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How to convince executives that presenters need presentation skills training

May 6, 2013 by Ellen Finkelstein 2 Comments

I hear it all the time. It usually comes from people in the Communications or Marketing department. They’ve been reading this blog — and others — about how to create powerful, persuasive presentations. But executives at their organization are comfortable with the old way of using the slide as a teleprompter, even though the audience hates it!

How do you convince executives that they are hurting themselves when they present? And that their sales reps and internal presenters are also having a damaging effect?

Point to recent failures

Keep an eye out for failures that might be related to poor presentation skills. Examples would be lost sales and potential clients saying, “Don’t bring the deck.” Perhaps there have been internal snafus or wrong decisions made because of poor communication. Remember here that presenting isn’t about PowerPoint — that’s just one aspect of it. Presenters also need to

Learn how to organize their content clearly
Focus on what the audience needs and wants
Speak at a level appropriate for their audience

Explain the research

There is SO much research on what makes an effective presentation. A book that puts most of it together is Speaking PowerPoint, by Bruce Gabrielle. Although I disagree with some of Bruce’s conclusions, I return to his book regularly for the research that he documents.

Show before and after examples

When executives see what’s possible, they may like it! For example, if they see the above alide turned into these slides, they may agree to try the new way of presenting.

Find examples of great presentations

TED talks, recordings from industry conferences, and so on are all ways to show executives what others (and maybe their competitors) are doing. Sometimes, you can find free webinar recordings online. For example, the webinar I did for PresentationXpert is available on YouTube here. This is about 1-1/4 hours of free training.

Don’t give up!

Above all, stick to your principles and continue to make your point. Eventually, they’ll get it.

The role of persuasion and emotion in training

April 29, 2013 by Ellen Finkelstein 1 Comment

I’ve always thought that persuasion and emotion were best left to sales and proposal presentations. After all, in an instructional setting, isn’t persuasion like propaganda? But in my course, High-Persuasion PowerPoint Presentation Program, I’m discovering that I was wrong. Actually, a couple of my students have taught me this.

Imagine that you are training employees in a factory to follow certain procedures. If the employees don’t follow these procedures, your company’s customers may get hurt. Your company may get sued. So there’s a lot on the line.

But employees seem to forget or not care. Either way, they aren’t always following the procedures.

How do you react? Are supervisors yelling at employees and threatening to fire them?

It’s clear to me that this method isn’t effective. If you’re getting to the point where you have to yell at people on a PowerPoint slide, you need to rethink your approach.

Instead, you can use emotion and persuasion. Humor can also have a place.

Instead of yelling, use emotion to hit home. You can create slides that are very powerful in this way.

Here are two possible slides.

But be sure to positively reinforce good behavior. Mention employees who follow the rules in meetings and the company newsletter. If any employee goes out of his or her way to keep customers safe (perhaps by finding and reporting a dangerous situation), give that employee special mention, even a prize.

The difference between a persuasive and an informative presentation

April 1, 2013 by Ellen Finkelstein 13 Comments

I think that most presentations can be classified as persuasive or informative.These two presentation types can cover quite a range — more entertaining or less, informal or keynote,for example.

What is a persuasive presentation?

Some presentations are for the purpose of selling a product or service.

Other presentations try to sell an idea. For example, maybe you want approval for a proposal. You might want to persuade people to contribute to a cause.

The success of a persuasive presentation is determined by how many people make a purchase or how many people contribute to the cause. For a proposal, success is determined by whether or not you get the approval you need.

What is an informative presentation?

Many informative presentations are delivered for training or education. There may be a small element of persuasion at the beginning of an educational lecture, for example, as the teacher tries to persuade students that the topic is worth learning about. But mostly the teacher wants the students to understand and remember the content.

An informative presentation may be followed by a test or exercise and the success of the presentation may be determined by how well the students do on the test or exercise.

Another type of informative presentation is the result of research, such as a presentation at a scientific conference or a market research presentation meant to provide the information a company needs to make a business decision. The success of the presentation would be determined by the outcome of the decision.

What do persuasive and informative presentations have in common?

There are many characteristics that both types of presentations share:

Your goal is to be clear so that your audience understands and remembers what you say
Your material should be customized for your specific audience
You should engage your audience with questions and answers and other interactive approaches

How are persuasive and informative presentations different?

But there are differences, too. I remember listening to a recording of a presentation given by a research scientist at a press conference before a 2009 Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr concert at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. He wanted the reporters to put a sentence or two about the research on the Transcendental Meditation technique in their articles. (The concert was a benefit to raise funds to teach inner-city children this stress-reducing technique).

