As the applause died down in the Board room, my stomach turned. Linda Ferri, CEO of Advanse International, had an incredible story to tell about how her firm helps companies, governments and institutions in Europe, North Africa and North America with the tools and support to implement their plans globally. Despite the accolades from the other five board members in attendance for her dry-run, I knew her presentation was doomed for failure in its current state.
The Numbers
- 10 – maximum minutes permitted for Linda’s presentation
- 25 – other vendors presenting to Algerian government agencies, businesses, and institutions
- 72 – hours remaining before her flight would take off for Algiers
- 100 - hours of preparation already sunk into project
- 500 – people in audience
- 4,200 – miles between Washington, DC and Algiers where Linda’s presentation would take place
- 10,000 – dollars invested in the presentation
When our meeting broke, I approached Linda with a restrained urgency, “Linda, um, would you be ok if I took a shot at re-working your presentation?” “Absolutely, but my plane takes off in 72 hours Mark … I don’t think that’s enough time…plus I still have to translate it into French.” “Linda, I can’t let you go half way around the world and tell your story this way. I know how hard you’ve worked for this opportunity and how much you have on the line.”
Underestimated Power of Presentation
Linda’s scenario isn’t unique. For their “moment of truth” opportunity, most people open up PowerPoint or Keynote and start typing. The payoff for educating yourself on basic design and presentation skills is ridiculously high. Nancy Duarte, author of Slide-ology and creator of Al Gore’s presentation in An Inconvenient Truth says, “presentation is the killer skill we take into the real world. It’s almost an unfair advantage. “ So if it’s such a killer skill, why do so many get an early burial?
Four Key Reasons Why Presentations Fail
#1 – Confusing – Is there a logical sequence? Are the slides straightforward and easy to follow? Is there too much information on each slide? Have you overdone animations? Is there a beginning, middle, and an end?
#2 – Boring – Bullets in guns can kill people, bullets in presentations can kill your message. As Alexei Kapterev illustrates in his slideshare Death by Powerpoint, we tend to dump data; pack too much information for an audience to understand.
#3 – Irrelevant – Who is it intended to reach? What message needs to get across? What’s in it for them? Too often, we get focused on us, on what we can’t wait to tell them – about our businesses, our project, ourselves. If they don’t see the relevance for them… and quickly, they’ve tuned out!
#4 – Self-promoting – We must be careful not to turn our presentation into an infomercial. Even if our purpose is to persuade, if our audience perceives us as snake oil salesmen, we’re toast.
The Antecdote
In their NY Times bestseller Made to Stick Chip and Dan Heath use an acronym, SUCCESs (yes, there’s no connection for the last “s” they admit apologetically) to explain why some ideas survive and others die. Apply the Made to Stick principles to your presentation:
- S – Simple
- U – Unexpected
- C – Credible
- C – Concrete
- E – Emotional
- S – Stories
There’s a lot to unpack from the book and too much to cover here but there’s good news below if you’re interested in diving deeper!
Results in Algiers
Remember Linda’s presentation and her gracious acceptance of my offer to re-work it for her? Well we got it done in less than 48 hours. She converted it into French, packed her laptop, and boarded a 747 for Algeria.
She hit the stage in front of an audience of 500 people and captured the hearts of the crowd with a message that blended her personal connection to the Mahgreb region of South Africa with a powerful and poignant story. In fact, she was invited to share her message the next morning on Algiers’s equivalent of Good Morning America on live TV!! She also received a request for three proposals for her services. She said she could not have asked for better results.
Powerful Presentations
The Algerian presentation was the inspiration behind Powerful Presentations, a full day and half day training program that we offer live. So far we’ve conducted it three times in the last year, most recently with Italian graduate students from the University of Bergamo. My favorite part is the before/after of Linda’s Algerian presentation.
Good news – if you’re interested in learning the secrets of how you can create and deliver “sticky” presentations, we can bring Powerful Presentations to your location for a full day hands-on workshop. Just contact us to learn more.
