Top Ten Presentation Tips For My Son.

An oldie but goodie from the past — one of my most requested articles. Enjoy! My 13 year-old son is presenting today at school - his 8th year graduation presentation. He's been working on it for months - a 32 page research paper AND a 30 minute presentation to the school and parents (that's more than I did in college!).

This morning, I threw together some presentation points for him to brush up on during his ride to school. I thought I would share them with you:

1. Smile. Smile. Smile.

The more that you smile, the more relaxed you’ll be. In addition, your audience will also feel relaxed and better engage with your presentation.

2. Have Fun.

Most presenters are afraid to have fun with the audience. You have a wonderful sense of humor (from your Mom and Dad) - use it! But not too much (like your Dad).

3. Move Around.

Most presenters are stiff and formal like Frankenstein. You need to engage the audience by moving around - move from the left side of the screen to the right side. Move closer to the audience (when you are making an important point) and then move back. No dancing though - keep it graceful.

4. Use Your Hands.

Your mouth should not be the only thing moving. Keep your hands moving at all times. Use them to shape your points, move them gracefully. Not too much - don’t act as if you have a medical condition.

5. Keep Eye Contact With The Audience.

Don’t just stare at the pretty girls - have your eyes bounce around from one audience member to another, smile (see tip #1), and keep bouncing your eyes. You will get everyone’s attention - that’s what you’re shooting for.

6. Try Not To Read The Screen.

You can glance quickly at it - get your point - then turn back to the audience and paraphrase the information. You’ve been practicing for many days (hopefully!) - trust yourself and instincts - you WILL remember each point.

7. Take It Easy - You Are Not Sprinting, It’s A Marathon.

You have lots of time - don’t speed through it. Frequently catch yourself and SLOW IT DOWN. Everyone tends to speed up their speaking - slow it down and have fun. Pause often, catch your breath, and then move onto the next point.

8. Engage The Audience (if you can).

Ask them questions like: “How many of you have had this problem?” - Raise your hand and invite the audience members to raise their hand too.

9. Drink Water.

Have a water bottle up there - trust me - you WILL have dry mouth. Drink at your pauses. Having a dry mouth coughing fit in front of an audience is not pretty.

10. You’re Going To Knock It Out Of The Park.

Trust Me.
I see all types of presenters all the time. Most are awful - but some really shine. The reason? They not only believe and love the subject their speaking about — they also truly enjoy to engage an audience. You have that quality in your DNA.

Much Love - Dad

P.S. My son will be following this post all day - so please leave a special comment! Thanks!

Image: Royalty-Free License from Dollar Photo Club 2014. Over 25 million images, only $1 each.

Your Presentations Stink! Part Two: Bar Charts.

This series is an offshoot from my nationwide corporate workshop on “You Will Own The Room”.  If you want to see part one where I explain the who, what, where, when, why, and how, click here.

So . . . bar charts. We all use them. They are so simple and yet we go out of our way to make them complex and hard to read. Again, it's not your fault — MS Powerpoint and Mac Keynote offer up so many features, you are lured into the world of 3D, colors, shapes and sizes!

I'm here to bring you forward — to easy to understand, easy to design, and effective bar charts.

Let's step back for a second and review why we use bar charts:

• They take a boring list of numbers and make them live on the page.
• They allow you to make additional insights into the data which would be difficult with a list of numbers.
• They are powerful. And they can be easily skewed by modifying the values, timescale, or other measures.

What's a good, simple and easy to understand bar chart? Here's one:

Why is this bar chart better? I'm going to hit many of the same points for your presentations:

• You are not inundated with a barrage of colors.
• You don’t need a legend.
• The data labels and percentages are placed right onto the bar chart.
• Why use colors? You don’t really need them.
• The best part? This slide can easily be printed — and the viewer can also take notes on it.
• I also added internal 'tick marks' to each bar to easily allow you to count the block and quickly estimate the value. So there are three ways to get the value from each bar.

Next up . . . Slide Design & Backgrounds!

Your Presentations Stink! Part One: Pie Charts.