Instead, he gave an informative presentation, which was overly technical and not helpful to the reporters, many of which covered popular culture. (Paul and Ringo singing together on the same stage!)

This highlights that the main difference is obviously the different goal–to persuade or to inform. But how do you change your presentation to match your goal?

Here are my thoughts:

Problem-solution: Most persuasive presentations highlight the problem and then offer a solution. People won’t act unless you can provide a solution to a problem they have. Informative presentations use this concept less often, although a trainer could be training people to overcome a problem such as poor customer service or even poor sales.
Benefits: Similarly, in a persuasive presentation, you need to outline the benefits of the solution, what the audience will gain from buying, contributing, or approving. In an informative presentation, you may talk about the importance of the information, but this aspect is a much smaller part of the whole presentation.
Emotion: Studies have shown that people can’t make a decision without feeling good about it and for that they need to tap into their emotions. Therefore, the presenter needs to elicit an emotional response. Informative presentations use emotion much less.
Trust: In order to commit, the audience must trust the presenter and feel comfortable that others have taken the same route. Testimonials, case studies, the presenter’s previous successes, and stories all contribute to trust and “social proof.” Of course, it’s good that an audience trust an informative presenter, but the emphasis is more on the content.
Action step: For a persuasive presentation, there must be a call to action at the end — to buy, contribute, or approve. However an informative presentation can also suggest that people act — “put what you’ve learned into practice.”

How do you think persuasive and informative presentations are different?

Learn easy principles and techniques that designers use. “Slide Design for Non-Designers” shows you, step-by-step, how to easily get the results you want. Plus bonus theme, template, sample slides, and 5 short video tutorials to make implementing the principles easy.Updated for PowerPoint 2016/365. Learn more at http://ellenfinkelstein.com/pptblog/slide-design-for-non-designers/

Create training courses with screenshots within PowerPoint

January 20, 2013 by Ellen Finkelstein 8 Comments

Screenshots are a staple of training courses, especially computer-related ones. So trainers are accustomed to using screenshot software to illustrate tutorials.

Often, these screenshots end up in PowerPoint, which is used as the basis for an online course or self-running presentations. In PowerPoint 2010 and later, you can create these screenshots within PowerPoint.

Here’s how it works.

Create the slide that will contain the screenshot.
Make sure that the screen that you want to show is displayed. It can be a browser tab or an application screen — anything you want.
Back in PowerPoint, choose the Insert tab and in the Images group, click Screenshot.
You see thumbnail images of the available screens, as shown on the right. Click one of them.
Move and/or crop the image.

Here you see an example based on a course I teach. (You can see the sale page here.)

Have you tried using PowerPoint’s screenshot feature? I also use Techsmith’s SnagIt because of the editing options it provides. How do you create screenshots for training purposes? Leave a comment!

Do you give out prizes when you train? Do you sing and dance?

May 7, 2012 by Ellen Finkelstein 7 Comments

Trainers know that they have to work hard to keep the attention of their students. Recently, someone emailed me and said,

I am a technical trainer… My class varies in attendee background and experience and sometimes I feel the only way I can keep their attention is with a song and dance.

I have had several clients who teach technical, legal, or administrative subjects and say that their audiences think the topic is boring. Often, the trainees are employees who are required to attend, but don’t really want to. These trainers struggle to keep their sessions lively.

Here are some ideas that might help.

Colorful, surprising slides

Make sure that your slides are colorful and interesting. Use lots of images. Use images that surprise. A little shock value is good. Whenever possible, use photos of real people.

For example, one of my clients was discussing a committee that had to approve certain types of research at the University where she worked. I suggested that she take a head shot of each committee member so that researchers would feel more connection with them instead of thinking of the committee as just a bureaucratic process.

Interactivity

Be careful not to be the only one talking. When you interact with audience members, you keep them involves. Interactivity can include:

Aasking the audience questions
Answering their questions
Breaking up into small groups for short exercises
Creating challenging scenarios to work out. Scenarios are what-if situations, such as, “What would you do if a colleague said x and y to you?”

Prizes

In certain situations, it’s appropriate to play games and give out prizes. You can give out prizes for simply answering a question, volunteering to do a role playing game, or anything you want. Make sure the prizes are seen as useful or interesting and that they are appropriate for everyone. (Most men won’t want a makeup kit and most women won’t want a tie.)

And don’t forget about food. One of my clients says that her trainees certainly aren’t happy if she doesn’t provide treats!

What do you do to keep your sessions lively? Leave a comment!

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