Just Get There

The Presentation Transition Myth

?

I write on behalf of your audiences – the people you’ll speak to today or tomorrow or next month. We have some things we want you to take to heart.

We’re sitting there, ready to catch nuggets of useful information and direction. We want to take what you have for us, and then get on with our day.

But too many speakers – whether you write for yourselves, or have a Communicator write for you – waste precious time with needless, old-school transitions.

Here are the New Rules for Transitions.?

#1 Don’t be a human loading problem.

Do not make us wait through praise for us because we “took time out of your busy day to be here.” It’s our job to be there.

We don’t want to give it up again for Mike, who just spoke before you. We already applauded the great team who delivered the new research, and we don't wanna do it again. We don’t care if you loved that nice introduction and wish you could take that introducer home with you.

Cut it out.

Get to the good part. Start by promising us what we will be able to do, after we listen to you. tell us how we’ll be better off at the end of the talk. That’s the context we’re listening for. And that’s the value you need to bring us.

Audiences are smarter than you think. We move faster these days – partly from a lower attention span, and partly from habits of consumption where we quickly skim articles, scroll posts, and sort for what interests us in seconds.

#2 Quit forcing empty transitions between topics.

Your presentation doesn’t need four paragraphs to transition between Topic A and Topic B.

I’ve spent – genuinely -- hours this week talking speakers and writers out of “earning” the right to move from one topic to another.

These poor speakers spent hours searching out quotes to justify the shift. They toiled to figure out a distant thread that connected the two topics. Then they spun it out into paragraphs, in fear that we would be lost if there wasn’t a bridge between the two topics.

Don't waste your time trying to make up a phrase or sentence or paragraphs trying to justify a topic switch. ?Try these instead:

?

·????? “Okay. Next topic.”

·????? “Let’s step back and talk about X”

·????? “While we’re together, let’s look at Issue M”

·????? “Alright.”

·????? “One more thing”

?These phrases signal: transition coming. We don’t need the reflections of your grand aunt Beryl, or to hear about the article you read the other day in the Journal that made it occur to you that we might want to know more about the new whatever.

Signal. Then go.

?

#3 When the event/topic is over, it’s over. Don't drag it forward.

Each time you say, “As you already know…” we take a mental vacation. We don’t hear what we already know – we don't need to.

When you say, “Jeannine mentioned earlier that…” we go: “When is lunch? Did I remember to send that email to Devon?”

Just make the point and move on. Don't apologize for the fact that maybe we already heard it.?

If you feel the need to refer backwards to something, the way to do it is in the present tense:

·????? “Pat told you!”

·????? “You KNOW this!”

·????? “And, of course!”

Constructions like this literally make us sit up taller in it seats, waiting to hear comes next.

Here’s the point.

You are more useful to us, the faster you're useful you are to us. We don’t need the filigree or 1999 Rotary Club rhetoric to think you're doing a good job. The more value you deliver, in the shortest possible time, the more we value YOU.

Give it to us fast and straight. We can take it from there.

?

?

?