What a fascinating time we are living in. We are practically living online, zoom fatigue has become a real ‘thing’ and we continue to kill people with ppt. No – we aren’t ‘killin’ it’ with our ppt’s (as your teen might say), it’s a bit less hip and a lot more painful.
Death by PowerPoint continues to rampage through the business world as people who are uncomfortable on camera, uncomfortable presenting, or both – spend far too much time staring at their own slides and reading verbatim to their audience.
So the question that begs to be asked is – if you are simply reading the slides, why does the audience need you?
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In the grand scheme of things, you might not consider your job to be a sales position. But let’s think about this for a minute;
Do you ever:
- Encourage people to shift their thinking at work?
- Try to persuade people to ‘buy-in’ to a new project, policy or plan of action?
- Promote yourself so people have more confidence in you, your role or your team?
Sounds like maybe you are doing a little selling, doesn’t it? Whether you are promoting, persuading or presenting, you are selling something – even if it is just an idea. So with that in mind, every time you create or deliver a presentation, ask yourself, “What am I selling? What do I want as an outcome?” Everything you put into your presentation – including your personality, has to have impact.
The power of language on expectations
At OVATION, we routinely remind people, as they work on their ability to present effectively to any audience, that they are the star of the show. Too often, presenters, whether they are employees, managers or executives, choose to slide into the background and leave all the heavy lifting to the power point. But again, if all you do is read the slides – what is your role in the process?
STay up to date on the changing face of business
Your job as a presenter is to bring the powerpoint to life, to add colour to the numbers, stories to the policies and impact to the ideas. Think about how you can do that every time you build a presentation and before you create even one slide. Join OVATION experts Jan Bailey and Shona Welsh for an Experts in Residence Webinar September 9th.
You’ll take away some practical and specific tips to power up your presentations and with a little practice you might even start ‘killin’’ it with your powerpoints.
About the contributorS:
In their highly interactive workshops, OVATION speaker trainers have helped countless individuals transform their ability to connect to their audience and deliver authentic and meaningful messages with impact. Now, more than ever, communication with some oomph is an essential skill. At a time when our emotions swing from overwhelmed to irrational, our ability to communicate effectively follows suit and it can be hard to remove the anger, frustration or even fear from our voice, let alone from our message … and that can have all manner of consequences.
Jan Bailey BA, MAEd is a communication and speaking expert who has designed and delivered hundreds of workshops internationally on public speaking, stage presence, on-camera presentations, and communication. Along with writing and producing a ten-part career development series of books, Jan’s 27-year career has involved extensive on-camera experience as a television host along with being a long-time professor of communications.
Shona Welsh, BA, MCEd, CHRL, CCC is a communication and speaking expert who has won numerous speaking, writing and learning design awards. The author of several books and designer/facilitator of hundreds of international workshops in speaking and communications, she has held international senior executive positions over three decades. She teaches extensively about leadership, communications, and innovation with numerous universities and colleges.
