Presentations: Nailing Delivery Every Time

1. Trailer: It's so easy for business presentations to fall into a rut. You had some data, threw it into a template, and you were done. But then, you wondered, did the audience fall asleep? Did they leave knowing what you're talking about? Did your call to action count? Wait, you're smarter than that. You're here, and you know that there is no reason for a bad presentation, because there are presentation secrets that work every single time, for every presentation, for every topic. I'm here to coach you in building, designing, and delivering a presentation that works and wows your audience. My name is Scott Schwertly, and I'm the founder and CEO of Ethos3. At Ethos3, we really have one core objective: to empower presenters, and it's the whole reason for why we come into work every single day. We've been doing it for eight years, working with companies like Google, Oracle, and LinkedIn, to Pepsi and Coke, to Fox and HGTV. We've seen it all, and now, we're sharing our tips and tricks here in three Skillshare classes that will revolutionize the way you present at work. Every lesson presents best practices and is accompanied by practical project steps, articles, and exercises to get you reworking and rethinking your slide decks into presentations that will wow your audience. So, what will we talk about? Our first class is all about content. You'll learn how to develop your information in a way that's memorable, organized, and hooks your audience with a story. Our second class is all about design. You'll learn four key styles that non-designers can implement right away, best practices for typography, photography, and color, and see some before and after transformations that will inspire smart ways to redesign your own slides. Our third class is all about delivery, and that's all about your best first impression. Learn six ways to open and close the talk, six essential questions to always ask yourself about your audience, and the ultimate presentation commandments. My name is Scott Schwertly, and I've been revolutionizing business and boardroom presentations for over a decade. I'm thrilled to bring this experience to Skillshare. So, join me in learning how to structure, design, and deliver an incredible business presentation. 2. Understanding Fear: Delivery. All right, so when you signed up for this Skillshare lesson, you were probably thinking more in line within this topic. So think back to maybe your public speaking 101 class where you learned about nonverbal behavior, gestures, eye contact, all that good stuff. Well, that's we're going to cover within these lessons. So, really looking forward to covering this topic with you and I hope you are as well. So let's jump right into it. All right, so most presenters, they typically tend to look like this when given a presentation assignment. In fact, if they don't look like this externally, they probably feel like this internally. No worries, this is sort of a very common response, but I want to take this one step further. So, right now, if you classify yourself as a person who has a fear of public speaking, I want you to reconsider and here's a reason why. All right, so back in the 1950s, Walter Reed Institute did a study on some monkeys and what they did is they actually had two groups of monkeys. They had group A which had four monkeys and they had group B which had four monkeys. What they did, this may sound actually a little bit inhumane, but they randomly shocked with electricity both groups of monkey. So group A, randomly shocked, group B, randomly shocked. But here's the difference. Group B was taught that anytime a light would come on in their room, they could pull a lever and avoid the shock. So again, group A, randomly shocked, group B, randomly shocked, but group B could pull the lever to avoid the shock. Well, after doing this for several weeks, in fact, all four monkeys in one test group contracted ulcers and eventually passed away. So, was it group A or was it group B? All right, I'll let you think about it for a bit. All right, the answer is group B, the group that could pull the lever to avoid the shock. So, what does this study prove? It will basically proves that these monkeys had anxiety of this upcoming event. So was it fear? Not really, it was anxiety. So, the lesson here for you when thinking about your next presentation is, are you fearful public speaking? Maybe, you may may some negative association from college or high school. But most likely, if I was betting, I would say you're probably more in the anxiety camp, that you're actually feeling anxious of this upcoming event. So, as a culture, it's not surprising for you to feel that way. In fact, as a culture, we build presentations to be really a big deal. So, a presentation can really be the difference between whether you're going to get that promotion, whether you're going to close that sale, whether you are going to raise that money. It's a big deal, and so if you're feeling anxious, you shouldn't feel surprised. So we can come to that basic conclusion that you're feeling more anxiety rather than fear, what can you do to combat this? Well, for starters, you've got to practice, practice, practice. I've really pounded this in over the last few lessons, but I'll pound it again one one time. You've got to practice at least seven to eight times before every presentation. If you think two times the night before or one time the morning of is going to cut it, I guarantee, you will fail during your