B11 – Presenting Diamonds: Avoid Much Ado About Nothing

This past week was full of conferences and presentations for me.

In fact, I gave a presentation on Thursday to a few of my classmates who both wanted to and were able to attend, called “CBS Matters.”  The concept is to talk about what matters to you and why, a very fun way to get to know your classmates on a deeper level just shy of acroyoga.

On Tuesday, I attended an all day conference on “Media and Ownership Around the World” by PhD’s from around the world presenting their findings.

On Friday/Saturday/Sunday, I remotely attended a few of the Bulletproof Conference sessions.

If I had to rank them in order of excitement, engagement, and tangible takeaways, I’m sure you could guess where each one ranked–or at least which one ranked the lowest.

Sifting through 1300 pages of reports and studies on media ownership has to be informative, at least you’d think.  But the problem is the conveyance of the message or perhaps there was no message.  Was it just much ado about nothing?  I doubt it, there were some real hidden gems throughout the day.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have presentations with trapeze artists, video clips, and directly engaging the audience.

Startups and media icons know how to keep their audience members happy and growing, for them it’s pretty much life or death.

One sentence can do far more than 100.  One story, more than 1000.

And that’s where I wish part of all PhD programs involved hands-on presentation practice at some point during the course of 25+ years of schooling.

In fact, we all should know how to present well.  More importantly, we should all practice and continually improve on these skills.  If not for career advancement sake, do it for the sake of eliminating painfully dull conferences.

We don’t have to all be Steve Jobs type presenters, but we should at least be a step better than Ferris Bueller’s teacher.  It’s shocking how many people aren’t.

I am aware that I’m no exception to this hypothetical rule in which everyone has to be good at presenting in order to be allowed to do so.

But just like I may not know the perfect type of diamond to buy for an engagement ring (although my Baida’s in LA certainly do), I at least know the 4 C’s that they’re judged by to see if I’m close or not to a good one

(Sidenote: luckily thanks to Stats Class’ regression analysis I actually know far more about how each one of the C’s correlates to price…#realMBAlifeSkills).

It’s these 4 C’s that I give to you from Kevin Carroll’s book Make Your Point to make you aware of what your presentation should be like.

It doesn’t have to be perfect, if for example you’re short on time, just like a semi-flawed diamond may be the appropriate choice if you’re short on cash.  But, at least you know how and why it is so.

Just keep this in mind during presenting:

“I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.” – Herbert Bayard Swope

 

Color: make it interesting, make yourself interesting

Clarity: make your point, make it clear as can be

Carat: how heavy is the topic, have you refined and simplified to the best of what’s left

Cut: how masterfully is the presentation and audience controlled during the presentation

 

Do this all within the framework of story telling.

People love stories, it’s how we process new information.

If you’re ever in doubt, make it into a story.  A story you’d love telling over and over is probably a story your audience would love to hear.  If you think it’s boring…how do you think your audience will feel?

PREPARATION:

1. You’re always on stage. Expect to get put on the spot in any situation, so be prepared.
2. Simplicity always beats complexity.
3. You are your personal brand: your product (content of your message), packaging (your non-verbal cues), advertising (how you deliver it), promotion (how prepared you are on the spot) all define how sellable you are.
4. If you don’t tell your story, someone else will…and it won’t be the story you want told.
5. Know your audience. Cater to their perspective, knowledge, and interest level.
6. Stress the benefit to your audience.
7. Pick a purpose: is your objective to inform or persuade? Each requires a different approach.

CONTENT:

1. Map it out logically. Wandering is hard to follow.
2. The Diamond – a device that can frame an argument or presentation powerfully and succinctly
   • Grab Attention
   • State the main topic
   • Give the 3 sub-topics
   • Speak to the 3 sub-topics fully
   • Summarize the 3 topics
   • Conclude
   • Action

3. Attention
   • Get their attention with something interesting

4. Main Topic
   • Cleanly state your main topic, and why they should care. Leave no doubt why you’re commanding their attention.

5. Previews 1, 2, 3
   • Set up a powerful triplet that supports your main point
     • 3 is the magic number: 2 is too few to seem complete, any more is hard to remember easily
     • Literally say “number one, number two, number three”, otherwise the audience won’t track with you.

6. Develop the 3 sub-topics fully
   • Make it credible, interesting, and convincing
   • To make it stick: get creative and be bold
   • Support your assertions: use statistics, stories, and examples

7. Summarize the 3 topics
   • Remind the audience of the triplet
   • Highlight the takeaway evidence

8. Conclusion
   • This should give the one thing the audience remembers.
   • Remind them why they should care.

9. Action
   1. Give an appeal or an action step
      • Unless an action plan is stated, audience will assume no action
      • “If at the end of your presentation you don’t owe somebody something or somebody doesn’t owe you something, then what was the point of your presentation?”

10. If you can give a 15-second promo, you have a well-focused message.
11. Data ≠ Information. Give meaning to the data! Meaningful information connects with your audience.

 

DELIVERY

1. Law of Reciprocity: people react to us the same way we act towards them
   • Human emotions and behaviors are contagious
   • Expect to receive whatever you give.

2. Perception is reality. You have under 3 minutes to convince people you are both friendly and capable.
3. Key yourself into an optimum energy level, about 70-80% energized.
4. Confidence sells. Not confident? “Act the way you want to feel and soon you will feel the way you want to act”
5. To master the spoken word, master the unspoken word.
6. People see what you mean more than they hear it.
   1. In person, meaning is derived by…
      • Visual Cues (55%)
      • Sound of Voice (38%)
      • Literal Words (7%)
   2. On Phone
      • Sound of Voice (82%)
      • Literal Words (18%)

7. Keep good eye contact.
8. Gesticulate. Let your body do some talking.
9. White Noise Effect: No vocal modulation/inflection is literally tuned out by the brain
10. There is a gap between how loud you think you speak and how loud you actually speak. Figure out your appropriate volume.
11. Pace yourself. Timing is everything.
    • The length of the pause is determined by the kind of punctuation you would see in written communication.
    • Long pauses give the listener time to refocus before the next topic.

12. Talk as if you’re on a budget.
    • Reasons people use too many words
      • Don’t know what they’re trying to say
      • They are undisciplined speakers
    • Tell it like it is. Avoid jargon, buzzwords kill language.
    • Remove qualifiers like “I think, maybe, probably”
    • Spice it up. Analogies, surprising statistics, and humor all add interest and memorability.
    • Tell stories.
13. Make point & bridge it to the listener
14. Use the Diamond technique for email and voicemail too.
    • Voicemail: keep it clear and concise.
    • Email: Consider 2 things
      • Content – who is the audience? who might this be forwarded to? what is my purpose?
      • Tone – consider how it will be received.
      • TIP: keep a list of things that bother you about emails you receive and avoid those things.

TIP: keep a list of things that bother you about emails/presentations and avoid those things.

Presenting is a lifelong skill.  It’s a topic I promise you I will return to multiple times.  There’s quite a lot of things to consider.  For now, the 4 C’s of diamonds should be a good start in helping make your presentation engaging, substantive, and rewarding.

Just remember: Cut, Clarity, Color, Carat