One of the clients who I was working with, highly recommended that I read this book called 'Presenting to Win' by Jerry Weissman. I have always been fairly comfortable both preparing presentations and presenting them, whenever I got the chance. Hence I was a little reticent to try this out initially but when I had some time last weekend, I decided to read it. Am glad that I did and to be honest, I found the book not only insightful but filled with lots of specific case studies and examples.
Check out a few key pointers below that the author recommends for an effective presentation:
- Every communication has as its goal to take the audience from where they are at the start of your presentation, which is Point A, and move them to your objective, which is Point B; To reach Point B, you need to move the uninformed audience to understand, the dubious audience to believe, and the resistant audience to act in a particular way
- Mastering Audience Advocacy means learning to view yourself, your company, your story, and your presentation through the eyes of your audience
- Building a presentation is a creative process. That means starting with the right brain; Let the right brain complete its stream-of-consciousness cycle before applying the left brain’s structure
- There are proven techniques for organizing ideas in a logical sequence to create a lucid and persuasive presentation. These techniques are called Flow Structures; Eg: Chronological, Problem/Solution, etc.
- There are many opening gambits to draw the audience attention; Eg: Analogy, Quotation, etc.
- Less Is More should be your guiding principle when you are creating your presentation graphics
These are many more key pointers with specific examples to help drive the 'Why' piece of the pointers. This is a recommended read for anyone (especially if you are in sales or consulting) who aspires to improve their presentation skills and persuade their customer towards the intended objective. A must read!
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