Posts Tagged "Presentation skills"

Superannuation: Why Members Always Seem Disappointed With Their Returns.

September 15th, 2015 |no comments

The returns you report to your members in workplace presentations, will always leave them disappointed. They will always want more.

It does not matter how well your fund performed, they could have made more money. It’s not a reflection on your investment strategies, but rather member bias to the situation.

When we see the return from the last 12 months, our first reaction is to find meaning in the result. Does it meet my expectations? Is it good or bad? How does it compare to other investment strategies within the fund? How does it compare to other funds? Without something to compare against we don’t know how to react to the situation. This is the members search for meaning.

But this search for meaning can only ever lead to a feeling of missing out. It’s not missing out from what your fund has done – it’s missing out from what could have been.

Greed Over Gratitude

Compare two different returns ~ 2% and 20%. The member reaction will always be the same – just on different levels.

If there is a 2% return, the member will compare it to other strategies. If 2% is the best return in the market, they will be glad they were with you, but disappointed that they made no money. If it’s not in the ball park for what other funds have returned they will be furious!

If they make a 20% return they will still compare – it’s the natural thing to do. If 20% was the best in the market they will be ecstatic, but they’ll still have a twinge of disappointment. They’ll be disappointed that they did not invest more – even if they didn’t have the money to invest.

This reaction is the clashing of two human traits – greed and loss. Greed is well understood – we always want more.

What is less understood is that we are more likely to mourn what we have lost before we celebrate what we have won. This forces our greed to appear before our appreciation of growth comes through. It’s a human trait that we must learn to deal with. This is the triumph of greed over gratitude.

When we compare we are always seeing what we lost.

What does this mean for Super Presentations?

If comparisons induce disappointment, be judicious in how you share them. Know that every time you share a comparison you create a sense of disappointment within your audience. This can be a good thing if you have the right strategy to engage them for a planning meeting.

However, if you are just asking people to make an appointment you will be left with an empty diary.

Would love your thoughts on this, please leave a comment in the comment section below.

Cheers

Darren

How to Write a 10-Minute Presentation in Under 2 Minutes

September 14th, 2015 |no comments

Many people spend time agonising over the preparation of their presentations. They do this because they don’t know the correct way to prepare. They write out their message on slides so they don’t forget a thing. Then they read the slides to their audiences.

Unfortunately, this bores the audience. You can see and feel this as the eyes of the audience glaze over and they start to nod off. There is a technical word for this Phenomena – it’s called ‘feedback’.

There is a more efficient, productive and interesting way to prepare and deliver a presentation. But there are some rules to follow:

You have to change the way you prepare – the old way takes too long.
You have to change the way you deliver your presentation – the old way bores your audience.
And, you have to change how you deliver your message – the old way made you look weak.

I’ve written the book ‘How to Write a 10-Minute Presentation in Under 2 Minutes‘ to help busy people prepare great messages. You can check it out here.

It covers what you need to do, and how you need to think, so you can speak without spending ages preparing.

As an introductory offer, I’m giving away free shipping right across Australia.

You can check it out here.

This is a limited time offer only.

Cheers,

Darren

No Such Thing as a Benign Word

September 10th, 2015 |no comments

Every word you say either strengthens or weakens your message. If you want to have a stronger message you need to ensure that every word is helping you out. This is a small technique, but it has a massive effect on your message.

Adverbs
Today we’re looking at adverbs, and in particular, adverbs ending in -ly. Many people include adverbs ending in -ly into their message to make them more powerful, make them seem more sincere, and give themselves the emphasis and strength that they’re after. The irony is, that they reduce their strength as a leader, as someone who has authority, and someone who has influence.

Below are a number of excerpts from the media. Read them, and then read them again with the -ly adverbs taken out. You’ll see that when they are removed the message is stronger, has more focus, and is more believable. In essence, they have more influence.

What
When you’re going about your activities, pay close attention to what you are saying. When you hear yourself using –ly adverbs, just don’t say them. Don’t look to replace them – just leave them out.

This will increase your influence.

WORDS TO LEAVE OUT
• Interestingly
• Basically
• Firstly
• Secondly
• Thirdly
• Clearly
• Hopefully
• (I) personally
• Potentially
• Really
• Essentially
• Obviously

Cheers
Darren

I Can’t Believe You Said That! How to Master Message Management

April 23rd, 2013 |1 comment

Aussie Adam Scott won The Masters and showed great use of message management during interviews.

Message management is how well a person stays on point with a message.

Every message has an objective. The message can be spoken, written or expressed visually. The effectiveness of the message is by how well it achieves your objective.

For example, a sales manager has the objective to make a connection with a prospect, establish a business relationship and to close the deal. Sales managers are some of the best at message management. Through years of trial and error they have figured out what to say and what not to say in order to make a sale.

Warning: Matt Cutts is here to talk about Spam

March 4th, 2013 |no comments

Matt Cutts is in charge of Web spam at Google.

@mattcutts is one of the few public faces of the search engine company.

Google is always working to provide the best search results – both paid and unpaid – for its users. Having your website rank high in these results can be quite profitable and when money flows so does the desire for advertisers to manipulate the rankings.

One of the tasks for Cutts is to help explain what Google is doing to fight Web spam. It’s an important job because there are millions and even billions of dollars riding on how companies manage their websites for search engine rankings.

Cutts is in a difficult position. He needs to effectively explain the moves at Google while dealing with judgment from the online community.

