Tag Archives: presentations

Communications, public relations

The Chemistry of Good Presentations

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Any number of things contribute to good presentations, not the least of which is their content, but there are other things at play that influence and persuade your audience to either buy in and believe or back away and withdraw their attention.

Context matters. Where are you when you begin your story? Where is your audience? Are you on a teleconference call unable to read visual cues? Are they mentally distracted? Perhaps sitting next to an annoying co-worker? These things matter to their ability to receive your message.

How you frame your message matters too. People will react to the identical information in different ways depending on how it is framed. Are you talking to them in a way that is persuasive to you or in a way that works for them? This is why knowing your target audience is such an important part of delivering effective presentations. Ask questions, find out what’s going on in their heads and build your presentation to suit.

The other thing that’s happening during a presentation is that you are interacting with human chemistry. As you present you are trying to release certain chemicals, chemicals that increase their attention, chemicals that increase their trust, and chemicals that make them bond with you or give you money. Yes, there is a chemical that does that. The job you have when delivering your pitch is to get this cocktail of chemicals going because good stories are told in the body.

The first chemical we encounter on our way to a good presentation is cortisol. It’s released in you as a nervous presenter.

 

Cortisol – Focus

Cortisol is made by the adrenal glands and it helps the body to manage stress. As a presenter, the stress you feel before you speak is actually going to help you to deliver a better presentation. As you begin to feel that early freak out in anticipation of your presentation, your glands will release cortisol. This sharpens your attention, increases strength and helps you to produce more speed. Fight or flight.

That attention and that strength are your allies, use them… watch the speed, you don’t want to talk so fast that you can’t be understood… don’t forget to breathe.

 

Dopamine – Reward

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is part of the brain’s reward system. When dopamine levels are higher it produces more focus, more motivation and better recall, not a bad combination for receiving new messages.

Dopamine is released when we win a game, answer a quiz correctly or get some new likes on Facebook. This is part of what makes social media so addicting and it’s also why gamification has been such a successful marketing approach. If you can make dopamine levels rise in association with your brand, you create a positive experience that will serve your brand well. So how can you do that without spiking the air vents?

  • Thank your audience for giving you the opportunity to speak.
  • Play games with your audience; begin your presentation with simple skills testing questions.
  • Share insights or ideas they might not have come across and reward listeners if they can discover information.
  • Anticipation can release dopamine, so building suspense in a story can work to trigger the release of dopamine.

So now you’ve got cortisol making you more attentive and dopamine is making your audience feel good. The next step is to get your audience to release oxytocin, the cuddle chemical.

 

Oxytocin – Empathy

Oxytocin is a powerful neurotransmitter that generates trust and creates bonds. It’s the love hormone. When oxytocin is released your audience bonds with you, they feel empathy. If you’re looking for investment or donations, this is your chemical of choice.

So how do get it? Oxytocin is released when you have sex, give birth or breastfeed. Now depending on the business, you are in, these may seem like extreme lengths to go to get buy-in, so how else can you achieve this?

  • Tell a character-driven story that draws your audience in and creates empathy. Think about the first time you meet Harry Potter. The boy who lived, that poor baby. That poor baby that became a lonely boy living below the stairs. His awful life with his obnoxious aunt and uncle and horrible cousin.
  • Your story has to operate at the human level.
  • It has to include a struggle with building tension.
  • A story that leads to a climactic moment or resolution.

This story should take place after you’ve said your hellos and played with the audience a little. This story should reflect the current challenge your audience is facing. This story sets the scene for how your idea, product or activity will save the day.

I should add a word of warning about oxytocin. While oxytocin is the love hormone, it can also be the hate hormone. It is known to increase levels of envy and gloating. It’s also associated with increasing levels of distrust towards those who are the outside of the group.

 

Endorphins – Pleasure

No discussion on the chemistry of a great presentation would be complete with some discussion of endorphins. Endorphins are released for a number of reasons but the primary triggers are stress, fear and pain. Endorphins kick in to provide pleasure and a sense of well-being. Endorphins also make you more creative, more relaxed and more focused

In the context a presentation you want to look at endorphins in two ways, the release that makes you feel good about what you are doing and how to release that feeling in your audience.

For you this means using the natural high that comes from your bout of nerves to give your presentation more life, more passion, this is then conveyed as authenticity to your audience. So how do you do this for your audience?

  • Make them laugh, tell a funny story.
  • Alcohol is also a release, its why so many business deals happen over dinner.
  • Spicy foods have the same effect.

