Presentation Visuals Mastery Part Seven

We continue with part seven concluding session of Presentation Visuals Mastery.

Last week we talked about when presenting, you need to transfer your energy to the audience.   However don’t have your energy levels at the maximum volume all the time.  That just wears an audience out and wears you out too.  Instead, you need to have some variation.  Very strong and then sometimes very soft.  And I mean drop it right down.  Remember to have that in the voice range.  Sometimes say your point in an audible whisper.  

I remember when I gave a presentation in Kobe.  It was at a university summer school for students who had graduated and were going back to their home countries. I was giving this uplifting talk about how they could use the experience they had in Japan back in their home country.  It was powerful, a very powerful presentation.  It was an urging my comrades to “man the barricades” type of speech. The speaker after me was a Korean professor. Maybe because of the way I presented, I don’t know, but he spoke very quietly. He spoke in a very soft voice throughout the whole presentation.  It really forced you to lean in and listen to him, because you had to work a little bit harder to listen to him.  So he got peoples’ attention by having a softer voice. At the time, I thought, “wow look at that”.  That was very effective and I realized, ah, just operating at one power level all the time is not going to work.  I need to have variety in my voice, so I should have times when I am very powerful and other times when I am very soft.  So just watch yourself that you are not getting into too much soft or too much strong mode.  Variety is the key.

I said before gestures are very important.  Be careful about getting your hands tied up with things.  If you are saying one thing is important, hold up one finger.  If it is the second thing, hold up two fingers. This is important. When you hold up your fingers like that, hold them up around head height.  Don’t hold gestures around waist height.  It is too low and people struggle to see it.  Get your gestures up high in a band from chest height up to around head height.  That zone is the key height you want for showing gestures. 

When you want to show a big point, open your hands right out.  Don’t be afraid of big gestures.  Use gestures that are congruent.  Be careful about waving your fist at your audience though.  It looks aggressive. It looks unfriendly and combative.  Use the open hand rather than a closed fist. And don’t hit your hands together, slap them together or slap them on your thigh.  That activity creating noise becomes distracting.  Just use the gestures by themselves.  As I said before, 15 seconds is probably at the maximum you want.  You can walk around on the stage, but be careful about walking around too much, especially pacing up and down.  That makes you look nervous and either lacking in confidence about your message or lacking control over what you are doing.  Try and hold the main center point of the stage and move because you have got a good reason to move.

Using the names of people in your audience is a great thing to do.  If you get there early, meet some of your audience.  Have a conversation with someone.  It is a nice connector with the audience to refer to that person and say, “I was just chatting with Jim Jones over there before and he made a very interesting point about current consumer trends.  In fact, Mary Smith made an addition to that point, when she said “blah, blah, blah…”  Suddenly you have both people very much proud of being recognized and involved in your talk.  They have been recognized by the speaker and they like it.  The audience now feels that you have a stronger connection with those listening.  Refer to people by name.  It is very, very effective.  Don’t leave it to chance, try and look for those opportunities to engage with your audience.  

Let’s concentrate on the basics.  What is the point of your presentation?  Who is your audience?  What is the point?  Be conversational and customize the delivery to your listeners.  Have exhibits or have demonstrations or whatever that are custom-made to match that audience or match the point that you are making.  Don’t just bring out a set off the shelf points you recycle for every presentation. 

You might have an existing basis for a presentation, but think about who are you talking to?  What is the key point and then take it and re-work it, re-package it up, customize it.  I have given 530 presentations in the last 20 years here in Japan.  I have never given the same presentation twice, ever.  Even with the slides, I will always have some small variation.  Certainly the way I present it will be different every time. This keeps it fresh for me, as a speaker.  And it also keeps it fresh for an audience. 

If I feel stimulated and interested in what I am talking about, then the chances are that is how the audience will feel about it too.  They will feel stimulated and interested as well.  Be wary of receiving the presentation pack. You often see the CEO had some munchkins out the back preparing the presentation for him or her.  Often, it will be the first time that they have even seen the presentation.  Sadly, it is obvious that it is the first time they have seen the presentation.  They don’t know what’s coming next and they struggle through it.  This is really killing the brand.  It is killing the brand and the organization.  It is killing the presenter’s personal brand.  You don’t want that.  Get it, customize it, make it yours, then present it.  

