Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Presented by:
R. Scott Blamey
Director of Development
BrownBoots Interactive, Inc.
rscott@brownboots.com
www.brownboots.com
"Social Media: Is It Worth It?" ACU panel
“There are always three speeches, for
every one you actually gave. The one you
practiced, the one you gave, and the one
you wish you gave.”
- Dale Carnegie
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Today’s Objective
• Learn how to:
1. Structure content effectively
2. Build clean and exciting designs
3. Engage your audience
. . .with simple techniques that apply to
written, oral, and visual presentations alike,
so that you may present like a pro
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Preview
• Keys to Presentations with Pop
1. Organization
2. Design
3. Delivery
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
ORGANIZATION
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Organization
The Speechworks Formula
Source: Asher, Joey. Even A Geek Can Speak, Low-Tech Presentation Skills For High-Tech People. Persuasive Speaker Pr, 2009.
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Organization:
The Speechworks Formula
1. Develop your Message Objective (MO)
2. Select no more than three points in
support of your Message Objective
3. Collect evidence to support each of
your three points and all sub points
4. Create your hook
5. Determine your wrap-up
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
The Speechworks Formula:
1. Develop Message Objective (MO)
• Form the MO by bringing together two things:
– What you want
– What’s in it for the listener
– Answer “What’s in it for me?” (WII-FM)
• Formula:
– “By ________, you will ________.”
• Examples:
– “If you finance this project, I will increase your revenue by
$1,000,000 per month.”
– “If you follow the instructions in this slide deck, you will
become the best presenter in your company.”
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
The Speechworks Formula:
2. Select 3 Points in Support of MO
• No more than three points – even for
long presentations!
– You can have lots of sub points for each
main point, but don’t ever organize your
presentation around more than three big
ideas that support your MO
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
The Speechworks Formula:
3. Collect Supporting Evidence
• Support your main points with evidence
• Let your evidence do the convincing
• Evidence S.P.E.A.K.S. volumes
–
–
–
–
–
–
Stories
Personal experience
Expert testimony
Analogies
“K”wotes (aka Quotes)
Statistics
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
The Speechworks Formula:
4. Create Your Hook
• Opening attention-grabber
• Doesn’t have to be fancy
• Avoid:
– Jokes
– “Hey, it’s great to be here!” (yawn!)
– Apologizing: “I’m not accustomed to speaking.” or “I’m sorry if
I’m a little disorganized.”
• Examples:
–
–
–
–
–
Fun fact
Relevant story
Quick analogy
Quick introduction
Expert testimony
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
The Speechworks Formula:
5. Determine Your Wrap Up
•
•
•
•
The call to action
It’s all about connection and persuasion
“If you don’t ask, you don’t get”
Don’t be shy – your audience already
knows why you’re there
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Organization:
The Speechworks Formula
• It’s flexible!
– Works for short or long presentations
– On-the-fly accordion-ization
– Apply it to memos, letters, magazine articles,
advertisements, emails, meetings, even job
interviews!
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
DESIGN
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Design:
What Drives Design?
• Purpose
– Education, influence, or entertain
• Use
– Presenter prompt, topic support, or takeaway
• Audience
– Expectations, intellect, attention
• Content
– Volume
– Supporting multimedia
• Technical Ability
– Personal and equipment
• Time
• Other Factors
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Design:
Best Practices
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Cleanliness and Consistency
Content Structure
Color Palate
Fonts
Graphics
Bullets
Branding
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Design:
Best Practices
Cleanliness
• Keep it simple
• White space
• Avoid distracting
animations
• Avoid distracting noises
Consistency
• Layout
• Fonts
• Colors
• Titles
• Lists
Use templates and styles
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Design:
Best Practices
Content Structure
• Road Maps
– Agenda, preview, section outlines
– Sidebar or footer TOC (see right)
• Page Hierarchy
– Main Heading (topic)
Sub heading (key topic)
Body copy (content)
– Use Master Slides and Style Sets
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Design:
Best Practices
Color Palate
• 2 to 4 colors max
• Avoid bright and
– Everyone hates reading bright red text, yet it is regularly
used to draw attention to text. Don’t do it!
– Use bold, italic, and/or underlining instead
• Use high-contrast colors
– Especially important when projecting to a screen
• Especially, especially important when projecting in a bright room
• Colors can convey a message, but do you want them to?
– Elementary colors may suggest the presentation is for
children; even if it is, does it help convey your message?
– Who’s presenting: you or your text?
