How to Be Long Winded

If you finally get the chance to make that critical presentation to a room full of high level decision makers, you want to make sure you make the most of it. You have a captive audience, you are the center of attention, and you get a platform to sell your product or service to people who really matter. It’s a rare opportunity, so why not make it last as long as possible? After all, the executives who come to listen to you are bored with the drudgery of their tasks, and are eager to bask as long as possible in your brilliance.

Here are seven guaranteed ways to ensure that you captivate their full attention for as long as possible:

Give an infomercial: Make sure you tell them about every cool feature of your product.

Tell your “corporate story”: You are justly proud of your company and they should know why.

Fall in love with your slides: Someone, maybe corporate marketing or you, put a lot of work into them, and besides the animations are awesome!

Show them in painstaking detail how you reached your conclusions: If they don’t know how difficult it was, they won’t appreciate it.

Tell long stories: Stories are good in a presentation, so long stories are even better, right?

Think out loud: It’s important that they know without a doubt how smart you are.

Don’t practice or prepare: Why detract from the spontaneity that makes you such an interesting person to listen to?

As I said, strategic sales presentations are rare and valuable opportunities, and if you follow these tips, you can’t help but make them even more rare and valuable.