So there we have some ideas on how to present your visuals when you are giving your presentations which are based on our training called High Impact Presentations, where we teach people over two days how to become a high impact presenter and how to learn a number of different structures.  It’s really the Rolls-Royce of the presentation skills.  This is where Dale Carnegie started in 1912,teaching people how to be persuasive.  If ever you have a chance, after listening to this, to do that particular course if you haven’t done it before, grab that opportunity because it is a powerhouse course.  It’s a game changer of a training course.   I have taken it myself and I strongly recommend it.

So best of luck and remember, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.  Do not be consumed by the construction of the materials.  They are secondary to you.  But when you do construct your materials use these ideas, these hints and you will give a much, much better presentation. 

Presentation Visuals Mastery Part Six

We continue with part six of Presentation Visuals Mastery.

Where we stand is important.  But as a presenter where should we stand? If it is a big venue and the screen takes up the whole background, I like to use the front, left and right side of the stage for a bit of variation. I try to stand as far to the front as I can, on the very apron of the stage.  I try not to fall into the audience. Although I have come close to that a few times, by getting a bit too close.  Often the stage is curved at the very front and if you walk in a straight line across the stage, you can find yourself in the orchestra pit, if you are not careful.  It’s good to be close, because then you are physically close to your audience. You can have more impact and more body language power when you are up close and personal.  That’s always a good position to be in.  

Sometimes you’ll have something on screen you want to refer to.  Use your arms to reach back to what’s on screen pointing there, but keep looking at your audience.  Your arm actually indicates where you want your audience to look.  That’s very good so they see they need to look at the screen now.  Or, we need to look at this part of the screen now.  Use that gesture to very effectively to make the audience focus on the thing you have selected.  Use it for audience focus but don’t keep using it all the time.  Be sparing with this technique

Tell people where you are going with your presentation.  Set it up so people are aware of what is coming up.  “Now we are going to talk about so and so.”  The next screen comes up and they know what to expect, rather than being surprised all the time about what is coming up.  This keeps them focused.  Using your bridges or your transitions in your talk about your key points, you bring them visually into the next section of your talk.  This works very well. 

As I said before, the worst thing in the world is you are in light and the audience is in darkness and you can’t see their faces to gauge their reactions to what you are saying.  In Japan I’ve noticed that Japanese audiences, if you turn the lights out, are very quick to lose focus.  I think it’s probably true around the world, but because I do a lot of presenting here, I probably notice it more in Japan.  Don’t turn the lights off the audience.  Keep the lights on the audience and allow yourself to read the reaction to your voice and what you are saying.  Look at their faces. How many are nodding?   How many are just looking dead bored?  How many are now on their iPhone checking email because you have lost them.  You need to be able to see them to be able to keep the focus on your audience, to then switch gears. 

Now if you need to get your audience back in the room, ask a question, a rhetorical question.  They don’t know though whether it’s a rhetorical question or a real question.  But by asking a question, you get their attention back in the room.  You have to get them back from wherever they have escaped and you have got them again and you can keep going.

In the majority of cases, the way we present should be in conversational language.  Storytelling is very good.  We all relate to storytelling.  It takes us into the context, the why of what you are talking about very quickly.  And congruency between what you are presenting and how you are presenting it is very important. 

I can’t remember the comedian.  This is going back 50 years ago now.  I remember I heard some American comedian and he was talking about being a graduate of the so and so school of speed reading. But he spoke in this really slow voice.  “My. Name. Is…  I. am. A. Graduate. Of.The.So and so.School.Of.Speed.Reading.”  Speaking like this as a graduate of the school of speed reading was funny because it was so contradictory.  It was for a joke.  It was comedy. But it worked because there was no congruency. He was not matching the way of delivering the words with the message. 

The same thing for us. If it is a very serious point, then you shouldn’t be laughing, you shouldn’t be smiling.  Your face should look serious.  If it is a lighthearted point, if it is something that is good news, don’t look unhappy.  Don’t look serious, look happy.  Use our faces for highlighting.  Something surprising, requires a surprised face.  If it is a very great piece of news, show a really happy face.   The voice, the face, the body language, everything matches up with the message.  So we need to make sure that the content is matched by the way we deliver the message.  We must be congruent.