presentation. So, aim for seven to eight times of rehearsal before even think about stepping up onstage. Also, exercise. Go for a run, go for a walk the morning of your talk. Now, you know yourself better than anybody else, so choose an activity that is going to work best for you. But nonetheless, move, exercise. In fact, all the recent studies have proven that exercise has a benefit up to 12 hours. So, for instance, if you're going to be giving a 5:00 PM speech and you went for a run at 7:00 AM, well, you're still in that 12 hour window, so you're still in good shape. So, all those endorphins that will kick in and everything else, you'll feel the benefit of that during your 5:00 PM presentation. So, exercise or do something, just move your body, get your heart rate up. Do something that's going to allow you to, again, reduce those anxious feelings that you may be trying to tackle. Love your audience. Now, the only way you're going to be able to love your audience and let them know that you actually appreciate the opportunity to give a presentation, is if you're actually prepared. So again, practice at least, again, seven to eight times before every talk. Smile, everybody knows it takes X amount of muscles to make a frown, but just a fraction of those to make a smile. So it's a quick and easy way to immediately put your audience at ease when thinking about your next talk. So, tap into that, it's an easy thing you can do from a non-verbal standpoint. Also, understand this, the average human being speaks 120 words per minute. So if you're anxious, if you're nervous, you're going to be speaking a lot faster than 120 words per minute. So if you actually want to sound like a human being the next time you're up on stage, practice your material, make sure you know your content. Again, I've pounded this message in, but I'll repeat it again, there is no overnight kill that you can take to become a great presenter. It's just something that takes hard work, due diligence on your end, and really, all of that gets back to that basic component of making sure that you practice accordingly. All right, so here's the exercise for you. What I want you to do is actually get in front of a mirror and practice your talk, aim for that seven to eight times. If you don't want to get in front of a mirror, even better than that is get in front of a camera, videotape yourself, get somebody to actually record you. If you don't have access to some sort of recording device, then speak in front of your spouse, speak in front of your significant others, speak in front of your roommates, your friends, collaborate here on Skillshare in some way, but get in front of people. Make sure you're going through your due diligence to make sure you're getting enough rehearsal time. Again, rehearse, don't memorize, big difference between the two, but I just want you to get in front of others and practice your talk over and over and over again until you feel absolutely 100 percent confident with it. All right. This is a tough exercise, I typically like to say, ''Have fun.'' You're probably not thinking this isn't any fun, Scott, I don't want to do this. But tough it out, do it. You'll be thankful that you did and knock it out of the park and I will see you in the next lesson. 3. The Power of Perception: So, I've got some sad news for you and it's this, the next time you step up to give a presentation, you are going to be judged by every single person in the room. So, let me repeat that, the next time you give a presentation, you're going to be judged by every single person in the room. So, the goal of this lesson is I want to essentially share with you some tips and tricks, lessons I've learned over the years to minimize some of that negative judgment that can be placed on you as a presenter. So, I want to walk you through these lessons right now. So, the first one is, you're probably wondering, "Well, how should I dress for my next presentation?" Years ago, I would've said overdress for your talk. Today my stance is more along the lines of dress according to your brand. So, if you represent a very corporate stodgy sort of brand, then dress corporate and stodgy. If you represent a very hip and cool sort of agency, then dress hip and cool. Now, when you're unsure, maybe you don't know who's going to be in the audience, you don't know who's going to be in the room. When you're unsure, it doesn't hurt to play the conservative card and actually over dress for your presentation and so that's when I would lend that advice. So, quick recap, dress according to your brand. When you're unsure about your audience, then over dress for your presentation. You can always remove that coat, you can always remove that tie, you can always dress down when needed but at least you're providing yourself a safety blanket when thinking about your wardrobe. Also, make sure you iron your clothes. I'm embarrassed that I even have to talk about this but the reason I'm talking about this, because I see it happen in so many different presentations. It's amazing if you're going to take this Skillshare lesson or any other advice that you've learned about presentations over the years and you're going to go out there and you're going to build and design this great sexy presentation, yet you show up with a wrinkled shirt or wrinkled blouse or wrinkled pants. These things are going to absolutely kill your credibility and you don't need that, you don't want that. So, granted half the room, they can probably care less but that other