Monday, October 5, 2009

Bottom-Line Speaking for Presentation Skills Success

Give people conclusions they can walk out the door with, not a lot of details.

This is what Jack Welch used to say, when he headed up General Electric.

This is also what I say when I coach people about presentation skills.

You can’t be too specific when sharing information.

Most decision makers don’t have a lot of time to wade through data. They are paying others to get the data, and just want to be told your recommendation or their call to action.

Often, the tendency when speaking is to get bogged down in the technicalities, which most people don’t understand (or even care about!).

You will be perceived as a leader if you keep a presentation at the 100,000-foot level – then be able to answer questions that go beneath that.

Answer these three questions:

What?
So what?
Now what?

Truly effective speakers always keep their focus on the last two.

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