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Nationally-recognized
experts in professional presentation messaging, design and high
stakes delivery skills coaching
Mark of Distinction Quarterly
Newsletter - March 2010
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You spoke, we took
notes... Distinction's
2009 Presentation Impact Survey Results!
Our
2009 Survey Drawing Winner of a Dell Mini-Notebook - Diana Strand,
Concur, Redmond, WA
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Many surprises in this year's survey results...
 We learned a lot this year. If you've been following our
blogs and tweets, you noticed there were some responses we fully
expected and a few that caught us completely off guard! With so
much being written these days about the need to be on the leading-bleeding
edge of social networking for presenters, we found they
were more concerned with things much more basic. We think you'll
find the results compelling!
For more
interaction on the topics, click over to the blog full commentary and
jump into the conversation!
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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
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Q2 - Do you believe
you are an effective communicator?
45.5% 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
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. It begs the
question, what would others say about you? The lesson?
Presenters simply don't see themselves as others do!
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Q3 - Which reflects
your ability to get honest/constructive feedback on your pres. 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
What's
wrong with this picture? Over 86% said these skills are critical to
their careers yet so few get good feedback. This data point points
out the #1 challenge presenters face in personal improvement
- inadequate feedback!
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Q4 - What best
describes the PowerPoint presentations your team delivers?
26.0% High caliber and well-designed presentations
25.2% Pretty simple - sometimes bordering on very
elementary
33.3% Way too much information being communicated on our
slides - visually complex
Neary
three out of four of all survey respondents had a gripe about their
visual presentations. After decades of better tools, enhanced resources
and an infinite parade of informational websites, not much has changed.
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Q5 - How would you
evaluate you own manager's personal presentation skills?
13.8% Very strong presenter
49.5% Above average presenter
25.2% Just an average presenter
8.9%
Not a very good presenter
2.6% A very poor
presenter
Here was a
nice surprise. Most (63.3%) think their immediate manager is a good
model for presentation skills. The lesson here? Good
presenters seem to bubble to the top in leadership roles everywhere!
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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
Ok, this
was a bit funny and a bit predictable. The vast majority thought the
entire crazy process - messaging, presentation creation and
delivery gave them a headache! What do you think?
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Q7 - How much time do
you actually spend practicing for a "high stakes"
presentation?
12.1% I seldom have time to practice at all
17.0% 30 minutes to one hour
25.2% More than two hours!
Wow,
another great surprise. People actually practice but do they practice
the right things? In our previous question, over 55% thought they
were average or below average. It certainly begs the question, if we're
actually practicing that much, how come we're not getting much better?
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Q8 - Rank these
presentation frustrations from most to least challenging for you?
#1 Challenge Presentation
technologies don't always work as advertised
#2 No time to actually practice
delivering the presentation
#3 The time it takes to create the slide presentation
#4 Collaborating with others in creating and delivering the
presentation
#5 Getting feedback to know if people actual "got"
the presentation
Interesting
that technology final shows up on our list. Despite laptops that
don't lock up as much, projectors that plug and play pretty well and
remote devices that install seamlessly - technology still was the #1
issue. Anyone listening out there?
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Let me distill down what we
think we learned this year...
 Most of us believe
presentation skills definitely affect our career and income!
But... despite tons of resources available to all
of us, we still struggle with the basics.
And although we place huge value on the skills, most
presenters get little or no feedback.
At its surface, the results seem to
be fraught with layers of contradiction but maybe that
just underscores the many ways we're pulled as human beings these
days. The tyranny of the urgent, as a life principle, is as true
today as it was 30 years ago and we just have more things that demand
our time and attention. But just like anything that's really
important to us, we need to find the time for personal development. If
we don't, we get busy with necessary things and settle for some
level of mediocrity in the truly critical ones.
I offer you just a single simple link. If you are
serious about getting better at presenting. If you are tired of
feeling inadequate or unprepared.... and if you are ready for 2010 to
be different....Click here.
Best wishes for a successful 2010! jim
Jim Endicott -
President, Distinction Communication, Inc.
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