half the room, they're going to judge you for it and so don't kill your credibility, don't lose brownie points early on, if you can avoid it with simply going through a 10, 15-minute task of actually ironing your clothes. So, please do that before you even think about stepping up onstage. Empty your pockets. This is the time to remove your loose change, your keys. If you're on the road, maybe you have your hotel key card, get rid of these items particularly if you're going to close-knit environment, you don't want the possibility for these sort of miscellaneous distractions to again get in the way or in some cases even maybe kill your credibility just a little bit. So, get rid of these distractions. There's no need to have them, put them in your bag, do whatever you need to but make sure they're not in your pockets causing some miscellaneous distraction. If you are going to take the conservative card or play that card, for guys out there, be mindful of your ties. I hope you don't have a 1970s collection like this one but be very mindful of your color selection and also the pattern of your tie. Certain fashion statements communicate certain things and so just be mindful of that. Again, if you want to play the conservative card, then be conservative with your choice of ties. So, solid color is probably your best bet in this sort of situation. Same thing is true with your shoe choice, a black, brown also probably your best bet if you're going to play the conservative card. Now, again if you represent a very hip and cool agency, then wear shoes that represent that sort of brand but again, just trying to keep things simple with if again, you're going to play the conservative card in this situation. For ladies out there, be mindful of your jewelry and your makeup. These two can also serve as a distraction for your audience. In fact, I recently was doing some executive training and was working with a female executive and she had these bracelets that after three to five minutes of being into her talk, it actually started to get very, very obnoxious, not only for me, the trainer, but also for her audience. So, be mindful of your choice selection on the jewelry and makeup front. In fact, the Mr. T look went out in the 1980s, obviously try to stay away from this sort of look when thinking about your next presentation. Turn off your technology. If you find yourself getting a lot of webinars, then only use the program that you need to use to operate your webinar. So, if you tend to use Google Hangouts or Outlook or Hootsuite or TweetDeck or any other application that you use as part of your daily routine, power off those programs and only utilize the program that you need to run for your presentation and the same thing is true with a live presentation. When you think about your cell phone or your tablet, sometimes vibrate on your phone is just as obnoxious as your ringtone, so power off your devices. Leave them in your car possibly if you want, leave them in your bag but just make sure that they are powered off that they're not out in the front calling for or competing for the audience's attention. So, turn off your technology absolutely critical to the success of your presentation. Show up early. If you're going to a new venue that you've never been at before, show up early, get there an hour early in fact that's my sort of general recommendation because you never know what could be awaiting you as far as the setup, the room, maybe there's someone that you need a meet and greet with prior to your talk, show up early. Now, if you've been to a location before, then I'd still recommend getting there early. Do you have to get there 60 minutes in advance? Probably not but maybe 30 minutes, that's usually a safe bet and what I mean by this is, maybe last time you came to a certain organization, you presented off a projector and your presentation ran in a four by three format. Well, maybe it's been six months and they've upgraded to HD monitors that now run a 16 by nine format. Are you ready for that? Do you have a backup? Do you have a secondary presentation that's saved in a 16 by nine format? So, you need to be mindful of all these different things that could possibly become problematic. So, by showing up early, you can tap into the proper backup plan and make sure that you're going to be able to present glitch free. Speaking of glitch free, you want to be mindful of your technology, you should have a plan A, you should have a plan B, probably even a C, D, E, and F. Here's the thing, couple years ago I would have given anyone grace when it came to a technological glitch but this is 2014, we live in the era of the cloud, we have Dropbox and box.net. We also live in the era of the mobile device. So, you have a mobile phone and you probably have a tablet, you probably have a laptop and a desktop and all these other different devices. You can back up your presentation right now in so many different ways, in so many different formats, on so many different devices. So, really right now, I have very little patience for anyone who actually has a technical glitch when giving a talk. There's absolutely no excuse for it and I would hope that you are planning accordingly so you don't fall into this deadly trap. Remember, at the end of the day, everything is your fault. If your laptop dies, it's your fault and I know you probably don't own that projector but if it dies, it's your fault. If the batteries in your clicker die, it's your fault. Everything within your presentation is