These rules will help you put the pieces together
Last week I wrote about how important it is to have a clear structure for your executive sales presentation. This article is about three rules that will make your presentation engaging and convincing.
Tension and resolution
Although a story is a powerful format for a presentation, it does not have to be strictly chronological. The key attribute of story is not chronology, but tension and resolution. In other words, the story creates some tension in our minds—a mismatch between what is happening and what we want to happen; that’s what grabs our interest, and the promise of having that tension resolved is what sustains our interest.
That’s why sales presentations are so well suited for some sort of narrative structure: they are about solving problems for customers. In his classic book, Moving Mountains, Henry Boettinger is worth quoting at length:
Remember in school how you were told to outline what you were going to write before starting an essay or a report? There was a good reason for that. A builder would not just start putting up walls and windows without a plan, and neither should you.
Structure clarifies. An unambiguous structure clarifies your own thinking, and makes your message more understandable and more convincing.
Let’s start with what structure does for the audience, and then see what it does for you.
Makes it easier for the audience to follow
Sticky details can make your message more convincing
Which do you think is more likely, that you might be killed by a shark attack or by a falling airplane part?
Most people guess shark attack, but you are 30 times more likely to be struck by a stray bolt from the blue than to be viciously torn apart in the blood-tinged surf by rows of razor sharp teeth.[1]
People overestimate the odds of something happening because they are more vividly brought to mind when the question is asked. One reason we call rare events to mind more easily is that by definition rare events are what make the news. That’s why we’re much more conscientious about locking our doors when we’ve read about a recent burglary in the neighborhood.
The availability heuristic, and its subset, vividness, simply means that we place a greater likelihood on events or situations that we can more easily imagine. In short, if we can easily remember something, it is more likely to influence our decision.
Here’s another example to reinforce the point. Researchers studied the effects of vivid details on mock jury trials. In one drunk-driving case, the prosecutor had to convince the jury that the defendant was impaired based on circumstantial evidence.
In one version, the testimony said:
“On his way out the door, Sanders staggered against a serving table, knocking a bowl to the floor.”
A second version went this way,
“On his way out the door, Sanders staggered against a serving table, knocking a bowl of guacamole dip to the floor and splattering guacamole on the white shag carpet.”
When the subjects of the experiment judged the cases immediately after reading the testimony, there was no significant difference between the two versions. However, when they had to judge the cases two days after having read the evidence, they were much more likely to find the defendant guilty.
What does this have to do with selling and presentations?
One of the most important tasks of anybody trying to persuade another is to make sure that their message is recalled when it comes time for the other person to make a decision and act on the information provided. If you’re a salesperson, you may meet with an influencer who then has to take your information to the decision makers. Will they remember your great points two days later?
So, if you’re making a presentation and you want people to remember the benefits of your solution, find ways to express those benefits so that they will be recalled when needed.
How to make your presentations more vivid
Vivid details and style: You don’t want to get carried away with it, but as you can see it helps to have one or two vivid details in your explanations. “Our security is like being guarded by a pitbull with a bulletproof vest and an Uzi.”
Concreteness: Concrete words can be pictured in the mind. Try to make abstract concepts real. For example, instead of saying your solution “improves productivity”, tell them that Chris in Accounting can now get that report on your desk by Tuesday morning instead of Wednesday afternoon.
Stories: Among the many excellent reasons to use stories is that they are much more easily remembered, especially if they have one or two vivid or unusual details.
Analogies: Hitch your bland explanation to a more exciting analogy. Our performance advantage is like the difference between Superman and Mr. Magoo.
Pictures: Pictures are tremendous vehicles to make your ideas vivid, but try to use pictures that have some impact and that they haven’t seen many times before.
Try some of these ideas and your sales pitches will be as sticky as a gecko on duct tape.
[1] I first found this factoid in the Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making, by Scott Plous, and also in this article. Neither one of these constitutes actual proof, of course, but the idea remains the same. Besides, most people will remember the fact long after they have forgotten this footnote—and that’s the whole point of this article.
My last book review was a pan, so I’m happy to restore the karmic balance by giving a hearty and glowing recommendation to Nancy Duarte’s book, Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences.
This is not a beginner’s book about how to craft a presentation—readers who can deliver a solid, workmanlike presentation but who want to add more impact and pizzazz will get the most benefit from it. If you want more on logos, including forms of evidence and logical structures, I would recommend Advanced Presentations by Design, by Andrew Abela.
But this is not a weakness of the book, just a difference in focus. Duarte does not discount the importance of the analytical appeal, but as she says: “Many pages in this book have been devoted to creating emotional appeal—not because it’s more important but because it’s underused or nonexistent and should be incorporated.” (p. 180)
Paradoxically, while the book focuses on the elements that are required to resonate emotionally with the audience, many of her points are backed up with solid research. For example, her treatment of the importance of contrast is supported by a scholarly paper which analyzed the applause generated in 476 political speeches, and her discussion about the over-wordiness of slides draws on the solid research of Richard Mayer.[1]
As many other presentation books do, Resonate emphasizes the importance and power of story, but it does so in greater and more instructive detail. Using story templates from myths and movies, you learn the proper form and structure of a story, so you can apply conscious competence to the creation of your presentations.
As is fitting for a book that is about presenting visual stories, Resonate uses a tool called sparklines, which are graphical analyses of the structure and delivery of presentations, so that you can see what works, when and why in a presentation. You can see how well it works by watching a wonderful TED talk given by conductor Benjamin Zander while following the sparkline on pages 50-51.
I especially liked the idea of using contrast to move the presentation along and hold the audience’s interest. In your content, contrast is used to compare what is to what could be, which is the essence of persuasion. Contrast is also used to offset and balance the appropriate application of logic and emotion. Finally, contrast in delivery keeps things fresh and introduces enough variety to fit within today’s shorter attention spans.
Many of the photos and graphic illustrations are striking and very effective. In fact, the only thing wrong with Resonate is that I could not bring myself to highlight or write in it as I do with most of my books. The book is just too beautifully put together to deface it, with excellent design and attention-grabbing photos.
There is much more to Resonate than this brief review has covered. I strongly recommend it to anyone who would like to make their presentations more engaging, powerful and memorable.
[1] His book, by the way, is well-worth reading if you would like to understand the cognitive impact of slides and give scientific justification for why you should make your slides cleaner and less wordy. (Multimedia Learning, by Richard E. Mayer.)
