Don’t just share information; TELL A STORY
- Most presentations share a common goal: to persuade the audience to take action.
- What’s the best way to persuade someone? Get them to attach to your story emotionally.
- What’s the best way to get them to attach emotionally? Tell them a story with a likeable hero who encounters some roadblocks and then, [thanks to your product] emerges transformed.
- Reframe your presentation like a great story: three acts with two turning points. Let your hero make your points for you. Have him show your audience “what is”—and contrast that with “what could be.”
- Nobody likes being sold to, but who doesn’t love a great story?
Go overboard
- Boring presentations are safe presentations. They take no risks. They state the obvious. And they’re more likely to provoke napping than purchasing behavior.
- Sometimes the best way to make a presentation more awesome is to go completely overboard. Make ridiculous claims. State the opposite view. Use ginormously humongoussive words.
- Polarizing slides engage audiences—they get people thinking and talking. So go ahead, BE EXTREME, and give them something to talk about.
Make your first slide and your last slide the AWESOMEST
- The first slide sets the audience’s expectation. The last slide is the one thing they’re most likely to remember.
- And the stuff in the middle? It really only matters if the first and last slides kick major butt. So make sure they do.
- What exactly makes a slide “awesome”?
- Ask ten people that question and you will get ten different answers. But for me, it boils down to one simple thing: emotion.
- Awesome slides make you feel something.
- Love or hate.
- Fear or desire.
- Pain or pleasure.
- Comedy or tragedy.