KILLER PRESENTATIONS
- What Can Your PowerPoint Learn from the Movies?
(824 Words ~ 3-4 minutes to read)

Do You Have a Killer Presentation or one that Kills Your Audience?
In the last month I have seen or sat through probably 20-30 PowerPoint presentations and they ranged from appalling to banal. Several made good points but lacked power. None amazed me, few were particularly persuasive and most simply bored me to death. I switched off at some point from almost every presentation.

During the same time period, I watched as many movies. I rarely switched off and almost all the movies engaged me enough to invest 90-120 minutes of my precious time. Why?

What kept me engaged was a good storyline.

Years ago, I worked closely with the Chairman of R.K.O. Studios, the old motion picture company. I always remember his words “a great movie starts with a great story”. It’s the same with your presentation, is it simply a boring regurgitation of data or a compelling story told in words and pictures? Here are some lessons from the movies.

Bam! Bam!
Most presentations start with "Welcome to this presentation...blah, blah, blah." Imagine Spielberg, Lucas or Coppolla beginning their movies like that. Bond movies have their trademark action-packed opening sequences, the early Pink Panther films had the cartoon figure running through the main titles at the start, making mischief with the lettering, insistently getting in the way. Both drama and humor get our attention.

So how do you get your audience’s attention? A question, a quote or a powerful image are all means to ensure your audience is focused on you. Surprise them in some way in the first two minutes is the advice of Tom Peters, the globe-trotting management guru. His talk on global competitiveness started with a kitchen timer set to 26 minutes, which is exactly the amount of time that elapses between each new manufacturing facility that opens in China. After 26 minutes, he sets the timer again and so on. The secret is to start with something that's appears disconnected with the presentation; the dissonance forces your audience to pay attention.

But that’s only the start.
Always, Always Tell A Story Perhaps you remember James Cameron’s "Titanic"? You could tell that story with ease and accuracy. Why? Because all our movies are in a story format. Great presentations don't just contain great stories or anecdotes - the entire presentation is one grand story.

Take a cue from Hollywood and write a three act script that focuses your ideas and helps you figure out what you want to say and how you want to say it. With a completed script in hand, a Hollywood filmmaker usually turns to a storyboard artist to sketch selected scenes from the story to show how things will look on screen. Use storyboarding to help you review your story structure and sequence, check your pacing and flow, and use visuals to tie together the various parts of your story. Finally, you can move into production. This opens dramatic new possibilities for treating your PowerPoint screen as a canvas to promote dialog and collaboration. Instead of reading text from a screen, your slides work as visual triggers that enhance or support your verbal dialogue adding nuances of reason and emotion. The result is an engaging multimedia experience that balances visual and verbal elements and contributes to meaningful understanding.

Suggested Script Outline
Adpated from Cliff Atkinson’s book Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft PowerPoint to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire

• Act I – Sets up the story: the setting (where) / the main characters (who) / the imbalance or problem (what) / the premise for the solution (how).
• Act II – Develops the action with your top three reasons or ideas – each fleshed out / the turning point / create dissonance to stimulate new thinking
• Act III – Frames the resolution with summary of crisis / solution / climax / resolution / decision point – WIFM

Creating a story will not only give your presentation some focus (and storyline), it will also make it easier for your audience to remember the sequence and substance of what you present.

Final Thoughts
Some closing thoughts on presentations. I like Tom Peters’ challenge:

• Remember your Goal: Change the world!
• Bring energy and enthusiasm, passion and performance to every presentation large or small
• Always remember to smile; connect with your audience; keep good eye contact
  And have a great time! It appears the movie world does, why shouldn’t we?!

Finally Bring on an Unpredictable Finish!
Every movie, every good ad does it. They often wrap it up in a way you rarely expect. Could anything be worse than building to crescendo with growing expectations, answering all their questions, and then having a flat ending? Your finale has to be like lightning! Startling, ephemeral and brilliant. It will ensure that your product, service, funding pitch, research or final report is remembered and gets maximum attention.
Otherwise you're just making yet another Point with no Power!

“Life is a stage and we are merely performers.” ~ William Shakespeare.
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To receive “More Lessons from the Movies – Five additional Tips to Presenting”
(492 words - Less 2 minutes to read) E-mail me at TheMarketingChef AT MarketingSymhony DOT com

"More business decisions occur over lunch and dinner than at any other time, yet no MBA courses are given on the subject."
~ Peter Drucker

NETWORKING - Ever Have Trouble Starting a Conversation at a Business Function?
(674 Words _ Less than 3 minutes to read)

Many of you may list “networking” as one of your marketing instruments, but how can you be more effective? There is a definitive art to initiating contact and creating meaningful interaction.

FIRST CONTACT:
Smile. You have about ten seconds before the person in front of you (subconsciously) decides whether they like you or not. With such little time few words can be exchanged, hence their judgment is primarily based on body communication. So lean in (a little), make good eye contact, touch them on the elbow or shake hands. Take the initiative and be the first one to say hello. All this shows attention, confidence and immediately displays your interest in the other person.

