and there are probably hundreds of presentation skills companies out of country.  So why does one of Distinction’s international client companies send us all the way to Europe and beyond to train their important teams?  The answer is pretty straight forward.

1. Consistency – There are a number of large, US-based international training companies that can call in local “partners” around the globe.  But they often suffer from the same shortcoming.  The rely heavily on training contractors who can vary greatly in their grasp of the content – delivering Excel classes one day and presentation skills the next.  And because they’re delivering someone else’s content, they often lack the seasoned expertise that comes from being a part of a team that only delivers presentation skills workshops and who constantly collaborate on making it better and better.
     
2. Methodology – Distinction has a unique and proven skill-upon-skill approach for helping individuals get the very most out of their coaching day experience.  And because some of Distinction’s team are keynote speakers themselves, we have very personal insight on the skills we teach our clients.  Other trainers?   They often teach rote approaches they’ve gleaned from a coaching manual.  That makes Distinction different.
     
3. Trust - When you know a company.  When a client reads trainee reviews time and again that rate this workshop “one of the best” they’ve experienced, why go looking for another partner?   People stay with people they trust.  That’s why they choose Distinction.

I have just two words for you… not likely.

Unfortunately, current research would show that changing belief systems seems to happen a lot less often than we would like to believe.  In a 2008 joint study with Duke University & Georgia State University, researchers set out to understand how effective facts are at swaying opinion.  As a study context, they focused on documented misconceptions that prevail today around certain political views.  Could blatantly false or unsubstantiated beliefs be corrected with an objective communication of the actual “truth”?   The results in a moment…

Although this particular study was politically focused, presenters must embrace the fact we are constantly trying to alter belief systems.  When I get up in front of a group to deliver a keynote around winning the hearts & minds of busy people, I try to alter the belief system that a good deck of PowerPoint slides is all that is needed to win over an audience.  For you, it may be that global warming is a real threat, your software product can address issues that have been plaguing people for decades or that donating to your local non-profit can really change lives.

Let me net out for you what pages of research revealed…

• All information is filtered through an audiences existing belief system.
• When individuals believe something very strongly, the exposure to contradictory information (even if true) can actually reinforce the existing (incorrect) belief system.
• People will go to great lengths to avoid the cognitive dissonance created when their beliefs don’t seem to jive with the facts.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but it would seem that facts and data work best when people already agree with us!

So what does it take to change hearts and minds?  In the book The Leader’s Voice  (Clarke & Crossland), the authors studied the personal communication vehicles that leaders used to be highly effective. What they discovered was that there were three compelling “channels” used purposefully and at strategic times to create personal impact.  They were… Factual – Emotional – Symbolic. 

The factual channel was great to prove, inform, justify but was weak in actual persuasion and influence. The emotional channel, best characterized by more right-brain influences like personal stories, relational interaction, visually-rich sensory stimulus - this was the stuff that motivated and inspired change and could by-pass an audiences natural defenses (and belief systems). The third channel was the symbolic used to align thinking and focus efforts.  (Have you ever had a manager that gave the whole team a physical object that had special meaning for creating a change in thinking?)

Unfortunately, today most presenters camp heavily on the factual channel and wonder why their presentations so often fail to achieve the results they worked so hard for.

You want to know why we teach executives to be better, more compelling storytellers?   This is why.  This is also why we help sales organizations work to balance a factual, data-driven appeal with a relational (emotional) story of impact or innovation.  Changing what audiences think and believe is not for the faint of heart and it requires us to be much smarter.

For some, this will make perfect sense.  For others, who are convinced their pie charts and tabular data is their secret sauce for getting the deal, I probably won’t be changing your minds anytime soon.

4) Five bullets per slide…

I find it pretty backwards when our dialog around being a better presenter devolves to discussions of number of bullets on a slide. First and foremost, the art of presenting is a relational skill, not a technical one. Granted some people seem to need rules, but we miss the point.  Good presentations are not about bullets.  Never have been - never will be.   How about we talk about what types of visual content is remembered and why!  Or how to structure a meaningful messages that resonates with hearts & minds.

The real point:

When given bullets – presenters will read them.  When given sub-bullets - presenters will read them as well. Bullets were a by-product of the original “outliners” that PowerPoint gave us eons ago to help you form your presentation message. Unfortunately, most presenters never learned that there’s a big difference between what they need to say – and how they need to say it (& show it).

Try this test. Give a presenter a bulleted slide to deliver on a topic they are familiar with. They will undoubtedly turn to read it or deliver the content in a methodical bullet-by-bullet approach.  Now give them a single picture that covers the same topic and have them talk to it. Something magical often happens.  They spend a lot more time talking to their audiences in a conversational manner!  There is a big lesson here.  Did you get it?  Bad PowerPoint can wreck otherwise good presenters.

5) Audiences expect you to be flawless!

During my coaching workshops I often drag out a little buddy of mine, Mr. Wonderful.  This little guy looks perfect with a winning small and hair I wish I still had.  And when you push his hand, he  “delivers” a perfect message every time!

“No dear, you don’t look at all fat in that dress. How could anything make you look fat!”

“Did you have a hard day honey? Why don’t you sit down and let me rub your feet.”

“You’re right.  I don’t know which way to go. I’ll stop and ask directions.”

After a handful of these gems, I ask the group how they would assess Mr. Wonderful’s credibility?  In perfect agreement, they tell me he has little or no credibility with them. Why?  Because he’s too perfect and polished!

If I somehow had it in my power as a presentation coach to transform anyone into the “perfect presenter”, I would destroy their effectiveness.  Our audiences are not looking for perfection.  They are, however, looking for real people.  Not TV reality show-type real but authentic, vulnerable and honest communicators who have nothing to prove. 

The real point:

Be open.  Be honest.  Self-disclose things that allow your audience to know you better.  Those types of presenters will be able to impact their audiences in ways the perfect presenter never could.  Our greatest position of influence will always be in coming alongside our audiences.  And the harder we try to be perfect the less that will be possible. (Prepared – yes.  perfect – no)

6) Look between your audience’s eyes – it’s easier

I get the fact that many people have a huge fear related to talking in a group setting.  So it’s no wonder we seem to go to extraordinary lengths to avoid human interaction.  (By the way, this technique of looking between someone’s eyes has never worked with my wife and it probably won’t work with yours either.)  Strangely, I find that the same folks who struggle with eye contact seem to be very personable and have no problem looking in my eyes when I’m sitting in their office. 

