How to Give a Crappy Presentation
10X Business Letter
San Diego, Ca
Hot 82 Degrees
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Dear 10X Business Builder,
Hearing that people didn’t like your presentation sucks!
It’s disheartening. It’s frustrating. And it’s next to impossible not to take it personal.
Here are the kinds of things one of our clients heard after delivering his talk at an industry symposium.
… “Not prepared. Didn’t develop the program. Way off base, but info could have been helpful.”
…”Not well done at all”
…”A little unclear on the direction”
… “I walked out…the title did not accurately describe the true content…equity mining.”
48 Excellent-Good / 20 Poor ratings
Ouch!
From the sounds of it, you would think this person didn’t know what they were talking about. You may think they aren’t an articulate or engaging speaker.
You’d be wrong.
This client is one of the top experts in the world on his topic. He is one of 43 people in the world that has his credentials — he even wrote a book on the subject.
And as far as a speaker goes, he is an experienced and professionally trained by the best [I did say he was a client right? ;)].
So what happened?
Why could someone that is a great speaker and subject matter expert bomb so bad at an industry conference?
Here’s what happened:
Even after being taught our propriety presentation structures, this particular client thought that he could simply show up, and start speaking – AKA – ‘shoot from the hip’ – AKA – ‘wing it’.
Eeehhnn! (my sound for WRONG ANSWER!)
The reason he failed so badly this time, was because he didn’t have his talk organized in a structure.
When you use a deliberate structure, you automatically organize your thoughts, ideas and information into a manner that your audience wants to hear it. It’s music to their ears. We have spent years, and thousands of presentations, figuring out what those syntax are.
Yet, he chose to get up there and ‘have a conversation’ about his topic. It doesn’t work like that.
There is a reason the President of the United States doesn’t ad-lib his state of union address!
Could you imagine?
”Today I would like to talk to you about…. uh, uh the war in Iraq and… um… the health care crisis…”
If you don’t use a structure to organize your content you are constantly thinking about WHAT to talk about next, not HOW to talk about it.
It’s seldom of question of knowing about the subject.
As I mentioned, this guy is beyond smart. He’s a fast learner and decided maybe he should use one of the structures that we taught him.
He quickly recreated the presentation. Same subject, same information, same symposium but used a structure.
Here was the feedback he received.
… [removed for privacy reasons] definitely knows his stuff.
… A good intro for me to what a [removed for privacy reasons] even was. I only hope I run across a prospect where I can use the tool!
… One of the best I have been too. Great New Concept
… Good content and interesting.
… This guy is certainly not a cheerleader…but he is extremely bright and was very clear in his explanation.
90 Excellent-Good / 1 Poor ratings
That is over 100% increase of excellent-good ratings and a reduction in negative feedback of 95%.
The numbers don’t lie. It pays to use a structure. If you would like learn some of our proprietary presentation structures… we can help.
Loving Living Giving Large,
Jeff Paro
Editor, The 10X Business Letter
