THANKS FOR SHARING WITH US YOUR PEQ!

Over the past months, we´ve been conducting a benchmark survey on people´s PEQ - Presentation Excellence Quotient. Over a hundred people responded so far. Respondents were quite open, using all possible rating points (1-5) to assess their skills in such areas as: determining which content to present, designing an engaging presentation, and delivering it persuasively to their audiences. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

While there were commonalities, the most interesting result was the diversity of profiles: people good at focusing the content, but not at combining pictures and graphics to make it engaging; people who had the skills to make it graphically attractive, but didn´t know how to coordinate the speech with visuals to create a seamless presentation; and people who could communicate the facts, but weren´t delivering a powerful, compelling "story" through words and body language.

Interested in obtaining presentation skills to gain more prospects, win more deals and close larger orders, the average scores ranged from fair to moderate (3-4). Virtually everyone recognized the need for continued improvement to make the presentation truly compelling. As one respondent noted "too many people believe they don´t need to practice presentations. I find that practice allows me to fix the flow problem and ensure that I know the ´story´ I´m going to tell so that I don´t need visuals to go from point to point."

Overall, people tended to feel more confident about their skills in selecting appropriate content and focusing the message, but recognized the need to improve their ability to: (1) develop persuasive charts and use color, fonts, graphics to drive points home; (2) use appropriate analogies metaphors and/or humor to reinforce the message, (3) coordinating the speech and visuals into a seamless presentation, with the presenter in control, and (4) controlling body language, posture and voice to present powerfully. Again, thank you for participating! We´ll be updating our analysis over time, so if you haven´t already completed our PEQ survey, click here. If you´re interested in training, we offer corporate programs, one-on-one coaching and our public workshops, such as the one on March 23.

StevensGould Partners´ survey of what keeps PR firm owners awake at night, was reported on in Bulldog Reporter. They also will be presenting at the NorthStar Public Relations Profitability Forum, NYC, April 6-7, on "Financial Best Practices for an Optimum Bottom-line." See www.stevensgrouldpartners.com.

American Invention Forum launches an Education Conference for New Inventors and Entrepreneurs on April 8 at SUNY Farmingdale. Keynote will be Mr. Robert Monti, SVP at HSN. For more info, visit www.inventionforumusa.com.

Dr. Jerry Cahn will be address marketing issues at Baruch College´s Executives on Campus Program on March 14.