The real point:

Instead of scanning an audience or coming up with tricks to avoid eye contact, turn every presentation into a series of one-on-one conversations.  If you struggle with this, make a friend before the presentation and start with them.  Then as your presentation starts, spread your 1-1 conversation to another – then another. Let’s not add more pressure by playing games with eyes.  Presenting will always be a personal thing so let’s keep our eye on the ball. 

 1) Tell ‘em what you’ll tell ‘em -   Tell ‘em -  Tell ‘em what you told them.

Like many old axioms, there’s a morsel of truth but it gets lost in the application.  First, simple repetition (or repeated exposure to something) only means you run the real risk of honking off an audience because you make them feel like children. And secondly, just the habit of repeating something is no guarantee people will remember and here’s why.

Years ago researchers tested the whole idea of repetitive impressions on recall.  I’ve repeated this fun little test in some of my coaching workshops.  I get two people up and put them in front of flip charts. Then I ask them to draw (in as much detail as possible) the front and back of a penny.  They’ve obviously had tens of thousands of repeated exposures to those images.  But true to the research, very few can even get close in their drawings.  (Researchers called this “incidental exposure”)  Why?  Because impressions (and ideas) must be relevant & meaningful to be remembered.

The real point:

Repetition is only effective in recall if the message itself resonates with personal needs/issues. If the presenter’s message is self-serving (like many are), then there is little chance anyone will care what you say no matter how many times you may say it.  Even worse, put that point in the form of bullets or raw data and recall will be even more adversely impacted. Why?  Because intellectual material is processes on the left side of the brain which generally only supports short-term memory.

2) Audiences can be pretty tough so you need to prepare harder

It’s no picnic for an audience when anxious presenters shuffle around in front of them while playing with their laptop computers. But know this, audiences want you to succeed!   “But Jim, they don’t look very happy to be here.”  The problem may have little to do with them and everything to do with your own mirror.

I learned a while back that my 3 month old granddaughter, Avery, reflects what I give her.  If I smile, she smiles.  If I have a sour look on my face – she frowns. If presenters could only see the intense, furled brow expressions that camp on their faces while they are thinking hard what to say next.  Then they’d understand why their audiences look so unfriendly.  Don’t believe me?  Watch yourself on video.

The real point:

Audiences give back what they get from you.  One of bigger challenges we have as coaches is simply trying to get a presenter to be a warmer human being in front of a group.  And when there are a few sour faces looking back at you, don’t take it personally. A fight with the spouse or a traffic ticket on the way to your presentation is all it takes to change their mood.  An important message to presenters… it’s not always about you. Audiences come with their own lives.

3) Better presentation software will make me a better presenter

In the general presentations community, there’s a reoccurring push for “serious” presenters (and designers)  to move to Apple’s Keynote software.  Everyone is looking for an edge and I get that.  But I have a question.  Why is it I can see really bad presentations produced in Keynote and yet to this day, see beautiful and effective visual communication tools come out of PowerPoint 2000 – a 10-year old software product?

The answer is… (and always will be) this important truth.  Talented and creative people will make works of communication art no matter what canvas they’re using.   And the vast majority of everyone else will continue to look for the next trendy tool to give them an edge but you will always be able to tell the difference.  Form never trumps substance when it comes to presentations.

The real point:

No one will ever be able to make a common sense wizard. There’s nothing wrong with Apple’s Keynote or other higher-end presentation tools.  But I learned a long time ago a very painful (and expensive) reality… I can buy expensive Titleist Pro V1 golf balls and still not hit them like Phil Michelson.   And the only ones who seem to benefit from my purchase are the folks in the golf pro shop.

(Bogus Rules 4-6 )

But they underestimated a deeply rooted competitive streak in me.  So a week before the big tournament I scheduled a golf lesson to fix, what was up until then, a mild slice. It meant that when others were playing in the sun and enjoying the fairway, I was usually searching for my ball in the woods.

The golf pro showed up and I was pretty excited.  A few quick fixes and I’d be good to go! (I hear a few of you chuckling already). During the course of the next 60-minutes, I would have a number of things “corrected”.  First my stance.  Then my swing path.  Then onto my hips and then my head.

One hour and $75 later, my mild slice had morphed into what golfers affectionately refer to as a “duck hook”. I’ll save you the description.  Suffice it to say, it’s not very pretty and now meant I would not only be playing in the woods, but most likely the next fairway over.

What happened to me is what happens to many presenters today.

They get a little coaching, lose anything natural in their delivery and abandon their newly found skills before they can take root.  (The same skills others admired so much at the end of the training day!) What is too often missing is an important breakthrough period of time when the repetition of the mechanics become second nature.  When the practice (repetitions) of better skills simply become what we do subconsciously.

But most presenters never get to the game they have a passion to play.

A few weeks back, we were working with a senior manager at Reebok. He had requested many coaching sessions with Distinction.  Because he was so bad?  To the contrary, because he was so exceptionally good.  When Fred asked him why he kept signing up for coaching, his answer was refreshing…

He had been a tennis coach at one point in his life and knew first hand that it took a thousand conscious repetitions of a new movement before it became second nature.  “That’s why I keep coming back – to get more reps.”

So, are you practicing good skills today?  If you’ve had some personal coaching, are you applying the skills at every opportunity?  If not, you are missing what every pro understands about the nature of personal change.

We’ve got to want it.

We’ve got to commit to it.

We’ve got to believe that the benefits of mastery are well with the effort.

“86.1 of business professional believe a solid set of solid presentation skills directly affect their career and income.“  December 2009, Distinction Presentation Impact Survey.

Do they really?

After the session (which culminated with one of my volunteers beating an awl to death – you had to be there) there were a number of people who wanted to chat.  One was an attractive, professionally dressed and well-groomed woman who had a particular challenge she wanted to discuss after the room begin to clear.

“I’m a senior manager in a PR firm and have to do team and client briefings several times a week. For some reason, I become absolutely terrified!  I turn bright red in front of the group and my hands start to flail nervously.  What’s happening to me?

