Give Winning Presentations Everytime
You have a big presentation coming up. Perhaps you’re raising money for your new start-up or you’re competing to win a lucrative new contract. In any case, there’s a lot riding on the presentation. You want to make sure you’re at your best and that your message meets the needs and expectations of your audience.
I’ve given many presentations over the years. I’ve done presentations to raise over $50M in venture capital, to close new sales contracts, and even to teach meditation to kids. I think the hardest part of any presentation is the opening. If you can get that right, then the rest of your talk flows easily. But if you get the opening wrong, you’ll never fully recover. Here’s a simple technique that I’ve found very powerful to start your presentations off on the right foot and to tailor your message to any audience, be they VC sharks or indifferent kids. ☺
To start, you’ll need a partner or a coach. Get together in person or on the phone and brainstorm a list of ten to twenty questions that you think the audience wants answered in your presentation. Put yourself in their shoes. How do they view the world? What problems do they have? What situations and challenges are they currently facing? And, of course, what do they want to get out of your presentation?