How do you present to those at the highest level? Whether the audience includes your boss or a powerful prospect, you need to consider their motives. With such a big pitch at stake, it is important to really ensure that your chances are maximised. Above all, you need to be sure that your audience feel respected.

Below are some tips to help you prepare for an executive presentation.

Research

1. Find out how much your audience know about your chosen topic. If possible, talk to someone with contacts, or ask directly beforehand. If no information is available, assume they know nothing and give a very basic overview of your presentation before launching into greater detail.
2. Make the presentation relevant. What are the company’s current business goals? What will the audience be interested in? Link your presentation to their place in the market; a recent change in legislation – anything you can find that will be relevant to your audience. Senior executives will appreciate your effort and understanding, as well as feeling naturally inclined to listen to data relevant to them.

Content

1. Chief executives are often more interested in problem-solving and the overall health of the company. It’s safer to assume that they want the broad picture, so don’t spend ages discussing minute details such as design aspects unless specifically asked to, or unless you’re presenting to a specified audience or department.
2. Senior executives like high data intensity, but with clarity. Executive presentations should be supported with graphs, giving a broad overview of facts and figures. Ensure that you have all numbers to hand, as it is likely that questions will be asked.
3. Anticipate questions and prepare for them. Include relevant slides of data and graphs, where applicable. The information that isn’t included in your presentation can be revealed here. Choose what will be most relevant for a basic overview, and hold the details back unless requested.
4. Don’t include any information that isn’t completely sound. High-level executives are well experienced in picking holes in an argument. If there is something you’re not sure on, leave it out. It’s not worth risking your credibility.

Time Management

1. Senior management executives are busy people. The small amount of time they may dedicate to you is likely to be worth a great deal. Keep your presentation short; they’ll be grateful. Whatever you do, do not overrun your time slot. There is no surer way to annoy any audience, especially those who have important meetings that should have started ten minutes ago. Respect your audience’s time, and they will be more likely to remember you favourably.
2. Having a limited time slot means that it is especially important not to waffle. Not only is waffling unprofessional and annoying, but if you waste time on words that aren’t crucial to your point, you quite simply won’t get everything across that you need to. Be concise and to the point – if the audience want more detail on something, they’ll ask for it.
3. Make sure that you allow adequate time for Q&A at the end. This is the point at which you can learn what exactly your audience wants to know. Senior executives are likely to specify precisely what is important to them, so this could potentially be the most crucial part of your presentation.

The Presenter

1. Project a professional image. An important audience will want to be sure that you are worthy of their time and attention. Casual dress, malfunctioning equipment and a hesitant manner will not help to instil their trust. Walk in fully prepared, dressed smartly, and implicitly reassure them that you are credible.
2. Anticipate interruptions. Whatever you do, stay calm and remain polite. It is not worth risking a pitch for the sake of pride. Set out an overview, suggesting that they might find it more useful to ask questions at the end, once they have a better idea of the whole picture. If you are interrupted, deal with it there and then – you’re there to talk about what they want to talk about, after all.
3. In the same vein; be prepared to improvise. Executives are likely to ask tough questions, and ask to see something completely different to the slides you’ve prepared. It might develop that they’d rather talk about numbers, when your presentation has been focused on company morale. Be flexible – don’t expect executive presentations to be rigid.

How to Conduct a Successful Online Presentation

With more and more business being conducted over the internet, many companies are looking to use online presentations for marketing and business development activities. Yet, as a relatively new concept, there are fewer resources available for presenters wishing to improve their online presenting skills. Here we offer some tips on how to go about preparing and delivering an online presentation, from the initial planning stages to delivery.

Software and Technical

There are a lot of technicalities involved in conducting a presentation over the internet, and many decisions to be made regarding these. It is important to make the choices that are right for your particular presentation; and to be aware of the difficulties that could arise in this situation.

1. The first question to be considered when preparing for an online presentation is whether the presentation is to be live, pre-recorded, or to be used for both? This decision affects the way you will conduct your presentation, and which hosting sites or software you will use. Both have their merits, and it depends on your target audience: for example, a presentation that is designed for use as a general marketing tool will need to be pre-recorded as a webcast, for viewers to peruse at their own leisure; whereas a sales presentation directed at a specific company will need to be live, to ensure the best chances of interactivity, and of closing the deal.
2. Choose the right software. We have reviewed various online meeting software applications for hosting a presentation online, and have also conducted a slide sharing websites review.  Consider the overall capabilities of each, but also how suited the software is to your individual purposes. Would it benefit you to use screen sharing software? Or to record the presentation as a PowerPoint file and send it remotely? Each has its benefits and limitations, and they should be taken into account.
3. Is it worth asking your service provider to host and manage the event? For larger webinars, many providers tend to offer this for a fee. It can remove a lot of the stress and difficulties of organising such an event, especially if you are not familiar with the process.
4. Check your animation. Hosting anything over the net tends to produce a small delay, but certain animations can look awful (if they function at all). On top of this, many slide sharing websites and programs do not support several common animations. Incorrectly functioning animation could distract and irritate your audience; which does not bode well for a successful presentation. Similarly, watch out for video – streaming a video live will not work well, especially if you are using screen sharing. Be prepared, and check that everything you are using works remotely beforehand.
5. Remember Murphy’s Law: if it can go wrong, it will. Prepare for connectivity issues, incorrect access codes, and set up a live meeting ten minutes early. Ensure that everyone has the right details, and an alternative method of contacting you if they experience problems.

Message

In any presentation, it is important to ensure that your message is sound. Every presentation has a purpose, and everything that is said should be focused on conveying this message. In a remote presentation, this is even more important. As an example, if you don’t think your prospects would ever agree a deal over the web, the focus in an online sales presentation might be to generate a face-to-face appointment.

1. The first thing to do when beginning to write a presentation is to consider your audience. Even an anonymous audience can be understood in terms of personas. If you are inviting certain people to your presentation, ensure that everything is tailored specifically to them. If your presentation is being pre-recorded for anyone to find, think of the types of people you are hoping to get watching it. Will they appreciate a serious presentation, or a light-hearted one? Do you want your audience to be taught or persuaded (usually both)? There is always a question to be answered, and this should be your first point of call in considering your message.
2. Simplicity is the key. The human brain can only hold a limited amount of information at any one time, and this is significantly reduced if attention spans are waning. In turn, too much information can reduce attention levels: it becomes a vicious circle. When aspects such as body language and eye contact do not come into the play, it can difficult to keep your audience engaged remotely. Audience members feel free to check their email and surf the web, and find it easier to drift off into their own thoughts. Don’t overload your audience: whittle your presentation down to its most important points, and they will find it much easier to pay attention, and to remember.
3. Have a clear structure. Pre-recorded presentations are, by nature, linear; but presentations conducted live have the option of being interactive. Consider providing a (small) live audience with a list of possible topics, and asking them to choose those that they feel most relevant to them. You’ve instantly created respect, as they believe that you truly care about what they want; and you need not bore them with aspects they are not interested in.
4. Use stories. This goes beyond using the familiar anecdote to get a few laughs before you plough into the heavy stuff: use the stories to tie into your material; to explain it; to keep it interesting; and to better enable your audience to remember. A more formal version of this is the corporate case study, but any story appropriate to the audience and relevant to the material can aid retention. A remote audience will struggle to listen to continuous patter: link it all together, and they will find it much easier to follow.

Visual Aids

Without the physical presence of a presenter, it can be even more difficult to retain interest. If an audience has nothing to watch, they become more easily distracted by their surroundings. Not only are visual aids necessary, but they should animate in the correct places to draw the audience’s attention to the focus of the message.

