[0516]4 Principles that Make Presentations Sell
Summary of a talk by Jason Reid in NowCommon
Thank you for NowCommon to arrange this fantastic talk — Create Presentations the Sell by Jason Reid. You can find the introduction of Jason on the event page as well.
This talk is aimed at inspiring entrepreneurs to speak about their business and get more business.
Why You Should Do Public Speaking
Before introducing what makes a presentation sells, Jason shared his insight why public speaking/presentation is a good way to make more business.
1/Get more people or increase the price
These are two ways to get more business
2/People stop listening in the noisy environment
Nowadays, everyone is trying to promote their business so there are too many ads all over the environment. It is getting too noisy for people to even pay attention to something that may actually helps them
3/Speaking to groups it a better way than pure networking
In traditional networking, you are doing 1–1 interaction with limited people but if speaking to groups, firstly people will at least give you some attention, and secondly, you are doing 1-many interactions so you will reach more.
4 Principles to Make a Successful Presentation
1/Reach
Networking is not that effective as mentioned before and people rarely followed up on the leads they got. So speaking to groups is way more efficient.
Another thing is to be willing to be in the spotlight, talk about your business.Jason shared a quote from his previous experience:
“If you are not willing to be in the spotlight, you are not taking business seriously.”
Show up and grab attention.
2/Impact
Once you are in stage, it is important to catch and keep people’s attention as they might turn to their phone. It has been proved to be effective to use real personal stories that connect with the topic, like human beings overcoming a certain difficulty.
Use empathy and emotional input to engage audience.
3/Clarity
Always tell people what to do next. Give them clear call to actions, whether that is fill in a form, talk to you later, or download the app.
Give clear Call-To-Actions.
4/Helping
The talk should solve a specific problem related to the audience and give them answers. Certainly, it doesn’t need to be a step by step guide as in this case, people may start thinking how to conduct those steps and losing interest in your talk. So it can be some insights that you want to share with the audience.
Solve a problem and help people.
Other Take-aways
1/How to get public speaking opportunities?
Meetup group and conferences is a good choice. Contact the organizers with a brief introduction of your background, the problem you are trying to solve, and the topic you are presenting.Give it a try and value every opportunity.
2/How to structure the talk?
Start with the problem and then offer solutions. Give about 3 insights instead of detailed guides. Engage audience with a clear CTA. Always focus on your expertise if the topic is a very broad one.
3/What about designers and technology?
Though this talk is mainly for business person, but it is also very inspiring for me as a designer as well. We are not selling directly, but we often need to “sell” our ideas to stakeholders and colleagues both in and out of the company.
Jason suggested watching the StartupSchool podcast to learn how to sell technology.
