A presentation of Steve contain all of the elements of great plays or movies: conflict, resolution, villains, and heroes.
When creating presentations you should spend the majority of your time thinking, sketching, and scripting. That is researching topic, collecting input from experts, organizing ideas, collaborating with colleagues, and sketching the structure of the story.
Texts and bullets are the least effective way to deliver information.
headline: 140 characters or less, memorable. i.e."Today Apple reinvents the phone!"
passion statement: fill in the following scentence: "I'm excited about this product because it ..." and share it.
three key messages: the listeners can only recall three or four short-term messages. Develop the key messages and supporting points.
metaphors and analogies: Metaphor-a word or phrase that denotes one thing and is used to desgnate another for purposes of comparison. Analogy-a comparison between two diffrent things in order to highlight some area of similarity.
demonstrations: sit down and show the audience how they work
parteners: share stage with key partners as well as his products
customer evidence and third-party endorsements: involve several customers, mouth word
video clip: including video in your presentation will help you stand out but no longer than 2 or 3 minutes
flip charts, props, and show-and-tell: three types of learners: visual, auditory, kinesthetic. Comprise more than just slides. Slides don't tell stories, you do. Slides complement the story.
Aristotle's classic five-point plan to create a persuasive argument:
Deliver a story or statement that arouses the audience's interest.
Pose a problem or question that has to be solved or answered.
Offer a solution to the problem you raised.
Describe specific benefits for adopting the course of action set forth in your solution.
State a call to action.
Scene 2. Answer the one question that matters most
People want to know the answer to one question: Why should I care?
Answering that one question right out of the gate will grab people's attention and keep them engaged.
It is about the listeners in your audience.
Tell them the answer early, often and clearly.
Answer the one question in all of your marketing materials: website, presentation slides and press releases.
Your audience dosen't care about your product. People care about themselves.
Sell dreams, not product.
Scene 3. Develop a messianic Scense of Purpose.
The Reality Distortion Field: an ability to convince anyone of practically anything.
Find something you love to do so much, you can't wait for the sun to rise to do it all over again.
One sure way to lose your sight of your purpose is to chase money for the sake of chasing money.
To achieve success, do what you find interesting. Your heart knows where it wants to be.
Jobs was never motivated to build computers. Instead, he had a burning desire to create tools to unleash human potential.
He saw himself in the faces of those famous people who advanced the human race and changed the world.
Share your enthusiasm with your listeners. People want to be moved and inspired, and they want to believe in something. Make them believe in you.
Develop a personal "passion statement". In one sentence, tell your prospects why you are genuinely excited about working with them.
Scene 4. Create Twitter-Like Headlines
The headlines work so well that the media will often run with them word for word. You see reporters (and your audience) are looking for a category in which to place your product and a way of describing the product in one sentence. Take the work out of it and write the headline yourself.
It becomes nearly impossible to create consistent messaging without a prepared headline developed early in the planning stage. The rest of the presentation should be built aroud it.
This is typical Jobs method for introducing a product. He reveals the headline, expands on it, and hammers it home again and again.
The headlines Steve Jobs creates work effectively because they are written from the perspective of the user.
Three criteria: it is concise, it is spcific, and it offers a personal benefit.
Headlines are what persuade you to read particular stories in newspapers, magazines, or blogs.
Scene 5. Draw a Road Map
Verbal guideposts serve as road maps, helping your listeners follow the story. When coaching clients to appear in the media, I always instruct them to create an easy-to-follow story by clearly outlinint three or, at the most, four main points before filling in the details.
A Verbal road map of three things will help your listeners keep their place.
We can hold only small amounts of information in short-term, or "active", memory.
Three is more persuasive than five.
This is a simple recipe for ensring your audience will retain the information you are sharing.
Your slides should mirror your narrative. There is no need to make the slides complicated.
Create alist of all the key points you want your audience to know. Categorize the list until you are left with only three major message points. Add rhetorical devices to each of your three key messages, such as personal stories, facts examples, analogies, metaphors, and third-party endorsements.
Scene 6. Introduce the Antagonist
Introducing the antagonist (the problem) rallies the audience around the hero (the solution).
What people care about is solving problems and making their lives a little better.
Explanations of new products or services require context, a relevance to a problem in your customer's life that is causing that person "pain".
Having an identifiable enemy gives us the chance not only to articulate and showcase our faith, but also to unite ourselves with our fellow believers... this us-versus-them strategy attracts fans, incites controversy, creates loyalty, and gets us thinking-and arguing-and, ofcourse, buying.
Establishing the antagonist early (before revealing your solution) is critical to persuasion, because our brains needs a bucket-a cateory-in which to place a new idea.
In presentations, start with the big picture-theproblem-before filling in the details.
Simply create a one-sentence answer for the following four questions:
What do you do?
What problem do you solve?
How are you different?
Why should I care?
Scene 7. Reveal the conquering Hero
The hero is not necessary to slay the bad guy, but to make our lives better.
Once the hero is established, the benefit must be made clear immediately.
Describe the state of the industry as it currently stands, followed by your vision of where it could be.
Unless you are passionate about a problem that you want to make right, you won't have the perseverance to stick it out.