1. Again, the most important rule to follow here is that of simplicity. This is important in any presentation, but especially in one being conducted remotely, as attention is already more difficult to attain. If your slides have too much content, the audience will not know where to direct their attention. Keep them simple and reduce your text significantly. There should be a clear focus to each slide, and visual aids should support your points made, without distracting from them.
2. In a remote presentation, everything needs to move faster to ensure that your audience stay focused. Keep your visuals moving: switch between images and diagrams, and make sure that every point builds. Leaving a static slide up for too long will encourage your audience to look elsewhere.
3. Ensure that your most important points are emphasised. Use animation, such as a growth or colour change, to draw the audience’s attention to specific details. With the presenter unable to direct the audience to the right places with gestures, it is important to do so using effective slide design.

Delivery

The most noticeable drawback in a web presentation is the lack of the presenter’s physical presence. Using eye contact to engage the audience, and being able to see whether they are paying attention, prove invaluable in face-to-face presentations. In a remote presentation it is important to engage your audience by other means, and to devise methods of checking that they are still following you.

1. Ask questions. If you are conducting your presentation live, use polling facilities to gather feedback. If your presentation is pre-recorded, ask hypothetical questions, or pose challenges, designed to make the audience think. This method of including and involving your audience helps to bridge the gap between presenter and audience (however far in miles!).
2. Emphasise important points with your tone of voice. Without body language to show your enthusiasm, it is important to exaggerate this. Similarly, pause for effect: it is a sure way to make your audience pick up their attention.
3. Be careful with your use of humour. This can be risky in a normal presentation, but it can be even more difficult to convey a joke over the internet. Irony especially is less likely to work in this situation.
4. In a live presentation, if your software allows it, the use of a pointer can be extremely useful. Use the meeting software pointer to gesture at parts of the screen when presenting, as this can translate across the internet.

Watch your timing. Don’t go over the attention span limit (20 minutes) unless absolutely necessary. Use soft breaks such as quiz questions, polls, Q&A, and changes of presenter to reset attention levels. In a remote presentation more than any other, this is important. Nobody likes sitting in front of a computer screen for too long, and minds will start to wander. If you do make your presentation that little bit longer, make sure it is really worthwhile.

SlideShare

Animation – SlideShare was the weakest site in terms of enabling animation. In fact – it doesn’t. Each slide is presented as a static image – presumably it is meant to display the final build of each slide, but it couldn’t even host certain graphics on our test presentation.

Audio – PowerPoint has the easy option of recording narration as you present, saving directly as your PowerPoint file. Unfortunately, SlideShare does not enable this, and thus does not recognise narration, or slide timings. To add audio, the user has to record the narration as a separate sound, save it to an mp3 file (which could involve having to convert the original file), upload it to SlideShare, and then go through the whole presentation and adjust the timing for each slide change, so that the narration corresponds to the visual. The whole process is long, slow and tedious. 

Ease of Use – The site is cluttered, with many advertisements dotted around the page. That said, the site is fairly straightforward to use – except for the hassle in uploading audio. For this reason, for ease of use SlideShare scores two stars. 

Control – There are several different privacy settings to choose from: public; private (enabling those the user follows to see); and private (only the user can see). There is also the option to allow viewers to download, or to send the presentation via email to a recipient of the user’s choosing. 

Suitability – There are some random presentations placed next to our animation test, such as ‘PowerPoint Animals’ and ‘Animal Testing’. Mostly, however, the selection is relevant, with PowerPoint tests displayed in the ‘related presentations’ box.

Overall – SlideShare’s strong points are in the control over privacy options. Unfortunately, its lack of technical capabilities let it down when actually viewing slides. Adding audio is difficult and time consuming, and the lack of animation, combined with substandard graphics, give the effect that the viewer is looking at a series of badly-designed posters. 

authorSTREAM

Animation – authorSTREAM supports more animations than SlideShare, but still misses most – and those that it does enable are largely incorrect. For the basic animations it permits, authorSTREAM is awarded two stars.

Audio – Audio is uploaded automatically with the PowerPoint file, saving a lot of time and effort. Lack of control over audio once uploaded, (and no volume control) means that authorSTREAM scores three stars.

Ease of Use – AuthorSTREAM is a little complicated to use, and seems to lack some of the basic functions; I am still unable to find a ‘replay’ button after a presentation has been watched. With the fact that it is not immediately clear how to edit your presentation either, for ease of use authorSTREAM scores one and a half stars.

Control – authorSTREAM had perhaps the best options for privacy control. The user is given the option to keep the presentation private or public, and to enable download if wished. An email can be sent with a link to those you wish to share it with, and the premium version of the site allows the user to create a pass code for access to the slides. The fact that this pass code is not available for free means that authorSTREAM scores four and a half stars.

Suitability – There were a couple of files in ‘Related Presentations’ that were actually related, but most were random.

Overall – authorSTREAM has potential, but it is let down by its lack of simplicity, and the inadequate nature of its animations. 

SlideBoom

Animation – SlideBoom allows more complicated animation than the two sites reviewed above. The site managed to animate everything except the headlines and the live graphs, and graphics were of a good standard. 

Audio – If a narration of the slides has been made in PowerPoint, this is uploaded with the slides in the file, and automatically plays. Once uploaded however, there is nothing that can be done with the audio. Still, the ease of uploading and the fact that SlideBoom allows volume control score SlideBoom four stars.

Ease of use – SlideBoom is straightforward to use, and features a handy toolbar on the viewing screen enabling the remote audience to do things such as view as full screen, or jump to a particular slide. The options are easily accessible and the page layout is clear and uncluttered.

Control – SlideBoom allows the user to control whether everyone can see the presentation, or whether just the user has access. Sharing via email is allowed. Control over embedding in other websites is also given, as is control over downloads. More detailed control over who has access directly on the site (rather than just everyone or no one) would score SlideBoom higher.

Suitability – SlideBoom doesn’t place the presentation next to a completely unrelated one – but it doesn’t give many relevant options. Even with the tags removed, our ‘PowerPoint Animation Test’ only had one set of slides in ‘Related Presentations’. It was definitely related, but lack of choice means that for suitability SlideBoom scores two stars.

Overall – SlideBoom has all the makings of a quality slide sharing site, with good animation and a pleasant, uncluttered screen layout. Having more control over viewing would score higher, as would enabling more options once the presentation is uploaded, such as the ability to add or edit audio. SlideBoom is a good site for most basic needs, for which it scores four stars.

myBrainshark

Animation – myBrainshark has the potential to be very good at animation, and is better than most. It was the only site reviewed that managed to correctly animate the headlines, although it failed to enable the motion path and live graph, and the colour change was there, but not correct. With these adjustments made myBrainshark would score higher, but for the present animation capabilities the site is awarded three and a half stars.

Audio – myBrainshark was the strongest site in the audio category. As with the other sites that score highly in this section, myBrainshark allowed slide narration to be uploaded easily in the PowerPoint file. However, myBrainshark surpassed this in enabling many options in terms of audio once the file was uploaded. A narration can be recorded directly onto the site via a telephone call; a background audio (such as music) can be uploaded from an mp3 file; and audio can be downloaded by viewers as a podcast. If volume control was included in the viewing window, myBrainshark would score five stars; as it is, the site is awarded four and a half stars.

Ease of use – myBrainshark is simple, ad-free, and straightforward to use. Drop down options on the ‘Edit Presentation’ page enable the user to clearly choose from available functions, and ‘helpful hints’ and ‘stages to follow’ throughout cumulate to award myBrainshark five stars.

