pecha kucha presentation

pecha kucha presentation

The Power of Persuasive Presentations

1. Introduction

For over two decades, our goal has been to ensure that those who deliver presentations, whether visual or verbal, static or dynamic, do it to the best effect. Why? To help good ideas prevail over bad, to solidify agreements large and small, and to spur action. That means better decision-making in businesses everywhere. And the stakes are now higher for global concerns. Consider, for instance, our work with engineers at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, who during the 1990s were tasked with persuading mid-level managers, Congress, and the general public that market forces and a well-designed system of tradable permits were preferable to traditional command-and-control regulation for implementing the Clean Air Act. Ours was a big push for a new way to make America’s air healthier. The engineers later told us that they literally presented our hard-to-visualize concepts on a drafting board in order to better organize their talks. They succeeded, and the tradable permits system became law. Such cases are our reason for writing this book.

Every month, an astonishing 300 million people around the globe deliver presentations to inform, persuade, and even inspire others. Managers spend about a third of their time selling ideas to peers and upper management. Just to win a modest 3 percent raise for 30 hours’ work, a $50,000-per-year worker has to prepare a persuasive case. Research and experience have shown, however, that most speakers never consider their purpose, the audience’s needs, or the best way to get their message across – an oversight with costly consequences. Ask how many of those 300 million speakers are able to persuade even half their audience to accept a major proposal and then act on it? How many top managers can inspire their troops to implement a new strategy – as opposed to just gaining verbal agreement?

2. Understanding Your Audience

The second question is ‘How interested are they in your topic?’ It’s important to remember that you are asking for an investment from your audience – an investment of time and perhaps of mental effort. Why should they care about your topic and what would make them interested in it? Answers to these questions will help you to provide a hook to capture the audience’s attention and also help you to set the right level of detail for the information that follows. A general rule of thumb is that people have less patience for dry detailed information when they don’t perceive a direct application or benefit to what they are doing. Keep this in mind if your presentation is not directly relevant to the audience but you feel that it ought to be.

What does the audience already know – or think they know – about the topic? If you don’t know the answer to this question, you could be heading for trouble. Making unwarranted assumptions about what the audience knows leads to confusion. For example, in a technical presentation to a general audience, an expert on the topic will define technical terms assuming the audience won’t know them. Yet the engineer who uses the same terms daily would find such explanations tedious and insulting to his intelligence. A better solution for the second example would be for the presenter to have spoken to members of the audience before the presentation to determine their knowledge level and adjust the presentation accordingly. This allows terminology to be defined in advance where necessary so no subgroup feels patronized and any who are familiar with the concept will know it will soon be explained.

The most important aspect of giving a presentation is to appropriately tailor your message to the audience. Before you prepare the content of the presentation, you need to ask yourself some crucial questions about who will be in the audience.

3. Crafting Captivating Content

Your content must convey all your core messages in a fraction of time. It shapes your audience’s attitude and influences their knowledge or actions. Captivating content is simple and direct. It is credible and emotive, and caters to the values of the target audience. It is harmonized to the values and desired outcomes of the speaker and is persuasive. Crafting captivating presentations is critical but it first requires understanding of the desired core message. Ask yourself, if they were to take home one thing from my presentation what would I want it to be? Then consider the knowledge, attitudes or behavior that you want to change in your audience pertaining to this message. It is vital to know your target audience in crafting the content of your presentation. A clear understanding of the values, attitudes and beliefs of your audience is essential for developing content that is tailored to them. This will allow you to deliver your message in a way that is meaningful to your audience, and influence their attitudes or behaviors as you intended. Audience analysis can be formal or informal and there are various resources available online to aid in tailoring content specific to a target group. Audience can also be engaged though use of rhetorical questions, visual images or striking statements but this depends on the nature of the audience you are catering to.

4. Mastering Delivery Techniques

Post-delivery actions Use video. Study the tape. Look for both the positive and the not-so-positive actions and words used. Practice your delivery style by attempting to reduce as many fillers from your speech while still remaining comfortable. Work on eliminating vocalized pauses. Filming yourself is a great way to find out whether it is a habitual problem by recording yourself in impromptu conversation. Reduce any distractions presented by over-repetitive gestures. A gesture becomes a distraction when it is seen as erroneous or even confusing, so be sure to have a subtle and purposeful gesture for the point you are trying to make. Check for proper posture and make sure you move with purpose. How you hold yourself from beginning to end is essential for portraying the right presence. With the last viewing of your speech, use the sound on mute and try to interpret the message through just the visuals. A well-organized speech can be understood through just body language and visuals. With the sound only and no visuals, evaluate how to connect the message to the audience through your tone and voice inflections. Lastly, analyze every word used and determine whether it is the best selection. In most cases, the first word that comes to mind for a speaker is habitually the first word said, regardless of its strength or purpose in that context.

5. Closing with Impact

Finally, the presenter should issue a call for action. This is the best chance to influence the decision of the audience and is where the presenter puts it all on the line with what they want from the audience. To be effective, the call for action requires proper prior planning to ensure it complements the goals of the presentation and is specifically geared towards the individuals who must carry out the decision. An effective call for action is clear, concise, and compelling.

The next point to make is to reinforce the key ideas. This entails making sure the central proposition is repeated throughout in various different ways, and ensuring all allied messages reinforce the central idea. The determining factor in whether an audience leaves with the message the presenter intended is whether they comprehend the central idea and its importance.

This section details the final stages in the persuasive process. The first aspect is the best way to conclude a presentation, and that is with an executive summary. An executive summary is a brief statement that outlines the purpose and anticipated outcomes of the presentation, along with a brief statement of the recommendations offered and an advance peek at the results of these recommendations (Bovee, Thill, 2008). The best way to deliver an executive summary is to create a simple slide with the title “Executive Summary”. During the delivery of this slide, presenters should make sure the last thing the audience hears is each point made.

5.1 Executive Summaries 5.2 Reinforce Key Ideas 5.3 Call for Action