Paul Smith had 20 minutes to sell the CEO of Procter & Gamble, and his team of managers, on new market-research techniques for which Mr. Smith’s department wanted funding. As associate director of P&G’s PG +0.05% market research, Mr. Smith had spent three weeks assembling a concise pitch with more than 30 PowerPoint slides.
A good oral presentation is well structured; this makes it easier for the listener to follow.
Basically there are three parts to a typical presentation: the beginning, middle and end or (introduction, body and conclusion). We are going to look at the content of each part individually and the language needed to express its structure and content.
The beginning of a presentation is the most important part. It is when you establish a rapport with the audience and when you have its attention. More detailed techniques are to be found later.
Get the audience’s attention and signal the beginning.
Most people suck at presenting to big groups. It’s a shame because the ability to nail these presentations at key conferences can be once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to influence journalists, business partners, potential employees, customers and VCs.
So I thought I’d write a piece on how not to suck when you give a presentation.
PowerPoint 2010 introduced the very great ‘Merge Shape’ tools (see this post for details). With this toolset editable, vector, shapes can be can be created direct in PowerPoint – something I refer to as “Illustrator 2.0″. With PowerPoint 2013 it includes the ability to convert text to vector, which is what we will use to create the stylized quote marks for a complete PowerPoint workflow.
Many people worry that they have to be extroverted to use body language. But this is far from the truth! Introverts can master body language and nonverbal behavior to strengthen their interactions and gain confidence.
Here are a few tips for introverts:
Having been a start-up lawyer, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist, I have been asked many of the following questions over the years from entrepreneurs when starting a business. Sometimes there isn’t an easy answer, and as lawyers often like to say, “It depends on the circumstances.” But, here are my short-hand answers to the frequently asked start-up questions, which hopefully will be right 95% of the time.