Substance

Let’s start with substance or the guts of the presentation, and it begins with the assembling of facts. One of the best ways to do this is to engage others in the process. I’m not talking about Group Think, that much maligned condition were divergent ideas get swept away. I’m referring to collective engagement. I’m referring to a far simpler notion: two heads are always better than one; three heads are even better. Always try to get other people involved in the process of helping you, even when you know your stuff cold, they can offer you a perspective on how to present your material that can help your listeners understand it better, or be more convincing. Remember ‘e pluribus unum’, out of many, one. Use many sources and inputs for your pitch but have one story. This is very important in this era of cut and paste. How many times have you watched a presentation with multiple speakers and the various sections are in different fonts with different formats and totally different styles? It is clearly a cut and paste job. It has even entered the lexicon. That is not ‘e pluribus unum’. That is ‘e pluribus pluribus’. You should use many sources of data but you should have a single story.

You must also absolutely verify your accuracy. There is nothing that rattles a speaker more or degenerates a presentation faster, than having the audience challenge the facts. Verify the accuracy and always differentiate facts from opinion. Try using external subject matter expertise. Quote a pre-eminent source in the industry, use someone who has credibility and is a voice of distinction, and you will gain credibility from your listeners.


Excellent, top tier consulting firms like McKinsey are taught to present in a certain way. They are taught to make an assertion in the opening statement of presentation or the header of a visual, and then to validate it.

Anyone who is interested in giving a great presentation ought to read the Declaration of Independence. Really! It is a wonderful document that teaches salesmanship and teaches the fundamentals of great presentations. Everybody knows that Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, but it was actually drafted by a committee of five. Why a committee? Remember, collective engagement, two heads are better than one, three heads are even better, well they used five. What is the objective of Declaration of Independence? It tells you in the opening sentence why the document was written. It tells us that “when…it becomes necessary…to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation”. The first sentence of the first paragraph cites the objective, and then states the assertion. It then goes on to validate those reasons. As it turns out, it gives twenty seven reasons, twenty seven specific reasons why independency ought to be achieved by those united colonies.


After the assertion is stated you must substantiate your claims. If you are going to use charts or graphs, use them to validate your claim. Don’t make the listener figure out what the charts say. A visually appealing graph can be great presentation tool, but make it easy for the listener to understand what the charts are telling them.

Always tune the pitch to the audience. Make sure you know who is attending your presentation. What’s their title, what’s their reporting relationship, why are they there, what’s their role? Are they there as an ally? Are they there as an advisory? Are they there as a spectator?

Determine beforehand whether you are going to use a deck or a screen. Sometimes it is dependant on the size of the audience, other times it is dependant on the nature of the content. Financial people, regardless of size of audience, typically present with decks without projected visuals. They do that for a reason. They want their deck to be taken away and referred back to latter.

Open in Bangor, not on Broadway. This becomes much more significant as the degree of the importance of the presentation increases. If you were going to make a major presentation, it is essential that you conduct a rehearsal. Get a couple of allies or one or two of your of your advocates, and give them the opportunity to review your presentation. Pre-presentation feedback and commentary are essential to fine tuning an important pitch.

Finally as it relates to substance, figure out ahead of time what you are going to do about Questions and Answers. Don’t allow these to be ad-hoc. Are you going to ask that questions be held until the end? Are you going to encourage a fire at will approach? Both ways have advantages but they also have some real disadvantages. It is dependant upon the audience, it is dependant upon the subject matter being presented, and it is dependant upon the nature of the listeners and their degree of expertise.





Next time, we'll look at Structure.





All the best,





Ray