Control – All slides are publicly available when active. Content can be made inactive, which means that it cannot be found on the site, but users to whom the slides are sent by the user will still be able to view them. More options to users as to who can interact with the file on the website would score myBrainshark higher, but the present control capabilites award the site three stars.

Suitability – The ‘Related Presentations’ box offers the viewer a large number of slides to view, and the majority are directly related. Those that are not directly related are not far off the mark, and there are no random presentations recommended.

Overall – While improvements could be made on myBrainshark’s animation capabilities, the range of functions offered for uploaded content (particularly audio) and its simple interface score the site well. On top of this, myBrainshark hosts a wide range of extra functions, from detailed viewing reports (including location and percentage watched) to the ability to ask viewers questions.

Disclosure: m62 uses Brainshark’s enterprise-level platform, and recommends it to clients. m62 also makes use of iSpring software, which is the PowerPoint to Flash conversion tool used by SlideBoom.

See a problem?

Flexibility in front of an audience and conformity within a company are two age-old adversaries that seemingly cannot co-exist. Here, we discuss the reasons for, and limitations of, flexibility and control in company presentations, and offer some advice on what works.

Management Control: The battle for consistency

Managerial staff in every department have different reasons for enforcing complete consistency in their company presentation:

• CEO: “I want control over what my staff deliver.”
• Marketing director: “I want to make sure my staff are exhibiting consistency of brand and message.”
• Compliance officer: “Certain slides need to be included as a legal requirement. If they are deleted, the company is at risk.”
• Sales manager: “I know more about sales than many of my staff – so I want them to use the slides I suggest.”

Having one single company presentation is about making sure that everything is done according to company guidelines – and to the best possible standard. Building a company presentation from the top down ensures that quality and consistency are positively managed.

Brand consistency is important: strong brands create emotional bonds with customers, adding significant value for companies. A standard company presentation can ensure that all presenters use the same slides and deliver the same message.

The Challenges

A generic company presentation, unless it is specifically designed to do so, may not adapt well to all situations. Every audience is different, and an audience that is not interested in what the presenter has to say will not be fully engaged with the presentation.

An audience may not do what you expect it to, and it can be useful to use tools that allow changes to be made instantly in reaction to an audience’s response.

Presenter’s Discretion: Different audience, different presentation

Although presenters in the field may well accept and understand the reasons for consistency and control of their company presentation, they most likely have questions and doubts about an approach that limits their discretion:

• “I’m the one presenting – shouldn’t I be able to pick what goes in to the presentation?”
• “I never know exactly what an audience wants to hear until I’m there. What happens if they decide they only want to see three slides?”
• “There’s lots of boring information in this presentation – surely the audience would prefer me to deliver only what is interesting?”

Every audience and every situation is different. Often, it is impossible to know what an audience will want until the presentation has already begun. Sales presentations need to be kept fluid, with presenters adjusting and adapting to each situation that arises. By trusting presenters to pick their own material, the chances of presenting material that is relevant to each audience might well increase.

The Challenges

• It is not always useful for every presenter to produce and adapt his or her own presentations. A company does need consistency, and this will not occur if every presenter acts individually.
• Not all presenters will be great at preparing elegant, well-structured PowerPoint decks. Leaving those in the field to mix-and-match slides can have awful consequences.
• Management has no control over what is being conveyed. This means that incorrect information could be given out, while the points that should be made (such as legal requirements) aren’t delivered.
• Presenters may end up presenting only the material they are most comfortable with – but not necessarily the material they ought to present.

Is there a Solution?

There is no perfect solution, but there are steps that can be taken that should greatly improve the situation. A balance should be found between company control and presenter freedom. The appropriate balance depends greatly on the company culture, the level of training that presenters have had, the market in which a company operates, and the strength and approach of the company’s brand. Here are some tips that we suggest:

Ensure your sales team want to use your slides. If slides consist of mainly text, it is too easy (and tempting!) for presenters to adapt existing slides or insert new ones. If you have slides that are good enough that no one in your team would be able to replicate them to the same standard, you reduce the likelihood of such an attempt.

Produce branded PowerPoint templates. It is easy to convince presenters to use the same template to ensure brand consistency. If anything, it is more convenient for them.

Involve your sales team in the decisions. Ensuring everyone delivers the same message can be difficult, but having staff contribute to writing presentations that they will have to deliver is a positive step. Involvement and engagement leads to buy-in.

Share best practice. Get salespeople to send in their best slides, enhance and edit as necessary, and then allow everyone to benefit by including these slides in your company presentation. Make everyone’s best ideas visible – and share them around!

Use interactive presentations that presenters will be able to adapt as they go, according to what the audience wants to hear. Use hyperlinks, live graphs and audience response tools to make each presentation unique – while built from a core deck of PowerPoint slides.

Train your sales team. Ensure that sales people know the best way to present each slide in your company presentation – and, more importantly, why this is the best way. People are much more likely to follow rules if they understand the reasoning behind them.

Consider using software to deliver the right slides to presenters. Slide library software can also force compliance where this is essential – so that legal disclaimers must be used, for example.

Company presentations involve a certain tension between consistency and control, and flexibility. By involving presenters in the process of identifying and choosing the strongest messages, designing attractive and effective slides, allowing a certain amount of interactivity, and providing training to presenters, companies can resolve this tension in the most successful way.

Cut down on the company overview

Most sales presentations talk in great detail about the company’s history, locations, values, mission, and even diversity policy. Most of the time, for most of this content, nobody cares. Say enough to build credibility and establish empathy, but no more.

Decide which benefits are most powerful, and relegate the others

Have trouble deciding which of the dozen or more benefits you offer is the most important? The common approach is to just list all of them and hope that some of them resonate with your audience. The problem, of course, is that by saying too much you overload your audience and most of your message is forgotten. Which parts are forgotten? That depends – each audience member may remember your value proposition as something different. Great for causing confusion, awful for sales.

Move the ‘Summary of Benefits’ slide from the end to near the start

There is little more stupid when it comes to sales presentations than only talking in terms of benefits at the end of a presentation when the audience are already bored. Maximum attention levels are often after about three or four minutes – so start talking about benefits then.

This short video tutorial delves into the theory behind creating a slide that summarises the key benefits of your product or service, and how it can be used to create a structure to your slides that will help you to deliver a compelling presentation.

Sixty slides of text is too much detail

If your sales presentation usually lasts more than an hour, your prospects might wish they never met you. Often, information can be cut without being missed. When presenting a particularly complex product, or if you are expected to present for a long time, consider using multiple presentations and presenters, or hyperlinks to present in a non-linear way. This keeps the audience focused, and allows your prospects to set some of the agenda.

Let the audience know where you are in the presentation

Ever been reading a book and flicked to the back to see how many pages you have left? How would you feel if once you started reading you had no way of finding out how long was left? Without an agenda slide, and reference to the agenda during the presentation, that’s what being an audience member is like.

Reconsider the slides full of technical specifications

Technical details are often important when selling. But don’t fall into the trap of including every technical detail. Eliminate the details that are no different from competitors (unless you need to persaude the audience that you have finally managed to catch up). Instead, produce a product specification sheet, and hand this out. Then, try to bring the remaining specifications to life in your presentation. If you have an important technical advantage, what does this mean in practice? Compare directly to competitors (named or ghosted), and illustrate the benefits in real-life settings. Make something that’s hard to destroy? Take a video showing it working after being run-over by a truck. Think Steve Jobs, the MacBookAir, and an office envelope.

