The Role of the Presenter
00:00:00:14 There's so much online about presenting it's an art form in itself. It's about public speaking and also acting in front of the camera and probably other people too. So I guess we should get to it.... If you get it wrong when it comes to presenting you can come across as
00:00:34:09 being really nervous, unprepared... You'll end up losing the confidence of your prospects and customers who are watching you. I like to recommend that the convivial, open, outgoing and gregarious salespeople are asked if they want to get in front of the camera and present. It kind of separates the men from the boys! But in reality, if you as CEO or Managing Director gets in front of the
00:01:07:04 camera, then the approach, heart and the feel of the company can come across in a way that no employed person or salesperson can ever do. So I really suggest you have think about the whole presentation 'thing' and
00:01:31:03 to help, I've bought along a few books I've read. That I think are really good for different reasons. So to start with, let's go to How to Present like Steve Jobs. And I'm not saying that you go and present like Steve Jobs but basically they go you've got The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs and this is by a guy called Carmine Gallo and it really captures the essence of how Steve
00:02:01:17 Jobs did his thing. I was really pleased to find out that Steve Jobs rehearsed again and again and again and again and again to make it look like it was effortless.
00:02:14:21 I mean we're talking months of preparation here, but it's quite revealing to get the inside track of what Apple did and how they became so successful apart from the products themselves. But Steve Jobs' keynote presentations are actually the most watched of its kind on YouTube by people like us who I guess own our small segment of our
00:02:46:09 industries. So there you've got that one. Next up is the Presentation Coach by Graham Davies. Now, what Davis does is it just helps us understand what it means to basically take presentation seriously as in after dinner speaking and amongst other gigs you know, it covers about using slides and other
00:03:18:11 presentation tools, I suppose it's really it's an exercise book that you should have on your shelves as you're able to refer or to reference different aspects of presentations and create quite a methodical. I think that's the best way to call it a methodical approach to presenting using this book now these two, Talk Like Ted and Communication Secrets to
00:03:49:21 go from Good to Great, these two here again, they're by Carmine Gallo, I would absolutely say that Gallo is my favorite author when it comes to explaining about people speaking to other people.
00:04:11:13 Or presenting ideas whether it's on Ted or whether it's Apple or whatever. But seriously, I really recommend you get these books you won't regret it. He writes in a way that's really quick to read and the raft of examples makes both of these books. I would say un-put-downable especially if you can actually go to TED Talks and watch the presentations he refers to.
00:04:37:10 Then we got, I love this... Life's a pitch by Stephen Bayley and Roger Mavity It came as a recommendation on Amazon. They've got great examples, some great images and cartoons and it's genuinely a creative and engaging writing style by the pair of them. Most importantly it's about getting some kind of benefit from these books especially this one it's a good addition to your presentation library. Like I said it's is a bit of fun to read. Now this one, Resonate, I think has got to be my, one of my favorite
00:05:15:05 business books of all time by Nancy Duarte she and her husband run this company called Duarte. I found myself having multiple 'aha' moments when I started to understand, and this is really interesting, about great speech writers and how they ply their trade. These are the speechwriters not the individuals with their clients like
00:05:38:09 Ronald Reagan, JFK, Martin Luther King and other people and how they anticipated applause and concern you know through their speeches but also the clarity in explaining about the hero and the protagonist in a business situation. I mentioned Star Wars before, but she uses Star Wars and Luke Skywalker and Yoda and for me in terms of presentation it was a pivotal moment. I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it and then another book that Duarte
00:06:09:03 did which 100 percent goes hand in hand with Resonate, because it accurately explains who and why your slides or props should be crafted for how they should be crafted when you do presenting, it's a must-get...
00:06:23:16 And so it's a great one to look at. You've then got illuminate which Nancy Duarte did with a woman Patti Sanchez and Illuminate charts a path through the business process of communications with customers and staff and co-workers at all levels. It was interesting for me because I'd read Resonate and Slideology to then see how Duarte, her and her company, evolved in their
00:06:53:02 technical presentations of their, I suppose it's just a, well honed craft. And finally the last one up which is Presentation Zen, I included it because it covers various factors and subjects like with Resonate and Slideology but in a different way. And it did bring a nice smile to my face when I realized that the author had Garr Reynolds worked with Nancy Duarte, he went off and came up with his own book. But these books lend themselves to helping you get a structured
00:07:27:02 understanding of the psychology of presenting and what's going through your prospects or your customers minds. And it is also important to make the connection to images and to exploit the flow of how people assimilate information, I suppose it's the correlation between speaking and using visuals that shows the mark of a
00:07:55:09 good communicator because people assimilate more information visually and audibly than they just do by reading text. And the challenge is to present in such a way that the recipient of what you have... it's a better way of of them retaining that information. And it's not just prospects and customers but your staff as well.
00:08:20:04 I know it can be difficult to decide which books to get, but the Important thing about our collective overall approach is to illustrate what I've read and how that's steering my way of looking at filming my way of looking at marketing and business development and how that style is as evolved. Hope you found it useful. That's all for now all the links are below and until the next episode which is actually about video editing.
00:08:50:15 So it gives you a bit of an insight on that, so, anyway... Bye for now.