your responsibility. So, not only these technical things but everything we've talked about up to this point, when you think about your content, when you think about the quality of your design and even the quality of your delivery, everything in your presentation is your responsibility and I want to make sure that I'm driving this home, everything is your fault, everything is your responsibility, take ownership over your presentation and the time is to start now. So, that leads me to our next exercise. If you have to play this video over and over again that's fine. I just want to make sure that you carefully examine yourself, your habits, your routines, your patterns. Look at your wardrobe, is it worthy of your next presentation? Do you have a technological backup plan? So, do you have a plan A, a plan B, a plan C? Is your presentation saved in the cloud? You have it saved on your iPad and your iPhone or your Galaxy or whatever you choose to use. Do you have these things in place to make sure that you can succeed during your next talk? If you don't, this is the time right now to make sure that you do. So, there should be a fairly fun exercise, kind of tedious in its own way but make sure that you are doing all these different things that I've just stated and make sure again, you can set yourself up to win during your next presentation. Thanks so much and I will see you in the next lesson. 4. Knowing Your Audience: Knowing your audience. This should be a fun section. I hope this will be beneficial for you as you start thinking a little bit more critically about how you can deliver the best presentation. The best delivery is going to come from knowing who you're actually talking to to begin with. Right now, what I want to do to capture the essence of what I want to cover with knowing your audiences, is really, just talk about six essential questions that you need to ask yourself every time before you even think about stepping up on stage to deliver your talk. So, here are the six questions you need to ask yourself about knowing your audience to make sure that you're setting yourself up to succeed from a delivery standpoint. So, question number one you need to ask yourself, in no particular order here, we're just going to kind of run through these six essential. All of them are equal in their own weight. But, question number one is, you need to ask yourself, "Who am I talking to? " So, here's a lesson for you. One of the best pieces of advice I've ever learned about knowing your audience is this, in every audience situation, that you're always going to have a 50-50 balance of introverts and extroverts. So, let me repeat that you're always going to have a 50-50 balance of introverts and extroverts. Now, how I was taught the difference between the two groups is this, you've got to pretend like you've got a battery in the middle of your chest. So, if you're an introvert, let's say, if you go to a party, a social gathering, a dinner with friends, what happens to that battery? Well, it starts to get depleted. Now, the minute you spend time by yourself, that battery starts to get charged and so you're ready to go back into the world and start socializing again. Now, if you're an extrovert. Well, you're the exact opposite of that. So, if you've got this battery in the middle of your chest and you go to a party, a dinner gathering, maybe a public speaking event, what happens to that battery? It stays topped off, because you're around people. Now, the minute you spend time by yourself, what happens? Well, it starts to get depleted, and you need to go back into the world to get charged back up again. So, based on that simple illustration, you need to ask your audience and have fun with this exercise but asked them, based on that simple illustration, how many introverts and extroverts do I have in the room? I guarantee you, probably, about 100 percent of the time, you're going to have a half-and-half balance of introverts and extroverts. So, what you need to be mindful of, is the next time you go and give a talk you need to make sure that you're structuring your content, you're structuring your delivery in such a way that you're going to appeal to both groups of people. So, for the extroverts that you have, you've got to make sure you're setting yourself up to have exercises and opportunities for feedback and interaction. Then, that also means that you shouldn't be lecture-based the entire time. So, you've got to make sure that you're going to appeal to the extroverts in your audience. So, for the introverts, that are out there, you also have to make sure that you're not going to be randomly calling upon people. Introverts tend to be processors by nature, they need time to, sort of, digest and thinking about their ideas. If you randomly call upon one of them, they're going to hate your guts for it, and you're going to totally kill the presentation experience for them. So, just be mindful, acknowledge right now that you've got both groups of individuals within your audience, and, again, if you want to have fun, pose this question to your audience you'll be amazed by how often you're going to get this 50-50 response. All right. Question number two that you need to ask your audience. What keeps them up at night? What's the problem that they have? What are their wants, their wishes, their needs? So, one of the things that you can think about, that will constantly keep you on the right track when thinking about, not only your content but also your delivery, is the whole