It felt like I had one of the clue cards (Ms. Green), but the other pieces were a mystery to solve. Unfortunately, it’s pretty hard to unpack such deep issues in just a few minutes.  And I try to avoid being prescriptive in those settings much like a doctor will avoid grocery store diagnosis.  But I did reinforce one specific principle with her from our group session and in retrospect, can offer another for you…

1) The fear of “presenting”.   We coach hundreds of business professionals every year and as we spend time with them during the day, we find that some individual’s unreasonable fear goes back decades to a bad presentation experience, a grade school class that laughed at them or even significant feelings of inadequacy traceable to bad childhoods. 

Fully cognoscente that I am not a psychologist, I can’t help unpack those issues, but I can change the context of their fear.  My advice?  Turn every presentation (large or small) into a series of one-on-one conversations. No more standing and scanning the group aimlessly.  Rather, intentional eye-to-eye contact with one person at a time and for 4-5 solid seconds. Most people would feel very comfortable sitting in their offices talking to a single friend. We need to capture that feeling and bring it to our next presentation.

“Never let them catch you acting”.
(Keifer Sutherland on the best advice ever given to him) 
My advice to you?  Never let them catch you presenting.

Personal coaching approach – If I were working with this individual, I would have put them into a board room with one audience member to pass on some important information.  (Notice I did not say to present)  After 5-minutes of comfortable delivery, I would have added a second person for the next 5-minutes.  And every 5- minutes for the next hour adding another until the room was full. If this sounds a lot like the old science experiment of putting a frog in boiling water (they jump out) vs. putting them in cold water and raising the temperature, you’d be right. Slow and incremental increases in stimulus over time help us reinforce the right feelings and retard our instincts to panic and go into presentation mode.

2) Deliver your presentation before you deliver your presentation.   Think back to the recent winter Olympic games in Vancouver, BC Canada.  Do you remember watching the half-pipe snowboard competition?  Now try to remember what the competitors were doing in the moments before they pushed into the pipe.  Their closed-eyed, body twists and gyrations were not the result of the pounding rock music they were listening to. (Ok, maybe a little) But they were visualizing the experience their bodies were going to have so they could greatly enhance their preparation.  They would actually being making their first run for the second time.

Personal coaching approach – Fear is almost always a left-brain function so we need to crowd those fight or flight instincts out with hyper-preparation. Know your material. Own it.  When our brains are not working so hard to think about what we are going to say, we can focus on the more relational aspects of talking with some friends.  Go into the room when no one is there and deliver the presentation several times.  Maybe even tape some faces on those boardroom chairs and make a point of “telling your story” to individuals, not presenting to a group.

Bottom line, we need to remember our audiences want us to succeed.  They want us to be relaxed and comfortable. I can’t help a particular presenter much with non-specific unreasonable fear and anxiety but I can help them change the nature of how they view the entire process.  One-on-one conversations.  Preparation and practice.  And never let your meeting be the first time you’ve “experienced” the presentation.

So for now, I’m ok with not being able to solve every mystery related to presenter fear. (I’ll leave that up to my friend, Scott Lee, PhD.)  I much prefer to change the nature of the game we’re playing altogether and for most presenters, that is infinitely easier.

Q8. Rank these presentation frustrations from most to least challenging for you?

(Ranked responses based on full survey input)

3.7  Presentation technologies don’t always work as advertised

3.0  No time to actually practice delivering the presentation

2.9  The time it takes to create the slide presentation

2.8  Collaborating with others in creating and delivering the presentation

2.7  Getting feedback to know if people actual “got” the presentation

20 watchful eyes are targeted on you. You’re fumbling with your mouse to get the projector and computer synced. The audio’s not working. And they’re glancing at the clock while you’re sweating bullets. Is it any wonder, technology was ranked as the number one agitator? (Albeit not by much)

While it would have been great to know what specific technologies were the frustration-makers, it’s safe to assume it might have to do with projectors, remote pointing devices, patching in-room audio or maybe trying to integrate digital video or a live web hyperlink.  Unfortunately our tricky gadgets and tools may be doing more harm than good by diverting our time and attention from more important things- like- oh I don’t know- the message we’re trying to convey.

What this means to you…

Dozens of times every year I ask groups about their greatest presentation successes. More times than I can tell you I’m told about a seemingly horrible situation when a certain technology left the presenter(s) high and dry and they simply turned everything off and had a conversation with the customer, investor or partner.  No projector… no screen or PowerPoint. Just conversation.  And the funniest part?  They get the opportunity.  The “best meeting they ever had” so many have told us.  

There’s a lesson in all of this and it permeated our survey results. First, good presentations will never be about the stuff we bring into the presentation room. Second, there is indeed a “secret sauce” for presenters today.  Want to know what it is?   First and foremost, the art of presenting is not a technical skill, it’s all about some very important relational ones.   Thanks for being a part of our 2009 Presentation Impact Survey!

To receive a copy of the entire survey, visit our website and sign up for our Mark of Distinction eNewsletter.  All the results from the December 2009 Presentation Impact Survey will be in the March 2010 issue. Don’t miss it!

Q7. How much time do you actually spend practicing for a “high stakes” presentation?

12.1%  I seldom practice at all

16.2% 5 to 30-minutes

17.3%  30-minutes to an hour

29.2%  One to two hours

25.2%  More than two hours

We had to look at this result a few times. Really? Over 50% of those surveyed practiced an hour or more?  Either we have a lot of people blowing in our ear or they truly are practicing that much.  We suspect it’s the second theory but with a few caveats.  To some, practicing may be glancing at their slide deck on the plane trip to their big meeting. And for others, they may be actually practicing with their peers through each slide transition, handoff, and conclusion.  So, what are people actually doing?

Remember, 56.1% of our survey respondents indicated they felt they were average or below average presenters.  Yet in this question, 71.4% of people indicated they practiced 30 minutes to several hours for important presentations.  It certainly begs the question – if we are so average… and we’re practicing so much… then why aren’t we getting better?  I suspect the answer is that we don’t know how to practice or we’re just practicing  the wrong stuff and reinforcing our bad behaviors year after year after year.

What this means to you…

Maybe the great football coach Vince Lombardi had it right when he said, “Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.”  In other words, we are very capable of practicing some crazy stuff and still call it practice.  If practice to you means  looking at the visuals and loading the content into RAM, then you may be missing a very critical part of practice.  We can say all the right things, but if some marginal skills, nervous hands and eye contact that sprays the room like a fire hose is the conduit for the message, then research would strongly suggest your practice may not be producing the results you really want.