Listing all your products is not the same as selling solutions

Don’t just present a few slides on each product you offer. If you want to sell solutions, understand the problem that you can solve, and then present one integrated view of the solution you offer. Finding slides from five different product presentations and putting them into one jumble of a presentation isn’t the same as presenting a solution.

Eliminate bullet points

We say it all the time, because it’s true. Bullet points don’t work. The audience read the text, and ignore the presenter – they can’t listen and read at the same time. It’s the reason why we stop and look up when somebody disturbs us reading a good book. Six bullet points per slide on your current sales presentation? Find the visuals that help you explain the same points. Otherwise your audience will just read your slides but ignore you presenting.

Think about when to open the laptop

Some sales people “show up and throw up”. That’s to say they get face-to-face with a prospect, open the laptop, and present everything that they have to say without stopping to find out anything about the specific needs or interests of the audience. Psychologically this may be easy to do – but it isn’t effective. Instead, think of your sales presentation as just one part of a broader conversation, and consider making the presentation interactive to ensure that you address the interests and concerns of each audience.

Need help in improving your sales presentation? Contact m62 – we would be happy to help.

With businesses now catering for clients around the world, many companies find themselves having to operate in multiple timezones. This can create communication difficulties, resulting in poor availability and delays.  With locations around the world,  a company can work with clients in different timezones, keeping service demand matched with service supply.

Adapt and use in your own sales presentations, to explain the benefits of your global presence.

Download Global Presence slides

Now, instead, imagine taking a rather more expensive and fully-featured piece of hardware – the iPhone 3G (or iPhone 3GS for this review), and creating an application that turns the entire thing into a high-end presentation clicker. That’s what one company, Senstic, has done. What difference does having a mini-computer and touch-sensitive screen make? Here, we review i-Clickr when used with a PC.

i-Clickr is available from Apple’s App Store for £5.99. (If you know what it costs in US dollars, please leave a comment below.) Download and installation of the actual iPhone application is simple, but there is also an additional bit of software from Senstic that needs to be installed on any PC one intends to use i-Clickr with. Apple’s Bonjour software, which discovers devices on a local network, is also required. Not entirely surprisingly, there’s a tiny bit of work to do in allowing this PC software to get through one’s PC firewall.

Once everything is installed and the correct permissions are granted, the easiest way to get i-Clickr working is to connect PC and iPhone to the same network. (Documentation suggests that this must be a wireless network, but the PC can be connected using wires.) Then, start i-Clickr on the PC, and then on the iPhone. Select the computer to control with the iPhone (assuming everything is working), and then on that PC select a PowerPoint file to open. (Yes, this does involve going from PC to iPhone to PC and then finally to iPhone once the presentation is running, and yes, it is mildly annoying.) After a short pause, the presentation opens in showmode on the PC, and the iPhone turns into a fully-featured presentation remote.

Once the presentation is opened in showmode, it can’t be used in any other way. Closing either the presentation or iClickr will crash or close the other parts of this software ‘jigsaw’ – although as this is predictable and entirely avoidable, it wasn’t a deal-breaker for me.

i-Clickr allows slides to be advanced or reversed using either buttons or a simple finger-swipe across the screen. There are four simple screen views for use when presenting – view the final build of the current slide, view the final build of the next slide, view the speaker notes of the current slide, or view the speaker notes of the next slide. Each of these views has different uses; I particularly like the ability to see the next slide, and to be able to glance at speaker notes. Toggling between slide and note view is achieved with one click. Changing settings between viewing the current slide and the next slide is a couple of clicks away. Clearly, a typical presentation clicker can’t match this functionality.

A number of features are available from the menu screen. A single click from the menu will blank the presentation – whether this is done in black or in white (think “B” or “W” on a keyboard) can be selected in advance from options. Another option brings up a list of slides, and a single click will jump directly to a chosen slide. A trick that we feel is important for making PowerPoint presentations interactive, and one that can’t be obtained with many clickers.

Perhaps making even greater use of the iPhone’s capabilities is the ability to annotate slides directly from the iPhone. Annotation mode is available by holding the iPhone horizontally, at which point four symbols (a tick, arrow, question mark, and star) appear at the right of the screen, as does a text icon. Touching a symbol sets the drawing mode, and then touching the image of the slide annotates the slide show. (So, for example, touch the question mark and then the slide on your iPhone to draw a question mark onto the slide show on your PC.) Annotations are not saved. Clicking the text icon and then the screen brings up the iPhone’s keyboard. A few minutes later and it’s possible to write a word, although probably not the one you intended (your mileage may vary). An ‘X’ icon selects delete, and annotations can be erased. For some reason, this icon appeared slightly off the bottom of the screen on my phone. Still accessible, but a minor bug.

Because rotating the iPhone launches annotation mode, it isn’t possible to read speaker notes in landscape view. It is possible to disable annotation mode, but with this selected, rotating the phone simply shows speaker notes at an angle. It would have been nice to be able to use the iPhone almost as a continually-updating index card, held subtly in the palm. In reality, holding the phone vertically and continually glancing down at the screen risks encouraging a presenter to avoid proper eye contact. Font size can be altered though, and if the iPhone is used as occasional reminder and not as script, the functionality can be truly helpful.

Some reviews on the App Store claimed that lag between iPhone and PC made iClickr unusable. I didn’t experience any lag at all – responsiveness was almost perfect. That doesn’t mean I would encourage presenters to throw away their clickers and attempt to buy iPhones on expenses just yet, though.

With practice, iClickr makes a great clicker. But connection between iPhone and PC isn’t entirely reliable. At home or in the office, getting iPhone and PC onto the same network isn’t that hard. But go to a client’s office where a shared Wi-Fi network isn’t available and things become harder.

In theory, it’s possible to set an ad-hoc wireless connection between laptop and iPhone. Senstic provide step-by-step instructions. After following the instructions, and a minute or so waiting for the connection to be established, I had everything set up the right way. But then, after launching i-Clickr on my iPhone, I wasn’t prompted to open a presentation on my PC. The infrastructure seemed to work, but I couldn’t launch a presentation. I also tried to connect using my PC’s built-in Bluetooth, and perhaps not surprisingly, I couldn’t get things working.

I’m sure that ad-hoc connections with i-Clickr can work. But I wouldn’t want to be following a six-part set of instructions, with some long pauses in the middle, once I was with prospects at their offices. i-Clickr is a great App, but it’s probably not time to retire the Kensington just yet.

A great tool for presenters with iPhones who often present from their own office. But keep a back-up, in case set-up doesn’t go smoothly.

How can PowerPoint presentations be made interactive? We list some ideas for you to try.

Questions

Ask questions. It sounds obvious, but a lot of presenters will have a fixed set of information they want to present, and deliver this information almost regardless of circumstance. Yet, not all audiences are interested in the same material, and often too little time is spent on the things the audience care about.

When presenting to a small group, make sure to gain an insight into what the audience want to hear about. The easiest way to do this is through good old-fashioned dialogue, initiated by the presenter asking questions. Then, from within a larger deck of slides, simply hide those you don’t need to present, or skip to those you do. Anticipate by preparing slides that answer the most frequently asked questions.

Hyperlinks

Use hyperlinks. Typically, a presentation will be delivered from the first slide to the last slide in a linear fashion. An interactive presentation allows flexibility – slides can be presented in any order, without having to exit show mode, find the next slide, and then hit F5. The best way to create flexibility in presentation structure is to create index slides – for different products, services, features, or benefits. Hyperlink from each item to a sequence of slides, and end the section with a hyperlinked repeat of the index slide.

