Behind The Bullet Points

The Surprising Secrets of Powerful Presentations

Don Descy

• Publisher: Don E. Descy
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780999482919
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Meetings & Presentations
• Index: Business

Don Descy hated public speaking. It terrified him. But now, over 20 years later, he has given over 500 in-person and virtual presentations, meetings and keynotes around the world and loves it! Join him as he lets you in on all of the biggest secrets (really there are only two) of public speaking including the most extraordinary of all... how to enjoy it! Follow Don as he shares his insights as he takes you from novice to pro. You will learn to:

*Overcome stage fright

*Motivate and inspire audiences

*Scout rooms and analyze audiences

*Design unforgettable visuals

*Connect with you audience and feel great

Everything you need to know is in this book!

Plus! This edition contains 11 bonus printable worksheets to help you through all aspects of presenting from your initial ideas through your final evaluation after everything is over.

Chapter 1

So you have to give a presentation

There are two things that professional presentation and speech gurus will tell you to do. The first is to commit to memory almost everything you want to say. The second is that you should, or others even say must, be yourself. I don’t believe that you have to do either of these. As a matter of fact, I believe that if you follow this advice, it will actually make your presenting more difficult and anxiety producing.

You don’t have to write out your presentation word for word and then commit to memory. However, you do need to practice your presentation over and over again. You don’t even have to write what you want to say on note cards. And quite frankly, I have rarely seen a presenter ‘be themselves’. Being yourself might work in some cases but not in very many. How can you be yourself if you have to craft your presentation and yourself to your specific audience? I am sure that your speech teacher or these presentation gurus have also told you how to design your PowerPoint slides, told you to always talk directly to your audience, and told you to limit your movements during your presentation. Forget about these things also! I truly believe that if you follow my advice, you will soon be well on your way to becoming a power presenter: one who gets their message across effectively and efficiently with control, confidence and a minimum of anxiety.

First, let me tell you a little story. It is about me. I have always been a quiet individual. (That is an understatement at best.) I, probably like you, had a fear of presenting before a group. Yet for some reason I ended up in front of a classroom. I wanted to make a little more money so I quit my job and went back to school. I finally ended my studies with a ‘terminal degree’. Now I had to find a job. I wanted to put my degree to work and was lucky enough to find a position teaching at a university. I liked teaching and doing research but unfortunately they were not heavily emphasized in our department. Our department did heavily emphasize service. Service in our department meant being involved in state, national, and sometimes even international professional organizations.

In our department, ‘involvement’ meant ‘presenting’…presenting…and more presenting. This was definitely something I did not want to do. I did not want to talk in front of a group. They didn’t tell me about this requirement before I signed on the dotted line! I had no choice now though. I would not be tenured for at least three years. I had my job cut out for me.

Well, present I did. First I presented with my boss and a few other people, and as time progressed I presented by myself. I even learned (over time) to be a good (well really good) presenter. In a little more time I became a real power presenter! People would actually come around to see my presentations just to see me. I had fun. They seemed to enjoy it. And they said that they learned a great deal. Don’t laugh—I had a following! My own groupies! I guess that is called positive reinforcement! And that positive reinforcement helped me actually enjoy presenting.

Don’t get me wrong. I still had the jitters for 24 to 48 hours before each and every presentation. Almost all presenters have the jitters before they present. I did hit my presentations running (but scared), and at the end I was really pleased with the results. By the time I retired I had done about 500 presentations in-person and virtually in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia. As I said, I did have the jitters (and more) before every—every—presentation I made (again: we all have the jitters before we go ‘on stage’) but I knew what to do, and I had confidence that I could do it. And remember, this from a person who still does not like to be pointed out in a group. I skipped out of several awards ceremonies towards the end of my career because my professional organization was presenting something to me… and when I retired, I refused all parties and skipped the last few department and university meetings for the same reason.

I should stop here for a moment to mention a few things. The reason you should go all-out to be a super presenter is not to be popular or have ‘groupies’. It is to have people trust you, to have people believe what you are saying, and more importantly, to be able to get your information across to them in an effective and efficient manner. In my case, and perhaps in yours as well, it also helped me keep my job! It does help if your audience (and your cohorts and boss) likes you and enjoys your presentations. But again: trust, believability, and getting your information across to your audience is the bottom line.

Let me reemphasize PoweredPointer 1: Forget everything you have ever read, heard, or learned about presenting. Just wipe your mind clean and listen, hear, and read what I have to say. Think about the words and the ideas in this book. What I will tell you here will make sense and if you follow my advice I can just about guarantee that your presentations will get your points across, be enjoyed by the audience and yourself, and best of all, be stress free. Ready? Let’s go!

