Is Presentation Technology a Nightmare?

Dan Maddux, Executive Director of the American Payroll Association, agrees. He oversees 350 meetings year for APA's more than 18,000 members. He has been hiring professional speakers, government officials, and name entertainment for 17 years for their yearly congress. Maddux says his favorite speakers use few if any audio/visuals. "Every time your PowerPoint slide is on the screen, you aren't!" he says. "Most disappointing," he says, "is when dynamic speakers totally overshadow themselves and their performance with their slides."

Technology is terrific -- as long as it supports and enhances your connection with your audience. Corporate communication departments can use technology magnificently. What good speakers have is story telling ability! If your listeners could run your presentation without you, why are you there?

Start with Great Stories

Start by answering the audience's basic question, "Why should I care about your subject?" Turn numbing data into exciting pictures of what will change in the listener's life or business. Help them make the decision your presentation is designed to promote.

In the end, your message and power of persuasion depends on creating exciting pictures in the minds of your audience, not only on a screen. Use your unique stories to stimulate your audience's most powerful sensory organs, their imaginations. More than any showy visuals, people will remember what they 'see' in their minds while they are listening. When we think of memorable Hollywood films, what we usually remember most are the moving, dramatic, and funny stories that movies tell. The screenwriter Robert McKee says, "Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact."

All actors recognize the value of great stories and the importance of making them come alive. I teach business leaders and sales professionals to use stories to train, lead and sell.

An audience of one or a thousand will always prefer a trivial story brilliantly told to a brilliant one told badly.

Executive speech coaching has become an exciting part of my business. Often, a corporate speaker brings me sheets of statistics and says, "Here's what I want to talk about."

"Why should your audience care about all this?," I ask. "Where is the excitement? What can we illustrate with stories?" Then we set about turning the numbing data into stimulating descriptions of what it all means.

Don't depend on PowerPoint, slides, and overheads alone to tell your story.

Am I asking you not to use these tools? NO! But first decide what you want to say. What are your points of wisdom? How can you illustrate these points best? Use your support materials to support your case.

You need to connect with your audience emotionally as well as intellectually. Look at the people you're talking to, not at your notes. Keep the type on your slides to a minimum. Your audience is there to listen to your stories, not read them.

Relate your stories to the needs and interests of your audience. For example, if you're talking to salespeople, tell stories about how your satisfied clients have used your product or service. Use their comments as exciting and vivid dialogue in your story. Follow the classic Hollywood formula:

Start with interesting characters. Add sparkling dialogue. End with an important lesson learned.

Remember, everyone resists a sales presentation, but few can resist a good story well told.

Add Technology Judiciously

Use technology to support the message, not visa versa. An over-reliance on flashy affects can even negate the message. A very fine presenter I know had a nightmarish experience when he was invited at the last minute to speak for a small group in Las Vegas. The audience would be young and the theme MTVish. It was, without a doubt, one of the most exciting meetings he'd ever attended. There were actual MTV clips, high-powered music, and the officers came dressed as rap stars. The intensity was so great that it was impossible to get the audience to focus on a real live speaker or the topic of the meeting. The goal was lost in the glitz.

Don't let your people fall into the trap of using technology as a substitute for communicating directly with their members. Their audiences want to connect with a leader, not glossy graphics. By all means, use audio/visual technology as a valuable support, but never, never lose the powerful personal touch! It should serve you and your message, not the other way around. Use it at is was designed to be used - to enhance your message, not to eclipse it.

Patricia Fripp CSP, CPAE is a San Francisco-based executive speech coach and award-winning professional speaker on Change, Customer Service, Promoting Business, and Communication Skills. She is the author of Get What You Want! and creator of several popular audio programs on speaking and presentation skills. Patricia is Past-President of the National Speakers Association. Meetings and Conventions Magazine named Fripp "one of the country's most electrifying speakers!"

 

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