The CIO walked on stage with every apparent confidence, relaxed and ready to tell his story. His opener was a droll little anecdote about fending off starving vendors. The audience was smiling back at him, BlackBerrys tucked away, fully engaged. Then the speaker picked up the clicker, lashed himself to the mast of an absolutely stupefying, bullet-point-riddled PowerPoint deck and sank like a stone. Sixty seconds into his slides, the BlackBerrys revved back up and the audience was gone, baby, gone. (from Maryfran Johnson, Editor-in-Chief, CIO Magazine.)
Ms. Johnson’s CIO probably left the stage without any dry clothing. You just simply cannot control bad presentation sweat- it pours out like wasted money. Nordstrom would make a killing if they just set up a small executive kiosk outside these presentation halls.
Here’s the thing. . .why is it that a good stand-up comedian can prance into the spotlight, keep the audience in laughs and giggles, bow out to a standing ovation – without any props other then his weird clothes and his mouth? Well, folks he’s playing to his audience. He sees that guy with the pink suit in row five. He watches the ten grandmas from Wichita Falls. He’s all over the drooling newlyweds from Muncie. It’s either his audience or it’s not. And, he’s got roughly 60 seconds to own it.
Back to our sweating CIO. He’s paid 1500.00 to travel from corporate. Another 1000.00 for room and board. And when he’s at the conference he can’t be doing much else. So if he does not get to own the crowd, it’s all wasted money.
Well, here then are some tips for those woebegone executives preparing their next corporate or conference presentation:
Don’t Use a Podium. Say to yourself: “the podium is the devil, the podium is the devil.” Podiums are pulpits. You don’t want to stand behind one of those any more. Work the room like an entertainer. And, if you’re scared not working with that heavy wooden object between you and your audience, call up your executive coach. It’s time for an intervention.
Give away a Porsche. Well, not necessarily a Porsche. But how ’bout something related to your subject matter? And make sure you let your audience know your intentions up front. And don’t be cheap. Give away some luggage or one of those cool netbooks. And, make the audience both earn and judge the prize.
Move Around. Have you ever watched Steve Jobs on the stage at MacWorld? He hustled left, he hustled right. He moved forward to make a big point. He moved back as the audience took it all in. A presentation zen master for sure.
Turn your back on your slides. People want to get involved with a confident presenter. So know every square inch of your presentation and market yourself to your audience. They want to be marketed to.
Allow questions during your presentation. Yea, this is a dangerous one, but here’s the thing. . .If you set aside a Q&A at the end of your presentation, folks will be thinking about what they want to ask rather then listening to you. You don’t want people writing out their questions on hotel stationary waiting for that Q&A.
Save some mingle time. Don’t be so stressed that all you want is a triple martini and a six pack chaser. Meet and greet. Hang out. Get some free feedback.
And, what about the presentation itself? Yea, you just knew I’d be coming around to this, did’nt ya. Photogenec’s got some pretty cool ideas on the subject of presentations. Should you want to chat about being the next Presentation King, send me an email or give me a ring at 949.421.7933.
-Gene Rosen