If hyperlinks are too complex for your PowerPoint skills, this effect can be hacked by remembering that when in show mode, entering a slide number then hitting enter goes direct to that slide. Put your first sequence of slides at slide 10, your second at slide 20, and so on. Not elegant – but easy.

Annotation

Sketch and annotate. Don’t just present your slides – write and draw all over them. For pre-planned additions, it might make sense to just use animation to introduce new elements to a slide. But, for real spontaneity, and to respond to unexpected audience questions and comments, draw on your slides. This can be done easily in PowerPoint using a mouse (in show mode with PowerPoint 2003, right-click on the slide, select pointer options, then select a pen type), or use a tool such as Papershow if you want to use a real (Bluetooth) pen and paper (covered in tiny dots).

Audience Response Tools

Use an audience response tool such as TurningPoint (when face-to-face), or use the voting functionality built into most online meeting software. Audience response systems provide a great opportunity to guage opinion at conferences, or to check understanding in training presentations. Combine audience response with hyperlinks so that different material is presented on the responses the audience gives (for example, extra training material if the audience don’t answer questions correctly).

Challenges

Set a challenge. Trade Extensions sell software that finds the best solution to (sometimes complex) business problems. One difficulty the company faced when writing a new presentation with m62 was in showing prospects that often they thought problems were easy to solve when in fact they weren’t. Trade Extensions worked with m62 to design a simple puzzle with which to start their presentation. Sometimes, they even offer cash prizes in return for a correct solution – which draws the audience in to engage with the subject matter.

Live graphs

Collect and display audience data. Ask the audience a question, and use a graph to display the responses. Prepare a PowerPoint graph built around dummy data, and then enter real data into the spreadsheet used to build the graph when face-to-face with the audience. This technique can be used to show how an audience compares to average, and can generate useful insight, as well as serve as a starting point for further discussion.

Back channels

For Silicon Valley, or for those with audiences who just can’t concentrate on one thing at a time… Consider opening a “back channel” for your audience members to communicate with each other and comment on your presentation in real time. Use a hash tag (#) with Twitter, and project tweets with that tag in real time on a screen alongside your slides. This technique will mean giving up any control over what your audience pays attention to (phone, slides, presenter, Twitter feed), and so should be used with extreme caution. We really wouldn’t recommend it if you want your messages to be remembered. In addition, if your presentation goes wrong, remember that all the negative comments will be projected behind you, which may not be everyone’s idea of fun.

This article has listed seven ways to make a presentation interactive. Do you have any other ideas? Please share in the comments below.

Here, we share ten tips for those developing corporate presentations, and those who have to deliver them.

1. Set objectives. Why are you delivering a corporate presentation? What do the audience think now, and what do you want them to think? What are the audience doing now, and what do you want them to be doing? If you know the individuals – answer these questions for each key decision maker.
2. See things from the audience’s point of view. We’ve had clients who have insisted on showing a series of pictures of their new office building and staff gym. Ask, Does the audience care about this? What’s in it for them?
3. If you can email your corporate presentation to somebody who wasn’t there to see you deliver it, and they can understand it – then you, as a presenter, aren’t necessary. Unnecessary presenters struggle when delivering corporate presentations face-to-face (the audience can just read the slides instead). Instead, use visual cognitive dissonance to make slides captivating.
4. Make your corporate presentation’s key messages memorable. Most presentations make 100s of points, and this leads to most people forgetting most of your messages. What’s worse, when you have a few people in the audience, they all remember different points. Less is more. A logical structure is essential, and repetition is key.
5. Think about who will deliver your corporate presentation. Often those writing and designing corporate presentations aren’t the same as those who will have to deliver them. Presentation skills training will help the sales team to deliver the presentation, but the material needs to sound credible coming from their mouths. If the CEO helps to write the presentation, it can be worth checking that your sales team are comfortable delivering the material.
6. No bullet points. You spend time and money on your brand – why undermine it when face-to-face with prospects? Use visual PowerPoint slides – charts, diagrams, animation, and photos to appear dynamic and up-to-date, and to get your point across.
7. Use visual aids to help your audience understand your messages. Diagrams and images can help your audience grasp and remember your point. A ‘Presentation Zen’ approach has its place – but one beautiful photo probably won’t convey why one insurance pricing mechanism is superior to another, or explain how a global IT solution is to be delivered. Find the right visual to make your message easy to explain.
8. Tell stories, and use case studies. Ideally, supply a few so that those delivering your presentation can use one relevant to each audience. Stories are memorable, and bring your messages to life. Stories recounting previous customer successes help to present credentials in an interesting way, and reassure prospects that you can do what you say you can.
9. Don’t just list your products. Instead, structure your presentation around the problems that your company can solve, and the benefits that your company can deliver. Then, just talk about your products as you explain the different ways your company can deliver value. This might mean that one product gets mentioned in a few different places, but wouldn’t you rather your prospect got interested in all the products that help solve a problem they are facing?
10. Avoid one-size-fits-all if it doesn’t. Your company might not change much, but your prospects are all different. So, build some flexibility into your corporate presentation. There’s a balance to find between presenting a clear and consistent message to the market, with tailoring your corporate presentation to different audiences. Try to make every prospect feel that you can solve their problems, and can offer what they need. Consider an interactive presentation if you want to give your company’s presenters flexibility to quickly respond to client interests.

Of course, one of the best ways to ensure that your corporate presentation works well is to work with a high quality presentation agency to make sure everything is done correctly. But beware – not every presentation agency is as proficient as they ought to be – there’s a big difference between an effective corporate presentation and making a slide look a bit nicer.

Got any further tips for effective corporate presentations? Share in the comments, below.

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WebEx

URL: http://www.webex.com

Functions

• Presentation upload
• Screen sharing
• Application sharing
• Remote control
• Annotations
• Teleconferencing
• Web chat
• Recording

Overview

WebEx has almost become a commoditised term, like Google and Kleenex, for online meetings. It is one of the most widely used online meeting software applications and boasts all of the features that online presenters could want. WebEx requires a small download and install of the meeting application, but this is often relatively easy to complete except for those behind the toughest firewalls.

The meeting environment has a large window for content, but a significant chunk of the screen is consumed with a variety of tabs down the right hand side of the screen. These tabs contain information such as attendee lists, web chat, web cam videos and, rather neatly, the speaker notes from your presentation (but remember, your audience can see these as well). On large monitors, this is fine, but users with smaller screen sizes may suffer a loss of detail on content, so be wary not to use text that is too small or graphics that are too fine.

Content can be uploaded to the meeting room by the presenter, although upload speeds are often slower than one might expect, so large presentations will need to be uploaded to the meeting room in advance.

Uploaded content does not display well when the content contains many graphics, including transparencies and colour gradients. Charts, particularly pie charts rarely display well and in some cases are completely obliterated, represented as just single blocks of colour. In some cases, small graphical objects can also become distorted and so overall, WebEx doesn’t do justice to more graphical presentations that have been uploaded into the system. Animations do not fare much better, with more complex animations failing to work properly, resulting in some fairly ‘funky’ slides.

The screen sharing or application sharing option is probably best for those with more graphical presentations. This allows presenters to essentially project their screen, or a specific application, onto the screens of their audience, without the need to upload content through the WebEx system. Whilst the graphics still aren’t perfect, they are more reasonable and within the expectations of a decent online meeting application. Animations are much smoother with more predictable results, rather than some of the effects generated by the uploaded content

Verdict

WebEx meetings are really let down by their lack of support for high end graphical presentations and a range of animations that many presentations today feature. If you present bullet points, then WebEx is fine, but it really doesn’t do justice to well-designed visual presentations. Screen sharing saves WebEx from being a total disappointment and is really the only option for those wanting to impress with their presentations.

