If you’re a Startup founder, you’ve heard this all before. “Your elevator pitch should be able to convince anyone in 30 seconds in an elevator”. Hold on hold on hold on! Let’s pause for a few seconds. Imagine that the roles are reversed. You’re in the elevator, lost in your thoughts, minding your own business. There is one other person in it, who you don’t know, and that person is looking intensely at you. You find it weird and you feel a bit uncomfortable. But the worst is yet to come. That person starts talking to you! By the time your brain switches from “where did I put my keys” to “why is he talking to me and what is he talking about?” the doors of the lift open, and you get out of it as fast as possible, not looking back from fear that weirdo could start talking to you again.
Last week we saw how presentation vultures can destroy your confidence and ability to present in front of an audience. We saw that the best way to fend them off is to strengthen your vital space anchor. But how can you do that?
If your presentation has an objective, a clear message, it is much easier to use it as an anchor. Let’s imagine for example that the key message is that your presentation is about a new software service that offers necessary services to protect your IT systems. But the vultures—who don’t really understand what it’s about—are out to eat the tech guy. They question every choice, every detail, every functionality. The presentation turns into an endless discussion of details. If that happens, re-anchor the presentation. Remind them of the objective, the message: “Yes, we can discuss about whether we can add the animated dog on the configuration page later, but this is secondary. What is really important is that we guarantee that we have the right level of protection, and this is the best tool to do it.”
Maybe you feel that your last presentation was a complete failure. You didn’t manage to shake off your nerves. You became confused. The client or your boss criticized you. Maybe you’ve been caught in a downward spiral for some time, each criticism making you lose confidence, and making the next presentation worse. I have good news for you: no matter what your situation is, this vicious circle can be broken, and you gain the necessary confidence to enjoy presenting.
A few weeks ago, Ideas on Stage had the privilege of organizing a sales presentation training for Krauthammer at Dolce La Hulpe, close to Brussels in Belgium. For us, delivering a training for dozens of senior people at Krauthammer, one of the world’s most respected sales and management training companies, felt like designing something for Jonathan Ive, Apple’s legendary designer: a bit intimidating but incredibly exciting.
The training met with great success, and it was fantastic to work with such talented people, but what I will remember most are two presentations. During the hands-on course, groups prepared a sales pitch, and at the end of the day, each group had to deliver its presentation in front of the others.
I know, paraphrasing the motto of the great Muhammad Ali, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”, doesn’t seem to make much sense. Yet my point is that in a debate it is extremely important to listen and move with a maximum of agility, and talk with a maximum of punch.
Take the example of the Gilets jaunes controversy in France. The government was completely taken by surprise by the popularity of the movement. Their initial listening position lacked agility and guile. They were perceived as static, which gave the impression, justified or not, that they were not listening at all. Their counters used words that didn’t have any punch, believing that the threat would disappear by itself.
By now, you’ve probably heard that Apple was doomed. Last Wednesday they released a profit warning press release, followed by an interview with CEO Tim Cook.
I’m all too aware of Apple’s previous profit warning. Back in the nineties, after Steve Jobs returned to Apple and a Saudi prince (whose name I forget) bought a lot of Apple shares, I decided that I would be a smart investor and I bought Apple shares too.
Too many presentations aim only to inform, yet this is one thing oral presentations are particularly bad at – we forget most of what we hear within 30 seconds.
If you want people to remember information, give them a document and a coffee, and time to read. Then you can answer their questions, discuss, agree on the next steps, and leave.
This is what happens in meetings at companies like Amazon and LinkedIn, where not only do meetings never have slides - they never have presentations. Meetings begin with a period of silence, during which participants read a document that tells them everything they need to know, and the subjects up for discussion in the meeting.
