Deliver Audience-driven Presentations

There's a good reason so many people get nervous when making a presentation: it doesn't feel natural. To overcome anxieties, change your perspective and approach so it's a natural conversation in which you present information you feel competent to discuss. As we noted in our last newsletter, he first step is to align your material with your speaking style in order to harness the power of good conversation.

That means that when you're designing a WINning presentation, you need to:

	Determine What's Important Now and what information is distractive for this audience. A new prospect may need to understand the company's history and capabilities; but this information presented at the beginning of a third sales presentation is distractive.
	Be succinct. Less is more, when it comes to learning and remembering! A picture is worth more than 1000 words - because no-one wants to listen to 1000 words! Don't write out your speech in the PowerPoint; the visuals should simply highlight the key issues in words and pictures and be organized to communicate the logic and emotion of your position.
	Determine whether there is a need to counterpunch the competition, and then do it effectively. Stating your Unique Selling Point is critical, but the key to closing is for the audience to understand why they will benefit from their competitive advantages! If you offer a better guarantee or deliver products faster, let the prospects know, by describing what you offer and how it's superior to the industry norm or other competitors (without mentioning names). When your competitor later presents the inferior capabilities, he helps sell your company's products, even without you being there!
	Go for the close. Always summarize the key points and ask for the sale or whatever reactions you want.

Making an audience-driven, as opposed to information driven, presentation means you have to do your homework before writing it. You need to know the audience's real needs and take the context of the presentation into account. What they already know, where will the presentation take place, and what time of day, and what is the competition saying, are among the many factors you should address. You'll find the extra work worth it - because then you can deliver a WINning presentation.

Brilliant Image, which produces photorealistic paintings directly from you digital camera's files, recently launched its website, www.brilliantimage.com. Presentation Excellence helped design the site.

Digital Risk a leading provider of risk mitigation solutions for the mortgage industry, will be presenting the keynote address and hosting a panel at the Mortgage Fraud Conference in Las Vegas, December 10-12, 2006

StevensGould Partners, consultants to PR industry mgmt., completed its healthcare Coverage & Contribution Report, the latest in a series of benchmarking surveys. For more information, contact rgould@stevensgouldpartners.com.