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Design:
Best Practices
Fonts
• 1 to 2 suggested
– Can mix serif and sans-serif, but be consistent with use
• Sans-serif suggested
• Standard fonts
– Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman, Trebuchet,
Courier New
– Else: “OMG my text is a mess!”
• Fonts can also convey a message (or distraction),
but do you want them to?
• Friends don’t let friends Comic Sans
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Design:
Best Practices
Graphics
• “Visuals reinforce a speaker’s
message and help the audience
remember key points. However, the
presenter should always be the focus of
the presentation, not the visuals”
- Speechworks
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Design:
Best Practices
Graphics
Do:
• Use to support or
illustrate a point
• Use stock or original
photography
• Use consistent clip
art . . . maybe
Avoid:
• Amateur photos
• Smartphone photos
• MS clip art
• Illegal imagery
• Excessive use of
graphics
• Random placement
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Design:
Best Practices
Graphics
• ~800x600 pixels max
– Larger = Slower
– High-def full screen is about 1080x768 pixels
• Do not place behind or crowd text
• If layering, remove background color
– GIF and PNG formats allow transparency
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Design:
Best Practices
Unordered Lists
• Use bullets
Ordered Lists
• Use numerals
– When points are equally
important
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
– When order is important
– When sequence is
important
– When the number of points
is important
Design:
Best Practices
Branding
• Persistent logo
– On every page
• Catch phrase
– Reiterate the message
• Color-matching
– Headings, borders, etc. match corporate colors
• Suggestive icons
– Subtly build value/message/company associations
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
DELIVERY
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Delivery:
Physical Preparation
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Review
Practice (out loud)
Time
Test equipment
Dress for success
Arrive early, retest equipment
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Delivery:
Physiological Preparation
• Rest
• Relax
• Be real
–
Your first presentation of a new presentation will not
be perfect
•
•
–
–
–
You will not have enough time, few people do
You won’t have prior feedback
You know your material better than anyone else
Technical glitches will occur and the audience won’t
be surprised
Unless you’re a professional speaker, your primary
responsibility is the content, not the presentation
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Delivery:
The Show
• Boots and spurs
• Inflection
– Loud/Soft
– Fast/Slow
– Energy, Passion
• Repeat for emphasis, but not too often
• Gestures . . .
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
The Show:
Gestures
Don’t:
Do:
• Be offensive
• Let gestures distract your
audience
• Be too concerned
• Be big
– but stay in the strike zone
• Be steady
– Don’t be shy,
keep em’ out there
– They’re not required for a
good presentation
• Use jazz fingers
– i.e. patty-cake position
– Reach out as if to shake
hands with your audience
• Be strong
– e.g. Tiger Woods’ arm pump
• Be forward and inclusive
• Fidget, play with change,
put hands in pockets
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
– Within audience area
– Never backwards
RECAP AND WRAP
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Recap:
Keys to Presentations with Pop
1.
Structure
•
The Speechworks Method
–
•
2.
Hook, MO, 3 main points, support,
MO again, recap and wrap
Evidence that S.P.E.A.K.S.
Design
•
•
•
3.
Not too fancy
Clean, simple, and consistent
Supportive, not distracting
Delivery
•
•
•
•
Preparation
Boots and spurs
Inflection
Gestures
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Wrap Up
• Practice makes perfect; volunteer to
present an AC University topic
– We’re neither investors nor your boss
• Have questions, need help, or prefer a
template to get started?
– Email rscott@brownboots.com
– Or call BrownBoots, 920.906.9175
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Resources
• Generic Speechworks-formula PowerPoint
template and other BrownBoots AC University
presentations:
http://www.brownboots.com/presentations.html
• Speechworks website:
http://www.speechworks.net/
• Asher, Joey. Even A Geek Can Speak, LowTech Presentation Skills For High-Tech People.
Persuasive Speaker Pr, 2009.
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Quotes
“There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave.
The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish
you gave.”
- Dale Carnegie
“Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has
finished listening.”
- Dorothy Sarnoff
“There are two types of speakers, those that are nervous and those
that are liars.”
- Mark Twain
“The best way to sound like you know what you’re talking about is
to know what you’re talking about.”
- Author Unknown
“It takes one hour of preparation for each minute of
presentation time.”
- Wayne Burgraff
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Business Communications:
Tips and Techniques for Better Visual and Verbal Presentations
Presented by:
R. Scott Blamey
Director of Development
BrownBoots Interactive, Inc.
rscott@brownboots.com
www.brownboots.com
"Social Media: Is It Worth It?" ACU panel