Archive for January, 2009

The 7 Essentials for Creating a Powerful Key Message for Your Next Presentation

SWAMPUM! Your key message is the single most important aspect of your presentation. Yet, few presenters even know what their key message is. It’s buried somewhere in the back, around PowerPoint slide #58. In a 1:1 sales presentation, the key message is often sandwiched in between the blah blah blah that the prospect hears from the presenter.

It’s time to ramp up your presentation key message so that your customer is moved to action – the action that you desire her to take.

Introducing SWAMPUM – the 7-point criteria designed t help you bolster your presentation key message and increase the likelihood of a successful outcome. A playful mnemonic device, SWAMPUM is easy to remember (and fun to say out loud!). SWAMPUM is the opposite of boredom – the doom of most PowerPoint presentations. To be successful, your presentation key message should score high on all of these 7 points. Read the rest of this entry »

“Talking with Your Hands” versus Power Gesturing

Many presenters feel self-conscious about using their hands too much when they speak. Some joke about “being Italian” to help explain their excited, expressive hand movements. Others are in quandary about what to do with their hands and resort to holding on to something (their papers, the markers) to give their hands something to do.

As a result, these speakers create unnecessary distractions for their audience, undermining their credibility and underutilizing one of their most powerful communication tools—power gesturing.

“You know about a person who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act, which to everybody else is insignificant tells you more about that one than words can.” - Henry David Thoreau, American Poet and Philosopher, 1817-1862

What is Power Gesturing? Power gesturing is the act of purposeful hand and body movements to help make your point. Read the rest of this entry »

Avoid These Pitfalls When You Next Present

In presentations, just like in tennis, there’s so much to remember. Bend your knees; keep your eye on the ball; follow through. So what do you need to remember when presenting? More importantly, what should you watch out for? As a presenter, there are many pitfalls and bad habits that reduce your effectiveness with every swing.

Here is a short list of the most common presentation pitfalls…

1. Spraying and praying. When presenting, more is never better. If you find yourself telling your audience everything you know out of a misplaced fear that you might lose an opportunity, then you will surely lose out. Ten pounds of flour in a five-pound bag is never a winning formula.
2. Deaf, dumb and blind. Do you really know who is in your audience? Do you know their objectives? Why not spend some time researching who they are and why they are there? The insight will be worth its weight in gold.
3. Copy-and-paste preparation. Each presentation is a unique situation. If your approach to preparing is to copy and paste old presentation material and then add more slides, you’re doing a disservice to yourself and your audience. Start each presentation with a clean sheet of paper. Literally.
4. PointPoint® addiction. Fancy does not equal effective. PowerPoint® is an over-used medium that is putting audiences to sleep. Read the rest of this entry »