Courtesy Protocol: Antidote for The Powerpoint Coma
Public Service Announcement: The following is a written document, not a presentation.?If this were a presentation, much fewer words would be appearing in this space….and this would be a speech not something you read.
[Explained fully elsewhere, The Courtesy Protocol governs all things. When someone speaks of finding the right way to do something, when someone seeks a path to success, they seek the wisdom and rules of The Courtesy Protocol.]
The Courtesy Protocol most succinctly defined is the formula for successful behavior: What make someone “courteous” in a presentation is how much they focus on the needs of the audience for how they will absorb the message. While young graphic artists of recent years have promulgated tiny font type in printed documents and web sites, the “Shrink text on overflow” feature of PowerPoint text boxes serves as the enabler for bad presentations.
Here I’ll quote two people with really good advice for anyone creating a PowerPoint presentation for presentation. (Some PowerPoint documents are meant to be standalone, meant to be read privately by an individual.?We are not covering those.)
From Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice to Presbyterian ministers: “Tell them what you are going tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them.”
And, from my grandfather: “I shall never ceased to be amazed by the infinite capacity of the human brain to resist the penetration of useful knowledge.”
The Courtesy Protocol demands that you pay attention to your audience beginning while you prepare your slide, considering time of day you will present, the composition of the roles of the people in the room, your understanding of what they already know on the topic and much more.
For additional support, for those preparing a business presentation for executive levels, a literary reference applies, from T.H.White’s novel “Once and Future King”,, the court wizard Merlin changes the young King into an Ant.?In the ant world, Arthur discovers the Ants have only two adjectives Done and Not Done.?Most executives don’t want to hear gory details, excuses, vague plans and ambitions.?They want described clear, concise accomplishment or well defined and focused problem sets….and mostly the former.
Business presentations typically take three forms: Informative; Selling; and Problem Solving.
Informative Business Presentation
Typically the simplest and most common of the three common forms.?The goal is to transfer knowledge from you to your audience. How much they absorb of your message depends mostly, but not entirely, on you.
However! The human brain, social and cultural factors and room temperature also play a big role. The biggest stumbling block for most presentations is the?eye tracking that goes on between slide and presenter.?Human brains go first to faces, then to objects, then colors and text. Each level stimulates the private thoughts of each member of the audience. Show a photo of a young couple buying your product and you just lost all the parents with children just married.
All slides.?All slides need to represent a single key concept that is the focus of what you have to say while it’s up on the screen.?It needs introduction, a very short time for absorption and then its primary purpose should be to remind those whose thoughts wandered off what you’re talking about.
By the same token, talk too long with one slide up - tying too many concepts to one slide and the slide itself becomes a distraction unless you are a particularly engaging speaker.
You have tremendous power to set the expectations of your audience, to guide them into a cadence to be most receptive to your message.?Do that from the start. The sooner the logistics of your methods settle in the sooner they will focus.?
The Selling Presentation
This form is the most difficult of the three forms. You are the speaker, with a canned slide set to present and an audience of usually more than one person. The art an soul of selling is knowing your customer and engaging them with questions so they tell you how to sell them.?
Most selling presentations hit you like bad sales people. “Here’s my idea/product/service, my proposition, why you should buy it and here’s how. What do you think?”
Take that approach in an email, a phone call or sitting across the desk from someone and you likely lose the sale. (See Dear Email Senders Impersonating Sales People.)
But how does the Courtesy Protocol address a one way conversation like a presentation to even a small audience?
Simple: Courtesy demands attention to the other person. If you are unable to prep for presentation by speaking with your audience members to have them ask you questions to indicate how they will be sold, do the next best thing.?Like good imagery in writing and good movie making, engage the imagination of the audience. Don’t hand them specifications like you are programming a computer.?Lead them through the topic so they are participants in germinating your sales message in their own heads.?
How? you ask. (I hope you do, anyway.)
<Pause>
Yes, that’s the trick.?Ask a question, but then don’t answer it right away. Ruminate with your audience a little. Engage them. The best orators, the best newscasters don’t rush through what they have to say. They leave pauses, space for your brain to catch up.
The Xerox copy machine company once sent it’s very large sales staff to “closing training”…the scarcity close, the FOMO close, the puppy dog close, and sales plummeted for the six months following. Eager to use their new skills, the sellers would walk into an office and quickly determine the best copier to fit that office and immediately start closing. Meanwhile the office manager, who has no idea what all the choices are, pushes off. Give your audience a chance to position themselves to buy.
But make sure you’re not being rhetorical or condescending, asking a question with an obvious answer. If your focused sales pitch is well built, and the reason you are presenting in the first place is not just to persuade (bad selling) but to shed light on your idea/product/service so your audience sees it like you do and sees themselves with it like you do…and you better see that or you’re talking to the wrong group.?Good selling matches those with the resources and the use or need for what’s offered.
The Problem Solving Presentation
Very like selling, this presentation can be dangerous or advance your career. In a Problem Solving presentation, you are seeking help, maybe defending what you already did or training others to recognize the signs of a problem. In all three instances, the perception of your credibility by your audience is key.?You are the one telling them about this because you know it the best (like a good seller) and you are teeing up the concept so others can participate in its solution.
These are likely the shortest presentations made of the group.?And possibly the most important one to use Emerson’s advice. Setup the environment, get the audience around the table and engaged and then only the details they need to get a clear picture of the problem to be solved. Have backup ready but don’t wander off into a deep dive on anything.?Like the inverted pyramid of a Wall Street Journal news report, give the big stuff completely and then, if invited, keep going around into more specifics but a whole picture each time, ready to stop at any slide.
And, like the Selling Presentation, be ready with an ask. A specific request for what you think will solve the problem OR with a request for the resources and brain power to figure out the solution. Just as you get the audience to ask themselves the questions you want them to ask, give them a chance to help you formulate a path forward.
The Last Word
Here’s the easy stuff:?