Ditch the storytelling structure for your business presentation, but use personal stories to bring corporate messaging alive

I had a little rant recently, suggesting: ‘There's too much talk about Storytelling, not enough about how, when and when NOT to apply storytelling principles’.  Well, last week a nice example of what I was talking about came up when I was coaching a PR executive in Presentation Skills.

The brief was to create a presentation about her agency with the objective of encouraging other bright young executives that this was the agency to join.  So, in true Lewis Carroll ‘Begin at the beginning…’-style, she started off thus: “First, a bit of background: we were founded in 1984 by….”.

“Hang on a minute”, I said, “what was the brief?” “To encourage young PR executives that this is the best place to come and work”, she responded.  “So why are you starting off with ancient history?”, I said, “none of them were even born until some years after that date!”

As with the construction of so many business presentations, all the information was there; it was just in the wrong order to work as a truly engaging piece of communication. In this case we thought again about our audience. They were people who were keen to progress their careers and wanted an exciting place in which to work. So a bit of excitement should be first on the agenda. We re-constructed the presentation as follows:

1.  Open with three of the most high profile and dynamic pieces of work recently undertaken recently by the agency; the examples also display a broad range of different types of work.  This should engage the audience immediately – hey, this is the kind of work I would like to do!

2.  A little bit of background – we were founded in 1984 etc. Placed here, this is designed as reassurance that it is also a ‘robust’ agency – they do great work and it looks they can offer job security too.

With the audience now actively and suitably engaged, you can relax a little, show some case histories, encourage discussion etc. 

Then you need high focus once more for the all-important ‘Call to Action’ at the end – the moment when the presenter spells out what she wants the audience to do as a result of her presentation. My client was very clear that her big message was ‘this is the place for the best young PR people to come and work’ and she chose to wrap this up in the company’s stated values. My view was that this was a good approach, but if she simply ran through the words, that is how it would probably be perceived – as a bunch of words. To make it work for her she needed to pick one of those values and tell a story about how it related to an experience she had had while working at the company. As well as making the values come to life, the audience would be able to relate to those values, through the speaker – here is someone like me, living a life that I would like to live myself.

By thinking strategically – and rather ruthlessly - about storytelling structure, but then building in personal insights at key moments, your presentation really can remain ‘happily ever after’ in the minds of your audience.

Killing the PowerPoint to bring focus back to yourself just needs ‘Plan B’

Last week I promised to reveal how you can blank out the screen when using PowerPoint – so as to bring focus back to yourself and clear away any distractions.

You simply press the B key and it blanks the screen; press it again and the image returns to the screen. Similarly, if you press W it whites out the screen.

This facility is built into PowerPoint but few people know about it. I have asked audiences numbering one hundred for a show of hands as to how many people know what happens if you press the B key and had a mere three or four responses.

The greatest need I have ever seen for the B key during a presentation was when a PR man was talking through his consultancy’s credentials. Very appropriately, he said: “Before I conclude, let me tell you about some of the fun things we do” and right on cue up went a picture of some professional women enjoying a night out.

He continued: “We find this is a really god way of connecting with one of our key target audiences, many of the journalists we deal with are women etc etc. So, why should you appoint us? Well, three reasons: first…..”. At the crucial moment of his ‘Call to Action’ nobody was paying attention to what he was saying – they were still looking at a picture of attractive women! Had he used the B key at that point, the distraction would have been cleared away and attention would have come back to him with the additional benefit of the now blank screen indicating ‘change of mood – this is where we get serious again’.

Finally, it can take a while to get used to using this nifty little tool and I have even heard people say: “But I can’t keep turning it off”. My response is “Don’t think in terms of turning it off; focus instead on turning it on when – and only when – you actually need visual support”. Then I show them how Steve Jobs used to deliver his brilliant product launch presentations and I say: “Notice how he never puts anything on the screen unless it is actively helping him at this particular moment”.

Extracted and adapted from Nick Fitzherbert's book 

Presentation Magic.  German edition published April 29.

Why can’t PowerPoint shake off its ‘death by’ tag?

There are many people throughout the business world and beyond who hate PowerPoint and I discussed what I believe to be the root cause of its perceived failings a while back in a blog I wrote at the time of PowerPoint’s 25^th birthday. You can click here to read the article.   

The fact is, though, that the ‘Death by’ tag has been blighting PowerPoint for a long time now. Why does it persist? Why don’t we just stop using PowerPoint or, preferably, use it better? Recently have I discovered one key factor that I believe does much to perpetuate ‘Death by’ accusations.

Alongside my work as a Presentation Skills coach, I devote time to mentoring Apprentices in the world of PR where I began my career. At an early part of their programme the Apprentices have to outline the role and responsibilities of PR executives at different levels. It dismayed me that they kept submitting work declaring that PowerPoint presentations were one of the responsibilities of an ‘Account Assistant’ - the entry level position just below that of ‘Junior Account Executive’. 

“No, no, no” I responded, “PowerPoint is simply a tool that supports the speaker, so it needs to be put together – or at the very least briefed – by the speaker themselves so that they receive visual support to what they are saying”.

The Apprentices looked confused and showed me the text book from which they were learning. And there, alongside ‘research, maintenance of media lists and general administrative duties’ was listed ‘PowerPoint presentations’ as one of their duties.

Frustrating as it was to make this discovery, it was not actually too much of a surprise. I often get collared by minion types who say: "can you spare a few minutes to advise me on some ‘decks’ of slides I have put together for the chief exec when he sees the board next week". It’s not really helpful at times like this to hit them with the truth which is as follows:

• You are confusing a bunch of PowerPoint slides with a presentation. You (or whoever is actually speaking) are the presentation; the slides are merely support.

• You MUST see the slides as support – a simple tool to help you get your point over – if and when appropriate. If your starting point for the presentation is the slides, then the speaker will be driven by those slides and they won’t really be themselves, let alone speak from the heart. And the audience's attention will almost inevitably flit between what the speaker is saying and what is being depicted on the slides.

• When creating a presentation think of yourself as a film director. They do not get their cameras out until they have thought through and planned out exactly what they want to get across! If you start without any visual aids at all and simply speak out loud you will soon discover where you need some visual support – the moment you are struggling or taking too much time to describe something is probably the point at which you need a visual aid. The solution may well be PowerPoint, but it may be something even more appropriate to this particular situation such as a prop of a simple board.   

Finally, give some serious thought to finishing your presentation without any PowerPoint. Why?  Because the finish is where you need to deliver your Call to Action – the point at which you are asking your audience to remember your big point or commit to something specific. That needs energy, passion and full-on eye contact, all of which are so much more powerful than a list of bullet points on a slide.

So how do you kill the PowerPoint at a strategic moment (without powering down your projector)? Come back to this blog next week and I’ll tell you about the little known but most useful tool that's built into PowerPoint to help you.