Practical Presentation Skills

Authenticity, Focus & Strength

Brandt Johnson

• Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781529303445
• eBook ISBN: 9781529303438
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Communication
• Index: Business

Deliver compelling presentations in any context, from a meeting with colleagues to a client pitch or keynote address. Whenever you talk to anyone, you are presenting yourself and your ideas to an audience. You are giving a presentation. This could be in person, on the phone, or via videoconference. In any case, both your content and your delivery contribute to the vitality and effectiveness of your message. Too many speakers fail to engage their audience and get their ideas across. Don't be one of them! Practical Presentation Skills will help you master the three fundamental elements responsible for a presentation's success: authenticity, focus, and strength.

Chapter 1

Authenticity

Authenticity is the essential core of an effective communication—in any context, personal or professional.

1.1 Establishing a Connection

If you give people around you the sense that you are for real, that what they are seeing and hearing is genuinely you, they will be more likely to believe you, care about you and your ideas, and participate in a communication with you.

If, on the other hand, they don’t feel that you are being authentic, no matter how technically perfect your presentation, there will be a distance between you and them that will be very difficult to bridge. A presentation can survive all sorts of shortcomings and mistakes, but a lack of authenticity in the content or delivery is lethal to a meaningful connection with your listeners.

Companies are collections of people, and people respond to connections with other people. Business happens human being to human being.

It’s easy to get distracted from this basic point amidst the pressures of getting things right when the stakes are high. Don’t get distracted.

1.2 Authenticity vs. Professionalism

People want to behave professionally in the workplace. They want to convey a sense that they are taking their jobs and the moment at hand seriously.

Often this means that they shift away from their natural personalities. To varying degrees, they contain themselves and become less naturally expressive as they play the part of what they think is a professional person.

The problem is that being less you does not make you more professional. It makes you less interesting, less believable, less inspiring, and less likely to motivate listeners to consider your ideas. It makes you less powerful.

The more you in the room, the better.

Listeners, whether they know you or not, can sense when you are performing instead of being genuine. They can sense when you are trying to be someone you are not, forcing yourself into a false mold. But they can also sense when you are genuinely present.

People receiving your ideas in the workplace are not hoping for some polished, perfect performance. They want a message that matters to them, delivered in a way that makes really good use of their time, coming from someone who is truly connected to them and the content.

Unfortunately, the perspectives of speakers and listeners are often misaligned from the start.

Speakers can obsess about the very stuff that doesn’t matter to anyone else. To a speaker, it can feel so important to get everything just right, to deliver a perfect performance that has no stumbles or rough edges at all. No one else cares. (See 6.1: Your Perspective.)

In fact, some imperfection can actually draw listeners closer as they think, “Hey, I’m imperfect, too. We have that in common!” (See 6.4: Imperfection.)

Notes from the Workplace

Being Professional

I was coaching an investment banker named Willard who had recently taken on a more senior position at his firm and was meeting more frequently with potential clients.

Willard was highly confident in his technical understanding of finance, but he wasn’t feeling comfortable in these meetings.

He thought that in order to be seen as professional in his new role, he needed to buff away any bumps or grooves in his personality and present his listeners with a smooth veneer. But the more he adopted his glossy approach, the less he engaged his audience.

Once Willard became fully aware of what was happening, he was able to shed his false persona. During our final coaching session, tears welled up in his eyes as he described the freedom and power he felt from just being himself.

1.3 What’s Natural for You

Developing your communication style is similar in some ways to learning to play a sport or musical instrument. A coach might suggest an adjustment to your stroke, grip, or stance. A teacher might recommend another way of striking the keys, strumming the strings, or blowing into the mouthpiece.

At first, the adjustment might feel unnatural. But after trying it out and practicing, you may well find that the new way really helps. You may decide to adopt it as your own.

We can continue to be true to ourselves while we explore and expand our perspectives and ways of doing things. If we stay open to change, our self-perceptions can shift to include infinite and forever-evolving versions of ourselves. This is an ongoing process.

1.4 Selling

Some meetings and phone calls with salespeople feel like pitches while others don’t. Some salespeople come off as salesy while others don’t.

Why?

Let’s consider two salespeople.

George: Salesy

George has as his primary objective making a sale and making it right away. If it turns out well for the client, great. If not, well, at least the deal closed. George vigorously challenges every objection, repeats his main message, and pushes to get agreements. George uses the tips and tricks he has learned to manipulate his prospective clients into buying what he is selling.

