presentations4you

I recently talked to the boss managing a team of high flyers in a speedy environment. Subject: looking for someone to draw up slides for his team. He said to me:

"Your style is a bit disturbing, either too picture-full or too shiny and probably too disruptive with our practices. Well, we don't like it. We are used to our own communication patterns. We'd rather prefer a more traditional approach.

Sure thing we have to improve, because our presentations don't always work ideally. Our people tend to improvise and draw up slides with too little discipline. What we would like to do is to have a standard, a kind of model, rather classical, so that our customers recognize our style. Furthermore, we would like to have someone who can draw up the slides like we want, and follow the same standard. Can you help there?"

Sure I can. Let me reformulate here in this article a few key points of communication best practices, related to the quotation above.

After more than 30 years of top management practice, I have learned four major lessons in communication:

ONE --to convince people, you'd better excel in communication. Have a plan. Have a structure. The presentation software is a by-product. No more than that. No PowerPoint? No problem. I say: no slides = no problem! Providing you have learned to communicate efficiently.

TWO --most managers fail to deliver a clear and convincing message. Although they hope they do. They usually don't. 80% of the presentations are bad or to the max "so-so".

THREE --the style of your presentation is no issue. It's up to you to choose the right illustrations and use the right template. On thing is sure: if you don't put pictures or graphs, but text only, why don't you send a report beforehand and discuss it during your meeting? A presentation shouldn't be a reading exercise.

FOUR --to have someone draw up your slides supposes that you have a goal, a clear structure, sound contents, and that the person in charge knows what you're talking about. --Oh! you just said you have all this on hand? Lucky you. I hope you can pay that person according to his/her skills and that you know the ROI. That he/she won't leave next week... I also hope that your team members come up with a clear set-up of their contents. Frankly, I doubt this conventional scheme works well. To me, preparing content for a communication can be done in no more time by doing it directly on PowerPoint. If you need some refinement, of course, you can have a graphic artist working a couple of hours on your slides, avoiding primitive and cheap clip-art. Or have an assistant giving a better look to your charts or excel sheets.

This having been said, let's go back to the main issue: efficient communication. Did you ever ever ever videotape your presentations, I mean the presentations of your team? Did you review them systematically?

You definitely should. Not easy, I know... but essential.

A last question: how do you measure presentation success? To me, it's about getting a contract, closing a sale, having a "go" for a new project, getting approval from a board for any kind of substantial matter. Agree? --When did you last measure? Do you measure consistently after each presentation? Shouldn't you?

CONCLUSION: we tend to have a couple of preconceptions, of prejudgements on matters where we don't excel, but think we do, like presentation techniques. To zero-in on your team's performance, shouldn't you do some benchmarking with the top guys? Think about it a minute. I have a plan for you to be discussed if you want to capitalize on this.

First things first: send me a recent presentation so I can understand what your contents are and give you feedback. I'll send you a secure address to do so. Let's fire off! Read this article here before shooting.