So there you have the cocktail of chemicals that represent a great presentation. Cheers!

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5 Great Programs That Add Pop To Presentations

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Communications, Internal Communications

5 Great Programs That Add Pop To Presentations

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PowerPoint is a great presentation tool.  It’s flexible, powerful and easy to use. It’s also one of the most maligned presentation tools. Its biggest flaw, however, is its users. Some of the regular culprits are poorly constructed slides filled with tiny font. Complex graphs meant to confound instead of inform viewers and then there is the challenge of presenting information. This post isn’t offering alternatives to PowerPoint because I think it’s bad, I’m sharing tools that can shake things up and possibly improve presentations (some can even be used with PowerPoint).

Adobe Spark

  • Adobe Spark offers a great variety of easy to use options for social posting, blog images, ads and more. It’s one of my favourite tools.
  • There are a number of templates and different layouts you can choose.
  • The templates allow you to choose the right size for your projects and you can start from scratch or with one of the choices from their gallery.
  • In addition to templates, Spark gives you access to free images from sites like Pexels and Pixabay from within the program.
  • It also allows you to make videos, an important feature when there is so much importance placed on video in order to be seen on social media.
  • The video option comes with the ability to upload your own images or your own video clips.
  • You can choose silence, a piece from their music selection or add a voice-over or both.
  • You can store your projects online and/or download them.
  • Projects download as jpegs or MP4s
  • On an “easy to use” rating scale, I would give Spark an 8 out of 10. The only reason the mark isn’t higher is that even if you start from scratch there are limits on the customization options within the program (at least at the free level).

Take a look at the video below to get a better look.

Canva

  • One of the best parts of Canva is the ability to create great infographics.
  • Canva also allows you to create awesome social posts, presentations, ads, detailed reports that pop and much more.
  • It also allows you to create logos, though the template selection of options is limited.
  • With Canva you can import the images you want or choose from their selection. Some of the images are free, while others are a cheap (one dollar).
  • Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow you to make videos.

 

Prezi

  • If you have complex information to deliver, particularly if you are trying to illustrate the relationship of things, Prezi is a great choice.  It has many of the same attributes as PowerPoint, but its delivery style means that you have something that feels more like a movie.
  • Prezi also allows you to deliver messages in a nonlinear way.  Prezi is like telling a story on a huge canvas. You can zoom in to show details and easily illustrate complexity or you can zoom out so that your audience sees the big picture.
  • A word of warning though, the movements that make Prezi such a fun can actually make some people feel seasick. Getting nauseous during a presentation is definitely a con.
  • While Prezi has some beautiful design formats, they are much more limited than PowerPoint and while PowerPoint comes with a host of tools, using Prezi means that you have to import many of the graphs you’re used to having automatically with PowerPoint.
  • On the upside, just as you can import your graph, you can also embed Prezi into PowerPoint, making for a great combined outcome.
  • Prezi is a web-based product available for free if you don’t mind your presentation being made public. Otherwise, you can buy a desktop version that is more pricey than PowerPoint.
  • On an “easy to use” rating scale, I would give Prezi a 7 out of 10.  You can achieve a lot with Prezi, but the more specific the desired outcome the more challenging it can be to work with.

For a peek at how Prezi works, take a look below.

Visme

  • Visme allows you to build infographics, presentations, reports, and all kinds of graphics.
  • It comes with a great selection of templates or you can start from scratch.
  • Unlike some of the other tools, it comes with 100s of font choices and customizable icons.
  • You can use their images, paid and free or upload your own.
  • You can create interactive maps and include your own content.
  • You can edit, crop or use your own colour schemes and you can animate just about anything.
  • You can keep your files online, make them private or download them as an image, PDF or HTML5.
  • There are a number of colour palettes available on Visme, but unfortunately, you need to buy their premium package if you want to include your own brand colours.
  • On an “easy to use” rating scale, I would give Visme a 7 out of 10. The challenge with Visme is that with all of its flexibility also comes some complexity. If you are not used to graphics software it can get confusing.

Take a look at the explainer video below to get a better understanding of Visme’s scope.

If you are looking for a way to bring it all together then you will like the next offering on the list, SlideDog.

SlideDog

  • SlideDog allows you to pull together all the best parts of the tools you like working with into one seamless presentation.
  • Essentially whether you want to showcase web pages, video clips, Prezi presentations or PDFs, you can pull them all together for one experience.
  • SlideDog allows you to retain all of the functionality of the original file.
  • The challenge, of course, is that you can’t really create within SlideDog and if you want to make a change in the presentation then you have to go back to the original… that can get tiresome.

