Better Content Starts With You!

By Jim Endicott, Owner/Manager of Distinction

Had enough?  I sure have.

Magazines and Websites are full of stuff companies tell us will make our presentations better. Software vendors continue to enlighten us that the “dazzle” of their plug-ins, the “pizzazz” of their clipart or the “impact” of their conversion utility is just what we need to make better business impressions.  (If I hear the words dazzle, pizzazz or impact ever again, it will be too soon)  At times, technology-oriented companies seem convinced that our success is just a lease payment away if we would only plug in, turn on or hook up their particular solution.  I know those things can help but there’s just got to be more to better presenting.

So, if this stuff is not mission-critical to the art of communication, what is?   And why do presenters buy so much of the stuff? The answer can be found in one word… hope.  Hope that somehow something bought with a credit card can make up for a chronic lack of preparation time.  Hope that one’s marginal personal communication skills can somehow be overlooked if enough “pizzazz” is happening on screen.  And perhaps even a little hope that what I have to say may not be all that important, but what I do on screen could be. As long as presenters gobble this stuff up, we will continue to get what we’re asking for but maybe not what we truly need and our audiences desperately want.

Step away from the software for a moment. Step back from the laptop computer and consider that the greatest content enhancement, the most powerful impact you can make in a presentation, may not come in a box.  Rather, our ability to communicate more meaningfully with others may likely come from an investment of another kind - in ourselves.

Last week I sat in the back of the room and observed a group of seasoned sales professionals for two days going through some personal communication skills training.  All of them were good presenters in their own right, but what they would learn is that their PowerPoint presentations had actually been impairing their ability to sell. An over reliance on great brochures, four-quadrant PowerPoint charts, screens of bullets and technical demos may not have been giving them the edge they had hoped for. 

Years and years of status quo presenting habits caused them to believe that the competitor with the best facts and data would win the day. (Even if you’re not in sales, you are constantly competing with others for budgets and “buy-in.”)  What they would learn on this particular day would unravel a 20-year company paradigm, and it may even challenge your own beliefs a bit.  Screen after screen of bullets and technical content was not what motivated the prospect to buy. Those things may be important to inform but they are rarely the reason people buy or are moved to action.

We don’t need to look any further for validation than around our very own lives.  Inferior products sometimes sell more than more viable ones.  Less technically impressive companies sometimes win the big contracts over better competitors. And there are times a manager with a marginal idea gets the funding over the more technical presentation.  There are too many examples around us to ignore, so we need to search a little deeper for an answer that makes more sense.  Here are a couple of well-entrenched beliefs that this particular training group spent a lot of money to jettison and that you’re getting for free today.

Data, facts and charts are the most powerful content elements in the personal communication process.
Wrong.

It’s our nature to believe that the stronger the intellectual appeal, the better one’s ability to create change in people.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Intellectual appeals only evoke an intellectual, and often defensive-intensive response, in human beings.  Case in point.  In 1995 General Motors decided that they would start up a services division called OnStar that would sell in-car communication systems to rally resources in an emergency.  They created incredible brochures with features and benefits clearly articulated.  Then they distributed them to every GM car dealer in America. Surely the novelty and the strength of the appeal would make its own case with the American consumer.

By the end of their first year, they had only managed to sign up 1,100 customers at the pitiful rate of 25 new customers a day.  Needless to say, OnStar lost big money and they knew something had to change. Over a period of time, OnStar changed their marketing strategy to focus more on their user stories.  Today, most of us know OnStar by the many powerful audio recordings on TV and radio of people in crisis on the road where OnStar saved the day.  Today, they have nearly 2 million subscribers and sign up new customers at a rate of nearly 7,500 a day.  What changed?  They stopped appealing to the intellect and instead made their appeal to the emotion.

So, what’s this mean to business presenters today?

The sales team I observed spent the better part of a day learning how to depart from their traditional presentation content and to integrate strategic storytelling as a vehicle for moving customers to action. They learned how to shape compelling stories and how to integrate them at important points of the presentation to move the prospects past the logic of the setting to the heart of the situation.  It’s important in sales and it works in most presentation venues. How good of a storyteller are you?  A Google word search under “storytelling” will give you over a million places to explore.

The PowerPoint presentation is your most strategic visual tool.
Wrong again.

Many a presenter has bought into this myth. It may be that “hope” thing again.  Maybe it scares us to think that there may be something else that may be more important than the PowerPoint we spent so many hours creating in getting through to presentation-weary audiences.

A few years ago I saw Keefer Sutherland, star of the hit TV series “24” being interviewed.  The host asked him what the most important piece of advice was that he had ever received on acting.  He paused for just a second and then replied, “my father, Donald Sutherland, told me when I was first starting out, never get caught acting.” I thought about that for a moment.  Probably the worst thing that can happen to you and me is getting “caught presenting” by our audiences. We’ve created our presentation in easy-to-use presentation software.  We’ve incorporated interesting presentation effects. We’ve even leveraged the latest in presentation technology.

Unfortunately, all we have managed to do is convince our audiences we know how to present but have too seldom shown them that we have the slightest clue about how to communicate.

Back to our group of sales professionals in training.  They spent a full day on skills related to making meaningful eye contact with their audiences and moving with purpose instead of at the impulse of their nervous system. If you haven’t figured it out, the most important visual tool is you.  At the end of a presentation, your audiences will be more moved to action because of what they see in you, not on your presentation screen.  As a matter of fact, part of the training I observed involved frequently hitting the “B” key in PowerPoint to blank out the screen so the audience’s focus came back to the presenter often.

What about you today?

Maybe while contemplating the content for your next presentation, you should also consider an investment in you.  I won’t kid you.  It’s tough work and you may need to be willing to let go of some old ideas about presenting. But I think you’re worth it.  Do you?

Learn more about Jim Endicott and Distinction in our Contributors section.