Speed is something that we use for variation in our voice.  Speeding things up, or slowing them down for emphasis.  Putting the power in!  Taking the power out.  These are all controls we can use for variation. We have modulation in our voice, where we are going up and down as well, which gives us power, gives us variation as a speaker. 

We can add in gestures and about 15 seconds per gesture is about the maximum that you want to hold a gesture. The power of the gesture dies after that and it just becomes annoying.  So turn the gestures on, then turn them off.   And use your body language too, using your intrinsic energy.  In Japanese we talk about the “ki” as in the martial art of Aikido.  The energy, the power we have inside us, we use to project that power, that energy out to the audience. You give the audience your energy, you give them your power.  In this way, you can bring their energy level up so that they are more receptive to your message.  So if your energy levels start dropping through the process of giving your presentations, you’ll notice that your audience’s attention level will start to drop too and they will start to become distracted.  So be prepared to keep your energy levels high. 

Next week we will conclude this series with part seven of Presentation Visuals Mastery.

Presentation Visuals Mastery Part Five

We continue our series on presentation visuals mastery.

Using visuals when presenting helps us to relay the key messages.  However, sometimes you don’t need to have things up on the screen at all.  You can show the visual and then disappear it.  You do this because you don’t want to have the screen images competing with your verbal message. Just hit B. Then the whole screen will go black and there is nothing to distract your audience.  They have got to listen to you and look at you.  And you can get the screen back up by just hitting the space bar. If you want to go to an all-white screen, rather than black, you can just hit W. It might be a dark room and you want to have a bit of light.  Hit W for white.  I you want to black it out then B for black.

Remember, your own visuals can be a distraction from your message.  Make sure they are relevant. Make sure they are not overpowering you.  Think of how the visuals will look on the big screen when you are creating them. Make sure that the audience is looking at you, not what’s on the screen.  Design it so in two seconds they can get it, then they can come back to you to hear commentary on what is on the screen. 

Be careful about waving your hands around with the projector in front of you and the screen behind you.  We can start feeling like shadow puppets. People get easily distracted by the shadow of your hand on the screen, so be careful about that.  That’s something you don’t want happening.  You might be speaking in a relatively confined space, so without knowing it, your shoulder is casting a shadow on the screen.  Cut these distractions down be being self aware of your body positioning and always try to give yourself some space around you.

Be careful of other distractions. Don’t hold your notes in your hand. When we are teaching people how to give presentations, sometimes people want to hold the actual document they’ve prepared in their hand. The rub is they give their talk and don’t even look at it.  Actually, we tell them they don’t need it.  Leave it on your desk or leave it somewhere close.  You can look at the notes, but don’t hold them in your hand.  Waving notes around becomes a competitor for audience attention. We want to eliminate as many distractions as possible from our message.

If you do have an exhibit or something that you want to show the audience, that’s great.  Pick it up, use it and then put it down again.  You don’t have to hold it the whole time.  After about fifteen seconds, the power of the exhibit dies and it is now restricting you from employing gestures. Also don’t have things in your pocket.  If you must have them then bring them out, show the audience and then just put them away so it is not distracting. 

Power is also a tricky thing because the power supply can go down.  This can happen.  Suddenly you lose the screen entirely and your whole visual presentation is gone.  All those great graphs, photos, key points for you to follow in your talk. Soldier on.  Your laptop was not connected to the power supply and then your laptop battery dies, just as you start presenting or part way through.  “I was sure I had plenty of battery power”, you say, as the panic sets in.  Check all these things beforehand so that you are on track to have power.  As I said, if you do lose power, charge on.  Keep going.  Don’t worry about it, unless you have to evacuate the building for some reason.  But keep going.  If power fails, be prepared.  Have a Plan B in your mind, about what you are going to talk about.  Be prepared to wrap it up a little early if you have to.  Don’t look stuck, don’t look lost.  Keep going.   Even smart people forget this rule to their peril.

