Winning Strategies for Power Presentations Jerry Weissman Delivers Lessons from the World's Best Presenters

by Weissman, Jerry

• ISBN13: 9780133121070
• ISBN10: 0133121070
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-11-09
• Publisher: FT Press

Summary

Craft and deliver outstanding presentations, speeches, demos, and more! Learn how, from the world's #1 presentation coach, Jerry Weissman -- and the experiences of dozens of the world's legendary persuaders! This book distills 75 best practices and techniques Weissman has developed through more than 20 years coaching executives on their highest-stakes presentations. In Winning Strategies for Power Presentations, Weissman identifies the elements of a great presentation, offering powerful new insights into contents, graphics, delivery, Q-and-A sessions, and much more. Weissman illuminates every technique with a compelling case study, drawing on the positive and negative experiences of communicators ranging from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, Jon Stewart to venture capitalist John Doerr, Stephen King to Mark Twain, Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. For the first time, he specifically and thoroughly addresses the unique challenges of making persuasive political presentations and speeches. This book also includes brand-new advice on a wide spectrum of "special presentation" issues, ranging from developing a richer public speaking voice to delivering scripted speeches, interviewing like a TV anchorperson to demonstrating products more successfully. For everyone who must speak and present more effectively in public: executives, managers, professional speakers, business leaders, project leaders, sales personnel, instructors, students, and many others.

Author Biography

JERRY WEISSMAN (Burlingame, CA), the world's #1 corporate presentations coach, writes Forbes.com's Presentations in Action column. Known worldwide for his confidential executive coaching sessions, his clients include leaders at Cisco, Intuit, Yahoo!, eBay, Netflix, Dolby Labs, Groupon, and many others. His techniques have helped nearly 500 firms hone persuasive IPO road show presentations that have raised hundreds of billions of dollars, and have helped hundreds more firms develop and deliver crucial presentations. His books include Presenting to Win, The Power Presenter, and How to Handle Tough Questions...When It Counts.

Table of Contents

<>Introduction xv

Natural and Universal

Section I

Content: The Art of Telling Your Story 1

1. Mark Twain’s Fingernails 3

How to Remember What to Say

2. Kill Your Darlings 7

A Lesson from Professional Writers

3. How Long Should a Presentation Last? 11

Be Brief and Concise

4. Follow the Money 13

“So...?”

5. Fellini on Creativity 15

Consider All the Possibilities—Before You Present

6. How Woody Allen Creates 17

First Things First, Last Things Last

7. What’s Your Point? 19

Leave Pointlessness to Woody Allen

8. Spoiler Alert 21

What’s Your Point?

9. The Cyrano Parable 23

The Story You Tell Versus the Slides You Show

10. “Does that make sense?” 25

...And Other Meaningless Words

11. Meaningful Words 27

Words That Inspire Confidence

12. Writer’s Block 29

How to Break Through

13. Writer’s Block II 31

Easier Said Than Done

14. Never Say “Never” 33

Well, Almost Never

15. From Bogart to Gingrich 35

Who Did It?

16. Rupert Murdoch’s 90% Apology 39

Who Did It?

17. Winning and Losing the World Cup 41

He’s Just Not That into FIFA

18. John Doerr’s “Chalk” Talks 43

Three Best Practices from a Top Venture Capitalist

19. Vinod Khosla’s Cardinal Rule 45

“Message Sent Is Not the Same as Message Received”

20. The Outline Trap 47

Britannica and Brainstorming

21. Having a ’versation 49

“I” Versus “You”

22. “It’s all about you!” 51

“...But they’re just not that into you.”

23. When Not to Tell ’em 55

“Get on with it!”

24. Bookends 59

Establish Your First and Last Sentences

25. The Sound of Ka-Ching! 61

Scale the “You”

26. David Letterman’s Top Ten 63

Pick a Number

27. Illusion of the First Time 65

Road (Show) Warriors

28. In Praise of Analogies and Examples 69

Add Value and Dimension

29. Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama 71

Masters of the Game

30. Aristotle: The First Salesman 75

The Original Source

Section II

Graphics: How to Design PowerPoint

Slides Effectively 77

31. Vinod Khosla’s Five-Second Rule 79

A Sanity Check for Every Presentation

32. Don’t Raise the Bridge, Lower the Water 81

Better Box Thinking

33. Jon Stewart’s Right 83

Positioned on Purpose?

34. Misdirection 85

Magicians and Graphics

35. Obama Makes a PowerPoint Point 87

The State of the Union and Presentations

36. Go in the Right Direction 89

A Presentation Lesson from Akira Kurosawa

37. PowerPoint and Movie Stunts 91

Use Graphics to Create Continuity

38. The Anti-PowerPoint Party 93

Another Precinct Heard From

39. Signage Versus Documents 95

Drive Your PowerPoint Home

40. The Graphics Spectrum 97

Lives of Quiet Desperation

41. How Audiences See 99

Follow the Action

42. Why Use PowerPoint at All? 103

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

43. “But, I’m not an artist!” 107

Rx: Infographics

44. The Kindness of Strangers 111

Stand and Deliver

45. No More Mind-Numbing Number Slides 113

Five Easy Steps to Bring Your Presentation to Life

Section III

Delivery Skills: Actions Speak Louder

Than Words 117

46. Eight Presentations a Day 119

Cause and Effect

47. Sounds of Silence 121

Presentation Advice from Composers and Musicians

48. Stage Fright 123

A Close Cousin of Writer’s Block

49. Swimming Lessons and Presentations 127

Deconstruct and Reconstruct

50. Valley Girl Talk 131

Invisible Question Marks

51. “What do I do with my hands?” 133

A Simple Approach to Gesturing

52. “Look, Ma, no hands!” 137

Anchorperson or Weatherperson

53. Foreign Films 139

The Pause That Refreshes

54. Rx: CrackBerry Addiction 141

Control Yourself!

55. The Eyes Have It 143

Relax!

56. Why Sinatra Stood 145

The Voice of “The Voice”

57. Presentation Counts 147

The Rise and Fall of Rick Perry

Section IV:

How to Handle Tough Questions 151

58. Listening and Laughing with Johnny Carson 153

Late Night Lessons for Presenters

59. Ready, Fire, Aim! 155

Old Habits Die Hard

60. How to Deal with a Direct Attack 159

“That was certainly a downer!”

61. No Such Thing as a Stupid Question 163

A Lesson in Q&A from Dilbert

62. The Patronizing Paraphrase 165

Trying to Channel Bill Clinton

63. Tricky Questions 169

Be Transparent or Be Trapped

64. Robert McNamara Was Wrong 171

You Must Respond to All Questions

65. Breaking into Jail 175

The Elephant IS in the Room

Section V

Special Presentations 177

66. Speak Crisply and Eliminate Mumbling 179

Be Your Own Henry Higgins

67. How to Develop a Richer Voice 185

Be Your Own Echo Chamber

68. How to Deliver a Scripted Speech 193

When the Words Count

69. Speaking to an Audience of a Thousand 197

The Big Tent

70. How to Beat the Demo Demons 201

Plan B and More

71. Bring Your Panel Discussion to Life 203

How to Herd Cats

72. Mark Your Accent 207

Eliza Doolittle Is a Myth

73. How to Interview Like a Television Anchorperson 211

Seven Easy Steps

74. Ten Best Practices for the IPO Road Show 215

75. Cicero: Peroration 221

Timeless and Borderless

Endnotes 223

Acknowledgments 237

Index 239

About the Author 249