idea of WIIFM. If you're not familiar with this acronym, it's the "What's in it for me?" It's the "so what" factor. So, if your delivery, if your message, if just the experience in general isn't answering the "so what" factor, then you shouldn't really be giving your presentation to begin with. So, make sure everything you're doing within your talk addresses this item. It's absolutely critical to the success of your presentation. Then number three is, "How can I mold my content to best reach them?" Well, we've talked about this already. You can go through the process of determining your objectives, developing that theme, outlining your content through a presentation outline, slide outline, all very important. But what's really at the core of all of that. Well, something we've talked about. It's the idea of having just three points. Again, remember the human brain 1-2-3, I forget. Nobody's going to remember your fourth point or your fifth point. So, what are the three golden nuggets? What are the three main takeaways in every presentation that you give? As long as you can center your talk, your story, your message, your outline around those three ideas, you're going to win with your next talk. So that's how you can best mold, structure, and shape your content and your delivery moving forward. Question number four, "How can I get them to participate with me?" From my experience, the best way to get them to participate with you, is by simply telling a story. We've covered a lot here about storytelling, but I'm going to give you one extra little nugget about storytelling and it's this. You know, if I was to give a presentation that was only based on facts and stats, my audience and your audience is going to react in one of two ways. Response number one, or reaction number one is they're going to agree with you. They're going to say I loved your information, I loved your data, I loved that you did your homework, keep talking, I'm taking notes, and you can talk all day long. Now, if they don't agree with you, then you're going to get response number two or reaction number two, which is they're going to disagree with you. They're going to question your credibility, they're going to question the accuracy of your data and your facts, and immediately, a wall is going to go up between them, the audience, and you, the speaker. Now, if you tell a story, and if you practice the things that we've already talked about, you're going to get participation, and that's what you want to be aiming for, is participation. They're not going to agree with you, they're not going to disagree with you, but they're going to think back on stories that are close to their heart and are going to relate and participate with you. So, that's how you can get your audience involved: tell more stories. It's absolutely awesome, highly recommended. Number five. Probably going to ask yourself or you need to ask yourself, "What do I need them to do next?" Well, what do you need to do next, is something we've already covered, and that's the whole idea of build up to something, and hopefully that big something, that big climactic moment is, you guessed it, your call to action. Make sure you're telling them what to do with this new information and by having that call to action, you're providing mission and purpose behind your entire presentation. So, build up to something, and ultimately that something is your call to action. Then, number six, "What story do I need to tell? " Well, hopefully at this point, you're sold, I'm sold, definitely, on the idea of storytelling and that actually leads into our practical application exercise, is I want you to determine what story is going to be best for them. So, not only do I want you to do that, I want you to figure out the right storytelling approach. Hopefully, you already had this at this point, since we've already gone through content storytelling. But even beyond that, I want to make sure that all six of these questions, I hope number six you've already answered earlier, but the other five, I want to make sure that you can answer all of those with 100 percent absolute confidence. If you can't, then there's something that's gone wrong so far between where we started and where we are right now. So, make sure you can answer each one of those with confidence and the ones who can, then great, kudos to you. That's where you need to be, and then we can move onto the next lesson. So, ask yourself these questions not only for this project but for all presentations moving forward. Make sure you can answer all these questions with, again, 100 percent absolute confidence. All right. Do this exercise, and I will see you in the next lesson. 5. Opening a Talk Online or Offline: I want to use this lesson to go ahead and talk about several ways in which you can open your presentation. Now, the good news here is you can actually use these techniques, use these styles, not only in a traditional live environment, but also in something simple like a webinar. All right. So let's go and jump right into it. These are several ways in which you can actually open your next presentation. All right. So, here's approach or style number one, and that's using the power of silence. Now, I hate using this person as an example. By no means do I stand by his political agenda or his ideologies, but through my years of research on some of the best presenters, and particularly, the best presenters that use the power of silence, there's no better example than Adolf Hitler. In fact, if you jump