Blythe: Not Salesy

Blythe has as her primary objective serving her potential clients. She wants to find solutions to their problems and develop relationships with them. She listens to their concerns and misgivings. She expresses herself genuinely and openly. This establishes a context from which sales—and repeat sales—will more likely emerge over the long run.

Of course, both George and Blythe want to consummate deals. They need to make sales in order to keep their jobs. But focusing exclusively on the thing you want to happen can actually get in the way of its happening.

George’s shortsighted push to make sales now sacrifices longer-term and more profitable relationships. When people feel pressured or manipulated, they often retreat rather than engage. And even if he can overpower them in the moment and get them to sign the deal, they may experience a lingering unease once he leaves the room or hangs up the phone. This will get in the way of a continuing relationship.

Blythe, on the other hand, maintains a broader perspective. She understands that today’s interaction is an opportunity to strengthen her relationship with the potential client, regardless of the immediate outcome. Blythe knows that respecting boundaries is key to a lasting relationship. Since people appreciate Blythe’s authentic and responsive way of communicating, they will be more willing to take her calls in the future.

1.5 Truth

Stories abound about people who have won business deals (or romantic dates) by shading the truth.

Misrepresentation can present itself as a seductive shortcut in those moments when the only thing standing between you and what you want is the truth. And it may indeed get you what you want in those moments. But it will fail you in the long run.

If you tell untruths, at some point some of them will be discovered. If you misrepresented yourself to me last time, it’s unlikely I’ll give you an opportunity for a next time. Integrity is an indispensable element of what you can offer people on the other side of a communication with you.

Maintaining your integrity is good business. It’s also just a more satisfying and meaningful way to live your life.

Chapter 2

Content

The most important thing you can do with your content is engage your listeners. If they don’t care, not much else matters.

What engages them? It depends on who they are and what their relationship is to your topic. The same topic can be presented in many different ways depending on who the audience is.

2.1 Audience

An outward focus on the needs and interests of the people listening to you is central to making your communication a success.

•What does your audience know?

•What don’t they know?

•What do they want to know?

•What don’t they want to know?

•What matters most to them?

•How sophisticated are they?

•How can you make it as easy as possible for them to understand your ideas?

•What will make the best use of their time?

Answering these questions will help ensure that your message is relevant, clear, and valuable to your audience.

2.2 Knowing Your Content

If you want your audience to engage with your content, you need to engage with it yourself. Take the time to really understand what you are going to say and why. Make sure your objectives are clear in your mind.

What about the content is meaningful to you? Your message will be most compelling at the intersection of what matters to your listeners and what matters to you.

When you are first developing your content, try not to censor yourself too much. Let your ideas flow freely—the good ones as well as the not-so-good ones—without judging them. This will leave your mind open so you can be your most creative, original self.

2.3 The Beginning

Beginning is one of the most difficult things to do in life. You are making a transition from not doing something to doing it, and that can be an especially challenging moment. Presentations are no exception.

But the beginning of a presentation also offers a significant opportunity. There is a high degree of focus on you when you are just about to speak. People are sizing you up, wondering what you are about to say and whether it will be worthwhile. You can take advantage of that opportunity by opening your mouth and engaging your listeners with your very first words.

Don’t make people wait to be glad to be listening to you. Make them glad right away.

When you prepare a strong beginning, you are not only serving the audience but also giving yourself something to rely on, to feel confident about as you start speaking. (See 6.3: Preparation.)

Your very early content should accomplish two primary objectives:

1. It should engage your listeners.

2. It should give them a sense of what’s to come.

Often beginnings focus only on the second objective. For example, a speaker may lay out every topic and subtopic of a presentation in bullet-point form and read through it all in monotonous detail.

Instead, for a beginning that achieves both objectives, try touching immediately on one or more of the most engaging aspects of your message. Where in your topic is the spark for your listeners? What insights might you share? Trust that your listeners are smart enough to infer the subject of your talk from what you’re saying—without your having to say things like “I’m going to speak to you about . . .”

There ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: A Broad Perspective
• Chapter 1. Authenticity
• Chapter 2. Content
• Chapter 3. Body Language
• Chapter 4. Eye Contact
• Chapter 5. Voice
• Chapter 6. Nervousness, Confidence, and Imperfection
• Chapter 7. Questions, Answers, and Listening
• Chapter 8. Presentation Materials
• Chapter 9. Speaking on the Phone and Related Topics
• Chapter 10. Taking Advice
• Conclusion: Awareness! Practice!
• Appendix: Checklists
• About the Author
• About Syntaxis
• Index