A project decision or startup funding can depend on just one presentation. This is especially catchy when a professional has to speak, who could spend this time on development. If your company does not have separate managers who are involved in marketing and sales, you can master the speech pyramid, the method of non-directive influence on the audience, and the rules for developing business presentations in just an hour. Read more in this article.
Pyramid of speech
When you are developing a presentation for a conference or other event, remember that the audience is usually not motivated to agree with every word you say. This is normal - everyone has their own experience and beliefs. Before saying “Do it…”, SpeechBook author Alexei Andrianov recommends preparing the audience. To do this, he gives a pyramid of speech. Experienced managers can recognize Robert Dilts' pyramid of logical levels in it.
1. Environment level
To set up an audience, a couple of phrases about what surrounds listeners is enough. Phrases should be obvious and understandable to all present. For example: “Colleagues, today is the middle of the month, we have gathered to discuss the results” or “Friends, today we will analyze the company’s case together in this audience ...”.
2. Level of behavior
Briefly describe the actions of the audience. Formulate the action in verbs in the present tense: “do”, “decide”, “change”. For example: “We meet with clients every day” or “The market situation changes every minute.”
3. Ability Level
The sentences at this level reflect your assessment of the voiced actions. Use adjectives: “fast”, “it’s better here, it’s worse there”, “lower”, etc. Examples: “The results of the divisions are different, here is the rating” or “This product entered the market in 3 months, and this time the launch spread over a year."
4. Level of values and beliefs
Transitional from lower order levels to entities. One short sentence is enough to indicate the value. Marker words: “We believe”, “Important”, “Main”, “Valuable”, “Love”. For example, "There is nothing more important than the independence of the company" or "I believe that this approach will help to defeat the competition."
5. Identification level
The shortest in speech. To which group do you classify those present? “We are HRs”, “We are sellers”, “We are investors”, “We are marketers”. Remember for whom you created a presentation for a conference or evaluate who is in front of you. Perhaps there will be an even more powerful identification "We are experts in selling unique equipment."
6. Mission Level
It is here that you need to talk about why everything is being done. Remind the audience of this and activate it to action. “It depends on us today what the company will be like tomorrow”, “For the sake of launching a new technology for the treatment of children”, “So that our relatives live in abundance” - these are a few examples.
7. Downhill
Only after you have raised the audience on all levels, you can call to action. What do you want the audience to do? Raise your voice a little and say it. Start with a verb in the imperative mood.
Non-directive impact
What other non-directive influence? There are numbers, data, graphs! Of course, but they are enough for only one part of the hemisphere, and a person makes a decision also on an emotional level. To activate, you need to appeal to the representative system of the listener, to enable the audience to present your information in their head. A story does this best because it helps the listener find examples from their experience and match them with the data during the presentation.
Remember Steve Jobs' famous speech to the graduates of Stanford University? He told three stories from his life, justifying his position and his call to action for listeners. Using only the language of business, this effect cannot be achieved. We make decisions with the brain, but pass them through emotions. The story quickly raises the listener to the level of personal values.
To prepare a presentation for public speaking with a story, the author suggests using the structure:
- Entry
- Character
- Tie (problem, crisis, obstacle)
- Voltage Rise
- Culmination
- Decoupling
business presentation logic
The logic of a business presentation depends on its purpose, subject matter, target audience, and context. The author suggests two schemes that will work in general cases. These are the Past-Present-Future and Problem-Proposal-Plan sequences.
The structure of the scheme "Past - present - future"
The structure of the "Problem-proposal-plan" scheme
Write in the comments what you would like to read about creating presentations.
Source: habr.com