on YouTube and you search Adolf Hitler, and you do something like Adolf Hitler's speech or anything along those lines, what you are going to find is back in 1934, when Hitler was elected Chancellor over Germany, he really just used the power of silence. He would say a few words and then be quiet for 30 seconds, and then say another statement and be quiet for a minute and 10 seconds, and this would go on and on and on through his entire talk. It's a tactic that he mastered, really did just own the audience, and in some ways, sort of manipulate them, and really, it had a large contribution to building his political career, particularly through the medium of doing public speaking events. So, if you're feeling extra savvy, if you're feeling extra charismatic, if you're feeling extra confident, then use the power of silence during your next presentation. It's a great way to open a presentation. You can also use the power of story. We've talked already through a few lessons about the art of storytelling, so you've got a few things in your toolbox. So, tell a story the next time you open your presentation. As human beings, again, this is how we connect and communicate. So, if you want to make a dramatic impact, tell more stories or tell one compelling story to open your presentation. You can also share rhetorical, or actually not share, but actually ask a rhetorical question off your audience. So, if you immediately want to engage an audience within the first five, 10 seconds of your talk, ask a rhetorical question. You're going to peak their level of interest and they're going to want to know what you have to say next. Quote someone. I could've started this presentation today quoting, let's say, Albert Einstein and you think, "Hey, this Scott guy, he's pretty smart. He's quoting Einstein." Little did you know maybe I was just Googling Einstein quotes before starting this talk. But nonetheless, by quoting someone, it adds to your level of credibility. So, if you're looking for a quick and easy tactic, that's probably one of the easiest ones to implement. Share extraordinary things about ordinary things. As human beings, we tend to eat this stuff up. I remember as a kid, I loved Snapple and it was always just fun to read the bottom of every Snapple bottle cap because it always shared some random fun fact, and that curiosity really never goes away. So, as human beings, we take joy in learning this type of information. So, if you want to kick-start in that fashion, all the power to you, it actually makes a pretty heavy impact on your audience. Then another tactic that you can deploy is the whole idea of being prospective and retrospective. So, basically, you can look to the future or you can look to the past. So, if I was to look to the future, at least start my presentation in this way, I could say something like, "Thirty years from now, your job will not exist." All right? Now, I've get your attention. You want to know what he has to say next. Now, I can do the exact opposite of that, just a different subject, and I could say something like, "In 1970, China owned nine percent of the market. Well, today, they own 32 percent of the market." So, now, by looking to the past, I'm also getting your attention on, "Wow! What does he have to say next?" So really, two interesting things you can do to add a ton of value to your next presentation. All right. So, at this point, you have been equipped with a handful of different ways to open your presentation. Again, whether it's a live presentation or a webinar, these are methods that have worked time and time again for some of the best presenters that have presented and continue to present today. So, my exercise for you is, is try one of these tactics. So, as you're finalizing your delivery here, I want you to re-examine how you plan to open your presentation. If you've done content correctly, I hope that you already have a story approach for your intro. But if you want to switch that out now and maybe try the art of silence or try a rhetorical question or quoting someone or maybe doing a little bit of a mix and match, go for it. This is training. This is a learning period. This is the time to try something new. So, you've been presented with different ways to open your presentation. Now, I'd like to see you implement it into your next talk. All right. Have fun and I will see you in the next lesson. 6. Closing a Talk Online or Offline: At this point, we've talked about ways to open a presentation. Now, let's talk about ways you can close your presentation. Let's jump right into it. My first suggestion is, you want to make sure that you always have a call to action, and if I alluded to this in some of our earlier lessons, but always make sure you have a call to action. Absolutely critical to the success of your presentation and I strongly feel that every presentation, if you're going to give 10 talks, all 10 of them need to have a call to action. You need to provide a mission and purpose behind your presentation or it has no reason to exist whatsoever. So, make sure you're telling your audience what to do with this new information now that you've asked them to invest x amount of time to hear you give this talk. So, always have a call to action,it's one of the best ways, and it's a mandatory way to close your presentation. Circle back around. When you think about some of your favorite movies and books, they probably start and end in the exact same way. I happen to be a really big fan of Mel Gibson particularly from a