Most presentations we see are just too long. There’s too much detail, not enough interest and nearly no relevance for the audience that’s there. That’s my experience and nearly everywhere I go, I hear horror stories of the crimes done in the name of presentation. Each one of these horror shows is a crying shame for the audience and even more so for the presenter. For the presenter it’s always a missed opportunity to help them stand out from the crowd and to make a great positive impression on their peers, on their clients, on their bosses.
How so? Well, it’s because of a little known judgemental flaw that people have called ‘Fundamental Attribution Error’. At its simplest this means that we have the habit of attributing skills and character traits seen in someone in one context, directly and simply to the same person in another context entirely without evidence. So if we see someone do something brilliantly, like making a presentation, we infer from that context that the person will display similar confidence, skills, charisma and humour in other areas of their life or work.
If you’re better than most at one thing, people will think you’re better than most at most other things too.
It’s a bit like the children’s game snakes and ladders. Presentations are the ladders that can shoot you ahead of the other players in the game. But there can also be snakes that bring you right back down, if you’re not very good. If you’re not very good as a presenter people will assume, without evidence, that you’re also barely competent everywhere else too, it’s unfair maybe, but often it’s true.
The real opportunity though is that presentation standards, generally, are so low in life and business that even if you’re just a little bit better than the norm, if you present shorter, more interesting and more relevant, then you’ll stand out and build yourself a great (and sometimes undeserved) reputation for being better than the crowd in everything that you do.
For a full article on the terrible theory of ‘Fundamental Attribution Error’ see, this guy, Malcolm Gladwell’s website.
But for us, how do we get just a little bit better than the crowd? There are many useful presentation resources and blogs that will help you develop as a good presenter. I’ve linked to lots of them on my blog. But my aim is to help you to move way past competence, to help you become one of the best presenters in your field, to show you how you can stand out in the crowd. I’ll show you how you might re-think your whole approach to the presentations and the pictures that you make. Develop shorter, simpler and much more focused speeches. And make those short, focused presentations more relevant and interesting to every audience that you encounter.
Because as we’ve seen standout presenters just have a real competitive advantage in their field, because they differentiate themselves from their competitors in visible and concrete ways. They just add more to the room than other people do and their audiences at some level will always notice. Remember that standout presentation skill is a multiplier of all your other skills, whether you’re an accountant, an actuary or animal rights activist. World class delivery allows your genius to show more clearly. Would you like to know more? We’d love you to get in touch, right now. Thank you for listening.