1. Why Business
Presentations Don’t
Work
and 4.5 Ways to Fix Them
30,000,000 PowerPoint presentations given daily around the planet.
That’s just Ppt! That’s about 15,000,000 man-hours spent listening to
presentations.
When was the last time you sat through one that you
thought was really compelling?
The fact is, the state of
business presentations is
awful. Stale.
Same old same
old. While there is lots of
talk about the need to change,
lots of references to “death by
PowerPoint”, few companies
do anything about it. Why?
Priorities.... A common
reason given is competing
priorities. There are too many
things to work on, too many things to train the team about.
However, at the end of the day, it is
often how well your team tells their
story that makes the difference!

2. The fact is, almost all valid competitors have product strengths, sales
relationships, good marketing and qualifying skills. The easiest, and most
cost-effective way to develop competitive advantage and create a
differentiation from your competitors is by developing compelling,
remarkable presentations that make a lasting impact on
decision-makers.
Creating better slides with less bullet points and more media is important.
That’s a great first step, but not the answer. A major study concluded that
over 90% of what makes a presentation
memorable is the result of the
delivery, not the material.
People will not remember much of what you present, simply because that’s
the way the brain works. We all have short memory, and when competing
with all the other issues we think about
almost moment by moment, your “important
points” will slip through the grey matter.
However, people do remember how
you made them feel, and what
impression they had of you as a
communicator and representative of your
firm.
So, we know presentations need to be better, and we know that
making them better will improve our chances of success. How,
then do we go about improving our business presentations?

3. Here are 4.5 steps to make that happen.
1. It’s not about you.
How do you and your team start your presentations? My guess is
something like introductions, company history, your most
compelling advantages (customer satisfaction, financial
strength, longevity etc), and the agenda for the presentation.
Pretty close? Also...
BORING...
Here are the problems with that.
•First, that is how your competitors start their presentations as well, so you
look, sound and act just like them.
•Second, that opening tells your audience that this presentation will be
another snoozer, and they begin to consider other competing issues
running around in their brain.
Your prospects, customers, partners care first and foremost about “what’s
in it for them?”, not who you are and why you are there. They already
know that. Tell them something that lets them know you are interested in
solving their problems. Don’t waste their time and turn them off by telling
them about you. Its not about you!
2. Plan for your presentation.
Most business people plan for their presentations by opening PowerPoint
or Keynote and filling in slides. That is 99% of the planning process. They
build slides based on what they believe the prospects need to hear and
what they believe are the most important things to talk about.

4. Building the presentation information should be the last thing done.
The first priority is to analyze the situation.
➡Who are you presenting to?
➡What are their roles in the decision?
➡What are the most critical problems they need to solve?
➡What is the background of the situation, including past efforts,
competitor’s positioning, urgency, cost of doing nothing, etc?
➡Most importantly, if you were sitting in the audience, what would you
need to hear and how would you want that information delivered in
order to make a decision?
Once you completely understand the environment, your
audience and how you need to present, only then should
you start to build the actual presentation.
We almost never put our
audience hat on and
consider our presentation
from the point of view of
our prospects.

5. 3. Prepare to impress.
Prepare your material (slides, media, leave-behind, etc) with the intention
to impress your audience more than to inform them. Yes, of
course they need the information, and
their decision will be at least partially
based on data. However, as perfectly
articulated in the words of the poet Maya
Angelou, “People may not remember what
you say, but they will always remember how
you made them feel”. Remember that!
Decision makers can find vendors and product suppliers on any street
corner. It’s problem solvers they need, and in order to be considered as
such, you need to bring more than a solution to the table. You need to
bring;
•trust
•integrity
•experience
•creativity
•ideas
•...and vision.
Those things are conveyed by your ability to be an impressive and
inspirational communicator, not by your ability to read and interpret
PowerPoint slides.
Create a presentation that is really a conversation, a discussion between
you and your audience. Make it interactive and display your true value as
a partner, not just a solution provider. By the way, most of your
competitors will not do this, which is reason enough for you to.

6. 4. Make your information impactful.
While considering that 90% of your presentation impact is based on how
you present, you do have to present something of value in terms of
information. It is important to remember two things.
(1) People will only remember one key point, if you are lucky, and
(2) Data combined with images creates a more lasting impression.
Develop your slides as visual clues to what you want to discuss.
Remember...less isbetter.
Here are some tips.
•Use simple, high quality images and basic, one word or a few words of text.
•If people can’t “get” your slide in 5 seconds or less, it is a bad slide.
•If you include audio or video clips, make them relevant and short.
•Stay away from “cute”, meaning clip art or animated images.
•Use a single picture that covers the entire slide, then place text over that.
Consider getting away from the slide deck and utilize white boards or flip charts
to sketch out ideas and visions.
Decision makers have said in surveys that they prefer a discussion to a
slide presentation, so give them that.
Then build a leave-behind piece which contains the details of what you
want them to consider, and make that high quality as well. Do not make
it simply a printout of your slides. Make it different, make it
powerful. Include all the stuff that you would love to have shown but
didn’t. Focus on things that solve their problems, and things that they may
consider unique to your offerings. This is what they will refer to when they
evaluate your solution.

7. 4.5 Practice.
This is what the vast majority of business presenters do not do.
This is what can set you apart, can make you memorable. Once you have a
draft of your presentation, run through it out loud. Then run through it
with a third party. You will invariably find places that need tweaking.
Tweak them. Then
practice it aloud
several times until
you are
comfortable with
the delivery as
much as the
material. If you are
part of a
presentation team,
practice together.
Make sure all are
comfortable with
their roles and with
their performance.
You have been in the audience listening to presenters who obviously have
not practiced, and you know it shows. Don’t be one of them!! Step
ahead of your competition and ensure you will be remarkable, powerful,
impactful, and compelling. That does not come from your information, it
comes from
you.....
Creating a compelling, differentiating presentation is not rocket science.
Neither is stepping above and beyond the low bar set by your competitors.
It takes some strategy, some common sense, and some effort. The results
are indeed remarkable.
John Lowe Be Compelling Now 919-264-4591
john@becompellingnow.com
Remember,
hope is not a
strategy