directorial standpoint, so, one of my favorite movies is Apocalypto. Maybe you've seen it, maybe you haven't, if you haven't, not a big deal. All you need to know is it takes place in South America and covers a story about the Mayans. So, the way the movie starts is the camera, the very first scene in the movie is really the cameras going into the jungle. In the last scene in the movie are the cameras exiting out of the jungle. So, as an audience member, you have a complete sense of closure that you know for this two outer window sort of playing in the jungle with the Mayans, it's over, and now you can move on with the rest of your life. That's what you need to do for your presentation, is make sure you're providing an opportunity for your audience to have closure. So if you're gonna start your presentation in one way, make sure you end it in the exact same way to kind of again, bring closure to that experience for your audience. Then ultimately, you want to build up to something. Sometimes that climactic moment is simply your call to action. So, let me give you an example of an individual that's actually built up to something and did it over and over again in the majority of his talks, and it's an individual that we've talked about already. That's Steve Jobs. In fact, when he rolled out the iPad back in 2010, really the very first sentence that came out of his mouth was what you're seeing here about introducing a magical and revolutionary product. So, without even showing the iPad, without even introducing it yet, he sorted teases the crowd with this whole idea of something magical and revolutionary. So, what he's doing there, is he's sort of stating his big grand vision, without revealing the secret sauce yet. Then he strategically sort of pulls back from that vision, to then sort of unpack how Apple and the iPad is this magical and revolutionary product, and that is sort of the ultimate resolution. So, he sets Apple up to be sort of the savior, the revolutionary, the innovator, when it comes to this new technological device. So, that's a solid example of really building up to something, and if you can accomplish this with your next talk, then all the power to you. So, those are just some tactical ways to close your presentation. So, really at the end the day, as long as you're circling back around, you have a compelling call to action, then you should be in excellent shape, and should be set up to succeed with your next talk. So, my exercise for you is, if you haven't determined that call to action yet, determine it now. What do you want your audience to do now that they've invested time to hear you speak? All right. It should be pretty simple, it should be pretty straightforward, go tackle that exercise, and I will see you in the next lesson. 7. Lessons from the TED 10 Commandments: All right. So as we wrap up this delivery umbrella, in fact as we wrap up this entire program, I want to conclude on some basic lessons from the Ted Ten Commandments. So, let's just jump right into it. I just want to share the Ten Commandments and just sort of a golden nugget or a lesson for you as you start thinking about your next presentation and all presentations moving forward. So, let's jump right into it and I've got some final thoughts and then we will be done. Alright so number one, thou shalt not simply trot out thy usual shtick. You know the lesson here is one of my favorite comedians George Carlin. He was around. Did his thing for 40 plus years and the amazing thing about George Carlin is he never really repeated the same jokes. I'm sure he threw in a few here and there but he was adamant about not recycling the same material and so even though right now you're investing all this great time and energy in building this great presentation, you know try to get as much mileage out of it but also be mindful that you're constantly growing, constantly learning, constantly adding something new back in the world. So, you know maximizes presentation but see if you can challenge yourself to constantly come up with new material, new content so you're growing, you're learning, you're advancing not only personally and professionally, but you're doing it for your audience as well. So, maximize this but try to generate new stuff as you move forward. At number two, thou shalt dream a great dream, or show forth a wondrous new thing, or share something thou hast never shared before. You know the bottom line here is make sure that you're always adding something of value something of benefit for your audience and if you're not, then why in the world that you're giving your presentation to begin with, and so that's a very golden question that you constantly need to ask yourself is, am I adding something new something of value and benefit for my audience and make sure you are before you even think about creating that presentation or in some cases even delivering that presentation. Number three, thou shalt reveal thy curiosity and thy passion. You know, thing that you need to know here is we can talk a lot about content, we can talk a lot about design, we can talk a lot about delivery, but if you're not passionate about your material, nobody else is going to be passionate about it with you. So, passion is absolutely key. It's a key item in the possible success of your presentation so make sure you can get up there, you can have what we've learned from Aristotle, pathos pathos. You've got to be a passionate presenter. Number four, thou shalt tell a story. We've talked a lot about