Michael Bay is a top director in Hollywood, famous for the Transformer series of movies.  He was presenting for Samsung at a promotional event in Las Vegas.  The power to the teleprompters suddenly went down, about ten seconds in.  He had no plan B.  He was unable to continue.  He left the stage with his tail well between his legs, totally humiliated. Look for it on YouTube and see the whole catastrophe. It can happen to you too, so always be ready to carry on with no visuals if something goes hopelessly wrong.

Mysterious things do happens to us too.  I was giving a presentation recently. I got there early, fortunately.  I went through everything, checked my visuals, it was all working like a charm. And then suddenly, suddenly the visuals were not working.  No matter what I did, I could not get the computer to work.  I do not know to this day what was wrong.

I had to reboot the computer and reset it.  You know it takes time to go through the whole process.  Test everything and always give yourself some time margin.  In that particular case, with about ninety seconds to spare, I got it back up again and we were away.  Here is the key point though. I could have presented without the visuals. It wasn’t a big deal, I wasn’t stressed, I had my Plan B.  I could have done it without the visuals, but it was more powerful with the visuals, giving some extra buzz to what I was talking about.  But these things do happen, so get there early and check, check, check.

Remotes are useful for clicking through the presentation slide deck.  You can move away from the podium or the laptop and use the stage to your full advantage. I have a bit of a love-hate thing with visual remotes.  Often they don’t work or stop working. I try to hold it in my hand in a way that it is not obvious to the audience, that I’ve got it.  I want to use my hands for gesturing.  I’ll try and put it down if I don’t need it, so both hands are free for getsures. 

Laser pointers are dangerous. Some people go nuts with the laser pointer.  The worst thing is when they point the laser at the audience.  We have all seen that.  Let’s zap a few corneas with that laser beam.  No, don’t do that.   They lack self awareness and are whizzing the laser beam around all over the place.  It’s like they’ve forgotten that the laser is on, so the laser is doing some sort of laser light show in the venue.

Or they try to use the laser beam to indicate something on the screen and they are whipping it around at a very rapid pace, all over the place.  No.  If you are going to use the laser, go to the word or the section on screen and use the beam slowly.  Move it very slowly, if you are going to circle something or move it across something that you want to underline.  Very, very slow movement is the key.  

Next week we will continue with Part Six of our series on Presentation Visuals Mastery.

Presentation Visuals Mastery Part Four

We keep with our theme of dealing with all aspects of the visuals part of your presentation.

I have seen lots of people get lost with their notes.  They have copious notes and then they start reading them to us.  Don’t.  That’s my advice. Don’t.  Don’t read your notes. Have your points, sure.  Have some points, have some notes.  That’s fine.  No one will begrudge you looking at some notes to trigger the next phase of what you going to talk about. But talk about it.  You are the expert.  Talk to what your topic is about.  You have designed the talk. It’s your presentation.  You know what the purpose is.  Talk to the points and don’t read the points.  It just takes away from what you are doing and what you are trying to achieve.  You want to be seen as a professional, an expert, an authority in your field.   

I forget where it was, it something I saw, someone actually reading a presentation.  They did a reasonable job of reading it, but it would have been so much more impressive if they had not read it, if they’d actually spoken to it.  And you can, you know, you’ve got points you can talk to.  That’s enough.  So try to avoid looking down and reading to us.  It’s not effective.  You are not going to have maximum impact with an audience when you do it that way.

Lecterns or podiums are a bit of a trap.  Again, people who set up venues, tend to set them up without thinking.  So they’ll put the lectern there on the stage with some sort of stand mic.  You are now limited in what you can do, because of the positioning of the mic. Try and use a pin mic rather than a stand mic, so you can move around a little bit.  If you can, move the lectern out of the way or get rid of it entirely. 

If the lectern is just a platform to put your laptop on, fine.  But move it out of the way.  Put it to the side, so that yes, you can have the laptop there if you need to look at the screen.  If you are not particularly tall, then you should definitely be very careful about being trapped behind a lectern. Often the lectern is a bit high and consequently all we can see is your head. It is just framed slightly above the lectern.  Not a good look. 