The key?   Maybe it’s about time you seek out someone who can bring some fresh perspective on your effectiveness!  You can certainly do a Google search under presentation trainers (you’ll get 4.1 million responses!)  but you still need to know what to look for so your investment will take you and your team to the next level. 

Look for these things in a professional presentation skills coaching organization:

• Self-awareness is critical to personal change.  Videotaping must play a central role in any coaching experience.
• Find a company with a long track history and check their references. Anyone can fill a screen with client logos.
• Customization for your team’s needs should be a strong consideration.  Find someone who understands your industry.
• Training is never a check in a box – it’s an outcome. Be realistic about the time it will take to create real behavioral change.
• Know how they will provide post-training support.  Skills will atrophe when there is no reinforcement and no accountability.

To receive a copy of the entire survey, visit our website and sign up for our Mark of Distinction eNewsletter.  All the results from the December 2009 Presentation Impact Survey will be in the March 2010 issue. Don’t miss it!

Q6. What do you find the most challenging part of creating and delivering a presentation?

35.7%   Putting together a good message

8.9%     Creating good quality presentation slides

13.8%   Delivering the presentation with confident skills

41.6%   All of the above!

With a new version of PowerPoint popping out every few years and with all the industry resources and experts helping us- you’d think we’d find presenting just a little easier today than 20 years ago.  But alas, over 40% of respondents said the whole cotton pickin’ process drove them nuts!  So what does this say about us and a worldwide effort to make presenting easier and less stressful? Here’s an idea… (your thoughts?)

What this means to you…

First and foremost, the art of presenting is a relational skill, not a technical one.  We can buy a tiny projector with a really bright image, but still turn and read bullet points off a screen for 30-minutes.  Or the new remote pointing device we just got at Best Buy promises new freedom, but a plodding and mechanical delivery style  still leaves your audience bored to tears. Or maybe you’re one of those who jumped ship and went to Apple’s Keynote software for a better presentation.  Unfortunately, if your underlying message is self-serving and presenter-focused, it will only create distance between you and those you wanted to influence.

Maybe you find this horribly demoralizing but there’s actually some good news here for presenters. There are many who do present very well and have discovered their own secret sauce.  Buy them coffee and steal some of their best ideas. Make notes the next time you watch a truly great presenter… what did they do that made them so good?  Did they tell good stories?  Hone the art of storytelling.  Did they exude more confidence by moving more confidently on stage.  Try to integrate a little more relaxed movement into your next presentation. 

The lesson of the ages… the things that make the biggest and most meaningful difference are not the things calling your name from a shelf at your local electronics store!

To receive a copy of the entire survey, visit our website and sign up for our Mark of Distinction eNewsletter. All the results from the December 2009 Presentation Impact Survey will be in the March 2010 issue. Don’t miss it!

Q5. We expect our managers to model good presentation skills.  How would you evaluate you own manager’s personal presentation skills?

13.8%     Very strong presenter

49.5%     Above average

25.2%    Just average

11.5%    Not very good or very poor

Ok, we were a little surprised. Over 63% of those surveyed actually thought their managers were pretty good presenters.  Many of you are probably a little blown away because you have a manager in mind who misses the mark… by a lot.  But could this actually be  a ‘chicken or egg’ response?  Do good presenters find quicker career paths in leadership or does leadership seem to challenge people to overcome their natural tendency towards mediocrity?

What this means to you…

One of our executive trainers worked for an international sports apparel company at one time in her career. She was unmistakably a great communicator!  During the course of her time there, she was offered a number of promotional opportunities - most she had to turn down.  She knew the positions were beyond her experience level but people just assumed significant competence because of her ability to communicate well. 

After working with hundreds of executives and senior managers, we find that a majority of them (there are obviously exceptions), demonstrate a better than average set of personal communication skills.  Are they great? A few. But most fall into the “better than average” category. Is there a morale to this story?  Maybe.  Find every opportunity you can to receive coaching to enhance your ability to shape, design and deliver a rock solid presentation. Odds are if we’ve interpreted this data right, you will find that next big promotion will come just that much sooner. 

See what value Warren Bullet puts on personal communication skills!

To receive a copy of the entire survey, visit our website and sign up for our Mark of Distinction eNewsletter. All the results from the December 2009 Presentation Impact Survey will be in the March 2010 issue. Don’t miss it!

Q4. What best describes the PowerPoint presentations your team delivers?

26.1%     High caliber and well-designed presentations

25.2%     Pretty simple – sometimes bordering on too elementary

33.3%    Way too much information being communicated on our slides

15.4%    Other  (Possible meaning just “average”)

Nearly 60% were not very proud of their presentations!  (Remember, this survey was positioned around high stakes presentations)  That’s not very good news since we seem to place more emphasis these days on PowerPoint than the skills associated with actually delivering the messages.  (Need proof?  How much has your company spent on getting some delivery skills coaching in the last year?)   Once again these results would seem to represent a terrible irony.  As previously reported, over 86% of those surveyed felt good presentations and presenting skills directly impact their careers and income.

Perhaps the root cause lies in the origins of PowerPoint.  In 1986-87, presenters were just coming off a time where expensive service bureaus were the only path to nice looking computer graphic slides (and an alternative to “foils”).  Then came the unbelievable promise from Microsoft… ”anyone can create a dazzling presentation” and everyone tried.  When that proved not to be the case, a “good enough” mentality begin to permeate the entire crazy process and little has changed in 30 years as reflected in this survey question.

It’s not that we’ve stopped striving for better presentations.  The current trend of individuals migrating to Apple’s Keynote  in hopes of creating better visuals is proof of that.  But too often, although the tools seem to change,the end results does not.  See if you agree with my blog…Never the Paintbrush – Always the Artist.

What this means to you…

Before you get dismayed with the whole process and go looking for the closest bridge, there’s hope for better, more professional presentations.  And it comes in the form of three great resources…

A new breed of presentation user-conference – The Presentation Summit October 17-20, 2010 – San Diego.  This annual conference brings together those who are serious about elevating the caliber of their presentation design skills.  You’ll get an opportunity to learn from the best in the world!

