Phil Stella

Email Excellence

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We often discuss Email Best Practices in my Business Writing Workshops. Here are some recurring themes: Always have something useful in the subject line so busy readers can evaluate if and when to read it just by seeing it in their inbox. Assume every email you send will be printed, kept forever and framed over … Read more

They’ll Flip Over Flip Charts

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A reader recently asked if ‘old school’ flip charts still have any value in today’s high tech presentation and training environments. When I teach ‘Train-the-Trainer’ ‘Effective Presentation’ workshops, I always stress their value and practicality. You can post them around the room and keep referring to them easily throughout the meeting, workshop or presentation. Can’t … Read more

Minimize & Mask Presentation Anxiety

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When helping executive coaching clients deal with Presentation Anxiety (the technical term for stage fright) here’s the process I use: Identify the specific causes of PA – they vary by person and situation. Most of the causes involve fear – fear of forgetting, fear of not being prepared, fear of looking stupid, etc. For each … Read more

Another Good Read

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Whenever I’m in the car, I listed to a CD version of a good book on communications, business or management. Here’s one I just finished: ‘It’s Not Just Who You Know’,  Tommy Spaulding, Random House, 201o Long, but interesting stories and lots of useful tips and suggestions for building business relationships. Was worth the read … Read more

Hand Out Effective Handouts!

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Effectively designed handouts can be excellent tools to add value to your audience and support your presentation outcomes. And effectively designed PowerPoint slides can achieve similar results. But, these are very different tools and one document can’t work at all for both purposes.

PowerPoint screen prints don’t make effective handouts. When the PowerPoint gurus created the tool, they figured the screen print of 4 – 6 slides/page with space for notes on each would be a handy method for creating speaker notes. While the slide copy was too small to read, it didn’t matter because the speaker probably created the slides and knew what was on them. The notes part was for key points the speaker would emphasize on each slide. Very cool idea.

But, when busy presenters who were more lazy than creative or audience-centric saw this option, they figured … ‘no-brainer handout’. And Shazam … a new genre of ineffective handouts was born. The result – Death by PowerPoint handouts.

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Elevator Speeches Revisited

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Here’s the best elevator speech I’ve ever heard, from a good friend who is a financial planner. He doesn’t use that title when he networks, because there’s too much baggage and negative connotation connected with it. When someone asks him what he does, he simply says “I help take people from fear and frustration to … Read more

PowerPoint Best Practices

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(As part of my Social Media strategy, I regularly engage in discussions with several presentation-oriented Linked In groups. Here’s a summary of some recent posts regarding PowerPoint.)

Often, the best PowerPoint advice I offer in my workshops or coaching engagements is not to use slides at all. Everyone uses PowerPoint and most people abuse it. Walking into a meeting room with the lights dimmed, the projector on and a title slide up often sets up expectations of more painful ‘Death by PowerPoint’. Not a great way to begin a presentation. PowerPoint can also imply a canned lecture and the absence of interactivity. Again, more negative connotation baggage.

I avoid PowerPoint in most of my workshops. About an hour in, I ask people how many have noticed the lack of slides. All raise their hands. I then ask them how many mind that I’m not using slides. No hands go up. I often get positive comments about the lack of slides.

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Networking With Timely Follow up

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Let’s assume you’ve just returned from networking at a professional association event. You met some people that could potentially help you accomplish your networking objectives and have several business cards. Good for you. Now what do you do?

Effective and timely follow up will reinforce the positive first impression you made on those people and can help you establish mutually beneficial relationships. Here are some simple strategies based on the Best Practices the Networking Pros use.

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How do you slow down?

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Before answering that question, presenters need to understand why they talk too fast to begin with:

  • They already know the material and have difficulty relating to the audience that doesn’t.
  • ‘Two pounds of sand in a one-pound pail.’ They don’t plan or focus their message better, have too much information for their time limit and are tempted to talk faster to get it all
  • The impact of presentation anxiety and adrannelin on their internal speedometers – they don’t realize they’re talking that fast.
  • Passion and enthusiasm about the topic also results in a faster rate.
  • Some people have a delivery rate at the fast end of normal.

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A Powerful Message in the Middle

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Now that you have a powerful audience-centric Introduction and Summary, let’s focus on your Message in the Middle. As we’ve discussed, your Intro and Summary account for 15 – 20% of your total presentation time, including Q&A. Now, it’s time to ‘tell ‘em’ your message for 80 – 85% of your time with credibility, competence and confidence.

Recalling the Main Point/Sub Point organizational strategy from a previous article, you now turn that plan into action. For each Sub Point in the body of your presentation, ask yourself what information the audience needs and wants to hear to totally understand and accept it. Every fact you could share must pass the ‘Who cares?’ test … and the ‘Who’ isn’t you. It’s them.

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