There are many other tools out there to be considered, such as Haiku Deck or Google Slides both are free, and they are very similar to PowerPoint, but not quite as good. Haiku Deck makes things pretty and can provide the user with various options for display, but has less functionality than PowerPoint. Google Slides allows you to collaborate on slide creation and being free is a big advantage but the desktop version isn’t as awesome as PowerPoint and the template options for PowerPoint make it an easy choice.

Google Slides allows you to collaborate on slide creation and the fact that its free is a big advantage but the desktop version isn’t as awesome as PowerPoint and the many template options available for PowerPoint make it an easy choice.

I haven’t forgotten about KeyNote. Keynote makes beautiful presentations. If you have a MAC, the price is also right as it comes for free. One of the biggest challenges with Keynote is that it was built for Apple users and although you can now access it with a PC if you use iWork, it seems like a lot of effort to access a program that does very similar things to PowerPoint.  Keynote is also not as intuitive if you are used to PowerPoint.

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The Chemistry of Good Presentations

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Communications, Government Relations

Body Language – Managing You, So You Can Deliver Your Message

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Your body can give away secrets you’d never dream of sharing, so when going into a meeting or presentation, take the time to note your body language and the body language of those around you.  Even if you are presenting to a large gathering, you can get a sense of the room based on the level of buzz that happens before you present. Are people laughing and standing close together? Whispering in groups of two and three? Are they standing as individuals and making little contact? If the mood of the room is solemn, then you may want to rethink starting with a dirty joke. Noting your own body language ensures you are not delivering conflicting messages. You could be saying one thing, while your body is saying something else. I’d trust the message your body was delivering since it is more likely, to be honest.

Your body tells when you lie

I once had a meeting with a client who was trying to gain the support of another organization for a government relations campaign.  The gentleman from the other organization sat  with his arms folded across his chest and as my client spoke the other gentleman continuously shook his head in the negative as he verbally indicated that we could count on his support. I knew before he left the room that he would be an obstruction to my client’s objectives. I also knew that he was willing to be dishonest about it.  That said a lot about his character (I probably wasn’t the first professional contact he’d lied to) and it provided me with enough information to better equip my client. Our communications materials were altered to reflect this consideration and in subsequent meetings with government officials when my suspicions were proven true, we were prepared.

Your body tells when you’re bored

Body language also provides you with indicators about whether or not you should continue a meeting or end it. I have sat in meetings with clients where  officials have gone from attentive to glazed, to outright bored. They began looking at their watch, folding and unfolding their arms, fidgeting in their seats and in one case; they even began to read the material provided by the client while the client was talking. If the person you are meeting with has had enough, then you’ve said enough. Believe me, no matter how long you keep talking after they stop listening, they are not getting the message. If you are going into a meeting as a team try to determine signals for bringing the meeting to an end or moving it along in advance. Then listen when you get the signal.

Your body can interpret other people’s secrets

Mimicry can also help you to understand the body language of the person you are meeting with.  This is simply copying their body language in a non-offensive way.  If they sit forward, you sit forward, if they lean back with their legs crossed, assume a similar pose.  Not only does this help to build better rapport with the person you are meeting, but it also means that you are sending your brain quiet messages about how effective your communications are and whether you need to change tactics.  If at some point you find yourself leaning back with your arms and legs folded, then you know that a message is being blocked or something about the message isn’t sitting well. Just remember not to over do it or you’ll weird them out.

A few more physical tips:

  • When shaking hands match the strength of your grip to theirs.
  • Face your audience head-on.
  • Avoid crossing your arms.
  • Don’t slouch in your seat or appear too passive.
  • Avoid putting your hands in your pockets.
  • Do not fidget with your hair, pens, coins …
  • Use gestures sparingly, keep them natural and spontaneous.
  • Don’t point a finger or raise a fist.
  • Don’t bang on the desk or the arm of your chair.
  • Keep facial expressions natural and friendly, don’t frown or raise a brow at a comment or question.
  • Keep your presentation fresh by altering your vocal pitch, volume and rate of delivery.
  • Speak clearly, enunciate, emphasize or punch certain words.
  • Use simple language, avoid jargon and acronyms.
  • Keep humour gentle.

Maintaining good eye contact is also an important component in face to face meetings.  Eye contact is a tool that helps you appear sincere, demonstrates confidence, engages your audience and can help you confirm understanding or detect other signals. Don’t stare (that’s just creepy) but hold the connection for a few seconds or while you complete an idea.