Best practice presentation design repositories - SlideShare
Let’s face it, good design is often a bit subjective but you will find hundreds of great examples of how people have taken more unique approaches to creating great visuals.  Hang out there and troll for some fresh ideas.

Presentation design professionals – Distinction Communication, Inc.
A Google search under “presentation designers” will yield about 77,000 responses. But beware, not all designers are created equal.  The last thing you need is a desktop publishing person who dabbles in presentation design. Be sure to review their portfolios and make sure they can also bring to the table the ability to help you with the messaging piece.  The “prettiest” slides in the world are pointless unless the underlying story is compelling.

To receive a copy of the entire survey, visit our website and sign up for our Mark of Distinction eNewsletter. All the results from the December 2009 Presentation Impact Survey will be in the March 2010 issue. Don’t miss it!

Q3. Which best reflects your ability to get honest & constructive feedback on your presentation skill?

30.8%  I get pretty regular & helpful feedback

52.8%   The feedback I receive is very infrequent and not helpful

16.1%   I never receive direct input or my manager doesn’t know how to give it

It’s pretty ironic. In our first survey question, we asked about the importance of presentation skills and over 86% indicated that good presentation skills directly impacted their careers and income. But close to 70% in our survey indicated they get little or no feedback from their managers or others. While companies are investing in many areas as the economy recovers, they seem to place very low importance on the one skill that influences so many others – The ability to communicate with clarity and confidence.

What this means to you…

If you’re lucky, you’re one of the nearly 31% who thought they got good feedback and coaching. But if you are not, you may want to find a good resource real soon!  Toastmasters has groups in nearly every city and is a great resource for some.  Others may be looking for something more immediate and in-depth.  Check out our next public full-day coaching workshop. Nearly 9 out of 10 attendees rate it as “one of the best” professional development experiences they’ve ever had. Pretty good, right?

To receive a copy of the entire survey, visit our website and sign up for our Mark of Distinction eNewsletter.  All the results from the December 2009 Presentation Impact Survey will be in the March 2010 issue. Don’t miss it!

Q2. Do you believe you are an effective communicator?

45.5% I think I’m a somewhat “average” presenter

43.9% Yes, I believe I’m a pretty “effective” presenter

10.5% No. I’m aware that my skills are not very strong

Not bad… if others think the same! In a similar question posed to 1,200 business professionals in the book, The Leader’s Voice, 86% believed they were effective communicators. Unfortunately, only 17% of their audiences agreed. Ouch. Not the same at all. It might be fair to say that presenters collectively suffer from a profound lack of self-awareness.  So we were naturally curious.

In our survey, 10.5% thought they were “not strong” and the highest response, 45.5% saw themselves as just “average”.  We tend to think that the bar for being an effective communicator today should be set a tad higher than just being “average”.  What do you think?

What this means to you…

Let’s be honest, if you’re an average (or not quite) presenter these days, the chances of being heard and remembered are pretty unlikely.  As we tell our clients, our years of experience continue to reinforce the fact that the world is not full of horrible presenters. Rather it’s full of very average ones.  I’m not sure where you think you may fit, but if our 1st survey question reflects business communicator’s take on the importance of being a good presenter, being “average” most likely means your career, compensation or both have been adversely impacted.

To receive a copy of the entire survey, visit our website and sign up for our Mark of Distinction eNewsletter.  All the results from the December 2009 Presentation Impact Survey will be in the March 2010 issue. Don’t miss it! You’ll also find a library of presentation-related podcasts, relevant blogs and articles.

Q1. How would you rank the importance of personal presentation skills in what you do?

86.1% Communicating with a solid level of clarity and confidence directly impacts my career & income.”

13.8% I present from time to time but the stakes don’t seem all that high

0% I don’t do any formal presentations

Watch out!  According to our survey participants, communicating confidently affects how much you’ll be eating out this month- or if you’ll even have a job. While it may not seem that dire, we hear from our clients every day that presenting confidently and meaningfully is mission critical to your success.  You can know a product line inside and out, but if you can’t sell it to others, you’re hosed.  You can slice and dice a P&L 12 ways from Sunday, but if you can’t inspire confidence in the people you lead and cast a meaningful vision of the future, you will never realize your leadership potential.

What this means to you…

You may not think you present often but I’d suggest your definition of ‘presentation’ may need expanding. I’d make a bet (and I’m not a betting man) that you communicate important information and ideas to others on a daily basis.  Rarely has there been a life skill that transcends so many areas of our lives. Whether you’re delivering a keynote, doing an elevator pitch or addressing a parent-teacher conference, you are presenting.  Find a place to help you cultivate those important skills.  If you need some ideas – we may have a few    Distinction Communication – Where story & storyteller drive ideas and information!

To receive a copy of the entire survey, visit our website and sign up for our Mark of Distinction eNewsletter.  All the results from the December 2009 Presentation Impact Survey will be in the March 2010 issue. Don’t miss it!

So, why did we do the survey? Because we’re all presenters in some way, shape, or form and being heard by customers, peers and partners is more critical now than ever. So watch for our blogs the next 5 weeks (Tuesdays & Fridays), share your comments on our postings, and hopefully we’ll all learn a little something along the way.

First survey result coming this Friday! Discover what % believed a solid set of presentation skills directly impacted their career and income!  You’ll be surprised!

Target survey demographic: Business Professionals
(Executives, Sales, Marketing, Product Dev., HR & OD, Ops Managers, Engineers…)

To receive a copy of the entire survey, visit our website and sign up for our Mark of Distinction eNewsletter.  All the results from the December 2009 Presentation Impact Survey will be in the March 2010 issue. Don’t miss it!

If you’ve ever had to speak from behind a lecture, then you’ve experienced the same predicament – anxious hands find nervous things to do and make no mistake – you’re sending signals of low confidence whether its true or not.

But for this blog, I want to shift gears a bit to the weather guy or gal. Their spot usually comes at the end of the newscast and depending on what they have to say – you’ll either hate them or love.

Here’s what I want you to see next time you’re watching the weather. They have an electronic device in their hand. You hardly know it’s there but many are masters of its use.  Somehow they are making you believe they are able to highlight temperatures, change 3d settings, switch views and push high pressure zones out to sea with their fingertips.  Although the technologies are evolving – for most they are using the small remote devices to advance pre-created images and animations.  (Sound familiar?)