This series is an offshoot from my nationwide corporate workshop on "You Will Own The Room".  Powerpoint (PC) and Keynote (Mac) force the average user to use many of their various tools to supposedly make their presentations 'better'. Unfortunately, they make them more colorful, complex, and hard to understand. Mix in the barrage of bad slides and presentations out there — and you get a real mess on your hands.

More colorful, more complex, and more stuff do not make a great presentation. Actually, just the opposite.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to present various elements I frequently run into when working with C-Level executives and their support staffs.

First up . . . Pie Charts. You know how bad they look.

Now let's take a look at a MY slide:

Okay . . . it's not as colorful. And it's not 3D. But it presents a number of elements that make the information clearer and easier to find:

• You are not inundated with a barrage of colors and shapes. It's simple and allows you to SEE the information quickly.
• You don't need the proverbial info bars at the top and bottom of the slide (I will go into this in successive posts - just trust me for now).
• You don't need a legend — legends force you to search for the information and turn it into a 'treasure hunt'.
• The data labels and percentages are placed right onto the pie chart — no searching.
• Why use colors? You don't really need them. Yes, they look nice - but they muddle the message.
• 3D? This isn't Star Wars — the more simple the image, the easier it is to absorb the information.
• The best part? This slide can easily be printed — and the viewer can also take notes on it.

Now you might say "I like the colorful slide". And that's fine. But here's a little test I want you to take:

Look at both slides and see how hard it is to compare the total percentages between North America and the lowest five areas on the pie chart. You'll find yourself easily adding up the red numbers on my slide AND visually aggregating the slices. On the blue slide you'll be zipping back and forth between the legend and the image to make your calculations.

Just imagine what your audience is thinking. Are they bedazzled by the colors or absorbing your information?

Next up . . . Bar Charts!

How To Be A Great Audience.

I do a LOT of presentations, workshops, keynotes, and informal speeches (usually colleagues and friends ask me to stand up and give the audience a few words of wisdom). I also attend a lot of presentations, sales calls, workshops, etc. And it's funny — lately many presenters have been commenting after the presentation (and some during!), that I was a powerful energizer and helped them with their presentation.

I thought I was just sitting there and listening. I was wrong.

I've been taking notes and have found I exhibit a number of basic behaviors that make me a 'great' audience member. Here they are:

1. I smile.

So simple, yet EVERYONE forgets to do this. Some people smile, some have blank stares and some (and I don't think they realize this) they are frowning, smirking, or looking pretty angry. You're going to hear me talk a lot about energy transferral — and smiling is a simple and easy one to do. So if you remember, try to smile when they are speaking — not an insane, serial killer smile, just a sincere smile.

2. I nod my head.

When the presenter makes a point, I instinctively move my head and agree with them. Sometimes I do it unconciously, sometimes purposefully. In any case, it transfers energy to the speaker and gives them a temperature check of their speaking level.

3. I heartedly applaud at the beginning and the end.

It's hard for some people to stand up and immediately feel comfortable about speaking. A rousing round of applause with their name yelled out gets their blood pumping and immediately engaged. At the end, I'm one of the first slapping my hands together and standing — and getting the rest of the audience up and clapping. It's just the right thing to do.

4. I laugh at their humor.

I range from a small guffaw to a hearty laugh — let it out! When a presenter has a good sense of humor and uses it — the time flies, you enjoy the presentation, and you actually absorb what they're saying. Don't be a sour-puss — no one will like you (trust me on this).

5. I am engaged.

I listen to 'what' they are saying and not what my next appointment might be. I am present and actively engaged with the speaker, audience and topic. Live in the present and you will have a wonderful past and an exciting future.

6. I approach the presenter.

I always arrive early (it's a pleasant defect in my personality, so sue me) — so I always ask if I can help them set up. In addition, I always get the best seat in the house — not only to view the presentation — but the 'power' seat to speak if needed.

After the presentation, I always thank the presenter, mention 1-2 tips they touched upon, and give them positive feedback. Most people don't do this and sometimes the presenter doesn't get a good temp check on how they did.

And here's the PAYOFF . . .

Now step back and think — how can 'being a great audience' help your career or business? What happens if your boss was presenting? Or a valuable client? Or someone on your team? How would this help you? A lot.

