A way I developed to empathize with audiences is to JOLT them:

Judged-by

Objectives

Like doing

Time

Judged-by asks, the question, 'How are the audience judged? How do their superiors judge if they have done a good job or not?' Generally, in business, people default to seeking to do well in the areas where they are judged. So, since sales people are judged on their sales, most of what they do is geared to increasing their sales figures.

Objectives simply means their business and personal goals. What are they looking to achieve?

Like doing covers what they do in their spare time.

Time focuses on how much/little time they have. The reason this is so important is that if your audience is short of time (and, let's face it, everybody seems to be these days), time is often their overriding priority when deciding how to act.

So, to empathize with your next audience, JOLT them. Think how they're judged, what objectives they are looking to achieve, what they like doing, and what their time constraints are. Doing this helps you speak on their level much more.

As to the question of how much JOLTing you should do ... if you're doing a key presentation to a smallish group, JOLT everyone individually; if it is for any other presentation, simply JOLT them as a group, which I've done for our worked example overleaf:

Where are we up to?

The work you have done so far has led to the creation of two documents:

And, now that you have crystal clear clarity as to:

you can now write your presentation.

The traditional way to prepare a presentation – slide 1, then slide 2, etc. – is totally ineffective. The reason is that, although you are developing arguments in a logical way (a good thing), the presentation gets more interesting as it goes on (Fig. 7.1):

Figure 7.1. 'The presentation gets more interesting as it goes on.'

But, as you know, an audience's concentration reduces during a presentation, like in Figure 7.2:

Figure 7.2. 'An audience's concentration reduces during a presentation.'

Taking these two graphs together (Figure 7.3) shows:

Figure 7.3. As your presentation gets more interesting, the audience's concentration is decreasing.

In other words, you are getting more interesting (Fig. 7.1) as the audience's brain is switching off (Fig. 7.2). So, at point X you're reaching your key points just as they've stopped listening.

So, the best way to prepare your presentation is to get your RAP Reminder Card™ and JOLT analysis, and then do the following:

1 Build a skeleton around your 15 seconds

Since your 15 seconds are your most powerful messages, you must base your entire presentation around them.

So createyourskeleton by writing your title in a circle in the middle of a page, and drawing a separate branch for each of the points in your 15 seconds (simply copy the wording from your RAP Reminder Card™), like in Figure 7.4:

Figure 7.4. 'Build your skeleton around your 15 seconds'.

2 Flesh out the skeleton with common sense

Now, on each branch, add all the relevant points you can think of to make that branch a compelling argument for your audience.

Write everything you can think of here. Don't pre-judge if it'll end up in the presentation or not ... you'll edit it down later anyway (Fig. 7.5).

Figure 7.5. 'Flesh out the skeleton with common sense.'

For clarity, I am going to show you how this would work with just one of the three branches. Obviously, you would do it with all the branches when preparing your presentation.

3. Flesh out with 'question words'

You've seen earlier how useful questioning words – who, why, what, etc. – are for developing points. You can use them again here to:

Figure 7.6. 'Flesh out with question words.'

4 Flesh out with 'for instance'

A great tip for presentations: Facts tell; stories sell.

Personal stories get buy-in from an audience, are memorable and are extremely useful tools for aiding explanations. This being the case, your presentations need stories.

The type, style and duration of your stories will depend on the results and audience of RAP, i.e. the results you want, and what your audience will buy into. But, presentations will always be better if they include stories.

The most memorable stories are either personal or humorous. You already know this to be true. If I were to ask you to recall something you heard recently that moved you, or made you laugh, you'd no doubt be able to do it easily.

But, if you can't find a suitable personal/humorous story, at the very least find an interesting one. If you're making a sales pitch and want to tell the story of how you helped Mr Grey, a Widget Maker, save money on his operational costs, it's going to need a more interesting angle. This could be Mr Grey's hobby, how the two of you first met, a funny thing you once did together ... anything. Don't exclude Mr Grey's weekend obsession with naked paragliding because you don't think it's relevant to the presentation. If it makes your content more interesting and memorable for the audience, include it.

The easiest way to weave stories into a presentation is:

Figure 7.7. 'Flesh out with "For instance".'

So, you might say: (1) 'We know we can reduce your operating costs because we're experts at it. (2) For instance, (3) one of our clients is a gentleman called Mr Grey, who has a very interesting weekend hobby...'

