Edward Tufte is an American statistician, professor emeritus at Yale University, outspoken voice for clear and effective visual representation of information, and a very smart man.  In an interview with Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive of Microsoft, a very interesting point was made about the past and future of presentations.

 

To summarize Ballmer: for the past few years there’s been a need to change how we present.  Up till now we’d bring a presentation to a meeting that shows, “your path of discovery and exploration, and you arrive at a conclusion."  Or, like many meetings I’ve been in, there’s a main topic, but the main point isn’t revealed until the end, after all the supporting ideas and evidence.

 

Ballmer, Tufte, and—humbly in such company—myself agree that this isn’t the best way to do things.  The alternative?  Long before the meeting, write down the main point and the call to action.  Then below that, list the supporting arguments, evidence, and possibilities.  You do all this before the meeting because—here’s the kicker—you won’t be presenting any of that information in the meeting.

 

Instead, you will walk in and take questions.  Since all of the attendees have had time to read, think about, and make conclusions, the meeting time is spent on the valuable stuff: hashing out details, exploring possibilities, strategizing, and making decisions.  That valuable time is NOT spent on education or bringing up to speed, which afterwards of course would necessitate another meeting for decisions, etc..

 

Two problems come to my mind—and probably yours too:

 

For #1, you will easily be able to pick out, and get rid of the lazy, unneeded employees.  The rest will quickly learn to speed-read.  For #2, just prior to sending out your presentation visit your boss and “ask their opinion” on each point, effectively presenting the presentation to them.  You’ll get their input beforehand—a bonus—and they’ll be ready for the meeting.

Jeff Wuorio of the Rubel Khan blog posted a good list on ways to defuse angry customers.  Most of the items on the list involve—at their most basic—letting the customer speak their mind, voice their problem, and simply have someone listen to them.  This is all well and good, but what should we do when there’s more than one customer with more than one complaint? 

 

From the hip, the best idea of course, is to find out the root cause of the problem and fix it—through adjustments, or a major business practices change.  A good way to find out the root cause of a problem is to get as many upset customers as you can into a conference call.  And as crazy as it may sound, it could be even better to get all of your customers dialed-in that same conference.  

Here’s my reasoning:

• If there’s a problem affecting even just one customer, it could happen to any or all customers
• The customers with problems need to speak and be heard
• Misery loves company, and customers will feel better knowing it’s not just them with an issue
• You can listen to everyone in one sitting, and address and fix the problem once
• Customers without an issue can watch the speed, empathy, and thoroughness of how you handle issues

 

Regular “town hall” conference calls about once a month for any customer who wants to join is a good idea too.  This allows you to build a rapport with your customers, as well as head-off any potential problems before they explode.

 

How has your complaint-handling process been working out?  Have you ever used the methods above?  Leave a comment and tell us about it.

Have you ever played the telephone game?  The one where you whisper something like, “The secret meeting went off without a hitch,” into a person’s ear, they whisper it to the next person, and on down the line.  At the other end, the last person says the message aloud.  Usually the result is similar to, “Purple monkey dishrag, pill power waist-band.”  Hilarious!

 

What’s not hilarious is when companies play the telephone game.  Their version usually involves the CEO voicing a good idea in a meeting, the Vice-whatevers distill that into memos for the managers, the managers do presentations for their team leaders, the team leader tells their group of employees, and the employees shake their heads about the latest confusing, crazy idea from upper management.

 

As far as cascading information goes, the Edelman blog explains it best:

 

“’Cascading’ - unless it's a waterfall - doesn't work. Managers are not being brought into critical business discussions and given a chance to delve into the subject to gain the confidence necessary to engage their own teams.”

 

That sums things up nicely doesn’t it?  So if the corporate telephone game doesn’t work, how can a CEO or any upper management leader get the word to the trenches effectively, and for huge companies, efficiently?

 

Conference calls are the answer.  Not only can the CEO speak to every employee “personally” at the same time, it’s also possible to have multiple conferences, breaking the mass of employees into their respective teams.  And by addressing each team rather than the company at large, the CEO can put things into direct context for that particular team.  More importantly, the CEO is accessible with each small group for questions and good give-and-take dialog.

 

Are you shooting your kayak over waterfalls?  How have the results been?  Try addressing each team individually then come back and tell me how things worked out.

I was going to start this post off with a demonstration of “less is more” by filling this first paragraph with informative, but superfluous sentences.  Then I realized how annoying that would be for you and me.  So instead, here’s the main point: Less is More, seriously.