I'm not saying to be disingenuous and fake about your emotions to the presenter — but I am stating that you need to let your body language and energy flow to the presenter and audience. If you are just yourself and let your emotions flow, you'll find yourself enjoying other people's presentations more, learning, and having more fun. It's infectious.

And guess what — they will do it for you to when you're presenting!

Powerpoint: Do You Make These 5 Simple Slide Mistakes?

I can't tell you how many BAD presentations I've sat through. Let's just say — a lot. My major pet peeve centers around what your presentation slide background looks like. Now before you start your protestations (i.e., executives from organizations) — I totally understand you might have to stick with an approved slide background. I truly feel sorry for you. I was an executive for 20 years and for all internal (and many external) presentations, I broke the rules. No one ever took me to task — ever.

But here are my thoughts (in no special order):

1. "I have to have my logo on each slide!"

No you don't. Maybe your company requires you to have it there, but if you really looked into it, you probably don't need to.

Most of the time, you will need to begin (and end) the presentation with your logo, but for all intents and purposes, the inner slides will only need the information you're presenting. Now if you need to send/distribute the presentation, that's another story — see #5.

Slide real estate is at a premium and the inclusion of a repetitive logo on each slide (and the accompanying buffer around it) is a WASTE OF SPACE. Remember — the object of each slide is to be open, simple, and uncluttered so the audience can focus on the message. Repetitive logos, slide numbers, dates, and titles are not required.

2. "I have to have my company's colors on each slide!"

No you don't. Think of FedEx - purple and orange - imagine a background of purple and orange. OMG. Your job is to present a message to your audience — not hit them over the head with each slide. We've already dispatched the logo, let's work on the background colors.

When you work with a number of colors, shapes, or repetitive images, you are muddying the message. It's as if the audience is wearing 3D glasses and the movie isn't 3D. When you have a number of colors, shapes, lines, or gradations, it just makes it harder to see the font on the screen. Especially if the gradation moves from light to dark — try placing a phrase in black on a background that has a gradation from white to black. You won't see some of the letters — making it hard to read — equals lost message. It also looks juvenile.

3. "The audience can't see the words on my slide when I project on a screen!"

This happens ALL the time. Why? All projectors, screens, and room lighting are different — so you need to compensate for these changes. What I do is always work with a white background — you can never lose with white. It brightens up the screen, takes advantage of any projector bulb's shortcomings, and keeps people's focus on the screen. In addition, colors look brighter.

You can also use a black (or dark) background. But I find it tends to darken the whole room and adds a somber edge to the experience. Steve Jobs used a slightly-graded background for his presentations — but he had perfect stage lighting. Try it — you might like it. One caution — if you like to use images, sometimes their background is white — so you'll have to do some Photoshop magic to make the background around them transparent. That's why I stick with white.

4. "I have to stick to the 'Powerpoint-approved' template!"

No you don't. Honestly, they suck. They stick with boring fonts, the leading (space between each line of text) is not the best, and their choice of bullets . . . terrible. The only way for you to personalize the presentation (to your subject) is to start fresh and choose your own layout. Once you lock it in — stick with it — it will then be easy for you to replicate again and again and again.

In addition, you don't want your presentation looking generic or like another person's presentation. Candidly, when I see a canned 'Powerpoint-approved' background presentation, I think two things:

1. This person has no idea what they're doing. They're whole presentation is suspect.
2. This person really doesn't care about the look and feel of their presentation. They've rushed it.

5. "Projecting and printing are two totally different deliverables!"

So they can look different. In fact, they can look like two totally separate deliverables. Why?

1. One is for projecting on a screen in front of an audience with commentary from you. The audience is focusing on you and using the slideshow as an accompaniment to bolster your message.
2. The other is for silently reading at one's desk. Two different deliverables. You do need a logo or copyright on each page because the presentation might be pulled apart and distributed to other people. Also, it's frequently printed on white paper, so the use of complex and colorful backgrounds (and fonts) might interfere with the final printed product. In addition, if you have to email it, eliminating most (if not all) images will dramatically affect the size of the emailed file.

I run into these five mistakes at least once a week and it's a train wreck when it happens. In fact, I see a presenter (who is an accomplished academic and speaker) who sabotages their own presentation by making all five of these mistakes.