Score: 3/5

GoToMeeting

URL: http://www.gotomeeting.com

Functions

• Screen sharing
• Application sharing
• Remote control
• Annotations
• Teleconferencing
• Web chat
• Recording

Overview

GoToMeeting is based on screen sharing or application sharing, giving meeting attendees the opportunity to see your screen as you see it or a specific application, such as PowerPoint. GoToMeeting requires a very small and quick set up process that is very simple for all attendees to follow.

The meeting environment is split into a viewing window, that can be re-sized by each individual attendee and a functions panel that offers various functions such as attendee lists, web chat and teleconferencing details. For presenters, this panel also provides options for screen sharing and attendee participation.

GoToMeeting gives presenters a greater level of control over what meeting attendees see during the meeting. Attendees can be given full view of the desktop environment of a PC, including any applications that are running, or a more basic version that strips out background graphics and icons, giving a much simpler, more focused view of content. Unlike all the other online meeting software reviewed here, GoToMeeting also supports multiple monitors, with choice available for share a primary monitor, secondary monitor or both together (although this option results in fairly small reproductions of both screens within the attendee viewing window).

The quality of the screen sharing is good. Graphics are reproduced well enough to provide reasonable viewing of content and for animations, refresh rates are sufficient to allow all but the most complex transitions and animations to be seen clearly. There is a latency of a second or so (this can be higher with slower connections), but unless the timing of narrative and animation is critical, this won’t really cause a problem for presenter or audience.

Verdict

GoToMeeting offers an excellent tool for quick online meetings, with excellent screen sharing capabilities. Let down slightly by not having upload capabilities which eliminate problems of latency and refresh rates, GoToMeeting is a tool that any presenter should be happy to use.

Score: 4/5

Microsoft Live Meeting

URL: https://www.livemeeting.com

Functions

• Presentation upload
• Screen sharing
• Application sharing
• Remote control
• Annotations
• Teleconferencing
• Web chat
• Recording

Overview

Microsoft Live Meeting provides users with every function normally required by presenters. Live Meeting requires a download and install of the Live Meeting application for both hosts and participants to meetings, which can take several minutes. As a result, initiating meetings often isn’t the quickest of processes, but once you have the application installed, further meetings are quick to set up. There is an alternative web-based version which is quicker to initiate, but this sacrifices presentation performance.

Once in the meeting, the environment is neat with very little in the way of the main content screen. Drop down menus give access to a range of useful functions including content, attendee lists, web chat and meeting invitation details.

Hosts and presenters can upload content to the meeting room at any time (as well as before the meeting starts). Upload times always appear reasonable, but clearly depend upon the speed of your web connection.

The quality of uploaded content is excellent. Live Meeting works well with PowerPoint and is probably the best online meeting software application available to faithfully replicate your PowerPoint slides and all their animations. It falls down slightly with some of the emphasis animations such as colour changes, but overall delivers a very credible performance. Graphics are of good quality and animations are smooth on all but the very slowest web connection speeds.

Curiously, uploaded content from PowerPoint 2007 can sometimes experience issues, with graphics sometimes failing to appear and some animations not working correctly.

Live Meeting also offers screen sharing and application sharing functionality, which eliminates upload times, but results in a presentation of lower graphical quality with more interruptions to animations, but neither is noticeably off-putting, unless you have particularly detailed slides with fine levels of animation (although arguably such subtle animation would be inappropriate in an online presentation as it can be lost on audiences without a presenter to physically point it out).

Verdict

Overall Microsoft Live Meeting is an excellent online meeting tool for delivering every type of online presentation. It provides the best graphical output and works well with animated PowerPoint slides, unlike many of its rivals. The main negative is the required download and install of the application before joining a meeting as this can be both confusing and time consuming. The work around to this, in the form of a web-based version does not display animations in uploaded content and so audiences are forced to view a static version of the content, or cope with lower quality graphics through screen sharing. Screen sharing is viable alternative with Live Meeting, albeit with a small sacrifice in graphics and animation. Mac users may also want to be wary of a Microsoft product that still doesn’t quite work as smoothly as it does on Windows machines

Score: 4.5/5

Glance

URL: http://www.glance.net

Functions

• Screen sharing
• Remote control
• Teleconferencing
• Web chat
• Recording

Overview

Glance, like GoToMeeting, is a screen-sharing-only online meeting tool. As a result, the software is much more basic and so correspondingly, accessing the meeting is much simpler. Whilst a download is required, it is very quick. Accessing the meeting is also very simple, with only a simple URL and four digit code to input, rather than the sometimes confusing URLs, usernames and password requirements of other systems.

The meeting environment is a full screen representation of the host’s desktop, which makes viewing easy, even for those with smaller screen sizes.

Graphical quality of shared content is good and being a sharing option, animations are always reproduced faithfully. However, Glance appears to use a scanning refresh format, much like TVs, which refreshes the screen line by line and can result in some animations looking rough and shuddering. More complex animations such as motion paths can suffer as a result, as can animations that have a specific purpose (such as arrows wiping in a certain direction to add emphasis).

Remember that this is a screen sharing tool, rather than an application sharing tool and so presenters need to be careful that sensitive information is not displayed and for a more professional appearance, email reminders that appear over presentations are turned off.

Verdict

The simplicity of accessing Glance meetings is a balance with a poorer quality delivery of animation heavy presentations. Graphics are displayed well and for presentations with low levels of animation the system works remarkably well. For a simple, no frills, yet easy to use application it provides very good results.

Score: 3/5

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1. Successful presentation optimisation (or optimization for our American cousins) starts by having clear objectives. Then, the presentation can be optimised in terms of those objectives. If a presentation isn’t aiming to do anything in particular, how can it be optimised to do it better?
2. Go through all the material in the presentation and eliminate everything that is interesting to you but not to your audience. Limit the amount of information in your presentation, and what remains has more impact. Many companies go overboard in proving that they are big and global and powerful – which has its place, but can usually be achieved in just a couple of slides.
3. Group content into coherent sections. When deciding what sections to create, ask What matters to the audience? What headings would they be interested in hearing you talk about? Five sections is optimal. Any more than seven is too many.
4. Eliminate bullet points. This doesn’t just mean cut down the number of words in your bullet points, or increase the font size in your bullet points. It means get rid of them. They don’t work. Slides that are going to be presented shouldn’t make sense without a presenter talking. If the audiences read your bullet points they think they have understood your point, and they disengage, sometimes without bothering to listen to what you are saying. Use visual cognitive dissonance instead.
5. Look for the visuals that help you get your point across. Presentation optimisation involves turning “visual aids” into something that actually helps the presenter. Does a slide show a series of dates? Then use a timeline. Does a slide explain the order in which something happens? Show a process map. Does a slide compare numbers? Find the right graph. Does a slide explain how something happens? Show this by moving photographs around on a slide. Can’t find the right visual? Use some photos to illustrate your point.
6. Presentation design matters. To optimise your presentation you will want it to look good. Find a tasteful PowerPoint template. Consolidate the number of colours and fonts that you use. Destroy all Clip-Art, and cut out the more tacky stock photography. Reconsider that Word-Art. Only use animation to guide attention or to convey meaning – never to make things look “interesting”.
7. A presentation is about a speaker and their slides. Presentation optimisation must, therefore, optimise the PowerPoint presentation and how the presentation is delivered. Practice delivering the presentation; often, using a camcorder to watch and review can give valuable and rapid feedback. Don’t say what you would say if you were presenting – actually present the presentation, even if only to an empty room. When delivering the presentation, remember that people rarely complain that a presentation was too quick. Don’t speak too quickly – but deliver your material in a concise and pithy way.

slide:ology by Nancy Duarte

Among the largest and priciest books on the ‘Business Presentations’ bookshelf, and written by one of the USA’s leading authorities on presentations, slide:ology promises a great deal.  With its coffee-table-chic format, high-profile case studies and on-the-nose interjections from trendies like Garr Reynolds and Seth Godin, it cries out to presenters who are looking for something more aesthetically inspirational than the abundant boardroom manuals.