 

It was Seth Godin’s blog post about too much leading to disbelief that inspired this post.  Think about the last time someone was trying too hard to sell you on something; did they use more or less details than would be normal?  Seth’s other point is for the reverse position: if you are selling to a skeptic, more information will just be a waste of your time.

 

I think my favorite example on this subject is a PowerPoint slide with “more” on it.  Yes, it is extremely informative.  Yes, it covers all aspects of the subject.  Yes, it’s very thorough…

 

But man is it hard to read!  And it’s a lot to read, and a lot to take in as well.  I might concentrate hard and go through all of that information if I’m bored with the presentation, but therein lies two problems: The presentation is boring, and—interesting or not--I’m tuning out the speaker to read the slide.

 

Start with a main point or message and choose two or three big points to support it.  Then choose one or two sub-points to support the big points.  For visual aids, one or two perfect pictures will do better than twenty slightly different ones.  And as for PowerPoint:

Remember, all visual aids, all presentation support is to support the presenter.  You are the presentation.  Everything else is secondary.

There are little ways to communicate that work well with some people, but not with others.  There are big ways to communicate that can turn-off or enrapt just about anybody.  Robert Moment has three suggestions for great presentation communication that I think will improve our conference calls.

 

Preparation – This is an important point for any presentation, but when it comes to preparing for a particular audience, it’s vital.  What do you know about the people dialing-in to your conference call?  What are their interests?  Are they detail-oriented or big picture people?  Knowing what motivates your participants—and what bores them—and tailoring your presentation accordingly will go a long way in gaining and keeping their attention.

 

Presentation – Practicing is a key point that Robert Moment makes in this part, but I think his best point is one he didn’t emphasize: choosing what to present.  “Anyone adequately prepared can talk for hours…” but your participants won’t listen for hours.  What information will get your point across in the fastest and most memorable way?  What is the best way to present that information?  Would telling a story be most effective?  What about running a web conference and showing a series of pictures? Or would a simple PowerPoint with a few spartan slides have the most impact?

 

Passion – There’s little I can do to embellish on this point other than perhaps to ask you to recall the last boring presentation you sat through.  What made it boring, the subject matter?  Now think about a presentation you attended that should have been tedious but wasn’t.  What made it interesting?  An energetic, passionate speaker can make any meeting or presentation worthwhile, regardless of the topic.  When you are hosting a conference call, get excited!  Let your participants hear it in your voice, and “see” the smile on your face.  If you are passionate about a subject they will give you their attention, if not become passionate themselves.

 

These are three solid presentation suggestions but I know there are far more.  What do you do to make your presentations interesting and exciting?  Leave a comment and tell me about it.

For every business, there is a sales cycle.  It starts with identifying the target market, reaching out, bringing them in, and closing the deal.  A good company takes it a few steps further by maintain the customer relationship—which leads to a much shorter resale cycle.

 

In a post on BusinessKnowHow.com, I read a pretty good breakdown of the sales cycle, but I noticed that the last three steps could especially benefit from hearty injections of conference calling.

 

Step Six: Practice Great Follow-Up – It’s a good problem, but if you’ve got a popular product with many interested potential customers, it can be difficult to do individual follow-ups to close deals.  A conference call allows you to “chat” with all of your potential customers at once and follow-up as frequently as you like, all while still retaining a personal touch.

 

Step Seven: Close the Sale – After following-up and asking for their business, you can increase your chances of a sale by giving the potential customer as much information as they want—without smothering them of course.  Hosting regular web conferences give you an opportunity to unobtrusively reach out, and it allows the customers find out more about your products.  In that web conference, you can show pictures, your brochure, demonstrations, and whatever else you think will get the customer on your side.

 

Step Eight: Make Additional Offers – Here’s where conferencing really shines.  You have them as a customer, so now it’s time to get them to buy again.  You’ve already established a relationship, so continuing communications is not only expected, it’s beneficial.  Host regular customers-only conference calls to listen to their complaints and suggestions.  Find out what their thinking, act on that information, and then ask for their business again.

A good thing about talking about presenting is that a lot of what works for one type of presenting translates well into another. For example, when speaking to an audience in an auditorium it’s good to take deep breaths and project from your diaphragm; and this works well when on a conference call too.  With this in mind, I’d like to share Olivia Mitchell’s encompassing blog post of best tips for different kinds of presentations.

 

The Training Session – Her main point here is that longer doesn’t mean more effective, and we can use her tips in conference calls.  A solid forty-five minutes is more than enough for anyone to sit and listen in one setting.  Anything longer and time is wasted.  Even better is to break up a big time block into ten to fifteen-minute segments.  On your next conference call, it could be good to speak for ten minutes then take ten minutes of questions.  Repeat that four or five times and you could be four or five times more effective than just having ten minutes for questions at the end.