Here are 3 lessons that every presenter can learn from your local weather person

1) They don’t point their control device like a phaser weapon, they subtly click the button as they gesture to the screen.  What is the perception?  They are somehow seamlessly creating change by their spoken word. No fanfare. No stop and point or technical pauses while they explore the buttons on their remote – just smooth and seamless interaction.

Here’s the lesson.  If you’re still using an IR remote during your presentations, ditch it for an RF device and practice it’s stealthy use until people forget its in your hand.

2) They always know what’s coming next because their gesture anticipates the change.  If you want to fall into the category of master presenter, do the same. For example, gesture to the screen from bottom to top (while you click your remote while it still rests at your side) and let your audience observe the bar chart growing from bottom to top. Other ideas?  Touch elements on screen as you click and highlight them.  There are endless variations on this but here’s the point – make your technology transparent and anticipate.

3) Their audiences are more important than storm clouds. Can you imagine a weather man who doesn’t take their eyes off of a weather chart?  They wouldn’t have a job very long.  They never lose track of the fact that there are a few hundred thousand people behind the camera lens. And you as a presenter may momentarily create focus on the screen, but the vast majority of your interaction will be eyes-to-eyes-to eyes.  Not screen to floor – to foreheads – to screen – to ceiling tiles to screen and then maybe eyes.

So you’ve got your homework.  Watch you weather man or woman tonight. Watch how covertly they use their small touchpad to change the screen. That is precisely how skilled and practiced you need to be.  Because good presentations are seamless and your technology will never be as important as the connection to your audience.

I love the way they make me think.  How they challenge my stuck thinking and use the unexpected to surprise and delight a sometimes jaded heart.  And I’ve found these gifted people in the most unusual places; a parent in a school board meeting, a business conference break-out session and even on rare occasion, the pulpit.

From time to time on my way home from the airport, I would catch brief moments of Pastor Wayne Cordeiro’s Sunday morning radio sermon from his church in Hawaii.  I had often wondered if he was as compelling in person as he was on the radio.  So few clergy (of any flavor or variety) seem to grasp the need to change decades old “presentation” styles to add a newness to timeless messages.  Is it any wonder so many people are seeking their spiritual enrichment in some pretty out-of-the-way places these days.

Last week, however, I stumbled across Wayne Cordeiro’s website. It had a number of links to his sermon videos.  I was curious so I search the list of titles until I found one that sounded interesting.  It was simply called… “Stretch”

After some music by a worship band he started his sermon.  At the 42 minute mark he walked over to the podium behind him and picked up a plain sheet of paper. And for the next 4-minutes and 56-seconds used that simple piece of paper to convey a profound spiritual truth.  As a speaker coach I see good speakers on occasion, but was not prepared for his masterful use of an inanimate object to tell the story of people who are crushed, pressured, restored and renewed by their creator God.

“Stretch” (42-minute mark)

There’s so much presenters, both secular & religious, can learn from Pastor Wayne Cordeiro.  Mere words simply need something more to lodge important ideas in our thinking.  As I write this blog, I have a wadded up piece of paper on the shelf next to my desk.  Anyone visiting my office might be inclined to do me a favor and toss it in the garbage can but they would be discarding a very intentional reminder.

We don’t necessarily lose our scars but we do lose our enslavement to them.  Curious?  See how one master communicator used a simple piece of paper to convey a life changing message.

First, I applaud their efforts.  There are many kinds of sales training that can be conducted at arms length and on demand with great effectiveness.  But as managing executives attempt to eek out profitability at any cost and from every business process, there will no doubt be an unintended consequence on many company’s long-term sales efforts.

For years we’ve admonished sales people to create deeper relationships with their customers. Now, an often unbalanced approach to sales training threatens to undo our previous guidance creating greater distance between sales professionals and those who are so critical to their future.

Training is not a check in a box – it’s an outcome.

Someone once said that when the only solution we have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.  And too often we compromise outcomes because we’re determined to make virtual sales training work at any cost.  As an example, we get this request on occasion… “Is there some kind of presentation skills training we can do virtually?  It’s so costly to put 10 people into a room and work their personal communication skills in high stakes sales settings.”  I find myself at a momentary loss for words.

Making the wrong decision at this critical moment can have the unintended consequence (and risk) of giving people a false sense they’ve “been trained” when they really haven’t.

I could do an energetic web conference on presentation skills and the attendees would all feel they’ve been trained only to tank an important customer presentation the next morning (costing their company millions of dollars).  In that case, the inappropriate application of learning carried a heavy cost indeed that far outweighed the training expense difference by a factor of 1,000x or more.

There’s certainly a case to be made for not wasting money and resources, but when the stakes are high, when the implications for me and my company are significant and far reaching, real human interaction at a reasonable cost will always produce more consistent results.  It’s how we are wired as human beings because first and foremost the art of presenting is a relational skill, not a technical one.

We may have won the cost battle for the moment in sales training.  But many will lose the overall revenue war in the longer-term to others who still understand the value of human interaction.

The ingredients in the presentation process are pretty standard too.  You take one part laptop computer, 2 parts PowerPoint presentation,  add a remote pointing device and an electronic projector and you have a presentation.   You’ve experienced one – you’ve experienced them all.  But despite having the same basic elements available to all of us, the outcomes could not be more different.  And the results may not always leave a very good after taste.  Here are a few observations for your consideration…

The magic is always in the hands of the barista, not the ingredients – Kristin does this all the time. And she has developed a process that is the same every day.  If you don’t present often, you most likely will find yourself changing your message/ design routine every time you approach a new presentation.  Here are a few tips for you…

1) Use a consistent messaging process - Starting at slide one and  cobbling together a presentation from the last 5 you’ve done is sure to create a patchwork quilt message you may feel comfortable “giving”, but one that others will struggle to “get”.  Often times a 7-step messaging model we use provides clear guidance for shaping a presentation that is meaningful to your audience.

1- Identify a common audience issue(s), validate during the presentation

2- Articulate the impact using their words  (morale, productivity, profitability…)

3- What do they need to resolve the challenge?

4- Offer a crisp & relevant solution tied to needs. KISS principle in effect.