In this area slide:ology certainly does not disappoint. Complimenting Nancy’s earnest and passionate belief, the pages make pleasing use of imagery, typefacing, colour, imagery and all the other graphical niceties that the author knows and loves to teach. Unfortunately, the inviting use of white space and friendly ‘one idea per spread’ format that makes this book so accessible also makes it feel suspiciously lightweight. Insightful as most of the key ideas are, the breeziness with which they are dealt and the lack of scientific insight into why they work mean it is the graphic design sections of this book that have the most credibility.

Nancy’s Manifesto: The Five Theses of the Power of a Presentation is, puzzlingly, delivered right at the end of the book:

• Treat Your Audience as King
• Spread Ideas and Move People
• Help Them See What You’re Saying
• Practice Design, Not Decoration
• Cultivate Healthy Relationships

These principles are huge, and it is disappointing to find them right at the end of the book instead of seeing the content of slide:ology arranged around them. Readers will have to flip back through the book to look again for the ‘how?’ behind these ideas, while they might have had more impact by being introduced at the start, proven with hard evidence, and then demonstrated with the rest of the content.

The Art of Presenting, Without the Science

In her introduction Nancy says “This book covers how to create ideas, translate them into pictures, display them well, and then deliver them in your own natural way.” For the most part, this promise is admirably delivered upon. But in the same paragraph she then says “This book will teach you “why””, but it is this part of the picture that is sadly under-represented here.

Yes, pretty much anyone with exposure to presentations and an eye on the media knows that a global evolution from text-based to visual-based slides is gathering momentum. Nancy assumes her reader understands this, makes a strong case for presentations (and a decent case against ‘career suislide’ – the unhappy consequence of sticking with cue card-style presentations), and then launches into the creative starting-point; knowing who your audience is and figuring out what kind of engagement you need to have with them. This reader can’t help but feel that going into more depth about exactly why the tired old methods don’t work (and are actually counter-productive) would have provided enough intellectual ballast to keep everyone afloat all the way up until Chapter 11 – Interacting with Slides, when some of the cognitive rationale behind a visual approach actually starts to emerge.

The justification behind the central theses of the book comes too little and too late. Readers who are reluctant to start learning about design might need some clear facts about what makes bullet-points so harmful, and why audiences find it easier to assimilate visual information, to give them the motivation to keep reading through the dense central chapters on design. Alternatively, they may quite understandably be inspired to rethink their approach and subsequently convinced that Duarte can do it for them. As Nancy says after whetting our appetites for visual techniques in Chapter 2 – Creating Ideas, Not Slides: “Be prepared to enlist the help of a professional designer (you did plan far enough ahead to make sure you’ve got one available, right?)” Excellent advice, but it slightly undermines the tutorial styling of the design chapters to come.

That said, readers who already know that Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ Keynote presentation is Duarte’s work will probably be quite happy to take Nancy’s word for all this, skip past the chapter on finding inspiration and sketching out our thoughts on Post-Its (because most of you already know our subject) and dive into chapters 3 and 4 on Creating diagrams and Presenting data. Gore did, after all, win hearts and minds all over the world by clearly and dramatically presenting the right data in the right way.  And in this area, slide:ology is a resounding success.

Killer Visualisation

All too often, presentation gurus claiming ambassadorship of the visual slide paradigm fail to address the critical skill of transforming a complex idea into a simple visual, instead falling into the ‘zen’ paradigm of full-bleed, eye-candy photographs and two or three-word shock headings. By contrast, the insightful creative process Nancy sets out along with pages of example diagrams and schematics is a hugely valuable resource…all the more so given that PowerPoint 2007 already provides many of the example diagrams in its SmartArt feature ready for non-designers to start inserting. The only caveat to these chapters is that sometimes Nancy’s sketching gets a little too enthusiastic….there are diagrams of a complexity that can completely baffle audiences unless considerable thought and work is put into how they are animated and explained.

On that subject, we have to wait until much later in Chapter 9 – Creating movement for some guidance into how to use animation effectively. That’s rather late in the day to mention such an essential and underused component of presentation software. Nancy does provide some great high-level insight into how to use effects to support different types of message (motion paths to show connections, advanced emphasis effects to show takeover or surpassing etc), but she does ask quite a lot of the inexperienced user by looking at animation more from a movie-director’s point of view than a PowerPoint or Keynote designer’s. The most useful tips here are delivered across twoparticular idea-spreads, Designing Time-Based Scenes and Planning Animations, which could easily have been fleshed out into an entire chapter at the expense of the cinematography-inspired theory that follows.

Bringing it All Together

In addition, much of the valuable insight from the earlier chapters on diagrams and visual sequences could have been combined with the animation advice to really inspire a dynamic approach to building and animating visuals that keep audiences engaged, but sadly this never happens. We get a whole Chapter 6 – Arranging Elements demonstrating how to lay out visual elements in sympathy with the eye’s natural flow of direction (at least, the natural Western eye’s direction), and different types of layout that encourage audiences to easily perceive hierarchy, progression and relationships. I can’t help thinking that this would be so much simpler to achieve by building the elements of the slide in the right order with the right effects. There are several very perceptive ideas in all of these chapters, but frustratingly they never quite combine to show how some truly dynamic explanations could be achieved relatively easily.

Design for All?

As much as Nancy tries to make the design-based chapters - Thinking Like a Designer, Arranging Visual Elements and Using Visual Elements – accessible to everyone, readers without some background and/or a keen interest in graphic design will likely find them difficult to embrace and apply. The case studies are certainly demonstrative of the various elements of theory that are expounded, but the slides shown are so disparate that it is difficult to see the principles being consistently applied. In addition, one of the most startling things about the selected slide examples is that they do not fully represent the depth of Nancy’s visual thinking. Too many of the slides still show text of a very small size and in full sentences, which is disqualified by some of the guidelines she sets out in Chapter 11 – Interacting with Slides.

Although there is strong encouragement for presenters to move away from basing slides on text, this appears as more of an afterthought in the final chapters. It might have made more sense first to set up arguments why this is a bad idea and then to build the alternative techniques around them. By presenting ideas about ‘Constraining the Text’, ‘Constraining the Length’ and ‘How Many Slides?’ at the end of the book, one feels Nancy has foregone an opportunity to make a strong case for a dynamic visual style in favour of her passionate expertise for creating attractive graphics. In addition, many of the examples jar with current psycho-perceptual theory with application to presentations; there is an abundance of large, full-face human photographs, which are shown to consume excessive cognitive load in audiences and make it difficult for them to concentrate on anything else. While this would not be an issue in traditional graphic design, there are different rules for presentations when cognitive processing is at a premium.

slide:ology could easily have been two books: one very capable and detailed guide to producing graphics that work well in presentations, and one explaining why bullet-points fail and visuals work. The latter thesis however, would need significant fleshing out to make a convincing case. Conspicuously absent from slide:ology is any attempt to delve deep into cognitive aspects of presenting and how to structure information to make long-term influences on audiences.  There are several brainstorming workshops offered in the book, from psychoanalytic ‘know thyself’ wordgames to exercises for generating and structuring ideas, and while the therapy-style presentation of these may not be to everyone’s taste, they are useful. This book is not focused on business or sales presentations, and readers seeking guidance on creating competitive value propositions and sales messaging will find these exercises lacking in substance.