Believe it or not, your presentation is nearly done. So far, you have:

There are six final steps to completing your presentation. And the first of these is simple, quick and can even be good fun. It's:

5 Cross out the unnecessaries

You now have a very solid skeleton, with lots of flesh on it. But, almost definitely, you'll have too much information. You need to un-clutter your presentation by going through every point and asking:

Your answer will be one of three:

Figure 7.8. 'You need to unclutter your presentation.'

6 'If I were you ...'

Your penultimate task in assembling content centres around the fact your audiences will often have their own information, thoughts and preconceptions about your topic, some of which won't be favourable. This could be, in a sales pitch, the potential customer knowing about your competitors' strengths. Or, when you want your colleagues to buy into something, but they see that as extra work for them and don't want to know.

So, how to handle their preconceptions? If you don't address their concerns during your presentation, one of two things will happen:

Both are disasters. The first is not pleasant and is hard to rectify. The second is an absolute catastrophe, because their negative preconceptions have never been addressed so are still there.

A third option is for you to proactively mention their concerns during your presentation, and address them there and then.

The phrase to introduce these concerns is 'If I were you', followed by the concern(s) using words they might have said themselves. This shows total empathy, and that you see it from their point of view.

Youthen address their concern(s) using pre-prepared lines that maximise your chance of eliminating them.

A word of warning here: note the term pre-prepared. It is critical you prepare this in advance, or you run the risk of jellying, and throwing everything you can think of to address the point. And, of course, the more meandering your explanation, the more your audience, think 'I don't buy this'.

So, address audience concerns in your presentation. Be totally prepared. Totally focussed. Totally succinct. So that you address them quickly, efficiently and then can move on to the rest of your presentation.

7 Call to action

The final piece of the jigsaw is one that very few presenters include, yet it's crucial. Without it, chances of success are slim.

It goes at the end of your presentation. It's your call to action: in other words, crystal clear directions to your audience as to what you want them to do next.

You'll have been to many presentations where, at the end, you've thought, 'Okay, that makes perfect sense. But what am I supposed to do now?'

You don't want your audience thinking this, so you must be very precise as to what you want them to do.

To create your call to action, it's always worth going back to your RAP Reminder Card™ (page 193) to remind yourself what your objective is, then base your call to action on that.

As a final point, notice how the example below starts off with some simple thoughts that the audience can't help but nod in agreement with. Once you start audiences nodding, it's easier to keep them doing so!

8 The layout that puts your key points in the audience's long term memory

It's nearly time to turn your workings into your presentation. The only remaining question is: what order should you say your content in?

Well, you want your content to be in the order that gives you the best chance of the audience being convinced by – and remembering – it.

To show you how an audience's memory works, try this exercise, which I first saw in Tony Buzan's book Brilliant Memory: Unlock the power of your mind (2006, Pearson Education Ltd).

Look down this list of words, and remember as many as you can. Only read the list once. Spend no more than twenty seconds doing so ...

Now, without looking back, answer the following:

Look back at the list of words and see how you did. To put your results in context, (and don't worry how you compare with what follows – it tests memory, not intelligence, after all!), I have performed a version of this exercise on stage to tens of thousands of people in the last couple of years. Three recurring themes for any audience of any size in any country are:

The four ways memories work are shown in Figure 7.9:

Figure 7.9. The four ways memories work. See Table 7.2 on the next page for an explanation of each reference point.

The level to which each individual's memory works varies, but the fact is that everybody remembers things in a combination of these four ways.

And now comes a very important point. Look at these two facts you now know:

These two facts lead us to this conclusion:

So, the ideal layout is the one shown in Figure 7.10.

Figure 7.10. The ideal layout for your presentation.

Notice how each of your 15 seconds hits the four long term memory hotspots. They appear at the start, at the end, are repeated and will include an outstanding element (because your content for each point will include something that stands out to the audience. Figure 7.11 shows how this would look for this section's example.

Figure 7.11. How the skeleton of the presentation for this example would look.

9 Transferring your workings into the above layout You have three working papers:

To slot them into the layout you've just read, you have to work out the order you want to say everything.

So it's simply a case of going through your workings, and thinking, 'Which of these points should I say first, second?' and so on.

My technique is to number each main point on each branch in the order I want to discuss them (using 1, 2, 3), and then order each sub-point using the references 1A, 1B, 1C (Fig. 7.12).

Figure 7.12. 'My technique is to number each main point on each branch in the order I want to discuss them (using 1, 2, 3), and then order each sub-point using the references 1A, 1B, 1C.'

I find it then helps me to transfer the ordered workings into a more traditional linear style. At this stage, I also think how I am going to link the points together.

