presentations

One of my friends passed on his secret personal presentation ethos to me. The central strand upon which everything hangs is that he must hit big red buttons. He makes sure that before his slot he has identified every single irritation that the prospect suffers. (He feels people either buy

This work is from presentation masters Duarte Design [http://vimeo.com/duartedesign]. My view is succinct. It takes a few minutes to truly get there. But when the meat arrives, it does so with a bang. Bam. If you present, you simply must watch it. [http://blog.duarte.com/] What

In the aftermath of yesterday’s UK Budget, here’s a neat piece of PR using photoshop-style trickery. [http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG8400728/How-to-make-the-budget-fashionable-Avoid-budget-fashion.html] It alters the traditional image of the Chancellor holding aloft his famous Red Box. In this case, instead “George Osborne shows off his

I get highly agitated when I see yet another bar or pie chart thrown my way during a presentation. Aren’t we all bored silly by them? Especially when the main point they attempt to make is often blurred to exclusion. So I keep a constant eye out for better,

[http://www.topgear.com/uk/] Worldwide phenomenon Top Gear has a regular feature in its show where they put “a star in a reasonably priced car”. It’s a highly popular slot and attracts people way above mere zed-list celebrity status. As evidenced by the latest series embryonic leader board.

For those sales presenters boasting a touch more technical expertise, here’s a brace of ideas for enlivening your next message. Choosing colours Colour scheme selection can be traumatic for the untrained. Even when we’re given a template from which to work, there are times when the standard white-and-whatever

I came across this three-part plan accredited to a speaker named Tom Ehrenfeld. > TheWHAT? is (& explains) the content. TheSO WHAT? is why the content matters. And thePROVE IT! provides the credibility. One of my crusades rails against the all too often woeful documentation produced by salespeople. Applying even

I recently found a folder of work I did almost twenty-five years ago. It’s now been packed off to recycling. I couldn’t resist a rummage, and found a batch of old-fashioned ‘transparencies’. In the days before omnipresent computers, if you wanted to pre-prepare slides, you could go through

Here’s a reminder of a well-used and highly effective presentation tactic. This time it comes via dusty old notes from a 1998 Chicago conference I attended. The speaker was then assessing sales system projects, called Timothy McMahon at Labyrinth Research. Outlining his optimal ‘7-step implementation plan’, he sought to