Presentation slides that make audiences sit up instead of switch off
AUTHOR: Lolly
cut through the noise of bad presentations
How to carve out your unique storytelling style and cut through the noise of bad presentations.
how to carve out your unique storytelling style
and cut through the noise of bad presentations
Imagine if the summary of this article was for you to ‘be yourself.’ I’d kick myself. Violently. Right out of Write Club. Nobody wants you to be yourself.
But I do want you to stand out in a sea of drab presentations and cut-and-paste messaging. It shouldn’t be difficult. The bar is set very low.
understanding your audience's deepest desires
First - and always - foremost. Think about your audience. You should know what their challenges are, but do you know why they really give a shit?
Oh, you’re selling a service that would give them their time back? Yawn. Get in the damn queue.
But if you can help them have as many hours in the day as Beyoncé - and be twice as successful, Ding ding, we have a winner.
The closer you can get your messaging to their actual deepest, dirtiest desires - the more you’re going to stand out as the partner that gets it.
you can connect with an audience through controversy
Next. Say what they’ve been thinking. Businesses are circling back so much their teams are getting dizzy. Corporate copies put so many pins in things, they’re single-handedly keeping the stationery industry alive. And if they move the needle anymore, we’ll need a whole new instrument.
Instead of plucking your key messages from the corporate handbook, get to know your audience so well that you can say what they’re afraid to.
Do take that tone with me. We trust our family. We trust our friends. And yet we talk to the customers we need to build trust with like they’re aliens we’re afraid of pissing off. Talk to them like you’d talk to those in your inner circle - and they soon will be.
push boundaries and share failures to build trust
Be controversial. As long as you can back it up, poke the bear a little. Make your audience rethink something they’ve always believed to be true. Hit them where it hurts, then help them rebuild. The truth will always win out. You should be the one to tell them some painful truths.
Share your failures. We’ve all done some shit we’re not proud of. But if you’ve turned your ship around after a humiliating fuck-up, you get to own that story now and shout it from the rooftops. Maybe fuck up on purpose - it’s edgy.
You can’t please everyone. You’re not an 8 billion-headed dildo.
stop playing safe
Stop playing it safe. Stop thinking about what you should and shouldn’t do.
The only thing you should concern yourself with is what your audience needs you to do.
video
Reading is tough. Rest your weary eyes on this moving picture instead.