Intermission 1 Obey the Ten-Minute Rule
Your audience checks out after ten minutes, not eleven.
Act 2. Deliver the Experience
Scene 8. Channel Their Inner Zen
The slides should be realy simple and with no bullet point.
Bullet points means to take notes instead of pay attention to what you are saying.
Wordy slides detract from the experience. Simple slides keep the focus where it belongs-on you, the speaker.
It is better to present an explanation in words and pictures than solely in words.
When giving a multimedia explanation, present corresponding words and pictures contiguously rather than separately.
When giving a multimedia explanation, present words as auditory narration rather than visual on-screen text.
When giving a multimedia explannation, use few rather than many extaneous words and pictures.
Einstein's Theory of Simplicity: If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
Focus on one theme per slide, and complement that theme with a photograph or image.
carminegallo.com
Scene 9. Dress Up Your Nunbers
Nuers doesn't resonate with people unless they were put in a comprehensive context, special relevent to something people really familiar with.
Make the numbers specific, relevant, and contextual.
The more complex the idea, the more important it is to use rhetorical devices such as analogies to facilitate understanding.
Use data to support the key theme of your presentation.
Don't overwhelm your audience with too many numbers.
Scene 10. Use "Amazingly Zippy" Words
Don't be afraid of using simple words and descriptive adjectives.
Jargons and buzzwords are meaningless and empty and will most certainly make you less understandable and therefore less persuasive.
Three characteristics of the words:
Simple. Free of jargon and with few syllables.
Concrete. Very specific phrases. Short, tangible desciptions instead of long, abstract discussions.
Emotional. Descriptive adjectives.
When you find an analogy that works, stick with it.
Scene 11. Share the Stage
Our brains crave variety and get bored when any one last too long on stage.
A reference is good. A customer or partner physically sharing the stage is even better.
Having experts, customers, or partners testify to the effectiveness of your product will help you overcom the psychological barrier to participation.
Publicly thank employees, partners, and customers. And do it often.
Scene 12. Stage Your Presentation with Props
Using props can transform what could have been boring explanation into an interesting, multisensory experience.
Good demos are as follows: short, simple, sweet, swift, substantial.
Don't forget to have fun with demos.
If your product contains numerous benefits and features, often highlight just one.
Provide something for every type of learner in your audience: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.
Scene 13. Reveal a "Holy Shit" Moment
It need not be a breakthrough announcement. Something as simple as telling a personal story, revealing some new and unexpected information, or delivering a demonstration can help create a memorable moment for your audience. The more unexpected, the better.
The people only remember how they feel.
Build up to the big moment before laying it on your audience.
Rhearse the big moment.
Intermission 2 Schiller Learns from the Best
Act 3. Refine and Rehearse
Scene 14. Master Stage Presence
To enhance one's speedking and presentation skills: one should make eye contact, maintain an open posture, and use frequent hand gestures.
Four related tech niques to keep your listeners engaged: inflection, pauses, volume, and rate.
Record yourself. Watch your body language, and listen to your vocal delivery. Watching your self on video is the best way to improve your presentation skills.
Scene 15. Make It Look Effortless
Set specific goals, ask for feed back, and continually strive to improve over the long run.
Making your presentation "more alive" takes practice.
Ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert in anything.
Use a video camera and a external clip-on microphone during rehearsals.
As you watch the video, pay close attention to these five areas: eye contact, body language, filler words, vocal delivery, energy.
Let your energy go a little over the top and to leave your comfort zone, you will hit the right note.
The bucket method:
Identify the most common questions likely to be raised.
Place the questions into "buckets", or categories.
Create the best answer you have for the category. The answer must make sense regardless of how the question is phrased.
Listen carefully to the question, and identify a key word-a trigger-that will help you isolate the correct bucket from which to pull to your answer.
Look the person in the eye and respond with confidence.
Three ways to eliminate fillers:
Ask for feed back.
Tap the glass. Ask another person to watch you and tap the glass of water using a spoon while you are using filler.
Record your self, and play it back in the presence of others.
Scene 16. Wear the Appropriate Costume
Always dress a little better than everyone else, but appropriate for the culture.
Dress like the leader you want to become.
Scene 17. Toss the Script
Five steps to tossing the script
Write your script in full sentences in the "notes" section of PowerPoint.
Highlight or underline the key word form each sentence, and practice your presentation.
Delete extraneous words from your scripted sentences, leaving only the key words.
Memorize the one key idea per slide.
Practice the entire presentation without notes, simply using the slides as your prompter.
When you are actually delivering the final presentation, if the notes give you peace of mind, by all means, keep them available.
Don't read from notes if you don't have to.
When you must read from notes, create no more than three or four large-font bullet points on one note card or sheet of paper.
Think "one theme per slide".
Scene 18. Have Fun
Your audience will forgive a blooper as long as you get it right.
Your audience wants to be educated and entertained.
If your presentation hits a glitch, acknowledge it, smile and move on.
Don't let something that does not go exactly as planned derail the rest of your presentation.
Encore One More Thing
Powerful rhetorical device is available to any person who wants to command an audience.