Enhance Your Presentation and Practice for the Win!

Key elements enhance the presentation to make it a “winner” for new work or to impress decision-makers.  Tap into the fields of public relations, advertising, organizational behavior, and psychology of audience appeal.  The essentials are familiar and seem quite obvious, but the trick is how you weave them into your presentation. While there are a dozen of these essential elements to choose from, three are mentioned here for you to work with as you rehearse your presentation to win new work:

1. Attitude. When you are presenting for the purpose of winning work, you are in “sell-mode” and you become energized when you psyche yourself into that mindset. We are not talking about pushy, harsh sales pitches or the rah-rah of over-zealous salespersons. With the understated “sell” attitude, each presenter demonstrates sincerity and concern for the success of the project, for the pleasing of all stakeholders. The guiding attitude of “sell” is how will what we are proposing benefit the owner/community/end-users?

2. Language and voice, together. We all recognize the importance of choosing the “right language” and a using a confident voice. So, during rehearsal, really listen. Listen carefully to the word choices and vocal emphasis of the other presenters. Does the project manager really make his/her approach to the job sound important, with results beyond expectations? Is “on-time-on-budget” just a slogan or is it a driving force that propels the principal-in-charge or PM to achieve at a level of excellence?

* Listen to the words. Help your team presenters replace regular or “flat” words with language that sparks interest—insert words that will motivate and impress. Think together of different ways to say the same thing—selecting language that grabs ears, creates an air of excitement, or influences the selection committee! For example, change “Our project manager’s background is . . .” to “the highlights of our project manager’s experience include . . .”

As each presenter incorporates new words, listen to be sure they give those words added vocal emphasis when they speak.

3. Team! It is most common for team members, both inhouse and those from outside firms with whom you are proposing, to state facts about past projects or number of years together. The real messages, however, about team compatibility and comfort levels are expressed non-verbally and with subtlety. What do the body language, tone of voice, word choices say? Do they share the same “work vocabulary” in discussing issues and problem-solving approaches? Does there appear to be respect for each other, especially during the question-and-answer section of the interview? Each member of the team should observe the team element during the presentation run-through, followed by discussion of ways to strengthen the nonverbal cues to best promote yourselves as a winning team.  

The presentation practice session is vital to the success of your interview. If you practice with a few different essential elements, you will expand your awareness of what moves you closer to a win!   

Turn Your In-House Experts’ Presentations into Training Sessions

from June 2012 Issue of A/E Marketing Journal, by Joanne G. Linowes

Picture this: you are the seasoned professional with a reputation for expertise and excellence. You are invited to do a training seminar for up-and-coming professionals. You gladly accept the invitation and proceed to prepare your training session.

Before: Your preparation includes gathering information and resources that will form the content. You identify projects and anecdotes that will help make your points. You develop your PowerPoint slides and other visuals and/or handouts. Your prep is all content-related.

During the seminar: You go through your content-heavy visuals and/or handouts, explaining each one as the participants read along, and you embellish by talking about the details. This is sprinkled with questions, for some planned interaction. The group seems satisfied and instructed.

After: You feel you have done a great job. Casual conversational feedback and emails confirm this. Yet, when the written evaluations come in, you are surprised to learn that most of the group tuned-out for large portions of the lecture, the visuals were rated as inadequate, the learning experience was less than productive, the time spent was not so worthwhile.

What happened?

Lesson: Great content, comprehensive materials, and even a great presentation style, do not necessarily make a great training session. To turn a well-developed and substantive presentation into a productive, engaging educational experience, you need to add instructional elements. Here are the top three:

1.    It’s not just about content. Your prep must also include teaching approach. As you develop the content, think carefully about how adults learn – you will want to incorporate differing methodologies, as not everyone responds to the same instructional methods – aural learners may be best with lectures; visual learners with slides, boards, computer animation, etc.; experiential learners with case studies, problem solving, or small group tasks; tactile learners with models, props, and other manipulatives. Be sure to reach every person in the seminar. Give each person equal opportunity to absorb your information. Integrate a variety of learning approaches to reinforce your points. The strategy is to use multimedia.

2.    Consider the age group. Regardless of YOUR age, you need to adjust your instructional style to accommodate the learning style of the seminar participants. When addressing more seasoned and experienced professionals, you will find that they respond well to a traditional “expert-centered“ lecture blended with whole group discussion. This approach, however, will not be so successful with younger millenials who respond better to small group problem-solving, whole group sharing, and “student-centered” give-and-take. Your job is to build in the techniques that create the most productive learning environment for the profile of the participants.

3.    Break up the material into graspable groups. In the short, one-shot training sessions common in today’s busy firms, the goal is to have participants acquire maximum information in a minimum timeframe. You can help that happen by making the information more absorbable. Look at your slides, handouts, or boards – are they content-packed? Break the content into two or three slides – give each one a different and descriptive title. Make your subject matter memorable by organizing it into a series of smaller info-chunks. You do not need to tell your trainees everything you know about the topic – be selective and cull just what is important for them to remember.

A great training session is carefully structured to achieve results within the group’s learning styles and the overall instructional goals. Your job is to adapt your comprehensive content and great presentation so the message will stick!

Joanne G. Linowes is a nationally recognized presentation coach and marketing communications advisor, providing in-house training exclusively for the design and building professions. She can be contacted at jlinowes@ixdi.com