5- Identify the benefits of the solution.
(FYI – features are product attributes, benefits are how it resolves step 1 issues)

6 – What makes your solution different from others?  (Typically very weak)

7 - Validate with case study. (Psychological principle of Social Proof)

Conclusion – Execute a crisp Summary (1 slide) and Close (relevant story)

2) Less is ALWAYS more in this unique medium - It may seem counter-intuitive but the more you have on screen, the less people will get.  It’s a fact.  Research has proven it time and time again.  Every audience you meet will validate this fact. YET… 90% of all presenters (pre-occupied with “giving” the presentation) will overbuild their visuals.

All ingredients are not created equal - I found that my coffee place uses Ghirardelli powdered chocolate while so many others use cheap syrup.  That made all the difference.  Not all presentation components are the same either.  Although your laptop, projector and pointing device give you all the basics, your PowerPoint is the deal breaker.  And know this, poorly created PowerPoint destroys even good presenters.  When it’s obvious your text-heavy, overwhelming visuals are playing the presenter like a marionette, you’ve lost the battle and your audience knows it.  Here’s how you’ll know if you’re a slave to your PowerPoint…

1) You find yourself turning frequently to the screen because you are fearful of missing a bullet.

Remedy – Talk to the essence of the slide and only call out a single bullet or two to elaborate.  Building each bullet creates bullet readers

2) Your bullets wrap and you use sub-bullets and maybe even sub-sub bullets!

Remedy – Get rid of them!  If you can’t keep bullets to one line , you are not in the drivers seat.  Sub-bullets are just crutch talking points for unprepared presenters

3) Your audience can’t get the gist of your slide in 7-seconds

Remedy – Use the 7-second rule to minimize visual concepts or build them on a mouse-click. Just this one idea will make you better than 80% of presenters!

When I’m on the road, I know I’m taking my chances with my double-20 ounce mocha but I take my chances anyhow.  Why?  Because of the hope it just may be better at the next place.  There is no greater legacy for a presenter then someone who has a consistent track record of pleasantly surprising your audience with crisp, clear messages, cleanly illustrated and delivered with confidence & passion.  That will always keep them coming back for more.

A few times a year I bareboat charter a 42 ft. sailboat out of Anacortes, WA for a week of sailing in the San Juan Islands. And because we’ve got room (and I need to split the cost to make it affordable), we typically invite two other couples with us.  That’s me sitting behind one of our new recruits.

It may look like I’m sucking up the sun but I’m really making sure we don’t hit a log or another boat sending this quarter of a million dollar beauty to the bottom of Rosario Strait. After all, it is my name on the charter agreement.

Most of our vacation partners have never sailed before.  And because of the intimidation factor, would probably stay as far away as possible from the big wheel except for one thing – I won’t let them. I’ve learned the more time they log the more experience they get, the sooner I can relax a little.  You’re probably wondering where the presentation tie-in comes… I’m getting there.

Every year I sit through skipper briefings before we head out and every year I see people chartering large, expensive boats who have no business being on the water.  (“What do those little numbers mean on the charts?” Yikes!)  Yet they will no doubt try to mentor their crews in the art of sailing from a limited proficiency level.  There’s a big difference between a jib and a jibe and they’ll probably figure it out the hard way.  But the chartering service does run a sailing school and on occasion a future captain will acknowledge his/her lack of experience and learn a few things from a professional before heading out on their own.

Most management development programs I see seem to be about grooming the next generation executive in analyzing a P&L, how to impact key business metrics or principles of group leadership. But rarely do senior executives mentor their direct reports in the art of presenting. The probable reason – many aren’t so sure about it themselves and would acknowledge they are pretty average in this critical leadership skill.

In a nutshell, that’s the role we often play with our clients.  We don’t want to “sail their boat”, but we do want to give them some well-seasoned insight into how to shape, design and deliver their very important presentations.  And if we do that well, we can help them avoid the consequences of weakly communicated messages, tentative personal skills and inadequate planning.  Some will engage us, learn the basics and partner with us to coach from the back seat – while others will be satisfied with winging it year after year – not realizing the dangers it creates for their companies.

How do your senior leaders get feedback?  Is it objective?  What is it costing your company because they are not developing those important skills in their future executives?

That’s it.  I’m out-of-here for a week on the water. But as a good captain,  there’s something I learned a long time ago… I can relinguish the helm but I never relinquish the responsibility.

But to everyone’s surprise, he pulled out a driver.  A driver! It may not be uncommon for us mere amateurs to want to “school boy” an impressive smash to impress those in our grouping, but we expect pros to have a bit more common sense – a simple 5 iron would have been enough. But Van de Velde was not solely responsible for the decision.  His caddie should have been the voice of reason but abdicated his role.  After all, he had a several shot buffer to play with!

Long story – short, between an errant shot into the high grass, a shot bounced off the grand stands into the nearby water and a poor putting effort, he scored a triple bogey 7 and lost by one shot.  The crowd was stunned.  His playing partners were stunned.  And the millions of TV viewers were incredulous.

Where’s the life lesson in all of this mess?  Simple.  Executive-level presenters often get distracted and can make some pretty bad choices in how they communicate critical messages to others. They can become over reliant on letting their PowerPoint do the heavy lifting of an important message.  They can get so message focused they forget that the art of presenting is a relational skill not a technical one.  And if those things haven’t managed to derail the big opportunity yet, they can also totally forget about what their audience desperately needs from them on that important day.

Here are three important reasons executives need presentation coaches.

1) They need a truth teller in their lives – Too often those around senior managers pull their punches and provide only vague feedback if any at all.  When an executive has some obvious presentation challenges (and many do), they desperately need someone to tell them the truth.

“86% of business professionals think they are effective communicators.
Only 16% of their audiences agreed!” The Leader’s Voice

2) Executives Need Some Solid Basis for Skill Examination – If I asked a casual golfer to give me some feedback on my swing, most would say… “Looks pretty good to me!”.  That’s why we seek out professional coaches.  At this point, you shouldn’t be looking for a business-card coach but someone who has proven experience with executives at their specific level and can provide meaningful insight.

3) Executives Need to Look Beyond the Immediate – Most executives think of personal  coaching in the presentation skills area when they are a week away from a major speaking opportunity. At that moment the stakes are crystal clear and the pressure is on deliver.  But once beyond the event, the vast majority forget what was so important to them a week before and get lost in the tyranny of the urgent.  And for them, the cycle will continue year after painful year and they rarely improve because the skills to communicate meaningful, personal, credible and authentic messages are too quickly forgotten.

