisions. At the same time images can build passion, emotion and feelings.
Effective salespeople know the value of appealing to emotions while at the same time helping their clients justify their decisions with logic. That is why you must sit in a new car in the showroom (and …
Read MoreMonday, September 14th, 2015 Category: Audience, Graphics in Presentations, PowerPoint Slides, Presentation Structure, Presentation Tips, Sales Presentations 2 Comments
by Kelly Vandever
Imagine you’re traveling in a mobile home with your family. And it breaks down. It cost $750 to tow the mobile home. What do you do?
It’s your only form of transportation for you and your family and it contains everything you have with you. What do you do?
This really happened to a customer of Nationwide insurance. The customer called Nationwide and said “Help!”
Why Nationwide Is Telling the Story
Nationwide uses a Microsoft tool called Yammer. It’s an internal collaboration …
Wednesday, February 4th, 2015 Category: Sales Presentations, Storytelling in Presentations 4 Comments
