Joe DiMaggio, the baseball immortal, was once asked by a reporter, “Joe, you always seem to play ball with the same intensity. You run out every grounder and race after every fly ball, even in the dog days of August when the Yankees have a big lead in the pennant race and there’s nothing on the line. How do you do it?”

The Yankee Clipper replied, “I always remind myself that there might be someone in the stands who never saw me play before.”

Like baseball games, many business presentations must be delivered repeatedly, to multiple audiences. For example, a salesperson may have to present a new product to many different groups of customers; or, a human-resources manager may have to explain the new company benefits plan to dozens of small groups of employees. In the financial world, particularly IPO road shows, company officers must make their presentations to many different groups of investors. Typically, this requires 60 to 80 pitches over a period of two to three weeks, often six to eight presentations in any given day.

Under these circumstances, it’s difficult to keep your presentation fresh and vital. In part, this is a matter of energy and focus. When you have to make the same points for the third, or 10th, or 50th time, it’s hard to feel the same sense of enthusiasm, spontaneity and excitement as the first time. It’s all too easy to become bored with your presentation and let your attention flag.

When you go into autopilot, however, your presentation comes across as “mailed in,” with the result that your audience feels uninvolved, unmoved, and unconvinced.

The challenge for the presenter is to find ways to overcome this downside. Emulate DiMaggio, treat each and every iteration of your presentation as if no one in your audience has ever seen you present before. Strive to achieve “the illusion of the first time” — a phrase from stage actors, who often have to perform the same role in the same play hundreds of times, while conveying to each new audience the sense that every speech and every action is completely spontaneous.

The key to creating this illusion is to modify your presentation for each new audience. Fortunately, as a business presenter, you enjoy a freedom that stage actors don’t have: You can reshape your script and give every performance a new dose of freshness and spontaneity.

Does this mean that you have to change your recurring presentation each time? Not at all. You can customize the core material with the techniques that follow. Use these very same techniques to customize a one-time-only presentation, as well as every presentation you ever give to every audience.

External Linkages
External Linkages are words, phrases, stories, and other materials that you insert throughout your presentation to make it fresh for each and every iteration of every presentation to each and every audience. Some examples on how to do this include:

• Direct references. Mention specifically, by name, one or more members of your audience. Gather this information in advance by doing research about the companies in your target audience on the web, or by chatting with several participants just before your presentation in what is known as”schmoozing.”

• Mutual references. Make reference to a person, company, or organization related to both you and your audience. Collect this information in advance.

• Ask questions. Address a question directly to one or more members of your audience. Make the question only about opinions rather than facts. Your questions are meant to create involvement, not to be a quiz.

• Contemporize. Make reference to what is happening today. Find relevant stories on the web or the daily newspaper and work them into your content.

• Localize. Make references to the venue of your presentation. Cite local companies or businesses.

• Data. Make reference to current information such as population or market data that links to and supports your message.

• Opening graphic. Start your presentation with a slide that includes your audience, the location, and the date.

External Linkages are but one of many narrative techniques that you can use to make your presentation fresh and alive. They are often implemented the least, yet it is the one technique that provides the biggest bang for the buck. Incorporate them in your presentations and watch your audiences come alive.

Jerry Weissman is a leading corporate presentations coach, known worldwide for his presentation and communications skills. He is the author of the bestseller, “Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story” and coaches business people on how to handle any kind of presentation. As President of Power Presentations, Ltd., Jerry’s expertise has helped top executives and management at companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo!, Compaq, Cisco Systems, Intel, and Intuit. For more information, please contact: 650-227-1160.

BOOK REVIEW

Advice Worth Receiving
by Dan Weltin, Assistant Editor

The Present: The Gift That Makes You Happier And More Successful At Work And In Life, Today! by Spencer Johnson (Doubleday, 2003, $19.95 Hardcover)

The tone and motto of Spencer Johnson’s book, The Present, can easily be summed up by a quote from the Family Circus cartoon: “Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift. That’s why they call it the present.”

Readers who enjoy the Family Circus, or at least can get past its unrelenting positivity, will identify with Johnson. But for those who are too cynical to even read the Family Circus, they likely won’t have anything to learn from The Present anyway.

Similar to Johnson’s bestselling book Who Moved My Cheese, the message of The Present is told in a parable, and a short one at that. The book comes in at only 104 pages — a plus for building service contractors with a busy schedule.

The story is actually told as advice between to former co-workers, one of whom needs a pick-me-up in her stressful career. The parable tells of a friendship between an old man and a young boy who grows up always hoping to find the keys to success the old man has always spoken of; in other words, the present. The old man had been very successful and continued to remain happy. Something obviously had worked for him.

The advice, simply stated, is to focus on the present, learn from the past, and plan for the future. But without context, these words are likely to fall on deaf ears. Having the advice told as a story not only accentuates the meaning, but also makes learning it a lot more enjoyable.

While the lesson of The Present isn’t likely to be new to readers, it is a worthwhile reminder. Human minds do and will wander away from the task at hand. Instead of dedicating full attention to work, we think about what to make for dinner or daydream about a different job that might make life better.

In both work and life, we must focus on what is directly in front of us. Whether that’s mopping a floor or raising a family, if our minds wander, we won’t succeed. And in order to be happy in life, we must also be happy at work.




POSTED ON: 8/1/2004