We have been talking about how to become a ‘rock star’ presenter (Part 1, Part 2).
Let me now give you the all-so-important bread around the meat of your presentation…

The (not so) Secret Rock Concert Formula
Every rock star knows the secret to a great performance is to START and END with their very best songs to create a shock-and-awe opening and a knockout close.

Power Opening: They know if you are disappointed in their first song, it is likely they will have lost you for the entire concert. At best, it will take several songs and some pretty spectacular stunts to win you back if your first impression is a letdown. They have (at most) 5 minutes to spellbind, ‘WOW’, stun and amaze you.

Memorable, Awe-Inspiring Close: They also know that it will be the last impression and last song that you will sing on your way out and will play as an endless loop in your head as you drive home, sleep and get up the next morning. They know it better be good and they better make you feel something to keep your connection to them long after the show has folded up its tents.

What I described above is (also) YOUR formula for a memorable, effective and awe-inspiring presentation.

OPENING

Use (a form of) Pyrotechnics to Grab Your Audience’s Attention
While you (probably) cannot blow something up onstage to get your audience’s attention (although that would be cool!), there are other ways you can detonate the mind and attention of your audience right up front in your presentation—and that is with your opening headline.

I recently interviewed Hall of Fame presenter Patricia Fripp and she put it this way, “A strong opening powers the rest of the presentation.”

You, too, have only a few minutes to make that critical first impression and deliver your attention-grabbing opening statement. Just as in TV bumpers, magazine or newspaper articles, or direct response solicitations, the headline determines 80%+ of the success of the entire piece. Which is also why it is advised to spend a proportionate amount of time on crafting your opening headline and sequence.

How to Build a Mind-Stirring, Jaw-Dropping, Heart-Gripping Opening Headline (not a bad headline, eh?)
I have a presentation headline development worksheet that I have developed, refined and evolved for myself over many years. I will give it to you read more »

If you’re looking for Part 3 of Darren Hardy’s post, click here.

First of all, thank you for all your contributions to the discussion in Part 1 of this series. Some great ideas were shared, some of which I added to my own notes. Well done!

I interviewed Carmine Gallo recently, who wrote the book The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience. One of the many great insights I picked up from our one-on-one time together was the importance of turning your presentations into theatrics—simply meaning the use of multisensory outputs (visuals, video, audio), demonstrations, attention interrupts every 10 minutes, etc., and stories with villains and heroes, for you to introduce their problems (similar to the audience’s) and your solutions.

To narrow the heart of this post I suggest we focus on one key point Carmine made, which is, “No one cares about your product; they only care about themselves.”

In that vein I’d like to reiterate some advice I gave on the SUCCESS magazine CD inside our May 2011 issue on the art of connecting…

I was asked a few months back to consult on a presentation an executive group had prepared to deliver to their staff at what they call their ‘State of the Union’ address. When I looked over the slide deck my counsel was twofold… and I recommend you filter your presentations through these same guiding principles. Here is how I put it to the executive team:

Principle No. 1:

“What matters to you, doesn’t necessarily matter to them.” Don’t look at your presentation from the viewpoint of what you want to tell them. Instead throw all that out and ask yourself: What do THEY want to hear? What’s important to them? What problems, concerns, worries, frustrations, needs or desires do they have? What is going to give them hope, comfort, security, meaning and be exciting to THEM?

When I looked at their initial ‘State of the Union’ slide deck it was filled with lists of initiatives, financial detail and organizational process issues (snore). When I asked what the key objective of their presentation was, they said, “To reset and revitalize the culture of the company. To instill confidence in the future and restore meaning, passion and purpose to each person’s contribution to the organization’s cause.”

This was NOT going to be accomplished by data dumps of details and lists of what was completed in 2010, and what key projects were planned for 2011. That wasn’t what the staff was interested in, what concerns they had or what was going to connect them to the heart and purpose of the organization.

Think about your own presentations. Are you presenting what YOU want to tell or are you sitting in the chair of the audience and determining first what they want to know and what is going to be meaningful and motivating TO THEM?

You will only figure it out by talking to people, researching, and asking lots of questions. Before every one of my presentations I do tons of due-diligence prep and inquiry. I’m there to help solve problems and improve their performance, not just to present prefabricated generalities.

Principle No. 2: read more »

(Here for: Part 2, Part 3)

Success in today’s world comes down to your ability to sell your ideas, expand your influence and enroll others into a worthy mission or cause. That means you need to learn to present. In this 3-part series I will outline some key ideas to help you become a ‘rock star’ at it.

By the way, EVERYBODY is a public speaker. Maybe you’re presenting your ideas at an office meeting, interviewing for a new job, pitching your argument for why a new piece of office equipment is needed or trying to convince your friends which movie should win the Oscar. Whatever the situation, being able to speak effectively in public is essential to success.

A recent survey conducted by Distinction discovered that, of the executives and entrepreneurs surveyed, more than 86 percent said being able to present effectively has a significant impact on their income and success.

How to be Death-Defying
According to most studies, people’s No. 1 fear is public speaking. No. 2 is death. Doesn’t that sound insane? People would rather die than speak in public. That means if you go to a funeral, more people would rather climb into the casket than give the eulogy!

First off, let’s put this into proper perspective: No one has ever died giving a bad presentation… Well, except for President William Henry Harrison—he developed pneumonia after giving the longest inaugural address in U. S. history. Which I guess is our first lesson on giving a presentation—keep it short… or you might die… or at least kill the attention span of your audience.

Why we think speaking in public is an act of suicide—We come by this fear through our crazy ancestral brain wiring. You have to remember we have been walking erect for more than 4 million years. Even if you call “modern man” 6,000 years old, we have some long-living, deep-seated survival brain wiring that is really overinflated for our modern times.

We have learned that predators hunt in packs and their easiest prey are those who stand alone, without a weapon, on a flat area of land where there is no cover. What does that sound like? Yeah, standing on a stage, alone, in front of an audience, with all their eyes fixed on you.

Our ancestors, the ones who survived, that is, developed a fear-response mechanism to these situations. However, these days we are rarely chased by lions or attacked by packs of hyenas, making our fear-response programming out of sync with much of modern life.

You have to ask yourself, What’s the worst that can happen? Certainly death is rarely a consequence, so anything short of that leaves nothing to be afraid of, really.

Here’s about the worse that can happen… and it comes from my own chronicles in public speaking: read more »

I do a lot of keynote presentations. My first company at 18 years old required me to speak publicly many times a week… I have done it thousands of times since. Most of the businesses I have built compelled me to champion the cause of the business through large group presentations. I am often asked for tips on preparing, packaging and delivering presentations.

Here are My 10 Tips for More Compelling Presentations:

1. Prepare. Nothing beats great preparation. I usually write out a presentation word for word, then I reduce it to a skeleton outline, then bullet points, then just key words on paper in case I need to quickly glance down at trigger words to guide me along, but I will rarely use the notes. Just going through the process is my process for learning the presentation.

2. Know your audience. Find out the demographic mix of the audience. Find out who the key players are so you can use their names during the presentation. Understand core aspects about their company, cause, products, ideals, etc. Understand the trends, competition and key issues that the audience faces. If they know you know who they are in the first few minutes, they will be your ally for the rest of the presentation.

3. Sell it. read more »