As soon as the introductions are made, visually attach a picture of their name to their face. When the conversation starts, don’t interrupt. Exhibit empathy and understanding by nodding your head and involving your whole body in engaging the person you’re talking with. And always, always, remember the other person’s name; use their name often throughout the conversation. Nothing is sweeter to someone’s ears than their own name. Always maintain good eye contact. If you start looking around the room you’re toast; maintain eye contact at least 70% of the time. The ability to initiate dialogue with people through small talk is a learned skill but can lead to big things, according to Debra Fine, author of The Fine Art of Small Talk. E-mail me for her top 9 tips in starting − and ending conversations.

INTERACTION: OK, you’ve initiated a dialogue, now how do you create effective interactions.

Secret #1: Focus on them. People like to talk about themselves, even the most reserved. Listen attentively. Remember God gave you two ears and one mouth - spend twice the time listening versus talking. Demonstrate interest in them and their problems and restrain your desire to talk about yourself, your organization or solutions. Ask questions that sincerely demonstrate you believe the other person’s opinion is of particularly worth. Focus on their triumphs. Find out their passions. Laugh at their jokes.

Secret #2: Be generous. There is a timeless Zig Ziglar quote, “If you help enough people get what they want, you will get what you want.” Whenever you meet somebody, try to make that person successful. That’s what made Keith Ferrazzi, (author of Never Eat Alone), a master networker, the youngest partner in Deloitte Consulting's history and a top executive in his thirties with a network of relationships that stretched from Washington’s corridors of power to Hollywood’s A-list. Ferrazzi's form of connecting to the world around him is based on generosity, helping friends connect with other friends. So don't be a networking jerk. Don't keep score. If your interactions are ruled by generosity, your rewards will follow suit.

Secret #3: With the appropriate cues have 3-5 simple “power questions” that can steer the dialogue towards potential indicators of interest. Here are some of mine … “I’m collecting people’s definitions of marketing for a book … what’s yours?” (P.S. Whatever their response, it’s never wrong).
“Do you believe you get the best return on your marketing investment? Why not?"
“Which marketing instruments work well for you, what’s not working as well?"
"What’s your biggest challenge in marketing your organization?"

Secret #4: Spread a few FUD seeds. Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt. All great motivators!
“My research shows 80+% of organizations fall into one or more of the three marketing deathtraps.” Invariably they ask me what they are.

Secret #5: Have a simple, brief but intriguing verbal/visual descriptor of your business clearly in your mind (10 seconds or less). “Marketing Symphony orchestrates strategic breakthroughs for firms by crafting a relevant, compelling, credible and differentiated message which is conveyed through the right marketing instruments that move the heart, mind and soul of your target audience.”

Conclusion: Ultimately, networking is not the end but the means to build generous relationships so that your prospects, clients and referral sources think of you first, often and well.
Happy Networking!

"Executives should blog if they have a vision they are trying to communicate, or if they are very visible in the media."
- Mark Cuban

Two more reasons to blog to add to my previous day's post

PROCRASTINATION - Why Start A Blog?
(535 Words – Less than 3 minutes to read)

Well after a little procrastination and a shift in thinking, I have finally launched the official Blog for The Marketing Chef.

So Why Did I Start A Blog?
I knew about blogs and blogging for years before I actually ventured into my first blog. So why did it take me over 5 years to start my first blog?

And, why would I want to blog at all? Is there anyone really out there? Aren't blogs just for techno-geeks exchanging the latest developments, teenagers blathering about boy/girlfriends? The elections of 2004 brought out the best and worst in blogs from an effective political and fundraising tool to the cadre of self-opinionated political zealots proselytizing hot air agendas. Then there are the technical journals full of nomenclature understandable solely by rocket scientists and brain surgeons. So for some time I decided blogs were not for me and I paid scant attention to the “blogoshere”.

Then about a year or two ago my thinking changed. I began to see others effectively use the blog as a bona fide marketing instrument for:

• A tool for SEO - Search Engine Optimization
• An additional information resource for clients and prospects
• Another “entry point” for suspects and prospects.

So today, the first official entry for the Marketing Chef, will tackle the blog as a support mechanism for SEO. If done properly, it will get your website pages spidered almost immediately and indexed in less than a week.

Blog and Ping
The basic method is to connect your blog (I recommend and use Google’s http://www.blogger.com/) to your website. (If you don’t have a Website yet, set up a myYahoo page). You add the RSS or Atom link from your blog to your Web page or myYahoo page, so that your blog feeds into your website. You then write an entry to your blog with links to the Web pages that you want Google and Yahoo to find and index. After publishing your new blog entry, you then ping your website or myYahoo page to tell it that there’s a new entry at your blog. Then you go to Yahoo, open your myYahoo page, and the blog headline should be there.

The assumption is that Yahoo would spider all feeds going into it’s myYahoo pages and because Google owns Blogger.com they would spider all new blog entries at Blogger.com and I have seen this happen with the successful blogs and that’s why The Marketing Chef is following suit.

Feed Me Seymour!
So start a blog, add frequent entries, and in less than a week it will be getting spidered almost as you post to it. But you must frequently post to your blog, preferably daily. Posting daily communicates to the search engines that you are a serious content generator. Search engines then realize they can rely on you to publish fresh content every day. Brand new content is the life blood of search engines. Without fresh content search engines users may look elsewhere.

Feed the search engines and you will be rewarded with almost immediate listings in their directories. How well you rank by keywords and will be the subject matter for another day.