Recently I attended an international conference where one of the keynote presenters mentioned that he and his team received “coaching” several times a year?  His skills?  Not great. He paced like a caged tiger on uppers and his eye contact sprayed the room like a fire house.  If it weren’t for his energy level, he would have been just another very forgettable keynote.

If your executives don’t have a “caddie” they can trust – they desperately need one. If they don’t have someone who can challenge them on some personal communication style issues and know how to turn them around – they will be missing an important part of being a leader today.

As Van de Velde’s playing partner in the 1999 British Open said later, “I was feeling for him coming up to the 18th green. He had thrown away the tournament.”   Don’t be that guy. Don’t be that executive people pat on their back as they come off the stage and then roll their eyes as they walk back to their office.

I remember stumbling across this Warren Beatty quote a few years back. To be honest, for the longest time I struggled with attributing something seemingly profound to a Hollywood actor but I guess I got over that. I felt like he had stumbled on something important to presenters.

There’s a big difference between informing the intellect and touching the human heart. And for the most part, the business world seems to move a lot of brain-directed data; quarterly metrics -sales quotas – close rations – year-over-year growth – customer retention. It’s how business measures itself and I get the need for presentations that address those things. But the older I get, the more connecting with the heart of an audience rather than just their heads. matters to me. What we do and how we do it is for a season.  Who we are is for a lifetime and beyond.

When I finish an important presentation, what is my audience feeling? Hope? Empowerment? Personal challenge?  “I can do that!”  The desire to be more?

At the end of some my public speaking engagements I’ll close with a story of a friend, Tim McGarry. He was a great guy and family man I worked with years ago at InFocus. Shortly after I left the company, I heard he had developed inoperable brain cancer.  Although chemo had robbed him of his hair, it never robbed him of his perspective. As a dozen or so of us gathered one evening to be an encouragement to Tim, he caught us all off guard with these words…

“I’m the luckiest man in the world”

Our jaws dropped.  I’m sure he saw that.  But our momentary shock was quickly addressed as he continued…   “It’s not that I’m looking forward to the months ahead, but for right now… at this moment, I know what’s important in my life. My priorities are all perfectly aligned. I want that for all of you here tonight.”

Tim would die less than 6 months later. But he taught us an important lesson that night. One that I remember as I stand in front of a large group. Anyone can make an audience think.  But it is the exceptional presenter who can make them feel.

The answer to “why” is actually pretty simple.  The act of conceptualizing what we want to put into a presentation is often a very intellectual exercise. With the left side of the brain fully engaged for the task, the intellect is very comfortable with the use of bullets and sub-bullets to chart a course. There’s just one major problem.  That approach all but guarantees the lowest level of recall and internalization of a message by our audiences.  For the presentation to be meaningful & remembered, it must transition from text (left-brain) to more simplified visually-rich ideas (right-brain).    Sadly… 80-90% of the time that critical transition never occurs and we all know the mind-numbing result.

One way we can make that transition is through the use of metaphor.  In this example, you can see the initial slide identifies 8 sales training categories in bullet form.  In the second example, that same concept is illustrated as categories on a bookshelf.  In the beginning of the presentation, they are all identified and then the individual icons are used in the corner of each section to help the audience track along.  Find your metaphor and your audience will remember longer!

Although the makers of many presentation graphics packages will tout ‘anyone can be a presentation designer’ now, it’s simply not true. They can certainly help people avoid some design pitfalls and make more features accessible to the masses, but the “common sense” wizard will never be a reality in our lifetime.  And your typical business professional will still have the option to fill a screen full of bullets and will.  Despite the benefit of hundreds of books and thousands of great websites… some things have not changed at all in 20 years.

Yet, in the general presentations community, there’s a reoccurring push for “serious” presentation designers to move to Apple’s Keynote.  Every one is looking for an edge and I get that.  But I have a question.  Why is it I can still see marginal presentations produced in Keynote and yet discover beautiful and effective visual communication tools come out of PowerPoint 2000 – a 9-year old software product?

The answer is… (and always will be) this important truth.  Talented and creative presentation designers will make works of communication art no matter what canvas they’re using.   And the vast majority of everyone else will continue to look for the next trendy tool to give them an edge but you will always be able to tell the difference.

There’s nothing wrong with Apple’s Keynote or other higher-end presentation tools.  But I learned a long time ago a very painful (and expensive) reality… I can buy Nike golf balls and still not hit them like Tiger Woods.   And the only ones who seem to benefit from my decision are those in the golf shop.

But going into it, I already know what some in the audience will be thinking. This session is about perfecting certain skills – but they would be wrong.  Perfection has little to do with becoming a great presenter & communicator.  As a matter of fact – the more we seek perfection, the less impact we seem to have.  (Check out this fun podcast on perfection vs. authenticity.)

To the contrary, things that are genuine are very attractive to us. Not the kind of quasi-reality we see on TV, but the real deal. If you want the key to personal effectiveness – I’m going to tell you.  Ready?  People are most influenced by people just like them.  It’s what makes us credible and relevant.  We often find it difficult to relate to the overly polished or those who have embraced the form of being a great communicator and somehow missed the essence of it.

From time to time we’ll have someone in our coaching workshops that goes into “presentation mode”.  They seem to be saying all the right things but there is an artificial flavor to what we are seeing and everyone can feel it.  Eventually we catch the person during the break and ask them to simply talk to the group and be themselves.  Some make an amazing and immediate transformation before our very eyes!  Others never break free and their overly orchestrated delivery only manages to create distance from those they had hoped to impress.

Don’t get me wrong – we all have stuff we can work on.  But for most of us, the areas that have become distractions to others or that create unintended distance from our audiences – are the things we are least aware of.  We simply need an objective set of eyes to help us to the next level.

We are at our very best when we simply talk to our audiences – a series of  one-on-one conversations.  We share things we are passionate about.  And finally, we consider their knothole in the fence in all we do and say.  That’s the secret sauce of being a truly great communicator.  Perfection is simply the wrong goal.

If you have a moment, check out my blog on making an audiences feel, not just think.  It just may change how you approach your next presentation.