Tuesday 21 June 2016

What wedding speeches can teach us about business presentations

With the summer season now in full flow, there will be people of certain generations with a lot of weddings to attend – and a lot of speeches to enjoy or endure. It was about this time last year that I realised just how much a business presenter can learn from a good wedding speech; and how they can learn even more from a bad one!


I had been invited to join Jeremy Vine for a phone-in on his Radio 2 show and the producer, knowing that I normally coach business people in Presentation Skills, asked me to ‘adjust’ my advice to the ‘general listening public’ who were likely to phone in. I soon found, though, that exactly the same principles applied to both audiences.

Many of the calls were about weddings and we heard some horror stories about inappropriate Best Man speeches that were skewed far too heavily to tales of the Stag Night and similar laddish memories. We heard one story about a pair of brothers who have not spoken for 20 years since such an incident.


As I say, the advice I found myself giving was essentially the same as I give to business people: Think first about your audience, rather than what you would like to say. At a wedding the key audience is really the bride, her mother and probably some elderly relatives, so the speech should be constructed for them almost exclusively. You have already had your big boys’ fun, and what happens on the Stag Night should in any case stay on the Stag Night.

We had a Father-of-the-Bride who was fretting over his speech for the coming Saturday. He’d been researching jokes on the internet but was feeling neither happy nor confident. “Are you a natural comedian?”, I asked. “No, absolutely not”, he replied. I asked him, therefore, why he was planning to go out on such a limb on the most important day of his daughter’s life. Slightly bemused he asked what he should do instead of looking for jokes on the internet, wondering perhaps if he should think of some amusing / embarrassing stories from her childhood.

“Start”, I said, “by thinking about your audience.  That is very easy for you – it is primarily your daughter, her mother and perhaps a few key relatives. What is one thing you most want to say to your daughter and that she most wants to hear?”.  Having fumbled for a moment he declared: “That she is the most beautiful and special daughter I could ever have wished for”.  “Fantastic”, I replied, “say that to close your speech. You might want to open with it as well. Then all you have to do in between is find a couple of those childhood stories to bring that simple message alive. Job done”.

So it really is the same whether you are addressing the guests at a wedding, delegates at a business conference and anyone in the boardroom. Think first about your audience; then put high focus on a simple message that will resonate with that particular audience. In doing so, it just may help to imagine the potential delight/wrath of a bride’s mother!

Monday 13 June 2016

How to avoid a ‘crashing’ end to your PowerPoint presentation

How many times have you seen a presenter come to a big, impactful finish, only to undo the effect by running past their final PowerPoint slide? In doing so they ‘crash out’ of Slideshow mode to reveal their desktop, complete with sentimental screensaver and an iTunes library that invariably kicks off with Abba’s Greatest Hits? No amount of fumbling is ever going to completely bring back the feeling they created – for just a fleeting moment – nor the Call to Action they delivered with such panache.


Happily, there is a very simple solution to avoiding ‘crashing your PowerPoint’. Make yourself an ‘end slide’ – this could simply be a copy of your ‘intro slide’ or it could be more specific to the close of your presentation, showing a ‘big message’, an abiding image or your contact details and website address.

Place this at the very end of your presentation, followed by a duplicate. That way, you can click onto a definite end slide that marks the end of your presentation. And if you happen to fumble and click too far you display the duplicate and no harm is done. If you want to be really safe - belt and braces, as they say - you could have two duplicates at the end. It may seem like a small point but, as I always say, ‘Firsts & Lasts’ are the most important parts of any presentation and you really do want to send your audience away with your big message, undimmed by any clumsy slide control.

Once you get the hang of putting high focus on how you open and close, you may want to move to another level and deliver your intro and your outro with a blank screen. To see the advantages of doing that, click here: Open and close your businesspresentation with more impact – by switching off.

Wednesday 1 June 2016

The benefits – and surprising hazards - of throwing out questions to kick off your business presentation

There is no doubt that throwing out questions to your audience can be a terrific way of starting a business presentation. It brings immediate interaction, enables you to gauge the feelings of your audience and you can be seen to be personalising your message to them from the outset. Let me pause for a moment, however, to go back and put some emphasis on the ‘can be a terrific way…’. Because this technique can also be an absolute minefield.

Among the stories I relate to the business people I coach in Presentation Skills are:

- The Californian magician who strolled on stage with a straitjacket over his arm, saying: “there is one magician we all know, we all remember, we all admire.  His name is Harry…..” and he cups his hand to his ear, awaiting a response from the audience. “Potter”, shouts a small boy at the front. Not a good way to get into your Harry Houdini tribute act, which has now been stalled by having to explain to a disgruntled audience member that ‘yes, he’s a great magician called Harry but tonight we’re going to focus on another one who….”.

 - The business presenter who bounded into the room asking: “Who here likes skiing?” - to a very muted response. I think he was unlucky, because I always reckon I am the only person I know who doesn’t ski, but his first ten slides – on a skiing theme – fell a bit flat. He was nowhere near as unlucky, however, as my third and final example.

- The director of a marketing services company who started by saying: “Please shout out some names of brands you love”. Back came names such as ‘Apple, Sony and Virgin’. “Thank you for that; now please call out some brands you hate”. “Yours”, said a man at the back very pointedly. At first the speaker assumed he was joking, but it transpired he had had a very bad experience with her company, which he proceeded to tell us about. What was meant to get the presenter off to a big, engaging start had the absolute opposite effect – one from which she could never hope to recover.

As I said, throwing out questions can take you into a very dangerous minefield!  So before embarking on this route – which can be very effective – be very sure that you can handle the answers that may come back and that they will be helpful in getting you off to a good start. Ideally the question should be one that can be answered in one of two ways, each of which you are prepared for and can launch you into the point you want to make. If, for instance I were talking about Presentation Skills, I might pose the question ‘who here gets nervous prior to a presentation’? I could reasonably expect a majority to say yes and I could follow with my tips, starting with a reassurance that these feelings are perfectly normal. If, however, only a few admitted to nerves, I could respond with: “well you are the lucky ones, because most people get nervous and one day the nerves will kick in, even with you, and this is how to handle the situation…”. 

The safest option, of course, is to ask for a show of hands, which is easier to control and generally more comfortable for the audience.

In case you think the examples above are unusual or even extreme, let me conclude on one that happened in one of my coaching sessions earlier this year. The presenter wanted to both engage her audience and pave the way to making the point that her products were achieving much higher prices at auction than might be expected. So she asked the audience to guess the price. The most vocal audience member suggested £5,000. The answer was actually £3,800. So not only had her opening failed in terms of setting her up for her big point; it had actually undermined her! Opening and closing are the most important elements of any presentation – so it’s crucial that you remain in control at those moments.