storytelling up to this point. I hope you've been sold on the idea of stories. Tell more stories the next time you give a talk because remember stories are the things that create participation and that's what you want to be aiming for. Number five, thou shalt freely comment on the utterances of other speakers for the sake of blessed connection and exquisite controversy. The main idea here is you got to be true to yourself, you got to be a little bit transparent and sometimes a little bit of a controversy is a good thing. You have to have an opinion. Take a stance. Stand behind an idea, an ideology, an opinion, whatever it may be but have a voice and make sure it's your authentic voice and that's absolutely critical. So, make sure you find that within yourself the next time you have to give a presentation. Number six, thou shalt not flaunt thine ego. Be thou vulnerable. Speak of thy failure as well as thy success. Yeah. Leave your ego at the door. I have very little sort of sympathy or understanding for somebody who has a big ego. Be humble. It's going to get you much further than your ego will. So, leave your ego at the door. It wouldn't be giving your next talk. Number seven, thou shalt not sell from the stage: neither thy accompany, thy goods, thy writings, nor thy desperate need for funding; lest though be cast aside into outer darkness. Yeah the bottom line here is. Yeah, don't sell when you're on stage. In fact, if your message, if your product, if your service, if it's compelling enough, you're going to get the results that you're looking for. In fact, one of my favorite individuals that has always sort of inspired me is Guy Kawasaki and he has a particular quote that just really resonates with me and it's, "You know if you're going to create a business, you need to go into it to make meaning not make money." And I've really tried to abide by that philosophy that if you make meaning first, the money will eventually come. So again, if you can add value, if you can add benefit, the money will come. And so if your product, your service, your idea if it's good enough, trust that it's good enough and trust that you're actually going to get some positive results, absolutely important. Number eight, thou shalt remember all the while: laughter is good. Yes. Definitely. Use humor. Humor is always a good thing. It works. Again, you got to make sure you find your own authentic voice. If it's not part of your personality, that's okay, don't force it, but if you do feel comfortable with humor then all the power to you, go for it. Number nine, thou shalt not read thy speech. Exactly. We've talked a lot about this as well. Please rehearse but don't ever memorize. So, again significant difference between being rehearsed and being memorized and then number 10, thou shalt not steal the time of them that follow thee and that is absolutely correct. Time is your audience's most precious asset. Again, if they're carving out 30, 60, 90 minutes to hear you talk, you've got to make it worthwhile for them. So, if you're not empowering them in some sort of way, then you probably did something wrong probably in that content stage. So, make sure you're giving back and you're doing your due diligence on the content design delivery front so you're actually creating a memorable experience for your audience always. All right, so we've covered a lot during this program of lessons. We've talked about content, how you build a presentation. We also talked about design once you've built that message, how do you design it, how do you bring it to life visually. And then we've now concluded with the third umbrella which is delivery. So once you've built it and, designed it, how do you share it with the rest of the world. And so I hope at this point you're feeling a little bit more empowered, a little bit more motivated because remember we kick started this presentation, you met Henry, he struggles with presentations. You also met Erica. Now remember Erica rocks at presentations mainly because of Ethos3 communications. But in all seriousness, I do feel, I do hope that you feel inspired, that you feel motivated, that you feel a little bit more empowered to start building and designing and delivering presentations in a much better way moving forward because remember there are 30 million presentations given each and every day but out of these 30 million, how many are actually changing the world, not too many. And so I do hope now that we're wrapping up these lessons, I do hope that you do feel more empowered to actually make a difference to make an impact and not to sound cliche but actually change the world with your next presentation and all future presentations that you will be responsible for giving. And so with all that said, I just want to give you a big thank you. I know you have your choice of lessons and series that you can go through but you chose to go through this one and I really do appreciate it. And again, I hope this was something of value and benefit for you, and I hope you can start putting together again building and designing and delivering these awesome fantastic presentations moving forward. So, thanks again. I really do appreciate you carving out time for me. Here's my big call to action, if you want to learn more about presentations. If you ever need help with presentation design, or if you need additional presentation training, then obviously check me out, check my company out at ethos3.com. Thanks so much, and I hope to be able to meet you in person sometime. Take care.