Five things to keep in mind when you’re going to get up there and give a talk

One thing that most of us in marketing get to do at one point or another is get up in front of a group and give a talk. Maybe it’s to the sales force, a group of customers, seminar attendees, folks at a trade show. Maybe we’re giving a product pitch, an industry overview, a tech talk. But we’re the one up there with the PowerPoint slide.

Here’s a few things to keep in mind:

• Make sure you “own” the material. This doesn’t mean you have to have created the material. You may well be working off a generic set of slides or list of points. Just make sure that you own it. What does this mean? It better mean that you “get” it, and it should also mean that you believe it. Years ago, I worked for a company that did a lot of breakfast seminars. The president of the company and I pretty much split them up between us, and we had a presentation that we shared back and forth, occasionally making additions and improvements. Drew added a couple of new slides that really worked when I heard him give them, but there was something there that I wasn’t quite “getting”. Even though I wasn’t that comfortable with the material, I tried to bluff my way through - and ended up tripping all over myself. I explained to the group that I had just painted myself into a corner trying to cover an angle I wasn’t that conversant with, and they were fine with it. But I would have been better off to have removed those darned slides to begin with.
• Even if you own it, rehearse it.  Out loud. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was to always rehearse your presentation the night before, out loud, in front of a mirror. I don’t always use the mirror part, but I pretty much stick to the out loud the night before part. This is by no means about “memorizing” your material. Rather, it’s all about being comfortable with that material. If you just look through your slides or other materials, making mental notes, you’re likely to take short cuts. (”I know this point, I’ll just skip it for now.”) If you force yourself to go through every point, and work it out out loud until it’s coherent and hangs together, you can be almost guaranteed that you won’t end up fumbling around, as I did with those pesky slides I never quite made my own. Sure, I rehearsed them the night before, but I knew I hadn’t gotten them quite right - and it showed the next day. (Another piece of good advice I got the same time was to always make sure that you had a pocket in your skirt or pants, as putting your hand in such was a good and relaxed pose while speaking. I went out and had pockets put in all my suit skirts. Something men didn’t have to worry about, but women still do.)
• Tell a story. Even the techiest of audiences - and, if you’re in marketing, the techiest of audiences probably really doesn’t want to hear all that much from you to begin with - wants to hear more than just the bits and bytes. They want to know what’s happening in the industry, what technology and business trends your company is observing, who’s using your products and how they’re using them. They also like gossip as much as the next guy, so if you’re privy to some hot scoop (that’s OK to share), you just shared an elevator ride with Steve Jobs, or got an e-mail from Ray Ozzie - share the wealth!
• Engage that audience. Unless you’re Cicero or Winston Churchill, you really can’t just stand up there and orate. You’re not giving a speech that 100 years from now some kid is going to have to memorize. You’re informing (and, hopefully, doing a bit of entertaining while you’re at it). And no matter how enthralling you are, you need to check in with the audience now and then. I hate the “show of hands” thing, but at least it lets you know that somebody’s listening. But you don’t have to ask for that “show of hands”, you can ask a couple of rhetorical questions. If you don’t see any heads nodding or heads shaking, try something else. (And if you get that fabulous after-lunch-on-a-dreary day, you may want to warm your audience up by having them stand, wave their arms, pretend their doing the hula-hoop or some other little thing to wake them out of their drowsy funk.)
• Never, ever go over your time limit. Unless it’s to answer questions, 10 minutes is 10 minutes (better let, 9 1/2 minutes). Half an hour is half an hour. Keep your eye on the clock - trust me, someone in your audience is probably sneaking an occasional look at their watch - and if you find yourself babbling long and running short on time, play some catch up. Figure out what the important points you have to cover are, and make sure that you cover them. If there’s scintillating material that you have to skip, let the audience know that you’ll be around for a while and/or that you’ll send them your preso and/or answer their e-mails if they have questions. Just don’t drag on. Nothing’s worse than getting half way through your spiel and having the person running the show come on stage and announce that “we have to cut it short.” No, they’re really not cutting it short - you were just uncutting it too long.

And another thing, that laser pointer? Watch where you point it. I heard you could put someone’s eye out that way.

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