10 An important point about linking:

Notice the smoothness of the transitions in the above script? You want this with your presentation, so you need good links between points.

The best mechanism for this is what I call Bye Hi: say Bye to the previous points and Hi to the new one.

For example see how the asterisked sentence works in this format 'So, it's great for increasing your money ['Bye' to the previous point (money)], but, even better ['Hi' to the next point]'.

11 Building slides (if you're using them) using the 'Two Ronnies' approach

Have you heard of the phrase 'death by PowerPoint'?

Have you ever been on the receiving end of a presentation that this phrase could have been invented for?!

I have. So many times, it's frightening. One that has stayed with me for years was by someone who'll remain nameless. The 'highlights' were:

It was dire. As I write this, I remember the utter helplessness that I felt after two minutes, knowing exactly what the next 58 minutes had in store for me... and that there was nothing I could do about it.

To make sure your slides don't have this effect, think of you and them as a double act.

You will notice the title to this section makes reference to the 'Two Ronnies', who were a famous British comedy act – Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. Their shows were the usual mix of jokes, sketches and the like.

One format for their jokes was a mock news show, where they would introduce jokes by saying, And in the news today...', and follow it with a funny story.

When they were reading out the news, they always spoke alternately. One Ronnie would tell a joke; then the other would tell the next joke. You never saw both Ronnies saying the same joke at the same time. If they had done this, you would have shouted at the television: 'Will one of you two Ronnies SHUT UP! I can't understand a word, when you're both saying the same thing at the same time.'

It's the same with your slides. When you're presenting, you're Ronnie One; your slides, Ronnie Two.

And you don't want your audience shouting, 'Will one of you two Ronnies SHUT UP! I can't understand a word, when you're both saying the same thing at the same time.'

You see, you (Ronnie One) are really good at certain things. You can engage people. Discuss topics in full sentences. Speak with passion on your subject. Interact with the audience, engage with them. Inject personality.

But the slideshow (Ronnie Two) is brilliant at other things. He is very good at showing images, graphics, diagrams, charts, graphs, etc.

It wouldn't make sense for you (Ronnie One) to verbally describe a six-segment pie chart, when Ronnie Two could simply hold it up on a slide. Similarly it doesn't make sense for Ronnie Two to say full sentences, because slides aren't very good at injecting passion into lots of words. That's your job.

If you like, think of yourself as the Passion Ronnie, and the slides as the Picture Ronnie. You have to present so that both of you are maximising your relative strengths. Lots of words on slides is not playing to his strength. And it is this which is so prevalent in the business world today, and has led to the phrase 'death by PowerPoint'.

Following the logic here, if the two Ronnies aren't both speaking at the same time, that suggests neither are saying the full message. And that's right. A presentation needs both of you. So, your slides must not make sense on their own. If they do, Ronnie Two is saying the whole message. There is no need for Ronnie One. In fact, if your slides are that verbose, I wouldn't bother presenting them. I'd simply email them to the audience, and ask them to call if they have any questions.

As well as reducing words and increasing visuals on the slides, there are two final points to remember with slides:

Your presentation is now complete. But it's 100% definitely not going to work if you don't deliver it well.

So you need to practise. And the more you practise, the more you know the material, and the better you get.

The traditional approach to practising is shown in Figure 7.13 (assume the ten boxes represent slides, and that the grey shading shows where people traditionally focus their attention when practising – the darker the grey, the more intense the practice):

Figure 7.13. Traditionally, people focus their attention more on earlier slides than later ones.

Do you recognise this? This method of practising is often closely followed by the presenter running out of time, so he or she has to 'wing it' anyway.

Although there is a lot of logic in starting at the beginning when practising, there are some serious problems, including:

Instead, a much better way to practise a presentation is that shown in Figure 7.14:

Figure 7.14. 'Practise the start, end and links until they all become second nature; then, do one or two full run-throughs, spending extra time on tricky bits.'

So, practise the start, end and links until they all become second nature; then, do one or two full run-throughs, spending extra time on tricky bits, like the If I were you section, page 206.

This approach is much better. Your presentation will have more cohesion. You get to the end more quickly. And you are practising the areas where you are most likely to become unstuck – the start, the end and the linking of topics.

A further word of warning here when practising: however long the presentation takes when practising in your bedroom, it will take at least 25% longer on the day. You will probably ad lib more, there will be questions, etc. ... So, if you've been given 25 minutes to present, make sure it only takes 20 minutes when practising ...