In this video he discusses a recent tool Google rolled out to help fight Web spam.

How to Get Billions of Dollars for Nothing

February 25th, 2013 |no comments

Bill Gates – founder of Microsoft. The “on-again-off–again” the richest man in the world.

Today his mission is to make the world better. He’s no longer in charge of daily operations at Microsoft, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t busy.

Over the last few years Gates has been looking into humanity issues. He’s done research, sought donations and has given presentations around the world.

In this Ted Talk, Gates discusses state budgets and spending in the USA.

How Apple CEO Tim Cook Uses The Power of Community

February 18th, 2013 |1 comment

Tim Cook is the CEO of Apple.

He is following one of the most influential CEOs in recent times – Steve Jobs.

It is not easy to follow someone with such a large presence, but Cook has Apple doing extremely well during his first few years as the company leader.

Jobs was known for giving inspiring keynote presentations.

Today, that job falls on Cook.

This was Cook’s latest keynote.

5 Steps for Clearer, More Refined Presentations

February 4th, 2013 |no comments

Presenters often have too much to talk about.

This is a big problem. Leaders have too much to share and they try to fit every detail into the presentations.

In films, writings, and speeches, brevity is king. The best have a way of cutting out the unnecessary and leaving only the main points that leave the audience entertained, educated or enlightened.

The following are 5 steps you can take to create clearer, more refined presentations.

Jokes and Presentations – Don’t do it!

January 7th, 2011 |1 comment

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Op6pmwOHE]

Real Leaders know how to uncover the humour in their message to make their audience laugh.

When speaking to any audience, it is important to build a rapport with them as quickly as possible—and humour can be a great way to make this connection. However, it’s often best to leave the punch-line jokes aside and focus on more subtle types of humour.

It’s a misconception that beginning a presentation with a joke will get the audience on your side. In fact, jokes will fail far more often than they will succeed. There are several reasons for this unfortunate outcome:
• The funniest jokes are usually not appropriate for the work environment.
• Most jokes rely on a victim—and chances are that someone will identify more with the victim than with you. If the audience identifies with you more than the victim they will find the joke funny. However, there will be people in the audience who identify with the victim and will think your joke is in poor taste. If there are too many of these people in the audience, the joke will fail.
• Jokes require exact wording, good delivery, and perfect timing. If you don’t carry off all three of these things, your joke will fall flat and leave you struggling.
• If you are constantly opening with jokes, you will get a reputation for it. You would be better off building a reputation as someone who has something important to say than as someone who cracks jokes.
• If you do happen to find the right joke and deliver it properly and everyone thinks it’s funny, they will probably remember the joke more than what you had to say. If your joke overshadows your content, it will prevent you from delivering your message.

Although structured jokes with punch lines are almost always a poor choice for your a presentations, humour is an important aspect of all public speaking presentations.

One type of humour that works well when applied to speeches is situational humour. Situational humour can involve making observations on what is going on around you at that moment. Chances are good that if you find something in your immediate environment is funny, others will too. Situational humour can also be used in the stories that you tell.

Another type of humour that works well in a speech or presentation is self-deprecating humour. In this case, you are the only victim of the joke and no one else is hurt or offended. More than that, self-deprecation shows the audience that you are not taking yourself too seriously and helps them build a fondness and respect for you.

Remember: even though humour can be a useful and fun tool to utilise, it is not required to successfully communicate with your audience. If you know that you are lacking a sense of humour, don’t try and force humour into your presentations—focus on your strengths instead. If you are unsure of whether or not a line is funny, try dropping it into a casual conversation and gauge the reactions—even if it doesn’t meet with laughter, it’s a better option than having a bit of humour flop in the midst of a speech.

If You Use PowerPoint You Need to Know This!

April 27th, 2008 |2 comments

PowerPoint (or any other projection software) can be a great to enhance your message. When used correctly it can help you explain your message in a clearer way that helps your audience understand your message and learn even more.

But a constant problem that many speakers have when using PowerPoint is that they don’t know where to put their notes. To get around this, they put their notes on the screen and read from this. Unfortunately this has awful consequences for the audience. See here for examples.

But there is a way around this. The secret has been part of the PowerPoint suit for many years, but has been kept a secret from most of us. The secret uses a function of PowerPoint and a function of the operating software on your computer. As I use Microsoft XP, I will talk in terms of that.

The first step is to prepare your presentation in PowerPoint (or Imppress, Keynote, Freelance or any other program) using the “Presenters Notes”. In PowerPoint this is called “Normal View”. In this setting you can create your slide for your audience and make any notes that you will need. You can also see what slides you have in your presentation.

The second part of the secret is to set your computer up to run on Dual monitors. First ensure that you have your computer attached to the projector or this wont work. In XP this is done by following these steps:

Go to the “desktop”
Right Click and select Properties
In the Properties box select the ‘settings’ tab
Ensure that 2 monitors are showing (if they are not you will not be able to use this functionality.)
Click on the second monitor
Check the box towards the bottom of the settings box that says (something like) “Display monitor on this screen”

Once you have completed this set up you will be able to have the audience see the slides that you want them to see and you will be able to see your notes, the slides that the audience can see, what slides you have just shown and also the next slide to come.

By setting up the computer this way you will be able to control your notes, presentation and your message to achieve the results you are after.

You can get more info on this from Microsoft by following this link http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/powerpoint/HA010565471033.aspx?pid=CL100626991033

‘Til next time,