Presentation Skills in 7 simple steps. James Schofield

3 Selling

      For some people ‘selling’ is still a dirty word. It smacks of pushy door-to-door sales people or TV shopping channels. But actually, we all need to sell things, even if it’s our own skills, when we go for a job interview.

      The key to being good at sales is to think how your product or service will make the life of the listener better: Using this database is going to make your research much more accurate. If you approach sales with this attitude, you can feel comfortable with what you are doing.

       4 Introducing change

      It’s a fact that most people don’t like change. We’re all creatures of habit so when we first hear about something new, we tend to reject it as unnecessary. There is often an element of fear in this response. A change can have an impact on people’s own interests, aspects of their jobs and even their personality, and as a result, an audience may have very negative reactions to the presenter. Everyone who tries to introduce change experiences this, from a top CEO trying to restructure her entire company down to a team assistant who wants to convince his office colleagues that a new rota system for making coffee in the morning is mission critical.

      What can you do to combat this? The best way is to get the people affected involved in discussion. Simply informing them of a change is likely to lead to resistance, either active (Who do you think you are? I’m not doing that!) or passive (I’ll get round to doing that – sometime). So outline to the audience what the current situation is, give clear reasons why change is necessary, outline possible solutions, and then engage the audience in discussion about the merits or demerits of these solutions. Let the audience see that you are interested in their opinions and want to involve them in finding the best solution. That way you’ll get them on board and willing to cooperate.

       Clarifying objectives

      Once you’ve worked out what kind of presentation is needed, you can move on to thinking about what you need to achieve. To do this, you need to answer four key questions.

       How much time have you got?

       What practical details should you check about the audience?

       What influence does their part of the company have on them?

       What is your goal in the time available?

       1 How much time have you got?

      This is a question that needs to be clarified with the presentation organisers before you start detailed preparation. It’s important because if you don’t know how much time you have, it’s easy to produce too much material for the time you have available. There are several possible consequences.

       You’re asked to stop before you get to the conclusion.

       You rush through your material and lose your audience because they can’t keep up with you.

       You don’t have enough time to deal with questions from your audience.

      It’s hard to define how much time you should allow for questions and discussions because it depends on how controversial the topic is and the type of presentation you’re giving. But in general, it’s advisable to plan for at least twenty-five per cent of your time slot to be given over to dealing with questions.

       2 What practical details should you check about the audience?

      Your audience should always be in the foreground of your preparation. Ask yourself these questions.

       How many people will be there? The number will have an impact on what technology you use and how you talk to them. If it’s only a small number, you can ask them direct questions or get them to discuss something. With a larger audience, you might need a microphone and speakers.

       What do they know about my topic already? Don’t overestimate their knowledge or underestimate their intelligence. If it’s a complex topic, use a simple analogy that they can relate to. For example, you could compare an electrical circuit with traffic flow controlled by traffic lights. If you’re giving an internal presentation, think about what your colleagues already know and what will be new to them.

       How do they feel about my topic? The reaction of your audience can normally be predicted. Be ready for this by preparing concrete evidence to confirm what you’re saying.

       What can they do with the information they get from me? Ideally, you should give your audience something they can take away and use themselves. On the other hand, in a regular internal meeting you may need to get information from some of your colleagues. Make sure you get it.

      Take this pro-active approach to your presentation and it will come through in the way that you talk about your subject. If you treat an audience as you would a friend, they’ll return the favour.

       3 What influence does their part of the company have on them?

      Finding out where your audience comes from can be enormously important because you might need to adapt your message or style depending on their background. Supposing you had to present a recommendation to introduce new accounting software to different groups within a company, how might you need to change the focus of your talk? What things should you take into account?

       Management will want to hear about the cost savings that it will generate. The technical side will likely be unimportant to them except for any risks caused by technical problems.

       IT will want to be reassured by your description of its development that it fits into what they already have. They will be concerned about any difficulties that the new software may cause their servers.

       Accounting staff will want to know if the software will make their work more accurate.

       Sales people will expect you to sell something to them so they will be less interested in the development of the product and more interested in how it will make their lives easier.

      This is just the beginning; you might need to present the topic to people who have just joined the company or students from a local business college. And of course, you might well have representatives from all these different groups in your audience. The point is, the more you know about their interests, the better able you are to tailor the presentation to them.

       4 What’s your goal?

      There’s an old saying: If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never get there. It’s essential to have a clear idea of what you want and what’s possible in the time available. Better to aim low and hit your target than be too ambitious and miss completely; so write down a sentence defining your goal: After my presentation, management can make a decision about whether or not to implement the proposed software.

      Now test your goal to see whether it’s realistic by applying the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timed) criteria to it. In the example above, the goal is:

       Specific (decision on the software)

       Measurable (a decision will be made)

       Attainable (management can make the decision based on your information)

       Relevant (a decision needs to be made)

       Timed (after your presentation).