Conclusion

With all that in mind, slide:ology is one of the best books available on creating visual presentations, even if its reach outweighs its grasp. A lack of psychological insight and a breezy style, that does not do justice to the many profound ideas littered throughout, may leave serious readers unsatisfied. Yet the chapters on presenting data and visualising information are almost worth the price alone, as long as readers have already bought into the approach before picking up the book. Highly recommended, but not quite the bible of effective presenting that it could have been.

This slide shows supply chain stability, achieved through maintaining a set of suppliers. If one supplier fails to deliver, others can take that supplier’s place. This ensures that supply is constant.

This slide can have a diferent template applied for use in your own presentations. The colours will adapt to suit.

Download these supply chain stability slides for use in your own presentation.

Is The Audience Deciding Whether To Buy – Or Which Version to Buy?

Every presenter should ask themselves a simple question during preparation – is the presentation going to address whether the audience should buy at all, or has the need been identified and is the audience considering whether to buy from me versus the competition? In other words, whether the audience’s ‘need to purchase’ has been established is a critical determining factor in choosing which messages to convey.

For example, if ‘outsourcing’ is one of a presenter’s core value propositions, then the appropriate message if this audience were considering whether to buy might be: ‘Why outsource?’ Alternatively, the appropriate message for an audience which is considering which supplier to buy from would consequently be: ‘Why outsource to us?’. The two questions are fundamentally different, in terms of the resulting discussion – although each is potentially relevant and appropriate, depending upon the audience’s requirements and, potentially, the stage of the sales cycle at the point of presentation.

Using the above questions, two possible answers might be ‘cost savings’ and ‘an improvement in service levels’ respectively, for example. The first answer is relevant to all outsourcing offerings and so plays an essential role in establishing why the audience needs such a service – but the second offers a key point of competitive differentiation.

In differing circumstances it is conceivably possible that either the ‘whether’ or ‘which’ messages may be relevant and appropriate during either the marketing or sales phases of the overall sales cycle. However, it’s worth noting that when these two points are presented concurrently in the sales phase for example, they can be significantly more powerful than when presented independently, effectively re-establishing the audience’s overall need to buy, before then delivering the presenter’s specific value proposition to confirm why the audience must buy from them. In other words, sales messages concerning ‘whether’ to buy can help to shape the audience’s understanding of how to choose ‘which’ to buy.

When preparing to deliver a sales presentation, it is highly worth considering whether the audience is likely to be thinking either: “Do I need this solution?” or “Can this presenter provide me with the solution I need” respectively. If the former, then the presenter should aim to make the audience want to buy, ideally without going out to market, but at the very least with a view of what to look for that is tailored to the presenter’s own offering. If the latter, the opportunity is clearly to convey why the presenter is the best placed to offer the service that the audience has already identified is required, via a more compelling and benefit-led sales presentation than the competition.

By considering where the presentation sits within the sales cycle based on whether the audience is considering the merits of a purchase or whether the audience is sold on making the purchase but considering where to spend their money, the smart presenter optimises the chances of achieving the desired positive outcome.

Undoubtedly, producing the correct message for the given audience to assure the best possible outcome is one of the most difficult aspects of creating a great presentation. This article is intended to offer guidance on how to correctly identify whether a presentation is to support either the presenter’s marketing function or sales function – and therefore how to optimise the message and approach accordingly. Recognising the key differences between marketing and sales messages may also be useful to guide wider marketing campaigns, ensuring that these support sales, rather than undermine them.

Marketing as Lead Generation

Simply put, much of business-to-business marketing is a lead generation exercise. Then, sales people are used to close the deal, often with the support of a sales presentation.

Marketing messages should establish or generate interest. Marketing presentations may be given at trade shows, conferences, online, or at product launches – typically, to large audiences. Marketing presentations, and wider marketing campaigns, should compel the audience to find out more, thereby moving from the marketing phase into the sales phase of the overall cycle.

If a marketing presentation or marketing campaign inspires the audience to contact the presenter with questions, such as “Could you?”, “Will you?” or “Do you?” then the presentation exercise has clearly succeeded. Once a company representative is sitting face-to-face with a single prospective customer, sales messages are more appropriate.

Marketing Undermining Sales Presentations?

In terms of the overall sales objective, it is potentially counter-productive for a presenter to reveal too much at the marketing stage. Marketing messages should be sufficiently compelling to encourage the audience to pursue the required call to action – e.g. to pick up the phone. Full product descriptions and feature lists revealed at the marketing stage can prevent further dialogue, by allowing prospects to assume that they know all there is to know about a company’s offering. Instead, by providing a sufficient level of relevant intrigue at the marketing phase, this acts as the basis for discussion during the sales phase, presenting an ideal sales opportunity.

For example, a business might choose to convey relevant successes that have been previously achieved for existing customers in a marketing message or presentation, whereas a full description of how this was achieved and also how this could be applicable might best be held back until the appropriate time to deliver a sales message.

Setting up Sales Presentations

The role of a marketing message is to convey the achievability of some core benefits in relation to the audience’s specific requirement, yet without explaining the exact means of delivering these. Consequently a well conceived and delivered marketing presentation, and indeed marketing campaign, should set up the sales opportunity. The sales presentation should deliver the relevant punchline that enables the audience to understand not only exactly what’s on offer but how it can help address their particular need.

If marketing deliver sales messages to all, sales presentations will seem unavoidably boring and repetitive – everything has been said already. As a presenter, it’s vital to understand which messages are sufficient to make the phone ring. If handled correctly, these messages also provide the ammunition for the commercial sales pitch to be delivered in answer to a prospect’s inevitable questions.

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Businesses should sell intelligently during a recession. Focus on selling profitable services to the right customers, while ensuring cash flow remains strong.

Businesses need to know if the projects they sell will damage their cash flow. These issues become more relevant during a recession, when cash can be tight.

Accurate cash flow forecasting allows businesses to be clear on whether they will have enough cash to complete a job and receive payment while still having cash available to continue as a going concern.

Small businesses can consider factoring, or invoice-chasing services, to ensure that cash is available to continue trading.

Credit checks can help businesses decide whether to ask for payment in advance where the business is thought to be at risk of non-payment.

As well as only making payments to those likely to pay, and for work that can be delivered, it also makes sense to focus on work that is profitable, and attractive from a cash-flow perspective.

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Instead of leaving sales to the dedicated sales team alone, businesses should engage the entire company in a sales effort. By ensuring more people sell – including those in operations and delivery teams – a business can sell more, increasing market share, even within a declining market.

If you would like an editable copy of these PowerPoint slides for your own use, please leave a comment below. Make sure you give your email address so we can send you the slides – but don’t worry, it won’t be displayed or shared.

The last in a series of four episodes of the Killer Presentation Series, this edition focuses on how using the right visuals makes your presentation engaging and memorable.

Second in a series of four episodes of the Killer Presentation Series, this edition focuses on finding the right message for your presentation.

First in a series of four episodes of the Killer Presentation Series, this edition looks at why you need to use a presentation.