Finally, be polite to everyone. Aside from being the kind of thing most civilized people learn in kindergarten, being impolite can have unanticipated consequences. How believable is your message that you are client centred or community focused, if you have just blown off the receptionist and blustered your way past the assistant?  Remember the story of the airline executives (Every Contact Counts) and the impact their behaviour had on their government relations efforts. Based on inappropriate treatment of a staff member, I’ve seen rude visitors greeted by a Minister with a coldness that could chill wine. The way you behave when it doesn’t count says more about you than what you do when you’re in the spotlight.

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Communications

Trips, Sniffs and Nerves – Managing You, So You Can Manage Your Message

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Nerves are the most common obstacles to the successful delivery of messages. Managing them can often make a difference in how your message is received. The trick is to acknowledge your nerves. If you are feeling a little nervous before a meeting, you may want to take something to settle your stomach. Sometimes eating a few soda crackers does the trick, while other people find using chamomile or mint tea may work best.  Have a breath mint in case your nerves set off a case of bad breath. Don’t have that extra cup of coffee or caffeinated soda, it will only add to your overall jumpiness.  Whatever you do, don’t pop a piece of chewing gum in your mouth, not only can it make any nausea you are feeling worst, you may also find yourself chomping away unattractively.  If you can’t seem to shake your nerves, tell the people that you are meeting with or presenting to that you are a bit nervous.  They are human and can relate to nerves and what’s more, they will generally work to put you at your ease.

If that won’t work, try some of these calming tips:

  • Do some deep breathing exercises, shoulder roles and neck stretches.
  • If your face tends to go red when you are nervous, consider wearing a red or bright shirt to offset your face.
  • Keep your food intake to simple non-fatty foods.
  • Never drink alcohol before a meeting.
  • Avoid taking medication that will make you drowsy.
  • Visualize yourself speaking, imagine yourself confident and assured.
  • Realize that people want you to succeed; they want a good meeting as well.
  • Forget about yourself, the audience is not meeting with you to see YOU, they want to hear your message so focus on your message not you.
  • Try to think ahead of all the possible questions you may be asked.
  • Be yourself, be genuine and natural.
  • Bring cheat notes for yourself in case your mind goes blank.

Keep in mind that all of the adrenaline moving through your system can be used to your advantage. With the extra energy, you are producing you can add passion and excitement to your discussion. If you have done your homework then you are operating at an advantage. You know your audience because you have researched them, you know your presentation content because you have practised it.  You have briefed the participants about what you will be discussing so there are no surprises because surprises at work are a bad idea.  In short, you are prepared for the meeting/presentation.

So now that you’re calm enough to string together a sentence, keep in mind a few things. Little things can easily distract you and others, so don’t do anything that will take away from your message. Wear clothes that are neat and tidy but most of all comfortable. Don’t get caught having to adjust a too tight tie throughout a meeting.  Continuously adjusting your tie can turn into a nervous habit that is distracting and has the additional side effect of making you look like a liar…or a bad Rodney Dangerfield impersonator.

If you have a series of meetings on the same day, wear sensible shoes. Stumbling into the arms of an unsuspecting colleague because the heels on your shoes are too high or your shoes are too tight and your toes have gone numb won’t help you to focus on your issues. Falling flat on your face isn’t exactly going to put you in the right frame of mind either.

Make sure your clothes don’t  detract from your message.  It would be unfortunate if, after taking the time to craft a smart message, the only thing your audience can remember is a low cut blouse or a shirt so loud it should have come with ear plugs.

Bring tissues.  There is nothing more distracting than a runny nose. Not only will you start to sound like a bloodhound on the trail of a fox, but your sniffling will distract you and everyone else in the meeting. On a similar line, avoid strong perfume or a heavy aftershave.   No matter how appealing the scent, in a small enclosed space it can be too much of a good thing.  There are also people with sensitivities or allergies to scent and a brief whiff of a strong cologne can give them a vicious headache or other unpleasant side effects.

A friend of mine was recently telling me about a colleague who had a violent reaction to the smell of chocolate.  Her reaction was so strong that one day when someone accidentally brought it into her space, she took one whiff and was out of commission for three days. Talk about leaving a lasting impression.

My best tip? Try to remember that you are in charge of your message and if you deliver it with confidence, then that’s how it will be received.

Do you have any memorable first impressions or meetings that have gone wrong or right stories to share?  I’d love to hear them.

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