Winning Over the Toughest Crowd


Jim Flautt, was the Vice President of Marketing at DigitalThink, and he participated in the program I delivered to help Mike Pope, the newly ascended CEO, develop a presentation to announce the company's new strategic focus.

The day after the program, Jim attended a presentation at the alumni association of his graduate business school. Jim decided to watch from the back of the room, as I told him I always do, to observe not only the presenter, but the audience reactions as well. The guest speaker was a respected industry leader and a frequent presenter, but his presentation was, from the outset, an unabated torrent of excessive words and slides. Jim could see that the audience quickly lost interest: MEGO. As he watched the shifting heads and squirming bodies in front of him, Jim smiled knowingly to himself. He understood exactly what had gone wrong.

The very next day, Jim, who happens to be an Annapolis graduate and a former naval officer aboard the USS Albany , was scheduled to speak about submarines to his son's first-grade class at Laurel Elementary School. Jim realized that a roomful of seven-year-olds, who represent the ultimate in short attention spans , would be as challenging as any business audience. So he set about to make use of what he'd learned about making business presentations to prepare for the first graders.

In the style of Intuit's Scott Cook, Jim began with a call-for-a-show-of-hands Opening Gambit, a format quite familiar to his young audience. Jim had three questions: "How many of you know what a submarine is?" All the first graders raised their hands. "How many of you have ever seen a submarine?" Half the first graders raised their hands. "How many of you have ever seen a submarine fly ?" Now all the first graders smiled, giggled, and gasped. Jim had their attention.

Jim continued on to his Point B: "Well, I'm here today to tell you all about submarines." Then, to link forward from his Point B, Jim Told 'em what he was gonna tell tell 'em: " what goes on in a submarine, how to drive a submarine, how to repair a submarine, and some cool things that a submarine does. When I'm done with all of that, about 15 minutes from now " (Jim's forecast for time) " I'm going to show you a submarine that flies!" Just for good measure, Jim added a big WIIFY.

This got more smiles, giggles, gasps, and now, delighted cheers from the children. Jim had them and he kept them, with simple slide photographs, in rapt attention for about 15 minutes, until the very end. Then, true to his promise, Jim clicked on his computer and ran a video clip of a U.S. Navy submarine going through an emergency surfacing exercise, leaping up out of the roiling ocean looking, for all the world, like a dolphin performing a stunt .

Jim did it all: he grabbed , navigated , and deposited . If it can work with wired seven-year-olds, it can work with occupationally -short-attention-span investors looking to make a return on their investment, with a concerned customer looking to find a product that performs a vital function better than the current solution, or with a stressed manager looking for a strategy to compete more effectively. It can work for you.



Presenting to Win. The Art of Telling Your Story
Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story, Updated and Expanded Edition
ISBN: 0137144172
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 94

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