Small Business Blog from Atlantic Canada

I am "CA" Atreya (PMP, MBA), the author of this blog. I help businesses in Atlantic Canada achieve their BHAG successfully. You may subscribe to this blog using a feed reader (RSS).

The title for this post could very well have been, “How I improved my presentation skills in four easy steps.” I thought my presentation skills very above average. I certainly did not harbor the notion that I was a great presenter. But I thought I was at least above average. That illusion was, however, shattered after I viewed Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple Inc. in action. The desire to see Jobs in action was spurred when I read the book by Carmine Gallo, “The presentation secrets of Steve Jobs” that McGraw Hill kindly sent me to review. See the master presenter in action (on Youtube):

• Jobs presents the Macbook Air
• Jobs presents the iPhone 3G
• Carmine Gallo presents some tips on delivering an insanely great presentation.

After having read the book “The presentation secrets of Steve Jobs”, I decided to implement what I learnt. The glowing feedback after my next presentation indicated to me that following the steps outlined in the book helped. If I can do it, so can you. Here are four tips that, if you adhere to, will ensure your presentation will be a success (You will have to read the book to learn all the seven steps). To provide some context, my presentation shared the results of a project with senior management.

Answer the burning question

In the past I used to build up my presentation and deliver the punch towards the end. Towards that end, I noticed there were times I lost my audience and had to speed things up to get them back. In my latest presentation, I delivered the answer to the most burning question upfront. The audience was hooked and wanted more information. I was moving at the originally planned pace. I never had a such captive audience before. Now I was selling a dream - a dream to significantly reduce costs. No business can afford to ignore that!

Simple slides with images

I had very little text in my presentation. Images conveyed the message on each slide. Numbers had a context. The audience had a baseline to compare to. Additionally, there was only one message per slide. Since I replaced most of the text with images my textual cues were lost. This required me to prepare more than I normally would have. But believe me, having images works. The audience now is not trying to read the text on the screen and listening to me at the same time. They are listening to what I have to say. If you have to write text, create “Twitter-like headlines”. One more thing that I learned was that if you cannot precis your message in 140 characters or less then you need to refine your message. Keep it simple!

Passion

It is not only what you communicate that’s important, but how you communicate it. A great idea delivered with a monotone will get killed when compared with a not-so-great idea delivered a.k.a. “Steve Jobs style”. If you have passion for the topic on hand, then you do not have to try hard. Your delivery will show that; your eyes will sparkle. The audience will detect the enthusiasm in your voice. It’s infectious. Your voice will automatically introduce the correct inflection, pause and speed into your presentation. Delivery of the presentation can be learnt. Three things will help you here: practice, practice and practice. Toastmasters is a great place to learn public speaking in a controlled environment.

Summarize

At the end of the presentation, it is good idea to summarize the main points again. Summarize the dream, summarize the problem, summarize the solution. Repetition helps drive home the point. If there is an ask from the audience, it is an ideal time to introduce it. Summarization keeps the points fresh in the memory when you introduce the ask. If you have done a good job at answering the burning question, you will get your ask.

One more thing

Seriously, read the book if you want to improve your presentation skills. By following Jobs’ approach, you will be surprised at how easy it is to sell your ideas and even wow your audience.

I have another presentation in the next four days. Needless to say, I’ll be preparing the Steve Jobs’ way!

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