7 Reasons why your presentation must be designed as a conversation

"Transmission of info isn’t the goal anymore. The best presentations get everyone’s hands dirty in participating and engaged with the topic and feel more like a transformation than a transmission."

[1] Top-down-one-way presentations are dead.

Top-down-one-way presentations died September 4th, 1998, which is, by the way, the day that the Google god was born. 21BG (before Google), it made sense to show up to a meeting, pull out your laptop, and explain who you are, where your offices are and the 101 things your company does for your clients slide-by-boring-slide. This was because this information was not available as it is today - in people’s pockets. Reality check: They have already learned about your business, your products, your services, where you’re operations are, and have already skimmed 19 customer reviews - in the elevator on the way to the conference room to meet you. They certainly don’t want to - or need to hear it all over again from you. They’ve come to your presentation to achieve a completely different goal - one which you need to find and interact with during your presentation in order for it to be successful.

[2] Time is the most valuable thing any of us have. Use it wisely.

When you have the privilege to spend time with a group of people - you need to honor that time together by giving your audience exactly what they are interested in, what they came to learn about and give them a chance to own the direction of the outcome. It shows a lot more respect for people’s time when you come prepared to share everything YOU THINK they want to know, but to first confirm and ask them what they want to know more about or what they would like you to focus on so you can make the best use of everyone’s time - including yours. Also you need to have check-points every 7-10 minutes of your presentation to make sure your audience is fully engaged and you are addressing what they need to know.

[3] Bullet points are not for presentations - anymore.

Bullet-points are for blogs, books, memo’s, emails, documents, FAQ’s and landing pages. They’re not for presentations that you put up on a screen that needs to compliment you as a speaker. They do you a disservice instead. Even Google’s CEO doesn’t use bullet-points - and neither should we. Think of slides as billboards or meme’s to illustrate concepts, distinctions, process, and stories. Subjecting your audience to read your friggin speakers' notes while you simultaneously read them is the torture that leads to death-by-powerpoint. Don’t do it. If you need speakers notes, write them on flashcards or rehearse so the images on screen are visual triggers for you to talk about certain concepts freely and naturally. That’s the presentation part. If you find yourself trying to wordsmith a bullet-point in a block of text you must stop - and remind yourself of what the purpose is of your presentation which isn’t information transfer. That’s what your landing page is about. It should be about engagement and facilitating the right kind of discussion.

Instead of using bullet-points, use images or icons that allow you to talk about what all that means. And here's something counter-intuitive; turns out your slides DO NOT need to be 100% clear to the viewer. Cognitive dissonance is what fosters thinking, audience engagement because what they are seeing and what they are hearing are not yet aligned. For example, the slide above - has some symbols that will connoate different things to different people. But it's only when the presenter tells a story that links those symbols in a certain way that creates the resolution of that dissonance. Their attempt to try and make sense of what’s going on is the kind of presentation atmosphere you want.

[4] We are visual beings.

We are visual beings. 30% of our brain is wired to interpret visual things. Studies show the power of visual images in telling a story is far better and faster than words can. The human eye can read 10x faster than one can read words out loud, so there is no need in competing with your audience’s attention with lists of bullet points they’ve read before you’ve even started to explain the slide. On top of that, slides filled with small text and bullet points defeats your purpose to have an impactful experience with your audience. If reading your bullet-points can achieve your audience's goal - then save everybody the hassle and just email the presentation. If this were true - then we wouldn’t need anyone to present on anything. Ever. Think to the real purpose of your presentation - which is likely to create the trust that’s needed for your audience to make a decision.

But visuals alone, without an explanation of their context cannot communicate by themselves. So use visuals as a way to compliment your story.

[5] Conversational presenting turns your presentation into an experience

When you present your information in the context of a conversation, you’re naturally going to ask questions. “What is most important to you about this?”, “How many of you have ever…”, “What have you experienced?". This kind of interaction - especially with people who have just met becomes a value sharing experience that spawns trust.

[6] Back-and-forth presentations as conversations are more successful

You will know what landed and what didn’t because you’ll have asked. You will ask open ended questions like, “What do you think about that?”, or “What was that like?”, or “What’s your goal around this?” Take a look at the data. Above is a visualization of what a successful sales demo conversation looks like from gong.io. Notice the equal back-and-forth, give and take, confirmation of understanding and feedback. This is what a great presentation looks like.

[7] 51% of us are introverts and 95% of us are terrified of public speaking

Getting good at public speaking sounds like a nice thing to practice if you want to - but the good news is that being a great public speaker isn’t a requirement to being a great presenter. A polished public speaker, charming actor, or TED-talk-wanna-be isn’t whom people want as their vendor or partner that they’re trying to decide on whether to trust. They want you. They want you to be real with them. They want you to be a trusted advisor, not a well-dressed charlatan. And assuming you’re there in the first place because you know something they want to learn more about, you should focus on structuring your presentation as a conversation, for example,

“I’ve come prepared to talk about these 3 things today which I think will really help you achieve your goals, but before I begin - can you tell me what’s most important to you about this?”

Even just starting your presentation like this will certainly get you on the right track to turn your presentation into a conversation in which the most introverted people will feel comfortable. Most people hate public speaking - but everyone loves a conversation.

This statistic below was gathered from a webinar I conducted on January 30th, 2018.

Through conversation, you immediately build a better relationship with your clients rather than pontification over a 64 slide powerpoint which they're not going to remember 1 slide tomorrow anyway. Transmission of information isn't the goal anymore. The best presentations get everyone’s hands dirty in the topic. They get everyone thinking, participating and engaged. They feel more like transformations than transmissions for everyone involved.