Chapter 2

Let’s talk about you

Before I sat down to write this book, I read countless books on public speaking and presentation skills to see what other authors had to say on the subject. I did not want to reinvent the wheel. Most of the books said that if you follow what the author said in their particular book, you would become a great public speaker. Hmm, didn’t you just read that a few minutes ago? I am 100% sure that all the other authors also think the same way about their books. Anyone who decides to write a self-help book on any subject would say that you would learn great ideas from their book, and I am sure that each and every author believes it too. “Buy my book, read my book, and it’s a crap shoot whether or not it will do you any good” probably would not look good on a back cover. To be honest, if I believed that those other authors could really help you, I would not be writing this book. Although many of those other books have some useful information in them, much of what they say is not helpful and, worse than that, may even decrease your ability to feel comfortable as you give your presentation or participate in a virtual meeting. Or worse yet, it could even decrease your ability to get your message across. After all, getting your message across efficiently (with a minimum of jitters) is what this book is all about. Just about every book I have ever read on the topic of public speaking has said: ‘Be yourself.’ I will tell you what I think about this right from the get-go: DON’T BE YOURSELF!

You are an actor on a stage

“Football is what I do and not who I am.” Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh Steelers, 2017.

It is not about you! You are not the most important entity-thing-being in the room. Your message is the most important entity-thing-being. You are number two. You are the medium that transmits your message. You are important because you have to be configured in such a way as to enhance and not detract from your message. That's right: you have to be configured. And, if you have to be configured or changed to more efficiently get your message across, you will not be yourself. You will be a ‘configured’ you. This chapter is centered on making you more ‘configured’. Remember my words: Don’t be yourself.

PoweredPointer 2: Don’t be yourself

The most important point to remember at all times is that you are an actor on a stage. Just like an actor, your job is to get the message across. Your only job is to get the message across.

Who or what you are is not important—unless you are some great and famous person in your field—but even then, remember, you are an actor on a stage. You (the real you) are not important. You have to be a person your audience can identify with. You have to play to your audience to get your message across just as an actor plays to his audience to get his message or emotions across. Don’t worry, it is easier than it sounds. (So much for the ‘be yourself’ crowd!)

PoweredPointer 3: Play to your audience

Just being an actor is not enough

How many times have you been brought to tears, fits of laughter, or been frightened out of your wits from watching an actor in a movie?

Tears, laughter or fear were the emotions that the actor wanted to get across to you. The actor—the person on the movie set—is the person who gave this emotion wings and transmitted it to your brain. There is someone who is even more important in attendance and who is probably the most important person on the set. That person is the director. The director choreographs the whole scene.

“The director is the person who sets the tone of the movie and interprets the script as he sees it… He instructs the actors on how to say their lines, their facial expressions and tone. Virtually anything that happens on a movie set is subject to the approval of the director.” (Lee, 2006).

The actor gets the message and emotions across to the audience, but the director is really the one in the background playing the actor like a puppet. The director tells the actor how to look, move, gesture, and deliver their lines. Just like an actor, a director can make or break a scene.

Do you see a potential problem here?

There is no director to tell you what to do when you are presenting. There is one director on the scene though: you! You are the actor and the director! So what can you do?

One of the key items you must always complete before any presentation is an audience analysis. To play to a group of people, you really have to know as much about them as possible. We will spend a whole chapter on this: Chapter 4: Know your audience. You will also find PoweredGuide 1: Audience analysis in Appendix 2 at the end of this book.

You should also carry out at least one full dress rehearsal of your presentation in front of an audience of (honest) friends so they can give you pointers—help direct you as it were. Remember, though, to share what you found in your audience analysis with them so they will know something about whom you will be presenting to and what to look for as you present. PoweredGuide 9: Rehearsal Checklist and Comments in Appendix 2 should be very useful for this exercise. You should also tape the rehearsal so you can review everything about how and what you are presenting so you can also give yourself pointers! Most of us are harder on ourselves than on others and may see some things that our rehearsal reviewers might gloss over or miss. Most of us miss things or take things for granted as we review our presentation, hence the rehearsal reviewers. As the actor and director, you have to design your own scene and direct what your audience will see, hear, and feel. Everything you do is important. Even the little things!

“Design works not because people understand or even appreciate it but because it works subliminally. Just like background music in a store. Nobody would admit to being influenced by it, but it generates a mood, whether we listen consciously or not.” (Medium, 2015).

The above quotation might be enough to sen...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Foreword
• 1. So you have to give a presentation
• 2. Let’s talk about you
• 3. First they have to trust you
• 4. Know your audience
• 5. Designing your presentation
• 6. Presentation graphics: What Microsoft PowerPoint designers do not understand and how to fix that
• 7. Showpersonship
• 8. Showpersonship: Questioning techniques
• 9. Showpersonship: Reducing anxiety
• 10. The big day!
• 11. Virtual meetings, videoconferencing, and webinars
• 12. You are at the finish line
• References Cited
• Other Useful Websites
• Appendix I
• Appendix II