If you have to use a lectern, then get organized, get something to stand on, so you are going to be higher above the lectern.  That is why we must get there early and correct all the errors the venue set up team have devised to make our presentation fail.  If you can get rid of the lectern then do so because that way, we can see your whole body. We now have all your body language available to us.  This is great for getting messages across.

If you are stuck with a mic stand, then take the mic out from the stand and try and move away from the lectern.  Even if you can’t move the lectern then try and stand in front of the lectern, in between the audience and the lectern.  Or stand to the side of it if you can.

Definitely check out the room.  Room layout is very critical.  Often uninformed people lay out rooms the wrong way.  Crazy things happen.  I’ve been to venues where the room organizers obviously never give presentations.  They set up my speaking position directly in front of the projector.  Right in front of the projector. Now I am going to become the screen.  Just crazy stuff, so get there early if you can.  Actually, go the day before.  That is even better.  Then you can check out how it is going to look.  What is the room like?  Make any needed adjustments.  Certainly the day before is best because you have more time. 

If that is not possible for whatever reason, then definitely get there early on the day and check everything because crazy stuff happens.  As I have previously noted, the people who are the most ignorant about presenting, are given the task of setting up for the speaker.  In almost 100% of cases, they won’t set it up correctly. 

With the positioning on stage, if you can, always try and stand on the left of the screen.  By that I mean audience left.  We read from left to right, so what we want is the audience looking at us and then they read what is on the screen.  Look at our face, then read the screen.  Look at us, read the screen.  It often happens that the people putting the presentation together or hosting it, will set it up so that you are on the audience right side of the screen.  There will be power outlets, cables, equipment etc., arranged that way. 

They will have the laptop stand there, they will have the mic set up there.  Again, if you can get there early enough try and move it.  If you can’t, well okay.  You have to present from the right side to the audience, but it is better if you can present on the left side of the screen. 

Also check on where you are standing, in terms of audience lines of sight.  Sometimes if you are on the same level as the audience, you might actually be blocking the view of the people on the far extremes of the seating.  So be careful that you’re not standing in front of the screen, such that they cannot see it. 

Now sometimes you may have a stage platform and those huge screens behind you. You might be standing in front of the screens, so you are actually blocking part of the bottom of the screen.  That’s okay.  The power position is at the center of the stage.  But don’t stay there, move.  Walk slowly across the stage from the left and talk from there.  Come back to the center.  Move slowly across to the right.  Then come back to the center.  In this way, you are not entirely blocking what is on screen, all the time, for every slide.  And with most slides it won’t matter. 

Microphones seem to scare people.  If you have a big venue or if you have a reasonably large audience size, say more than 30 people, microphones are good to use.  But if it is a small venue, only a small audience, you don’t need a microphone.  However, some ladies have a soft voice and they can’t get their voice to carry.  A microphone is definitely recommended. 

I personally don’t use a microphone in a small audience, because it leaves both hands free for gesturing and I don’t feel restricted.  But if it is a big venue then yes, I definitely use a microphone.  When you are nervous, there is nothing worse than having a microphone obviously vibrating in your hand when you are speaking.  So a good way of getting around that problem is grip the microphone with both hands and then hold your hands to your chest. Tuck your elbows in too.  So now your body is anchoring the microphone and it will not sway, vibrate or show you are nervous.  It is not the greatest thing because it restricts our gestures, but it’s much better than having the audience fixated on, “Oh look at that, that person is totally nervous.  Look at that vibrating microphone.  Wow they look really scared.” 

No don’t have that.  If you have got the calmness to hold it in one hand, great, do that.  Swap hands so you can use both hands for gesturing.  Also, don’t hold the mic right up to your mouth.  Now this is sometimes funny at things like the Academy Awards.  You see so called professionals dealing with the mic stand on the dais. The stand height is too low.  So they bend down, leaning right over to speak into this little mic.  Microphones are so sophisticated today, they catch the sound.  You don’t have to lean down.  You should be talking across the top of the microphone not jamming it up in front of your mouth.  Hold it away from you and speak across the top.  It will catch you just fine.  If you can’t pull the mic out of the stand, then pick the whole thing up and speak using the mic.

We continue with part five next week.