 

The Conference Presentation – Well, this type is good for conference calls because it is for conference calls.  The best tip here is to provide backchannel communications for your participants.  Use twitter, instant messaging, email, or even texting so that without interrupting you, participants can comment or ask questions.  Then you can decide if you want to stop and address their point, work it into the presentation, or bring it up at the end.

 

The Internal Company Presentation – The “take home” point here is to have a solid key message.  This is a vital part of any presentation.  If you are unclear of what you want to say, want to convey, or worse, at the end your participants are unclear of what they should have learned then presentation = fail.  Start with your main message, your main point, and then build your presentation on that.  Make sure you never obscure the key message with the supporting parts.

 

How do you feel about your presentations on average?  Do you think these tips will help you?  Do you already do the above?  Leave a comment and tell me about it!

Even though it's February, the New Year is still fresh.  But before the year really gets going and we charge off toward the goal posts, let’s have a quick refresher of some conference call basics so we can have great conferences all year round.

 

Agenda – The agenda is more than just what you’re going to talk about, it shapes the entire meeting.  What is supposed to be covered?  Can it be done in the time allotted?  Is every point vital, or at least supportive of the main point?  The first drafts of an agenda can help you tighten and buff your presentation.

 

It’s a good idea to share the agenda with participants long before the conference.  This allows them to get themselves informed, know what’s expected of them, and know what to bring.  It also keeps them oriented during the meeting, focusing them on the main point.

 

Sound –Nothing distracts more than a bad connection or an unmuted participant with the TV on in the background.  Make sure everyone on the call knows how to mute and unmute their line, as well as when to do so—whenever they aren’t speaking is a good rule.

 

If you haven’t in a while, re-familiarize yourself with the lecture mode.  Start up a conference call and practice turning lecture mode on and off, maybe get some friends to call in so you can work the Q&A queue.  Lecture mode is pretty easy to begin with, so you’ll be a pro again in no time!

 

Q&A – In many cases, questions can be the most important part of a conference.  Questions tell you if you got through to the participants, if you left anything out, or even if you can make improvements.  

 

Seriously think about how much time you should set aside for questions.  Would it be better to have several Q&A sessions throughout the presentation, or just a big chunk at the end—or even at the beginning?  To look as competent as possible, try to imagine all the questions you’ll be asked and prepare answers for them.

About once a week I’ll scroll through the “Business Blogs” section of my Google Reader and check up on Michael Hyatt’s blog.  You know, just for fun.  And sometimes I come across a post that works for me personally and professionally.  A recent one from December is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.

 

In this short blog post, Hyatt tells about a free web/mobile browser app called “Read It Later.”  Basically, when you see a web page on your computer or mobile PC that you want to read later, you mark it.  It works like a cross between a bookmark system and a RSS reader, but much simpler.  Best of all, you can read your marked pages when you’re not connected to the internet!

 

This works great for me personally, as my bookmark folders are a rat’s nest of interesting things I want to look at later when I have more time.  But days later, I don’t know where anything is, and I often never go back.  The professional side, well that’s what I wanted to share with you: conferences with customers need to be like websites and Read It Later.

 

A web conference is limited to a relatively short time span.  But what if the customer really liked it?  What if they didn’t catch the first part?  What if they wanted to see it again?  Usually they’re out of luck, but not if we do a special “Read It Later” thing for them:

 

Now customers can attend the web conference, and still be able to “read it later” whenever they want or need to!  And get Read It Later for the iPhone; it’s makes things so much easier.

As airline travel gets more expensive—and invasive—virtual events or online conventions are gaining traction over the big conventions and physical-location conferences.  With virtual events, things get blurry when defining what a “big” event is.  And leaving aside attendance, how long should we expect people to stick around?  How long do we want them to?

 

From a post on aWiderNet.com, we can see that we should look at attendance and virtual events a little differently.  For example, when someone travels to another city for a weekend conference, part of that weekend is seeing the city of course, but event planners must fill up the rest of that time for the event to be heralded a success.

 

On a virtual conference, it’s good when people stick around, but there’s no need to fill up their time.  You can have your key web conference presentations back to back, while leaving the time afterwards open for chat, networking, or even a little filler.  What’s important is not amount of exposure, but the amount of engagement.

 

It’s great if people stick around, but it’s okay if they don’t.  After all, two of the main benefits of a virtual event are the money and time saved.