Boring

Nobody sets out to give a boring presentation but so many end up boring. Why? Is it the:

Monotone delivery?
Reading what is says on the slides?
Predictable repetition of facts and structure?
Going off topic?
Too much technical detail?
While any or all of these things can make a presentation boring they are not the worst culprit. The biggest cause of boring speeches is when the presenter has not given enough consideration as to what his/her audience want to hear.

You need to put your self in the audiences shoes and ask “What’s In It For Me?” Do that right and your audience will be interested no matter what your presentation style. People are rarely bored when your are telling them something of interest.

Presentation Training and Coaching is available from the author of this blog. Please visit my presentation training  website.

Give me a day and I’ll change your presentations, forever

W2IFM

W2IFM – Stands for  What’s In It For Me.

We live in a world of information overload, there is just too much information being circulated and re-circulated for any one individual to take in. One of the strategies people have adopted to cope with this vast volume of information is to only listen to or read information which is relevant to them. In fact most people will only listen if the information and opinions being presented will actually be of used to them. Hence the question “What’s in it for me” (W2IFM).

Right at the start of the presentation you have to answer that question in an attention grabbing manner, otherwise nobody will listen. You then need to keep answering the question throughout the presentation, to keep people involved.

Presentations should not be about you.

Presentations should be about your audience.

There are far too many business presentations that spend far too much time talking about their company, their products and their services. Reeling off lots of facts about how large they are, how long they have been in  place, how much money they have made, etc etc, Most audiences don’t care, they are siting their think W2IFM, What’s In It For Me?  In a sales presentation stop talking about your products and services and start talking about how your products and services can be of benefit to your audience members.

Essentially, this is the same as the difference between a feature and a benefit., see article on FAB.  Lists of facts and features are essentially boring while proven benefits are engaging.

The only way you can tell you audience things that are of interest to them is to know you audience (See A for Audience), and put yourself in their shoes. Imagine going on a first date with someone who dominated the conversation and talked about themselves all night long. Would you really want to go on a second date with that person?

As you develop the presentation keep asking “so what?” , “why should they care about that” and “what’s in it for me”.

The A to Z of Effective Business Presentations

This blog is an A to Z listing of hints and tips on how to create and deliver an effective business presentation. Please feel free to comment on the current listings or if you would like to add your own tips, please add them as a comment on this first page.  All the good tips (imho) will be added as tips in their own right under the appropriate letter and attributed to you.

Select the Category in the right hand column to limit the articles shown to a particular letter.

My aim is to develop the most comprehensive set of tips on how to give an effective business presentation, on the web. The basis of this blog is the content of my paperback “The A to Z of Effective Business Presentations” ISBN  978-1849231138  which is available on Amazon and at all good bookstores.

I wish you all the very best in your future presentations.

Thanks & Enjoy

Graham Young

Young Markets