All posts by Kristen Chen

05-Creating & constructing good solutions, 06-Building a case

Building a Better Business Case

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I believe that one of the hardest part of giving a great presentation, is the ability to persuade your audience.  Sure, I can give you tons and tons of data to back up why my solution is the best.  But showing data sometimes is not enough.  How you structure how to present the solution is an important aspect as well.

The article “6 Steps to Building a Better Sales Pitch” shares that “You need to get to the heart of why this activity is in their best interest.”  In other words, why should they care?  It suggests that asking the six questions below will help put you on the right path of building a case.

1.  What is the potential value in this situation?
You have to have a logical financial and strategic foundation to create value.

2.  Who do you need to convince?

3.  What motivates each party?
It’s important to understand what drives a stakeholder’s behavior and focus.

4.  What items will you need to seal the deal?

5.  What actions do you want each party to take?
Laying out a specific path the stakeholder definitely helps them visualize how this action plan can work for them.

6.  How can you most effectively communicate the action you want them to take?
Presentation and format depend on your target. Tailor your message to the style of the audience.

Here is a link to the full story: http://www.inc.com/karl-and-bill/6-steps-to-building-a-better-sales-pitch.html

07c-Telling stories, 07d-Delivering a presentation

Three Public Speaking Secrets

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TED Talks certainly holds a library of great presentations given by  some great presenters. Drake Baer share with us in this Business Insider article, “3 Public Speaking Secrets from the Most Successful TED Talks”, what he finds as the 3 public speaking secrets from TED Talks presenters.

We’ve been taught various tactics for how to deliver a great presentation, and you’ve heard all of this before.  And although it’s best for presenters to incorporate everything we’ve already learned in MP and throughout our career and education, for a novice presenter like myself, this article really highlights to me the three most important things to focus on when developing my presentation skills, from a public speaking perspective.

1. Tell them a story

This article states that you connect with people on an emotional level when you tell them a story- it helps to build a connection when your audience is able to relate to what you’re saying.  Gallo believes that the most successful TED Talks are 65% story, 25% data, and 10% building credibility.

2. Create “emotionally charged events”

An “emotionally charged event” is described in the article “as an incident where you experience shock, surprise, or fear”. This creates a trigger in your brain that remembers this experience.  We learned a similar technique called creating urgency in our presentations. Do we all remember the trailer from “An Inconvenient Truth” about global warming to create that urgency?  The article recommends that in every presentation, you create a way to present the information in a way that is new, novel, and unexpected.

3. Use the rule of three

This rule has probably been engrained in us for a while. This will help structure the presentation as well as help people remember it, since it is easier to remember information given at 3-4 chunks at a time.

Even from a presenter perspective, I believe that these three “secrets” will be very helpful when preparing as well as presenting the presentation.  Stories help connect with the audience, but it help better organize and build on or relate back to the story throughout the presentation.  Creating urgency or “an emotionally charged event” will allow you to remember why you’re am presenting in the first place, as well as help with transitions when structuring the presentation. Using the rule of three will also help with the organization and flow of the presentation.  It will also help me to be sure to touch on three key points for every topic I have.  One of my goals is to rely less on my rehearsed and memorized presentation, and not get caught up in missing a word that I should have used. Instead, I want to be able to focus on preparing the  delivery of my three key points.  I think focusing on these when first preparing my presentation, as well as developing my presentation/ public speaking skills, will be very helpful.
Do you agree with these three secrets to successful presentations? If you could add one more “secret” to public speaking, what would it be?

Link to full article: http://www.businessinsider.com/public-speaking-secrets-from-successful-ted-talks-2014-3