The least important thing about a presentation is the presentation itself.
The most important thing is the effect it has on your audience—that is, what your audience does and feels as a result of hearing you speak.
Your presentation is a means to an end, not the end itself.
But people don’t view it like that. Instead, they tend to prepare by thinking:
Unsurprisingly, this often leads to overlong, uninspiring, one-way rants that do more harm than good. I’m sure you’ve heard a few of these in the past week alone. And, let’s face it, we all hate sitting through them, don’t we?
I first met Simon a few years ago. To be honest, I was a little wary beforehand. I’d met lots of “PowerPoint experts” before. I’d found most wore “to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail” blinkers. You know the type of thing: “You’re delivering a presentation? Great—we design slides. Let’s discuss how we can make yours whizzy and shiny.”
But he was the complete opposite.
It’s they who decide whether to follow the Call To Action. So it’s they who should be our sole focus throughout. Get ...
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